I want to welcome everyone to our workshop, a work session on uh March 24th, 2026.

We have one of the most interesting topics and probably the most important topics that we will discuss.

Mr.

Manager, we appreciate you presenting it.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I want to express my appreciation to council, certainly for dedicating so much time to this very important topic.

But before we begin, I just want to say thank you to uh Jonathan and his entire team in the budget department.

So for those council members that have been with us for some time or have you know participated or watched the process over the years, we get better at this every year.

And council challenges us every year to improve transparency, to improve our outreach and accountability.

And every year I think we get better at that.

So I hope you'll see that continued trend of improvement, but just want to thank the entire team because this really is a year-long effort.

It's not just, you know, sort of what we see in the March to May time frame, but they they they really start working at this almost as um when we when we put the finishing touches on the budget in May.

They're at work for next year.

So thanks everybody for their time and and attention to this.

So what we're gonna do today is go through the framework of how we make decisions and um starting with uh our vision, what we're trying to achieve, and and our guiding principles, including council's budget guiding principles, sort of the guardrails that we look at as staff before we begin putting pen to paper on the budget.

Um we're gonna give you an update on how we're making progress on City Council strategic priorities.

We touched on this a little bit at your last retreat, but um we're making some significant progress in some areas.

We still have some work to do in other areas, so we'll discuss those.

We'll go through the budget process and how we really uh make these decisions.

We call it aligning our resource um decisions to our strategy so that people can see that we're very purposeful about what we're trying to achieve.

Um we're gonna talk about how we allocate resources to achieve your desired outcomes.

So making Chesapeake an exceptional place to live, learn work, farm, and play, and all the things that we want to achieve to make that happen, how we determine which resources will be available for each of those outcomes.

I'm gonna turn it over then to Jonathan, who's gonna go through the numbers and and all the charts and graphs so people can uh really um have an illustration of how their money is being used.

Um we'll talk about um the resources, of course, and and and uh um how they're allocated throughout the budget.

I do want to close with uh some issues on the horizon, and the big one for me this year is impacts of state legislation.

This was a general assembly session, like none that that I've seen in my career.

And you know, it's not it wasn't just budget stuff, but a lot of things will have budget impacts, and so for those that are gonna have budget impacts now and in the future.

I want to spend um some time talking to the council a little bit about that and get any direction from from council on how to proceed there.

And then, of course, we'll go through the next steps and cloth closing thoughts, particularly on how people can continue to engage in the budget process.

I won't read this vision.

We we talk about this a lot, but I mentioned it earlier.

Our goal, we have 4,000 team members here in the city, and we're laser focused every day on trying to make Chesapeake an exceptional place to live, learn, work, farm, and play.

Um we we use the vision to guide all of the choices that we make, including those that that you're gonna see today.

How we make decisions, we ask each of our team members to use three basic principles.

If you're making a choice, and we use this choice in making our budget decisions, will our choice help make Chesapeake an exceptional place?

Will it provide outstanding service to council, our community, our customers, and each other, and will it be fiscally responsible and sustainable?

So it's based on our vision, it's based on our values, and it's based on um council's budget guiding principles.

Um vision for the community and also from uh uh practices of good governance.

We want to have accountability, economic prosperity, connectivity, cultural diversity, environmental responsibility, and safety and security, and so you'll see resources allocated to achieve and advance all of these outcome areas.

This is a graphic that we use throughout the organization to really keep all of our decision making framework in one place.

So on the outer band, you can see the outcomes I mentioned that we're trying to achieve.

On the middle circle are the anchors we use to make our decisions.

And then in the middle, this is our basic mission as a city, providing infrastructure and services to benefit the community and helping council and the community make choices, address needs, and pursue opportunities.

That's what we're all about.

So what are those budget guiding principles that I mentioned?

Number one, this is when I I, by the Code of Virginia, I'm charged with proposing a budget, and I'm free to propose whatever budget that I believe meets the needs of the community.

On top of that charter for the city and the general uh provisions in the Code of Virginia, council has given us budget guiding principles.

And those principles are that we do not increase the real estate tax rate.

So when I'm presenting a budget to you, it's based on the previous year's real estate tax rate.

We do not add new fees.

So this budget contains no new fees.

We do not supplant losses in state or federal funds with local funds.

So when the state has a mandate and they're providing services and resources, and we're providing those services.

If the state eliminates those resources, we don't automatically backfill.

We make a purposeful choice whether or not to backfill and how, if it's a mandate, we still have to provide the service, but what level of service are we going to provide?

If it's not a mandate, we have a choice whether or not to continue that service.

You see one item here, the police department has requested city funding to maintain some software programs that they've received that were previously funded through a state grant.

Um you might be asking yourself why, if we don't supplant losses, why is this showing up in the budget?

It's because Principle 4 is we only deviate from those first three principles when it's addressing one of council's strategic priorities.

Since safety and security has historically been your alpha priority, we feel like it's important to continue these programs.

They've demonstrated real results for the police department, so we are recommending continuing these programs, even though they're no longer funded by a state grant.

So our philosophy for allocating resources, as you you you probably know, each year the departments work on what are the needs for their particular agencies.

And as you can imagine, there's significantly more requests from a budget from city's budget resources than we could possibly accommodate.

And so we have to have some kind of framework to analyze all of those requests.

And we use a practice called outcome-based budgeting.

We're trying to achieve the things that council wants to achieve on behalf of the community.

So for an agency request to make the city manager's proposed budget, those requests must align with one or more of council's desired outcomes.

The programs and services have to be financially sustainable.

A lot of jurisdictions get in trouble because they'll start a program that we call flavor of the month.

Everybody's doing it, so we got to start doing this.

It when the government starts a new program or service, it often continues forever because uh many places aren't looking at that program or service to see if it still has a constituency, if it's still meeting its needs.

That is not what we do.

We're very purposeful about the services we choose to provide, and then we evaluate those services to make sure that they're still viable and sustainable over time.

If you have a budget request, the the relevance to council's strategic priorities will be given greater consideration than any other requests.

So council is elected by the community, staff is not elected, and so we give great deference to projects that are advancing council's desired outcomes.

And then projects must align with and advance the implementation of a comprehensive plan.

As a former planner, it's always shocking to me how many local governments do not consider their comprehensive plan when they make their budgets, including their capital improvement program.

They use their comprehensive plan really to reviews to review rezonings or special use permits, but it's equally, if not more important that we use that plan.

If we say this is how we want the city to develop in the future, that we're using the power of our infrastructure and our resources to make that that future a reality.

So some assumptions when we when we prepare the proposed budget.

We want to maintain existing levels of service and maintain the high quality of life that we enjoy here in the city of Chesapeake, and of course, we want to maintain the lowest tax and fee burden uh within the region.

And so when we're setting uh setting out the budget each year, um these are the highest uh basic assumptions that that we utilize.

So that regional rate comparison, we show you this chart every year.

As you can see, we are the second lowest in our stormwater taxes, we're tied for the lowest in meals taxes, tied for the lowest in automobile license tax, lowest in cigarette tax.

We're dramatically the lowest in solid waste tax because we have zero solid waste that is paid for by real estate and personal property taxes here in Chesapeake.

And so we have the second lowest real estate tax rate and and second lowest personal property tax rate.

And the question I get asked all the time if we had a real estate, if we had a solid waste fee that would uh would be what it would take to run the solid waste division, could we have the lowest real estate tax and andor personal property tax rate in the region?

And the answer is likely yes.

If it's not the lowest, it would be right there tied with the others.

And so that is a pretty significant uh budget driver on the city and not having a solid waste fee.

Um I mentioned earlier our goal is to have the lowest uh uh tax and fee burden within the region, so our proposed budget maintains that.

Now, please note that for Chesapeake, these numbers include our proposed budget, the um for the other cities as as with this presentation every year, this is based on their previous budget, but we will update this as each city proposes their um their future budgets just so we know um where we exist in the landscape here within the region.

So, how do we make progress on council strategic priorities?

Um this chart you have is something that you saw at your retreat in January.

It's a list of uh fully programmed or partially funded projects that council has determined to be strategic priorities.

Um what you see there on the on in the middle, the the projects are on the left.

Um the the second column are which of council's desired outcomes uh does this achieve.

Some of them achieve multiple outcomes, but we we put the primary outcome there.

Um the third column, we have what is funded or programmed through January 30th of 2026, and then on the far right, you'll see check boxes where additional resources are needed to complete the mission.

So, for example, we have the Cuffy pool, it's a fully funded capital project, but this is the year that we'll begin hiring the staff to operate that pool.

Next is partially funded or unfunded projects or priorities, um, same same format project on the left, and then going through outcomes, funding, and and additional funding needs.

Um five or six years ago in that in that first category road maintenance, um, we had identified a $20 million a year annual funding need, and at that time we had zero dollars uh per year funded or programmed um for that.

So we were we were digging ourselves a further hole every year by 20 million dollars.

We made very significant steps over the course of the past several years to try to get up to what it would need to be fully funding that program on an annual basis.

If you think about the impacts of underfunding that program, most of the city's roads or many of the city's roads were built in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s when we had significant um growth and development in the in the city.

Um those roads have a life expectancy of 15, 20, 25 years.

So all of those roads are beyond their uh planned life expectancy, and we've we've never fully capitalized a fund to address those needs, but we are making very significant progress on that.

So that's an example of partially programmed or funded.

And then last are council identified priorities that we've talked about over the past few years that are minimally minimally programmed or unfunded.

Um the the item at the top that you will see is fire and police facility replacement.

Um we went decades in this city during those major periods of growth where we didn't invest in new fire stations and police stations.

And so during during the last five years, we've made significant progress on those stations, but we have significant progress to go.

So while we have significant resources for facility replacement, um there's still many services and facilities that remain unaddressed.

Um another one are projects that are just another example are projects that we have identified as priorities, but they are so expensive that they're way beyond the city's capacity to fund.

An example of that is the Centerville Turnpike Bridge replacement.

So we estimate that project to be in excess of $300 million.

That would be over $30 million of annual debt service capacity we would need to fund that project, and we just do not have the capacity to take on a project of that magnitude.

So the budget process itself.

Every year we ask the departments to go through an exercise that we call stop start continuum.

So we don't just assume that departments are going to get the same budget that they got last year.

In fact, we give them a target of a few percentage points less than what they got last year.

And we said if you needed to meet that target, what would be the programs or services that you would cut from your budget?

The reason we do that is so that each agency is taking a look at their services every year, as I mentioned earlier, to make sure that the services we are providing are still meeting the needs of council, meeting the needs of community, they still have a consistent constituency, they're still meeting their performance metrics.

And so departments will propose cuts based on the programs or services that are least impactful to advancing council's uh priorities.

And only when they make those proposed cuts do we then consider what program should we start doing?

So if we if are there things we could be doing today that are more important than things we are already doing, right?

And then lastly, the vast majority of our services we are continuing.

So they're they're the basic operations of the city, you know, police, fire, mental health, human services, operating our libraries, our park system.

We're continuing the vast majority of our services.

So what are some examples of things we stopped?

Um one pretty significant example is it's a capital project relatively nearby.

It is an elevation project for Battlefield Boulevard.

So you're all familiar with Battlefield Boulevard just north of the Great Bridge Bridge, where we occasionally have flooding issues.

Um that elevation project is very expensive, uh, but it isn't a project we could afford.

We we we we could do that project.

However, it is so shutting that road down would be so impactful to the community for the number of years it would take for the that road to be shut down that it's not a project that we have the capacity to take on from a traffic operations perspective.

Now, in the future, as if you think of the Great Bridge Village Plan, we will be adding lane capacity to Battlefield Boulevard.

So as we add new lanes, that's when we will close the when we can move traffic to new lanes, we will shut down the existing lanes and do the elevation project.

And we'll build the new lanes at an appropriate elevation so we won't have flooding.

So that's that's really an example of um eliminating a budget because it won't serve the community to well to do that project right now.

It will be just too impactful on the community.

Another one is an elimination of the cadet program in the sheriff's office.

So there was some legislative changes about the age in which uh the sheriff can recruit um uh new employees into the organization so that cadet program is no longer necessary.

And then elimination of long-term position vacancies.

So we take a look through each organization at positions that have been unfilled for a long time and to figure out are those positions still the most important?

What's the reason that they're long-term vacancy and can we program those positions somewhere else or eliminate them altogether?

So what did we continue doing?

These are some examples of things that either have cost increases just to maintain existing services, or is a purposeful choice that we're making to maintain existing services.

So an example is a probo a proposed reduction of hours of service for our libraries.

So we have more library hours per week than several of our other cities here in the region, especially on Sundays.

Um when the libraries did their budget proposal having to take a target reduction, one of the things that they proposed, they don't recommend it, but one of the things they proposed was reducing services, reducing hours of operation at the libraries.

So we made a choice to not do that.

Um we're adding those those uh hours back into the budget.

So that's an example of something that was proposed for elimination, but we're electing to continue to provide those services because even though other cities aren't aren't providing that service, those hours are heavily utilized by residents here in Chesapeake.

In fact, there are some of the more utilized hours for some of our facilities.

In addition, just maintaining our existing level of replacements for a fire apparatus and medic unit has an increase of over $16 million in a CIP.

So this is not improving service, this is just maintaining the our stock on its existing replacement schedule.

And and similarly, um additional funds to maintain current lane miles of road resurfacing.

This is just cost increases associated with inflation.

If we're not, if we don't add additional funds to this, we will actually be resurfacing less lane miles of roadway throughout the city.

And resurfacing roadways in the city is one of the one of the top things we hear from the community that they'd like us to make sure we maintain.

So then what are new programs?

What are things that we're recommending that we start doing?

The top one is improving firefighter safety during incidents.

So fire department requested three positions, a fire safety officer for a dedicated fire safety officer for each shift.

And so we're gonna we're recommending we test pilot this.

The fire department recommended that we start with the A shift, and so we're recommending funding for a vehicle supplies and and personnel in addition to the complement to be able to staff up the fire safety officer.

This is something that in the future I would like to, we assume that this is going to be successful.

Um if it's successful and adds value, we'd like to go ahead and add that to all three shifts.

Um I mentioned this earlier, we're preparing for the opening of the Cuffy pool.

And then we're providing additional safe and structured recreational opportunities.

So you all have received correspondence from constituents over the past few years about the need for recreational facilities or maybe a rec center in the Crestwood area.

Um Councilmember Ritters asked us several times about working with schools as the new facility opens, and so we do have an agreement with schools to be able to use that and some other facilities.

And what we'd like to do is start a drop-in summer program where we're basically between parks and rec and schools, we're creating a low-cost, high impact rec center in those communities by utilizing school facilities relatively inexpensively.

And then what didn't get funded?

I mentioned there's way more requests uh than we could certainly fund.

That's both in the operating uh budget and in the capital budget.

Um so while we're making significant progress on fire stations, um we don't have funding for Fire Station One, which is the South Norfolk replacement.

Um there's still a little bit of site selection work that needs to be done on that project anyway, so not having funding is not really delaying that project, but it's something I just want to keep uh putting on council's radar screen because it is an important project for the future.

Um likewise, Greenbrier Library replacement project.

It's likely that we'll be doing the the combined um Greenbrier Police and Fire Station on that site, which likely means we'll need to relocate the library, uh putting all those facilities on that site, even in a reconfigured manner is is probably suboptimal.

Um, so we're actively looking for a green bar library replacement site right now.

Um we have some radio replacement equipment here in the complex and some network center renovation projects that we're doing, but we've chosen to delay those projects a little bit.

Um we've had on the plans, and you saw this in your in your parks recreation and tourism master plan uh the council recently approved some some significant additions to the community center complement that that we would like.

You're gonna see some that we've advanced in this budget, but one the Centerville Park multi-purpose community centered design project.

Um we don't have the resources to advance that this year.

And then a historic preservation plan.

So we we haven't had an updated plan since the 90s.

We have some significant new assets here in the in the um in the city.

So we're advancing work on historic preservation, but um to do an update to that plan is probably gonna have to wait until next year at the earliest.

And then what didn't get funded in the operating budget, and I should have said so there were almost 166 million dollars of unfunded CIP requests and a little over $2 million in unfunded operating budget requests.

I mentioned earlier the two fire safety officers.

Um we also had um an additional position requested in our human services cares resource center.

Um I think I briefed council on this.

We talked about it a little bit at the retreat.

We do intend to um expand the shelter operations to year-round basis.

We're relying heavily on the volunteers and CAST and ABLISP right now, and it's a fantastic partnership, and it's uh it's really a benefit to the city and really I think uh a great um a great tribute to the city that we have a such a strong partnership with the faith-based community, uh, but we have some additional programming.

We're we're still getting our feet wet there, but in the future we have some additional programming that that we would like to do at that facility.

Um police requested two customer service clerk positions to improve responsiveness to requests.

Um we we we have an operational way through some technology and some other resources that that we have committed that we think we can accomplish this request at a lower cost alternative, but it's something that we'll need to continue to monitor.

We had requesting um from Fine Arts Commission for enhanced funding for the Chesapeake Arts program.

That's something that we weren't able to fund this year.

Um additional groundkeeper and trail maintenance um uh positions for parks, recreation, and tourism, very important uh positions.

We did fund some positions in this space, but not fully funding uh parks and recreation requests.

So this is just um an example of some of the um operating budget requests that that are unfunded.

So, how do we allocate resources to achieve outcomes?

What are the choices that we did make?

So, first is um competitive pay.

So I should say this is if Kristen Bailey's in the room, yeah, our chief financial officer.

So I should say that the very first dollar we spend, of course, is paying our debt.

So we want to maintain our our triple A bond rating.

So um clearly paying our debt obligations is very high on our priority list.

But when it comes to the operating budget, um competitive competitive pay is critically important.

So council will remember five years ago we we had done an assessment of both public safety and the general workforce.

We had fallen dramatically behind our peers in pay and benefits, and so even during the pandemic when we cut tens of millions of dollars out of the budget, we invested 26 million dollars annual ongoing into pay and benefits, and that's really paid dividends.

It's significantly reduced our turnover, we continue to improve on our performance metrics, and we want to continue our our competitive pay and not get behind again.

So this um this uh budget proposal includes um a general wage increase for the general workforce to to maintain our competitiveness, step increase for sworn public safety.

Um this has been a very successful program for us, um, implemented this uh I I think four or five years ago, but we want to maintain, we made a commitment to our public safety team, and we want to continue to honor that commitment.

We made some promises decades ago that we didn't honor, and though those um those issues are still felt in the organization.

We made a real real progress with our public safety team by implementing this, and so we want to maintain fidelity to it.

And likewise the capacity for a market adjustment.

So as you recall, the in addition to the STEP plan, uh we also take a look at the market every year, and this is actually with the general workforce and with the and with the public safety, but to make sure we stay um competitive, so we have capacity to do that.

Uh we st we we're able actually able to keep our employee contributions to our health insurance flat this year.

Um that's greatly appreciated by the employees.

There was a lot of headlines.

You see this, you know, in the headlines when when other jurisdictions or school districts or others they have you know, they've had double digit increase in health insurance premiums that they've had to pass on to their employees.

Um we've had very low increases over the past few years, and and we were able to keep it flat this year.

And to be honest, this is a testament to our employees of being good um consumers of our wellness program.

So our our our profile has really improved over the years and and the employees are benefiting from those programs and services greatly.

And then lastly, our recognition programs.

When our employees do great things, we believe they should be rewarded and recognized so we continue to maintain those programs.

Um we we do look at the market in our in our different business lines, not just with um pay and traditional benefits, uh, but some non-traditional benefits, and we found that we were out of market um with some of our stipends in in our sworn public safety.

Um, so we've increased those stipends and um we're increasing the tool stipend for our mechanics.

And then career progression.

We've done a great job of um you know getting the workforce that that we want here and and making sure we stay competitive and we want to stay, you know, really stay in the top tier.

So we're accelerating the pathway for senior and master sworn public safety positions so the folks can qualify um for those positions um uh more quickly.

And then we're we're broadening the career progression plans we have for the general workforce so that in areas where it makes sense, you might not have to wait for a vacancy to come uh open before someone can get promoted.

If it's someone that's a great employee, they've been with us, they're doing great things, they they qualify for promotion, we have the ability to promote them without uh waiting for a vacancy.

So that that's those are pretty significant investments in our team.

Accountability, this is our newest desired outcome.

Um we really want to work on this space.

Um, and so uh we talked about this at the retreat.

We stood up a resourcefulness program.

That's one of our core values.

It's one of the ways we are able to maintain high citizen satisfaction, low taxes and fees is by having a very resourceful team.

And so this is Chesapeake Achieves is our resourcefulness program.

We want to expand the number of people that we can take through that program to give those tools to all of our employees.

We want to be accountable to our customers, so we have some additional resources deployed to records management, process improvement, um, customer service.

So if you think about us as a large business, each of our departments is responsible for customer service.

We want to add a position that is responsible for ensuring outstanding customer service citywide.

So someone that is is you know watching, um, you know, watching social media, listening to council meetings, looking at our our customer service reports to find out what customers are saying, and then working with the departments to make sure that we're quickly resolving issues and improving customer service.

Um, likewise in our budget and human resource department with a growing organization and uh a commitment to greater transparency and accountability.

We have some additional resources needs, and then using technology to make sure that we improve our efficiency and improve customer service.

We have a variety of technology initiatives that we can use both to slow the growth of the government and achieve our accountability and customer service goals.

Um connectivity, we want to continue to improve some of our parks, including our trails and recreation opportunities, expand our waterfront access to have more gathering spaces, our our our trails, um trails opportunities along key corridors, and cultural diversity.

We want to continue our efforts at the historic village and rehab the superintendent's house.

We believe we are on the cusp finally of getting that house turned over, but we have resources to advance that project, and we want to convert it into a museum.

Um you had a presentation last week on your um SWAM V SWAL, women and minority and veteran businesses.

We want to continue those programs.

And then placemaking, you saw the um you adopted a comprehensive plan and and some area plans this year, and we want to make sure we're putting the resources to achieving success in those areas.

Economic prosperity, we talked about this again last week, but we have funds to improve a new and existing business, improve our new business opportunities, rehab vacant and deteriorated properties, and improve in and uh accelerate our workforce development opportunities.

Being environmentally responsible, we want to improve the city's tree canopy, and we have some recourse resources there.

Um City Council has taken the first and biggest step in returning to curbside recycling through the new program with SIPSA, and so we will be advancing that over the coming years.

And then enhancing environmental health.

This is one of the areas that Councilmember Newens requested that we add to the strategic plan.

We couldn't agree more, and we'd like to add a full-time veterinarian and a part-time vet tech for the animal shelter.

We contract these services out right now.

Um, in addition to providing a better service with city staff, we do believe over the long term we might actually save money by adding these resources.

Um, so I think we can achieve superior service and maybe ultimately reduce costs and achieve councils desired outcomes.

And then safety and security.

We want to continue to strengthen the police departments capacities, that's with staff and with technology.

Um continue to replace and expand our facilities.

I mentioned that earlier.

And then protecting the city's children.

Some of this is just the right thing to do based on our metrics.

Some is based on state mandates, but we do have new positions to focus on making sure that children, particularly vulnerable children in the city are adequately protected.

Um, Jonathan is going to run through the numbers, but basically this transition is how we turn this strategy, which is what I've talked about, into action.

So the things we talk about at our retreats and each city council meeting, how does this translate into action?

And I'll turn it over to Jonathan Hobbes, our budget director to go through the numbers.

All right, thank you, Chris.

Uh it's an honor to be here again this year to uh talk to City Council about the city manager's proposed budget for FY27.

So I'm going to start with a very global view of the operating budget and look at both the city and school's budgets combined.

So the total net operating budget for the city and schools for FY27 is proposed at just over 1.7 billion dollars of that amount, roughly 47 percent is on the school side, with just over 52 percent being on the city side.

You'll see on the slide that on the city side, the budget is increasing by 4.1 percent compared to the adopted 26 budget, and the school's budget is increasing by about 1.3 percent.

Again, taking that global view of city and schools combined.

Uh this chart is looking at uh expenditures by category, and not surprisingly, uh payroll and benefit costs, we are heavy in terms of uh employees.

Uh we are a customer service organization, so our payroll and benefit costs are over 60.7 percent, and then general expenses make up just over one-fifth uh of the total budget.

And then looking at revenue, I've kind of got two highlighted uh areas here.

Uh the first is the largest source of revenue or the largest category of revenue, and that is general property taxes.

That is real estate tax revenue as well as personal property tax revenue, and that makes up uh just over 31 percent of the total budget.

And then if you come down the table, you'll see state revenue at just over 496 million dollars.

What I would note there on the state revenue is about 69 percent of that amount is allocated to the schools.

So now we're gonna look at just the city operating budget.

So I said that on the city side we're going by about 4.1 percent.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about what's driving uh that increase, and Chris certainly mentioned some of this earlier.

Uh employee compensation is certainly part of what's driving uh that 4.1 percent increase.

We have funding set aside for a general wage increase as well as step increases for swarm public safety.

Our line of duty act uh benefit for our swarm public safety is actually increasing this year by about 36 and a half percent compared to uh FY26.

So that's a relatively substantial increase for that particular benefit.

Chris also mentioned the accelerated senior and master career progression programs, as well as the uh increased educational stipends for swarm public safety.

We also have uh an increased uh tool stipend for our mechanics and central fleet.

And speaking of central fleet, uh we've certainly allocated some additional resources to Central Fleet Management in the proposed budget.

Uh as you all can remember during COVID and coming out of COVID, it was very difficult for us to acquire replacement vehicles.

We were really having a hard time getting vehicles, purchase orders were being canceled, um, and we just weren't able to get vehicles, and that has had a cost over the long term.

Uh some of our vehicles have had to remain in service much longer than we would like.

So that has certainly caused an increase in cost for replacement parts, so we're adding additional funding.

We've we've had to do this for the last several years, but the other thing that we're doing is we're really uh enhancing our replacement pool of funding, and we have a specific dedicated amount of $1 million this year that's going specifically toward uh police vehicle replacement.

So the police department's budget will be increasing by a million dollars for that amount or for that purpose, excuse me.

The other thing that's driving the growth are some of the reserves and expenditures that are based on City Council policy or practice.

So, what does that look like?

City Council has a general fund balance policy of 12 percent, so 12 percent of any uh net new additional revenue first has to go into that policy reserve.

We also have the practice or transfer to the schools through the revenue sharing formula, and I'm gonna show you that on a slide here in just a moment.

But we also make contributions to both the city and school lot box.

Uh so what are the city and school lot box used for?

Uh those are used as a cash source of funding for the capital improvement program, but we've certainly reduced the amount of cash that we're using out of the lock box for capital projects, but what we are using it for uh much greater uh moving forward is to service debt service associated with bonds that we are issuing for various capital projects.

And then the other policy-based uh item are those market-based salary adjustments that Chris mentioned earlier to maintain our position in the top three.

We also have some capital projects that will be coming online in fiscal year 27 or fiscal year 28.

Chris mentioned the uh staffing for the Cuffy pool.

We're gonna bring those positions in halfway through the fiscal year to allow them to start planning for the opening of that facility and programming for the opening of that facility as well as doing some training.

We also have licensing and maintenance cost for uh several new IT capital projects.

So as those projects come online, there's licensing and maintenance costs that get added into the operating budget, so we have a number of those uh that are coming online in fiscal year 2027.

So I mentioned our contribution to the schools.

Uh what this slide is showing you is the past several years and the growth in the uh revenue, the budgeted amount for the revenue sharing formula as well as the school lock box.

And as you can see, our budgeted contribution in the proposed budget is just over $336 million when combined the school lot box and the revenue sharing formula.

But we got some good news this year, some really frankly surprised me.

Uh so we actually have some things that are mitigating some of these increases on the city side.

The first and the most substantial was a decrease in our VRS rates.

So those are Virginia retirement system rates.

In my career, I had never seen VRS rates go down.

I didn't think I would ever see VRS rates go down.

Uh I've seen them go up by a very small amount, but they actually are decreasing by 2.6 percent.

So that was like Christmas in uh early February in the budget office, uh, certainly something we weren't expecting, so we were able to redeploy those savings to other priorities in the budget.

Our group life insurance rates also decreased.

Uh while this is a much smaller scale in terms of savings, uh it certainly helps us to be able to redeploy those dollars elsewhere in the budget.

Something we started talking to City Council about last year during the budget presentation was this concept of right sizing.

So at that time, we told council we would continue to look at this and see if there were budgets or programs, line items, anything that we could look at to right size.

And this year we actually are focused on two particular areas.

We found that for our employer contribution uh to health insurance, we were actually funding each employee, the contribution we were making on behalf of each employee was a little more than we needed to budget to make up the total revenue for that particular fund.

So we were able to reduce that budget and again redeploy some of those savings uh for other priorities, and we were able to do the same thing with workers' comp.

We found that in some programs the amount that they needed was out of alignment with what we had been budgeting.

Uh again, so we right sized those uh particular line items and uh reallocated those savings to other priorities.

So looking at expenditures by category, showed you this same uh graphic earlier in total for both city and schools.

This is looking at just the city side.

So again, not surprising, payroll and benefits is the highest proportion of expenditures uh on the city side at just over 45 percent.

Again, general expenses make up about one-fifth of the expenditures in the on the city side of the operating budget.

But I want to direct your attention to two particular categories that I'm gonna talk about a little bit on a later slide, uh, that being debt service and contribution to fund balance.

So you see those two categories on the city side, they equal just over 21 percent of the city's budget.

And again, I'm gonna talk about those two categories here in just a few minutes.

So Chris showed you this graphic on an earlier slide when he concluded his uh remarks, uh, but this is uh looking at that again, and what we're showing you here is how each dollar and the general fund is expended.

So if we rem, and this is only discretionary spending, so if we removed debt service payments and we removed uh any contributions that we're making to reserves and we were looking just at discretionary funding, uh what you should can note here is that between the schools and our public safety departments, that over 70 cent of every dollar within the general fund uh goes for those two purposes.

It's amazing how quickly I get dry sitting up here.

I talk too much.

So looking at the school operating budget, the school operating budget actually has eight funds, and as I mentioned earlier, their total operating budget is increasing by 1.3 percent.

So talk to you a little bit about why the school operating budget is increasing by 1.3 percent and comparing that to the city's budget that's increasing by 4.1 percent.

So I've put a box around four particular funds of the total eight funds.

And the reason that we've highlighted these funds is that uh the superintendent's proposed budget when compared to the FY26 adopted budget for these particular funds, they those funds are actually declining.

Uh so that's certainly uh having a mitigating impact on any increase uh in their operating budget.

But before we talk more specifically about some of those funds and some of those decreases in their proposed budget, uh what's driving the increase on the school side?

And the story there is very similar to the city's budget.

The superintendent is proposing a 3 percent compensation increase for teachers and positions on their unified pay scales.

This will raise starting teacher pay to just over $57,400 annually.

They are or the superintendent is proposing to add nine new positions to the school's budget uh to support academic programming and operations.

And unlike the city, the schools are actually seeing an increase in their health insurance rates.

So their self-insurance fund is actually increasing by about 1.3 million dollars compared to the adopted 26 budget.

So looking more specifically at some of those funds that are declining as proposed in FY27, starting with the school grant fund, um, this chart is showing you a comparison of federal and state grant funding from the adopted 26 budget to the proposed 27 budget.

And while federal grant funding to the schools is actually increasing, uh there is state grant revenue is declining, so there is a net decrease in federal and state grant funding to the schools of about $3.8 million.

The majority of that loss of state grant revenue is due to the expiration of the all in Virginia grant uh that will expire June 30, 2026.

So that's really decreasing uh the amount of funding that they have available in their grants fund from state and federal sources.

They've also are they also reducing their use of reversion and revenue sharing true up.

Reversion is basically under expended appropriations at the end of the fiscal year.

They don't spend 100 percent of appropriations, uh, that wouldn't be fiscally responsible.

Um same way on the city side.

And then also revenue sharing true up.

So when we calculate at the end of the year, when we've actually received revenue and look at the revenue sharing formula, any additional revenue uh that would have been calculated through the formula reverts back to the city's general fund, and it has been city council's practice to reappropriate that to the schools.

So in 2026, they used about 20.7 million dollars of that one-time funding.

They used it in the athletics fund, they used it in their cell tower fund and in their operating fund.

In the superintendent's proposed budget, he is only proposing to use $8.3 million, uh, and he's proposing to use that only in their uh major operating, school operating fund.

So that is a decrease of uh those one-time resources of 12.4 million dollars.

And we really think that the best compared, or if you want an apples to apples comparison of the city and school budgets, we always look at the two main operating funds.

So this chart is simply showing a comparison between the city's main operating fund, the general fund, and the school's main operating fund, the school operating fund.

And when you look at the percent increase in those two funds from fiscal year 26 to fiscal year 27, you can see that they're growing by about the same rate at 2.6 percent for the schools and 2.8 percent for the city.

The other thing I would remind you is that the superintendent's proposed budget, which this presentation is based upon, uh, is based on the proposed budget, state budget from from Governor Yunkin back in December.

So there's certainly going to be some changes to the school's budget when it is ultimately adopted uh by the state, and then the school board will come back and reconcile that budget and submit those amendments over to city council for consideration in May.

So uh here is that expenditure by category chart for the schools, and I asked you earlier to pay attention to those two specific categories that we have in the city budget, but you'll notice that they're missing here when we look at the school expenditures by category.

And there's a reason for that.

The schools cannot issue their own debt.

The city issues debt on the school's behalf, and that debt service is paid for by the city using the school lock box.

But you will not see a debt service category when you're looking at the school operating budget, because again, they can't issue their own debt, the city issues debt on their behalf.

The other thing you won't see is that contribution to those policy reserves.

In their operating fund, the schools cannot carry a fund balance.

So they have no need for a policy reserve and no need for a lockbox.

They would not be able to contribute to such a funding vehicle if they had one because they cannot carry a fund balance in their operating funds.

So those uh items are budgeted on the city side.

So that's why this uh pie chart of expenditures by category on the school side looks different than it does on the city side.

And what that equates to is if you remove that 20 percent, uh their payroll and benefit cost is a percentage of their budget is 77 percent, where uh on the city side it was 45 percent.

Uh so uh general expenses for the schools, roughly about one-fifth of their budget, very similar to the city.

So now we're gonna move to the operating budget and look at revenue.

We'll start with real estate assessments, and this certainly drives our largest single source of revenue, real estate tax revenue.

As you can see from this chart, this is looking at the change in assessments over the last 10 fiscal years.

And what you'll notice in is in eight of those 10 years, assessments have been, the growth in assessments has been relatively consistent between four and five percent.

The two years that were anomalies on this chart are fiscal year 23 and fiscal year 24.

Again, this was the period of time we were coming out of the pandemic.

There were a number of uh financial circumstances, economic circumstances that were occurring coming out of the pandemic that certainly impacted real estate assessments.

Uh so assessments in fiscal year 23 actually grew by over 14 percent.

At that time, City Council reduced the real estate tax rate from $1.05 down to $1.01.

They did that that initial first year through an active rebate of four four cent.

And then in fiscal year 24, City Council made that four cent reduction permanent, uh, maintaining that $1.01 rate per $100 of value.

And as Chris mentioned earlier, the city managers proposed budget maintains the dollar and one rate uh per $100 of assessed value.

So what does that translate to in terms of real estate tax revenue?

Uh so the next several charts are going to look similar, so let me orient you pretty quickly.

Uh the budgeted amount is the blue bar, the red line or maroon red line depends on how it looks on your screen, uh, is actually re actual revenue collections for the last three completed fiscal years.

So it's kind of a comparison of of budget to actual.

And for real estate uh tax revenue, since we have a very high collection rate, you can see we're usually pretty spot on in terms of our projections of that particular revenue when looking at budget to actual.

For FY 2027, we are projecting uh a 3.3 percent increase in real estate tax revenue from FY 26 uh and for all funds, we are projecting 421.7 million dollars in real estate tax revenue.

However, I said all funds, not all of the real estate tax revenue goes to the general fund.

It actually goes to a couple of different funds.

The vast majority is maintained by the general fund.

But over the years, City Council has dedicated portions of the real estate tax to various priorities or purposes.

So this chart basically lays out those dedications.

And as you can see, there are real estate tax revenue that's dedicated to the South Norfolk TIFF district, to the Green Briar TIFF, and then there is also a small amount that is dedicated to the Open Space and Agricultural Preservation Fund.

And then City Council is also dedicated two and a half cent, two cent to the lot boxes, one on the city side and one on the school side, or excuse me, half a cent on the city side, one cent on the school side, and then also dedicated a penny to the operated the city operating budget, and that was part of the implementation of the pay plans several years ago.

In terms of current personal property tax revenue, this we are projecting a second consecutive year of a decline in current personal property tax revenue.

This is our second uh largest individual source of local revenue for FY27.

We are projecting a 1.1 percent decrease and a total current personal property tax revenue of $75 million.

Next couple of slides, we'll look at some of our consumer-driven revenues, and these have actually performed very consistently and very well even through the pandemic.

Uh the first is general sales tax.

As you can see from this slide, uh for FY 2027, we're projecting a 5.9 percent increase in general sales tax, uh, which would be a total increase from FY26 of about $3.6 million.

And then on the restaurant meals tax, again, this is one that's performed consistently and performed well, we are projecting a 5.5 percent increase in uh fiscal year 27 when compared to the current fiscal year.

So looking just at the general fund and looking at revenue to the general fund, the important takeaway here is if you look at just the first three categories that are listed there, the general property tax, which is again real estate taxes and personal property taxes, other local taxes, which are some of those consumer-driven taxes, and then the 12.8 percent of state revenue that the general fund receives.

Just those three sources make up over 88 percent of the revenue toward to the general fund.

So the remaining sources that you see listed there make up just under 12 percent of the revenue to the general fund.

And then looking at the school operating fund and looking at revenues by source, uh, as you can see, the vast majority of funding to the school operating fund comes from the state and the city uh from the lockbox, excuse me, not the lockbox contribution through the revenue sharing agreement uh for fiscal year 2027.

The revenue sharing formula is just over $310 million.

State revenue is estimated at just over $330 million.

But what I would remind you is that if we added to the $310 million from the from the revenue sharing agreement, if we added the $35 million that we contribute to the school lock box, then we would actually exceed the amount of state revenue by about $5 million in city contribution to the schools.

Looking at the other seven uh school funds that make up their operating fund and looking at revenue, you can see the majority of revenue uh excuse me, the highest proportion of revenue is from local sources, and the second highest uh proportion is from the federal government.

The federal revenue is really uh concentrated in two specific funds, uh that being the school's grant fund that I mentioned earlier, as well as the school nutrition fund uh through federal meal reimbursement to the schools.

Moving to the capital improvement program.

So this uh pie chart is looking at the five-year capital improvement program by section.

We break the CIP down into nine functional sections, and this just looks at the proposed program over the next five years in terms of each one of those sections.

Of note here is the largest section at just over 24 percent is the education section.

That's really being driven almost exclusively by two very large projects that I'll mention in just a moment.

And then the second largest section is public utilities at just over 21 percent.

City Council was briefed back in May of 2025 about some critical uh infrastructure and maintenance needs for the water and sewer system, uh, and this is implementing that program that that was discussed with council at that time.

So looking at the sources of funding in the CIP program and really highlighting two areas.

First is the high priority one-time account.

Sometimes you'll hear us refer to this as the HAPOTA.

Uh, and this is a conversation that we typically have with City Council every year, do a more in-depth look at the high priority one-time account.

It's our most significant source of cash funding in the CIP, and and we'll we have a few slides on that.

But then dropping down and looking at uh bonds.

So we have general obligation bonds, which are for city projects, and then VPSA bonds, which are for school projects.

So starting first with the high priority one-time account, um, and so how does how does the high priority one-time account uh receive funding?

Uh this is similar to school reversion.

At the end of the fiscal year, the city does not expend all of our appropriated funds.

Uh if we expended all of our appropriated funds, that would not be good necessarily.

Uh so as we under-execute the budget, those funds roll into the high priority one-time account.

We also overrealize revenue.

We try to be on the conservative side when it comes to revenue projections.

Again, we don't want to underrealize revenue because that also creates a problem.

Uh so when revenue comes in over our estimates, uh, that also helps to feed the high priority one-time account.

So, what this slide is showing you is the beginning balance of that account uh for each fiscal year, and as you can see uh at the conclusion of fiscal year 25 or the beginning of fiscal year 26, that balance stood at just over 191 million dollars.

But if we program in the city managers proposed CIP over the next five years and look at the ending balance of the high priority one-time account over or when we reach the end of the five-year program, you'll see that that balance has been drawn down to 19.9 million dollars.

Now, uh fully transparent here, uh, this slide does not assume any additional funding being added to the high priority one-time account, and that is probably a very unrealistic assumption.

As you could see from the earlier graphic, uh, in most years we typically are adding to the high priority one-time account.

So this is really taking the most conservative view.

So why is cash funding so critical to the CIP?

Well, uh we we can either use cash in the CIP or we can use debt, and I'm gonna talk about debt more in depth here in just a moment.

But in order to use debt or to use bonds, the lifespan of the asset that you are acquiring has to at least be the same number of years as the time frame of the debt you are issuing.

So said more simply, if you're issuing 20-year debt, which is typically what we issue here in the city, whatever it is you are issuing it for has to last at least 20 years, just makes good business sense.

Uh so think about projects like IT projects.

They do not have a lifespan of 20 years.

Think about fire apparatus and replacing those.

We certainly don't want them to have a lifespan of 20 years.

Uh, so it's important that we have a very strong cash balance to fund some of those projects that we have to fund with cash that we cannot fund with bonds.

But then toggling over and looking at our use of tax-supported debt over the next five years.

This graphic is showing you in the maroon section what was previously programmed each year in terms of our use of bonds in the CIP, and this is both for city and schools, tax supported only.

This does not include enterprise or revenue bonds.

You can see that we are adding quite a bit in terms of bond funding over the next five years.

But we're doing it for a very specific purpose, and that is to achieve some of City Council's highest priority projects.

So I've kind of broken this down into two categories.

The first category are completely new projects.

So I mentioned earlier there's two school projects that are really driving that proportionality of the education section in the CIP, and one of those is a new project, and that's for the replacement of Carver Intermediate School, and then to fully fund the Chesapeake the replacement of the Chesapeake Career Center.

We're adding an additional $81.5 million in the proposed CIP.

And then on the city side, we have a new project for the replacement of Fire Station 14 and the Fifth Police Precinct.

We also have a new replacement of the police evidence storage facility and an expansion of that facility and some expansion of Deep Creek Park, as Chris mentioned earlier.

And then to fully fund some projects, we are adding $9 million for the Freeman Avenue Railroad Overpass Bridge project, as well as another $24 million in bond funding to the replacement of Fire Station 4.

So again, you you remember some of these projects from the one of the earlier slides where Chris was talking about things that council has identified as strategic priorities.

Well, this is the funding plan.

And we we have a model that we use for both the city and school lockbox.

We've run the projects and the bonds through both of those models, and we feel very comfortable using very conservative assumptions in terms of revenue growth in both lockboxes, that we can certainly have the capacity within those lock boxes to fund these projects.

So that concludes the numbers portion of the presentation.

No one is more thankful for that than I am.

So resources to learn more about the proposed budget.

Like Chris mentioned earlier, we've really tried to focus on transparency and have rolled out a couple of things.

The first is open book.

We rolled this out a couple of years ago, and you can see on the left-hand side of the slide that is actually a CIP mapping tool.

You can go in and actually click on the various projects that are included in our capital program and see where they are located in the city, get a description of the project, the proposed budget for the project.

So that's an opportunity for citizens if they want more information about a particular area of the city or a particular category of project, they can go in and check out that tool.

The middle picture there is just kind of the landing page for open book.

In addition to the CIP tool, it also allows you to look at the operating budget if you want to look at a particular department or a particular program, you can do that there as well.

And then each year after the budget is adopted, we publish a local tax and fee comparison where we compare our adopted budget to our the other cities in the region and look at the taxes and fees that we levy here in the city as well as those of the other cities.

In terms of community additional community resources, a video of this presentation will be posted tomorrow, so you can go back and watch that again if you so choose.

We have also posted, or at least they've told me that we have posted the proposed operating budget and CIP and the web address is there.

So if you want to go take a look at those documents, you certainly can.

And then the address for open book is shown there.

Something that we're doing that's uh new this year that we're really excited about releasing, and this is something that we're going to release once City Council adopts the budget is what we're calling the budget in brief.

And really, again, this is a transparency initiative.

This is something that we hope uh will engage citizens in the budget.

Uh the operating budget and CIP were under no illusion.

These are very large documents, uh, you know, 350 to 400 pages.

So what we've tried to do is we've tried to boil that information down into a much, much smaller document.

Think of it like uh the PAFER that is produced by the uh city manager's office and the finance department after the ACFAR is completed.

It's a much smaller document.

Uh we hope to make it that it's much more digestible so that a member of the public could uh pick up that document and learn about what's included in City Council's adopted budget.

So again, this is something that we're going to release once the budget is adopted for citizens to utilize if they want to learn more about what's included in the adopted budget.

So as Chris mentioned earlier, I just want to say thank you to my staff.

Uh they've done a lot of hard work.

Um we've got some new faces this year.

Uh very proud of them.

One of the things that I'm most proud of is they come to work every day, uh, very enthusiastic and ready to work very diligently on behalf of the citizens.

So I just thank them for their uh hard work and also want to thank the departments, the city departments, uh, who are certainly an integral part of this entire process.

Uh so just thank the departments and thank you to my staff.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Chris.

Thank you, John.

So I mentioned earlier.

Issues on the horizon.

I'll go through these pretty quickly.

Um council is aware of several of the uh pending pieces of legislation, that some of which would have significant uh budget impacts.

The one that's been uh probably most talked about is collective bargaining for public employees based on the experience and other similar-sized jurisdictions.

We expect this would cost tens of millions of dollars for the City of Chesapeake.

Nearly every locality in Virginia has opposed this and has asked that that the law remain permissive, meaning that there is a local choice, but that is not what the legislation is that's gone to the governor's desk.

So we're following that closely because that would have significant budget impacts, as would prevailing wage rate for public works contracts.

So this is what um this is what is in place with federal projects right now.

Um the the requirements of prevailing wage sometimes make the project so much more expensive that we actually turn away federal money because putting the little bit of federal money into a project federalizes the project subject to the prevailing wage, and it would cost more than the value of the money that we're receiving from the Federal Government.

Um the legislation originally would have applied to local projects.

That's been backtracked a little bit.

Um it's unclear right now if it applies to state projects whether that will similarly apply if the city receives money from the state for city projects.

Um, but again, that would have tens of millions of dollars of impact collectively, the first two over the period of a few years would have in excess of 100 million dollars of impact pretty quickly.

Um third, paid family medical leave insurance program.

Um this is expanding benefits or requiring benefits that aren't currently required in the Code of Virginia.

We estimate annual cost of this in excess of $8 million a year.

Um, cannabis control, I'll talk about in a minute.

Um, although not directly affecting the budget this year, in future years, there's been um significant reductions in local land use authority that have been proposed.

Many of them failed.

However, some that are still tracking, including making accessory dwelling units buy right in certain zoning districts and making multifamily housing development by right on properties owned by religious organizations or other nonprofit tax exempt.

Why bring that up in a budget presentation is because those would be unprofered developments, no ability to mitigate impacts, and would significantly burden over taxed infrastructure with no ability to uh recoup costs from developers.

Um an interesting bill that tracked through the legislature this year would prohibit signs or advertising within the limits of highways, it would require any city that is subject to this legislation, wouldn't be allowed to use volunteers.

So you know we use a volunteer science weeper program at Chesapeake.

It's very successful.

It's um it has significant cost savings.

Originally, this legislation as proposed would have applied to every jurisdiction in Virginia.

Most jurisdictions oppose this legislation, and so it's now only applies to the City of Chesapeake.

And so we we estimate the cost of this at um if we if we hire contractors and in uh approaching 200,000 dollars a year for the City of Chesapeake.

Um we'll talk about this one a little bit because the the law is written as problematic, and so I'm not sure that it will be applicable as intended, and so we'll have to decide uh what, if anything, that that we will do with that.

Um, absentee voting in person available the second and third Sunday before all elections.

We pay um uh staff costs um for the voter registrar.

Um, so this will increase um uh personnel and overtime costs.

Um issues on the horizon.

We I mentioned this a couple times at in last year and at the retreat.

Uh, we are proposing an increase to data center equipment uh tax from 48 cents to two dollars per $100 evaluation.

This will put us more in line with um um cities and counties that we compete with.

It won't have a material impact on the coming budget because we have no data center proposals that will are tracking to the point where they would be in place in the coming year.

Uh, but I just wanted to mention this, uh, we'll be tracking as a um uh a proposed tax increase in the in the budget.

Um, when the legislation is finalized regarding cannabis sales, um, we will bring you zoning amendments and um tax changes for council to make a choice of what, if anything, to do to implement that legislation.

And then lastly, um, we have added capacity in the budget to begin preparing for collective bargaining prevailing wage and paid family medical leave, but we do not have the capacity with existing resources to address any one of these, let alone all three.

Um, the the effective dates of these are a couple years into the future, um, specifically with regard to collective bargaining.

Uh, but we have nowhere near the capacity um to address these.

So I just want to make sure that um we put that on council's radar screen.

Um, so as always, we've reserved um all of our upcoming budget sessions for um council questions, comments.

We'll work through things council would like to achieve in the budget.

I know this is a lot of information that we present tonight, and um, but we want you to have time to digest it.

Um, in advance of these work sessions, if you have questions, comments, things you'd like us to look at, please send it to us so we can help you as we've done in previous years.

We'll use your questions, comments, ideas to frame out these budget work sessions driving towards May until we ultimately um finalize the budget.

And with that, I'll turn it back to you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Manager, and thank you, Mr.

Hobbs, and your staff for what you've done, all the work, and we'll have plenty of time to be discussing these uh this budget as the as the weeks come.

So council will begin our regular meeting at six thirty.

We're ready to go.

Go ahead, you say it.

Yeah, I did.

We have a forum we're ready to add.

Council is now in session.

City Council is now in session.

I'd like to recognize Councilmember King at this time for the invocation and to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, Mayor.

Lord, we come to you today with heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for your blessings, your protection, your grace, and your mercy.

We stand firmly on the promise of your word.

We thank you for the great city of Chesapeake for our amazing citizens and strong leadership.

Today, we humbly ask that you make us vessels of your knowledge, insight, and judgment.

Please use us as tools to carry out today's mission of serving our citizens.

We surrender our desires to become instruments of yours.

Fill us with hope and inspiration and allow our citizens to be the beneficiaries of our labor.

In your gracious and heavenly name we pray.

Amen.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, Councilman King.

Appreciate that beautiful prayer.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Councilmember Bunn.

Here.

Councilmember Jeffreys.

Here.

Councilmember King.

Here.

Councilmember Newens here.

Councilmember Smith.

Here.

Councilmember Ward.

Present.

Councilmember Whitaker.

Present.

Vice Mayor Ritter.

Here.

Mayor West.

President.

Next is the approval of the proposed agenda.

Are there any changes to the proposed agenda?

See none.

Could we have a motion, please?

Move approval of the proposed agenda.

All in second.

I thought I heard a second.

Second.

Thank you.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record Madam Clerk.

Motion to approve the agenda as presented is adopted by a nine-o vote.

Next is the approval of minutes for the meetings of February the tenth, seventeenth, and twenty-fourth.

They are presented for approval.

Any objection?

Therefore, let the minutes be approved.

Next is citizens' comments on public hearing items.

The City Council meet the meeting is a limited public forum.

So public comments must be related to tonight's agenda items.

When speaking, please focus your remarks on the merits of the item that you're speaking on.

Doing so helps this hearing fulfill its per purpose of gathering relevant information for the voting body.

Additionally, to balance order with the public's right to speak and as outlined by City Council's rules of order and procedures.

Any speaker who delays, disrupts, or interrupts the meeting through disorderly insolent or disturbing action, speech or conduct will be declared out of order.

Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers who wish to speak prior to the presentation of the public hearing items?

No, sir.

Thank you.

Next is Council's consideration for public hearing items, non-planning public hearing items.

Madam Clerk.

Item A, an ordinance of the Council of the City of Chesapeake, Virginia authorizing the issuance of water and sewer system revenue bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 17,928,123.

Requested by finance.

We don't have any speakers.

No speakers.

Okay.

Thank you.

Motion is an order.

Move approval.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor Ritter.

Second.

Thank you, Councilman King.

Is there any discussion on this item?

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record.

Madam Clerk.

Motion to approve the ordinance as presented is adopted by nine-o vote.

Next item.

Item B, an ordinance increasing the salaries of the mayor and members of City Council effective July one, 2027.

Would you please call the speakers on this item?

Yes, sir.

The first speaker is Vic Nichols.

Comments only, followed by Clifton Randolph.

Good evening.

My question for you is tell me what y'all have done that has made a difference in the life of individual and the seven different areas of Chesapeake that you deserve that kind of a raise.

Tell me.

Okay.

Because what you tell me by this ordinance is I want to hurt successful people because you're not financially or economically or business wise smart enough to do what you are asking the taxpayer voters taxed enough already because you're going broke.

You can't manage on what you live on.

But you're asking us to live on less because of your greed.

Greed certainly ain't from Christ, I'll tell you that.

And I think you all know that.

I made it very clear.

Because the thing is, if you can't manage on what it is you make that you have to blow your salary up like that, then you shouldn't be in a position to dictate policy, especially economic policy to anyone else.

Okay?

We have businesses going out.

How is raising all these rates going to do anything for us?

The state has just put on tons of new taxes and things, and you want to add to that misery.

I have an over 65-year-old that works a full-time job, a part-time job, and just picked up another part-time.

And they're not making minimum wage at that full-time job.

But they can't make it because of the amount of greed that comes from our government.

Okay, I pointed out to y'all in an email.

What are the common economic denominators of loser states versus winning states?

It's rapacious elected elite that think they're worth getting paid for the economic disasters created by policies that are fabricated by lies rather than truth.

I've asked several years ago, give me, I want to see the real budget.

Y'all won't do it.

Why?

Because you're afraid to let somebody go through there.

You should be used to it.

How about all this openness, guys?

Government grows, liberty decreases.

Responsible leaders limit government, cut taxes, and leave the dollars with those who earned it to spur growth.

Government does not spur growth at all.

That's us.

We are the economic engine.

Stop being greedy.

Greed doesn't come from Christ.

My concern also is that we're trying to imitate Petroit.

Number one in crime, they always have a rotten reputation.

Realtors tell people don't buy here.

The schools are awful.

Okay.

The core services.

We need those attention to.

We don't see that happening.

I've talked for years about the disasters, traffic in Greenbrier.

One time have I seen where we had a cop out there watching a specific area that I named.

One time.

And things got better.

Instant the cops leave, everything goes back to the same.

We don't do permanent solutions.

We don't work together for them.

We need people that are going to sit here and pay attention to our needs and suffer with us, not raise themselves above us.

We had that happen before 1865, where we had masters who told us, you're going to give of this, you don't deserve this.

We're going to take.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, members of council.

My name is Cliff Randolph, and I'm live in Chesapeake, and I'm here asking that we raise the compensation for city council members.

I understand that being on council is not uh just a one week, once a week job.

You guys are required to study multiple uh council bills and committees.

You serve on committees each month, you respond to constituents' concerns, you meet with city staff, stakeholders, and represent our city at events.

Many hours are spent outside the public view for votes and doing casework.

Candidates also face lengthy stressful campaigns to become to get on council.

That time and stress adds up, and adequate compensation for the real work should be given you.

So that I support your going ahead with uh raising your your compensation on council.

Thank you very much.

Pamela Brandy representing SEF comments only, followed by Eric Ray.

Good evening, Mayor and City Councilman.

Uh regarding the ordinance to increase salary for the mayor and city council effective July 27.

I'm addressing this specifically to Councilman Les Smith and the entire body.

While you consider salaries just adjustment for the leadership, I ask that you also consider the quality of service and representation provided to the residents of no man.

Areas like PewSville.

Leadership is defined by how we protect our citizens' pockets, not just how we feel our own.

It is a concern that even though you are at large.

However, there are many city councilmans that have never came out to Pewsville to check out Peaksville and what's going on.

And we as residents of all of the city of Chesapeake, we are paying our taxes.

We voted for some of you all, uh, but we all cast our vote for who we thought that would represent us the best.

And that would we continue to want to have councilmans and women that would do what we voted them in to do based off of the things that they said they were gonna do for us.

And it's not just for a particular area, it's for all of Chesapeake.

I also offer that uh we go to boroughs so we could have designated councilmans to go to all the areas to be checked on, to be brought back to city council, and to be spoken for all the people of Chesapeake, for we all are children of God and our rest.

Eric Ray representing self speaking in opposition, followed by Jeff Staples.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor and Vice Mayor and members of council.

I'm gonna come with a little bit, come from a different direction tonight.

Let me begin with something in rare moments.

I'm gonna talk about gratitude.

Uh, Mayor West with your leadership uh and Vice Mayor Ritter and the link John Dietrich, your efforts to bring down the tax rate from 101 to 105 did not go on notice.

So we thank you for that.

However, in a time when families are being squeezed from every direction, that decision has shown restraint and um and respect for the people footing the bill.

But that's precisely why this proposal before you tonight feels so out of step.

Timing, as they say, is everything, and right now the timing is wrong.

Today's residents are watching their property assessments climb higher than their paychecks.

Families are choosing between groceries, gas, and keeping the lights on, small businesses, and they're trying to find their footing in this uncertain economy.

And no, I did not coordinate that with Vic Nichols.

I just want you to all know that.

And now we're discussing pay raises for elected officials at the expense of the taxpayers.

Why is this request coming now?

Why not wait until after the economy stabilizes?

Now here's the sad part.

The pay raise conversation is coming right after the General Assembly just handed themselves to what I read was a 268% salary increase.

That's unbelievable.

A 268 percent increase for themselves.

So now Chesapeake taxpayers now they have to pay the exorbitant Journal Assembly members state increases, and now we're asking Chesapeake residents to pay an additional for local city council salary increases as well.

Okay, consider this.

To the average citizen, this looks like so if the state does it, then why can't we do it too?

That's that is not responsible governance.

It feels like an opportunity at the expense of the taxpayers.

Now I'm not here to question anyone's public service.

Public service, it does matter, and however, it demands time, sacrifice, and commitment.

But true public service also requires something a lot more difficult: accountability to its citizens.

Accountability says just because we can does not mean that we should.

And I'm going to end with this right now.

The people are watching.

They're asking themselves very simple questions.

If things are this tight for my family, then why is government wanting to make it tighter?

So tonight I urge you to take a pause, take a deep breath, and this not be forever, but don't do this for principal alone, but out of respect for the wonderful people of Chesapeake and the economic situation we all find ourselves in.

Leadership is not tested when times are good.

It's tested in time of challenge.

And this, my friends, is one of those moments.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Council and Mayor.

I'm uh Jeff Staples.

I live at 1453 Boxwood Drive in the Deep Creek section of Chesapeake.

And I'm here tonight speaking in support of giving the council and the mayor a raise.

It's been a long time coming, and I think the amount has been asked for if anything is on the low side.

Studies have shown that higher salaries for elected local government positions may allow working class, younger or less wealthy individuals to serve than is the current norm.

Well-paid full-time legislators can spend more time doing the business of the city, such as legislative work, policy development, and constituent services, rather than focusing on fundraising and lobbying activities.

This is also a great time to equate the pay issue here with a reform of the current campaign finance structure that is in place.

This would be a great time to write into this ordinance or make a new ordinance regarding Chesapeake's local government campaign finance.

I have checked in Virginia counties and cities can pass ordinances to establish voluntary public financing systems and set contribution limits for local offices.

The limiting of contributions is a specific permissible authority granted to local governing bodies.

I have some suggestions on how we can do that.

Cap the amount of campaign contributions to a total of $35,000 per race, and any excess could be committed to a re-election or election at another date, but the same $35,000 maximum would remain for each subsequent election, and the excess would count towards that limit.

Yea, you could spend less time on fundraising.

Limit also you could and or limit the amount given by any individual, company, corporation, or other entities to a maximum of $2,000 per calendar year.

Yet another example would be to make sure that this raise is available for those willing to accept these or other set conditions, and others who would decline this bid for election electoral fairness could continue to receive their now current salary.

So there's many options here.

While we are talking salaries, let's think about most city employees who are making substantially less than their private employer counterparts.

Perhaps this could raise the issue of allowing collective bargaining for in our city.

There's a lot here to consider.

I hope that you can formulate a plan to work some of these ideas into the equation.

Thank you.

Linda Tyndale.

Representing self speaking in opposition, followed by Jennifer Economy.

Good evening, Linda Tyndall, 1045 West Road.

The population in Chesapeake has certainly grown.

The crowded schools and traffic congestion are clear indicators of this extreme growth.

High density housing, planned unit developments, and agricultural rezonings, all thoroughly discussed and voted upon in these very chambers.

And now a new plan to transfer development rights to increase density without public notice, with the goal to produce even more housing units and residents, all resulting in the opportunity for you to increase your population based salary due to a Virginia code that would allow it.

Ironically, the Virginia Conflict of Interest Act prohibits City Council members from voting on matters benefiting themselves.

Your votes to increase the population through rezonings and developments have put personal financial gain in play for all of you.

The increase in population justifies doubling your salary.

Isn't that a conflict of interest?

Perhaps it's time to recall Springton and Scenic Heights and other large developments.

Reduce the influx of new residents and the need to consider tonight's ordinance to double your salary.

It would clearly prove that your intention was not personal monetary gain.

That would be a proper modification that I would support.

And to think, all this time I thought you were voting to approve these projects because of the campaign contributions made by the developers.

Your constituents are struggling.

Our salaries are not keeping up with our expenses.

This proposed ordinance to significantly raise your salary based on the population increase that you approved is not sitting well with us.

I do thank you for what you do.

But this is too much at this time.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Thank you.

Jennifer Economy representing Self speaking in opposition, followed by Brad Moore.

Good evening, Mayor West and members of City Council.

Jennifer Economy, 2708 Cedarville Road.

I respectfully ask you to deny the ordinance for a substantial pay increase to yourselves.

Families in Chesapeake are struggling to make ends meet with ever increasing property taxes, skyrocketing energy bills, medical bills, groceries, insurance, and everyday expenses that continue to climb.

For many families, making ends meet has become harder, and there is no excess, only hard choices.

Even in the even the lowest option before you represents a 50 percent raise, while other proposals give City Council an increase of 70 to nearly 90 percent, far exceeding the average 2 to 3 percent cost of living adjustment citizens receive if they receive one at all.

This proposal comes at a time when the Virginia General Assembly has recently voted themselves a dramatic pay increase of roughly 200 percent, which faced a lot of public scrutiny.

This left citizens feeling unheard and disconnected from the realities they face.

Chesapeake should not follow that example.

Watching City Council meetings over the years, the concerns I consistently hear from residents are not that our elected officials are underpaid, but that our city has pressing needs, infrastructure, roads, public safety, classrooms, and long-term planning.

While I appreciate the work you all do, the priorities I just mentioned matter more than raises for those entrusted with leadership.

An interesting statistic I recently learned while attending the Chesapeake Citizens Police Academy is that Chesapeake has the lowest police to citizen ratio in the region.

Also, officers do not receive collateral duty pay for certain assignments.

That should be a serious concern for all of us.

If additional funds are available, I believe one of the focuses should be on strengthening public safety and ensuring our law enforcement officers have the resources they need to keep our community safe.

When you ran for office, you knew what the compensation was just as I did when I unsuccessfully ran for school boards several years ago.

Public service should not become a career defined by income, especially at a time when so many critical needs in our city demand attention.

Once again, I appreciate the work you do, even though at times we may not always agree.

As my last name is Economy, I ask that you lead by example and put the city's economy and its people first.

Send a clear message that service to the community comes before personal compensation.

Please deny this ordinance.

Thank you.

The final speaker is Brad Moore, representing Self speaking in opposition.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, members of council.

I'm a resident at 1300 Park Avenue in the South Norfolk Historic District.

Um I've come up here and spat nails at you on more than one of occasion, but I hope none of you take offense to my remarks this evening.

I'm here to speak in opposition of the proposed ordinance.

Um, and I'm not opposed to the increase generally, um, but I do want you to think about how you ask and how you justify this increase.

Um, I wanted to take a moment about the problem to speak about the problematic context in which the issue was raised, and there's some comparative analysis, I think that shapes my own opinion.

Um, with regard to the context, I don't need to remind you all, but the public should be aware that this is the second time this discussion has been brought up by a member of City Council.

It's also worth noting that that very same member had been in office for eight months prior to raising the issue the first time.

Just as important for the public to note is that that member had the audacity to raise the issue of their pay amidst the thoughtful discussion concerning the burden of increasing utility rates impacting the cost of livings for our citizens.

So you mean to tell me that while your colleagues were clearly concerned with citizens' ability to make ends meet, you thought it appropriate to complain about you not getting paid enough and insist on a public hearing for the same.

Additionally, and based on comments made at last month's city council meeting, I think it's important to consider a reasonable comparison.

I can't for the life of me though, think of a comparable private sector example where a candidate for a position gets passed over for that position numerous times by prospective employer, finally manages to get hired, then asks for a substantial raise after being on the job for eight to fifteen months, with little to show from a productivity standpoint.

Also, because it was mentioned, I don't think any of you were elected to office to earn a living.

If you want to make a career out of public service, I would suggest you get with the city manager or the director of human resources on your own time to find a suitable um position for your qualifications and review the pay brackets for that position prior to submitting your resume.

Um they're no longer across the street, but I do know Chesapeake Public Schools is looking for bus drivers.

So look around, look around to see how lucky you are to be where you are right now.

And while reiterating my objection to this salary increase, please be mindful that there are those out there serving their communities and the city writ large.

And as one of those folks, I suggest that it's far more rewarding for those of us that do it simply for the love of the game.

That should be enough.

That concludes the speakers.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate you all coming out tonight and expressing your opinions.

A motion is in order.

Mr.

Smith.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I move to withdraw the non-planning public hearing item B from the agenda.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Uh let me get a second, and then we can second that motion.

Okay.

I second the motion.

Thank you very much.

Uh Councilman Smith, you're recognized and speak.

Yes, I understand that once withdrawing any fruit of consideration of a salary increase would require the item to be readvertised as a new public hearing.

I take this hit for proposal to discuss a salary increase for city council with the public.

There is no perfect time to ask for a raise, and especially at the large increases that were proposed.

But I did not anticipate the country going to war.

Once the announcement was advertised, the process could not be postponed.

It was shared by one of my colleagues that suggesting an increase could ruin my political career.

I was willing to take the risk because I wanted to bring value to the position.

Make our salaries reflective of our actual duties and attractive to a larger group of citizens.

A $25,000 salary favor those who are already financially secure and excludes working people, young professionals, and parents who simply cannot afford to take on a second full-time responsibility at that pay.

This is about making sure our democracy our democracy is open to everyone, not just those of me.

We do our citizens a disservice when our council salary is not compatible with neighboring cities.

Being a former employee of the city at the sheriff's office, I recall the city focus was to make sure that our salaries were in the top three in Hampton roads.

As it stands, our still our salary is sixth of seven cities.

That does not reflect well for the city that cares.

A similar action took place in approximately 2018 by the Public Safety Alliance, seeking an increase causing an example of the police department salaries, starting salaries increasing 39 percent over eight years.

Since 1996, Council has only received one raise in 30 years in the amount of 2,000.

Can anyone guess what the cost for bread, eggs, or coffee was back in 1996?

Can any of you sustain your livelihoods if your salary increase was only $2,000 in 30 years?

Council Christmas, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Your motion is uh to withdraw the issue.

I think we need to dispose that issue before we talk about the merits of of the uh of the uh uh proposal of the agenda item.

So if you have comments about whether we should withdraw this, that would be good, but not the merits of whether that's on the agenda.

Okay.

Okay.

So is that conclude your comments?

If you cut me short, I'll conclude.

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you.

I want to ask all council members to do the same.

Please keep your comments too.

And if that if the motion fails, then we can just address the merits of the agenda item.

So are there any other comments on the motion?

Yes, sir.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I would like to make a substitute motion to deny item B increasing the salaries.

Do we have a second to second that?

I'm sorry.

I'll second that.

Thank you, Mr.

Whitaker.

Uh any discussion about about the motion to deny the item on the agenda.

If I may.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, first I want to applaud councilmember Smith.

Um, I think it's important that if you believe in something, you should have a public hearing on it, and that's exactly what he did.

And though he and I disagree on the merits of the item, I think it's important that we hear from the public, and that's exactly what Councilmember Smith did.

So I recognize that he is withdrawing or wanted to withdraw the item because he hears from the public and the community that this is not something that's wanted.

So I wanted to first um applaud Councilmember Smith for that.

Um, second, I just want to at least give you my thoughts on why I do not support this item.

And really what it comes down to is one word and its service.

Serving the citizens of Chesapeake is an honor.

You don't run for this position.

Uh for monetary gain, you run to serve, you run to listen, you run to represent the community.

And I think this is the distinction that matters, and especially right now.

Um, our speakers alluded to this.

We see it across the Commonwealth that Richmond is asking us to shoulder more.

Um, they're asking us to shoulder more taxes, they're asking us to add new payroll costs, to shoulder the cost of collective bargaining, have new financial burdens on our families, all in the name of new spending for those in Richmond.

Public service should not insulate us from the hardships and the realities that our constituents are facing.

If anything, it should hold us more accountable to them and to you.

When families are being stretched thin, government should not be growing anymore just to be more comfortable.

The best candidates, in my opinion, are not drawn to this role because of a paycheck.

They're drawn because they care about the community.

And if compensation is becoming the primary incentive to run for office, then we're getting away from the whole point of service.

We risk changing the very nature of what this role is supposed to be for.

And it's about stewardship.

It's about accountability, it's about remembering who we work for, and if we start prioritizing our own compensation over our own example that we set, we risk losing the trust of the people we represent.

So this is not about the workload to me, it's about principle.

As the youngest council member that's been elected to the City Council who holds a full-time job, my principle is simple.

Public service should always be about service first.

And for that reason, I will not be supporting the salary increase.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Newland.

I know, Mr.

Whitaker, you would normally go to the second.

However, I'm going to make a uh uh exception and go back to Councilman Smith.

He did not get to finish his comments.

So out of respect for his him for making this motion, I would go to him.

Do you have any more comments that you'd like to make?

I would like to conclude.

Please do.

This conversation is not about a raise.

It's about removing a barrier.

Again, the war and its impact on society has made me sensitive to the timing of an increase.

But council needs to be sensitive to the position.

Citizens need to be sensitive to the position, and not the person in the position necessarily today.

I had a full year to feel, I had a full year in the field to understand the demands of this position, and know that the work put into the position is underrated.

It's intense.

There's a need to do a study of the pros and cons of increase and bring the matter back up in the future, either with this council or the newly elected council in 2026.

Any decisions made this year were not going to affect until July 2027.

Any decision made with the newly elected council would not take effect, would not take effect until July 1, 2029.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Whitaker.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

In society and in community, there seems to be a lot of distrust in government.

You know, I'm a strong believer, uh, like Ms.

Newman's uh council lady new ones, that public service is what it is.

It's not a career path.

And uh my concern is if we move forward and make it open for everybody, it becomes a career path.

It's no longer about service, it's an occupation.

Uh I think myself, like many others here, uh, we do this because we love our city.

And uh my concern is well, it just creates more career politicians.

And I think that fuels even more community distrust.

So therefore, that's why I'm not supporting this.

Thank you.

I just have to.

Dr.

Ward.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, and I'll be brief.

Um, out of respect to Councilman Smith and City Council.

I voted to we are not really, but I seconded the motion because I thought that with joining that motion would end it.

Um that's the reason why I did agree to second that motion.

I don't really disagree with it, and Councilman Smith knows I disagree with that type of salary increase timing, it's bad, not good for it.

And I would not even support the motion, the second to that motion.

I will support the motion on the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Dr.

King.

Thank you, uh, Mr.

Mayor.

I just want to explain to you why it is that I will not support the motion to increase our salary.

We are a country at war.

Our groceries are skyrocketing, our fuel prices are skyrocketing, our health care is skyrocketing, and I see your leaders as the captain of the ship.

We go down last.

I knew when I took this position on that my business would take a hit and I wouldn't have as much time to provide the services that I do in my career, but I made that choice, and I knew what the pay was.

So I didn't come into this job expecting to make more money.

I agree with my colleagues that community service is community service.

Um, and that's why we are here, because as has been said, we love the city, we want to serve the people.

So at this time, and someone mentioned earlier timing is everything.

At this time, I don't think it's appropriate to further burden citizens with increasing our salary, so I would not be voting for that motion.

Thank you.

Come Vice Mayor Rutter.

Thank you.

Can you cue that slide that for me, Liz?

This is a slide, uh part of a PowerPoint.

I don't think we call them slides anymore.

Okay, thank you.

This is comparing all the regional cities.

I hope people can see this.

If you would like to correlate the tax rate with council salaries, I would draw your attention to Chesapeake being the lowest tax and fee burden of any locality.

Oh manager says, next slide, please.

And there are the annual burdens.

Um I think he I've asked for this.

There's an additional burden that Chesapeake does not put on their citizens, which is a cell phone tax.

So that has not been included.

So I I think there's a correlation here that the two cities with the lowest tax burdens, tax and fee burdens, on their citizens, have the lowest council salary, but are the two biggest cities in the region.

$450,000.

I think some people would look at the total of our budget and say it's a rounding error.

Well, none of us think it's a rounding error.

It's a lot of money.

It's four police officers.

It's four firefighters.

It's probably six solid waste workers.

That's money that I would argue, or not argue, but ask people to consider.

That we sit here and vote.

This is not a hobby for anybody.

We search, we seek this office.

We work hard to get the confidence of citizens to vote for us.

We know what the compensation is.

And you know, I think we can agree or disagree on the quality of person you get.

I do have to say there was a new little wrinkle raised here tonight that I found difficult personally.

I agree.

People are opening their bills, they're struggling, they're seeing their utility bills grow monthly, cost of everything is going up to some extent.

Gas is like a sound wave chart.

There's a lot of uncertainty.

I'm not sure what bringing a war into it means.

What my husband was paid when he was on a river boat in Vietnam for a year, getting shot at every day.

One very much money.

You know, the federal government may be spending money.

I think people here are worried about paying their bills.

And they're also worried about the services the city gives them.

They want our schools to continue to give a quality education.

They want their trash picked up.

They want to call 911 and know they're going to get a response.

We want to be sure our law enforcement and first responders are taken care of because they take care of us.

As I said, we sit up here, we make a vote, we put in some hours every month, some more than others, but that's what we've asked the public to allow us to do.

Without our city employees, we couldn't accomplish any service whatsoever for the city.

And a long time well, a couple of years ago I was asked about why we don't have a convention center here for kids to graduate from.

And wouldn't that be nice?

It would.

We'd all love to have that.

I told that group, if we had that much money, I would invest in a school that needs replacement because its infrastructure is crumbling.

So it's all about priorities.

And I have to go along with what a number of my colleagues have said.

This is not my priority.

It's important to him.

And council people should have that ability.

And for each of you who came out tonight to voice your opinion, thank you.

So thank you all.

And I think I'm within my time limit for once.

Thank you.

I would like to before I cast my vote, give my uh my opinion as well.

I agree with Mr.

Smith on many levels.

I do believe if there is a reasonable salary for uh this office, it would encourage more, allow more people to be able to run.

Uh and I do, but I also do believe that the timing is is poor.

I will I wish there was an option to gradually increase in in this the way it's presented on this agenda.

I wish it was an option to gradually increase it, you know, at 3 percent or a couple of thousand dollars until we got to the point.

I think that would certainly take a little bit of sting out.

It is not for mine, but I do believe that as a society we pay for what we show value.

And I believe if our citizens say that being on council or being mayor is a valuable thing, then you know the salary would reflect something that they do value and value the work.

I'm gonna vote uh in favor of denial as well because of the the uh the timing of it and the and because it doesn't have a more gradual increase, but however, in principle I agree with the uh the item on the agenda.

I believe everyone's had a chance to speak.

I'm gonna now call vote.

Clarify the green.

We do have a motion to deny uh the item on the agenda.

Item B.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record.

Madam Clark on the substitute motion to deny non-planning public hearing item B passes by a 9-0 vote.

Thank you.

Next uh is our consent agenda.

Uh Madam Clerk, would you please present consent agenda?

Um we have uh some agenda items, some agenda speakers first.

I apologize, thank you.

Vic Nichols representing self comments only, followed by Pamela Brandy.

I think I'm on again.

On the boards and commissions, I just have a couple of items.

One, are we verifying the residency of the people who are put on those boards and commissions?

Are we also coming up with any way to know about potential conflicts of interest?

That's not come up in any time, and I think that would be well worth our time to research for all boards and commissions.

Thank you.

Pamela Brandy, representing Self and Pewsville Civic League comments only, followed by Rogard Ross.

Um I I have specific question concerning um the uh two ordinance or city manager item four and five.

Um and um my concern is about the um the bike trail, and I had I had to call in and ask questions to get clarification on understanding uh about uh both of these ordinance, and I was okay after getting them or getting the information that is needed because it wasn't clear to me when I was reading your input.

Uh however, um my um addition, especially to number five, um, is that when we look at the bike trail, the bike trail in Pewsville has not been worked on.

Um Suffolk has did its work to its point, and then there's nothing to 664 or anything, and then you have um the recommendation uh for naming uh the uh Western Branch Park, well, the name the Western Branch Trail.

Uh for me, where I would like to add to the bike trail for the city of Chesapeake, like I said, nothing has been done to the bike trail to connect uh Suffolkside to Peewesville, uh starting at the VMW building and going towards I-64, as we uh look at the requirements to make uh nominations for um the naming of the trail.

Um I first would like to know when the bike trail uh in Pewsville is going to be worked on.

Uh two, uh I would like to formally recommend naming the uh bike trail in the Pewesville area uh after uh uh Rochelle Amia uh Perchet, which is uh we all know as the Purple Lady.

She is a part of our history and deserved that recognition.

Um I would ask that that be uh considered.

And I risk later.

Thank you.

Rogard Ross speaking on City Manager Item 4 and 5.

Good evening.

Uh Logart Ross, 3800 Ribbur Cust Place, and I am the current chair of the bicycle trails advisory committee.

Um we are asking for the change in the ordinance because we've had difficulty in recruiting members to the committee with the current setup and the current requirements for membership.

So we're hoping with this change to the um establishing ordinance we can fill our committee and be more active.

With regards to the trail name change, uh, we did talk about that in committee, and I'm here to support the name change in honor of Dr.

Dietriquette, uh, our late vice mayor.

Uh Dr.

Dietuquet was known as having lived a life of service to others and had left the world a better and safer place for children.

He was a devoted to his family and thousands of children, and he cared for more than and for more than 40 years as a physician at the children's hospital of the King's daughter.

Dedicating the trail to him will be a fitting tribute as the thousands of children and families will enjoy this shared use path for generations to come.

Uh as the lady just told us here, getting this trail finished all the way to Suffolk is a critical connection.

Um this trail will ultimately be part of the Southampton Roads Trail running all the way from the Virginia Beach Ocean Fund to Suffolk.

Phase one of the trail, which is the one mile segment running from the Portsmouth City line to Dordan Street was finished in 2021.

We've been waiting for phase two to extend to Taylor Road for quite a number of years now, and that is supposed to be in procurement, is the last we heard, and we're hoping construction on on the second mile will happen this spring, keeping our fingers crossed.

Uh the third phase, the critical phase to connect us to Suffolk uh is in design, we're told.

And uh hopefully that will move along much quicker than phase two did.

Uh, but it is critical.

And the citizens of Pewsville and the citizens of Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, all the Hampton Road's bicycle community is eagerly awaiting this trail.

So we're hoping that this name change spurs some additional effort to get this trail done in a timely manner.

We think this is a wonderful trail.

Uh naming it after Dr.

Dietrich will be a wonderful honor.

And uh let's get this done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes the speaker's thank you.

And before we begin the uh consent agenda, I would like to call uh Councilmember Jeffries for statement.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I'm an employee of the city and a member of its police department.

I'm disclosing as personal interest because city manager items one and two could benefit police department employees.

Since the police department includes three or more people who may be affected, the city attorney is advised that I can participate if this disclosure is made.

I do not have a conflict that prevents me from participating, and I hereby affirm that I can participate fairly objectively and in the public's best interest.

Thank you, Councilman Jeffries.

Madam Clerk.

City Clerk Item 1, refund a proprium LLC, 69,757.

Two resignations, John from Micah, Bicycle Trails Advisory Committee, Lakeita Lofton, Bicycle Trails Advisory Committee, Thomas Park, Public Art Committee, Victoria Thomas, Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Board, and Steve Stephen Wilson, Commission on Health and Wellbeing.

City Manager Item One, request for the authority to apply for a FY26 burn justice assistant grant from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services requested by police.

Item two, request for the authority to apply for a $350,000 FY27 public safety answering point resiliency grant from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management requested by police.

That concludes the consent agenda, Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Are there any items council members would like to remove and considered under the regular agenda?

No.

Seeing none, please prepare to vote.

Move approval.

That'll be consent agenda.

Thank you.

We have a second.

Second.

Thank you.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record.

Motion to approve the consent agenda as presented is adopted by an 8-0 vote.

Mr.

Whitaker is out of the chamber.

Thank you.

Next is our regular agenda.

Mr.

Price, would you please present your items?

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Item 3 is a resolution providing for the issuance and sale of water and sewer system revenue bonds, Series 2026 of the City of Chesapeake, Virginia, and the maximum principal amount of $17,928,123 to finance capital improvements to the city's water and sewer system and providing for the form details and payment thereof requested by finance.

A motion, please.

Move approval.

Second.

Thank you.

Did you get the motion?

Please prepare any discussion.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record.

Madam Clark.

Motion to approve the resolution as presented is adopted by an Ado vote.

Item 4 is an ordinance amending Chapter 2 of the Chesapeake City Code entitled Administration, Article 5, Section 2-620.26 to reflect changes to bicycles trails advisory committee membership requirements requested by Parks Record Tourism.

Thank you.

A motion is in order.

Move to approve.

I'm sorry.

Mr.

Bunn, you got the approval.

Dr.

Ward, thank you for the second.

And uh any discussion.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record.

Motion to approve the ordinance as presented is adopted by an 8-0 vote.

Hold on the next item, Mr.

Manager.

This time I would like to turn the gavel over to the Vice Mayor.

Item 5 is a resolution designating city-owned property located at Sir Francis Drake Drive, known as the Western Branch Trail, to be renamed and known as the Dr.

John D.

Memorial Trail at Western Branch, requested by Parks Recreation and Tourism.

I move for approval.

Second.

You don't even give me a chance to recognize.

I can't even use the gavel.

Well, I just made for approval.

You said you have approval of it.

Next you ask, is there any discussion?

Oh, thank you.

Is there any discussion on the item?

Yeah, I would just like to just say very off-cuff here that you know it's it's a bittersweet thing to do tonight.

It just brings back memories of our Vice Mayor who was so valuable to our city, so valuable to me as an individual, and I know to everyone at this diocy i it it is a touching time in one respect, but it's also an honoring time to be able to do something to show the wonderful contributions that he made to our city.

So it's not been my honor.

Anyone are there any other comments?

Ms.

Newens, you brought this forward.

Would you like to comment?

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor.

Just briefly, uh, there's nothing I think that truly could honor the life and legacy of um former Vice Mayor John Dietrich.

Uh but the park was something that was important to him.

Western branch is something that's important to him, and it's something that is important to his wife Carol as well.

So by able to give them something to honor Dr.

Dieter Kay, I'm very glad, and I would hope Council I know I'm confident to say the council was going to support this.

Um but the legacy that Dr.

D leaves behind is a great one, and um I'm glad that the mayor was able to make the motion because I know um Dr.

Dieter Kay was a um great asset to this council, a great mentor to all of us, and um he will certainly be missed dearly.

But thank you, Vice Mayor, for the opportunity.

Any other comments, Dr.

Ward.

Well, thank you.

I haven't lived in Western branch for 36 years, and uh just worked with Dr.

DJK and Carol and on some many projects, and we are hoping for more, but I think this is a fine tribute to uh uh former vice mayor of the city of Chesapeake.

Uh it's great to honor those who really have earned and worked uh for the citizens, not just Chesapeake, because he was a great doctor for all of the city and surrounding areas, but certainly a stalwart leader in uh Western Branch, and so was Carol.

And there were many, many projects at the center to talk about things that we needed in Western Branch.

So our community would not be forgotten.

Thank you for the motion.

Anyone else?

Mr.

Bunn.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Ritter.

I echo um the mayor's comments along with my colleagues on council.

Um, Dr.

D was a true statesman.

And given this tribute to him, I'm in his family is very important.

I support it 100 percent.

Thank you.

Um I'll just wind it up.

Um served with John since 1998 and a little bit before.

I would say he would be honored and humbled with this.

John asked for little, and yet the things that he chose to advocate strongly for are all things that have improved Chesapeake, not only as a government, but as a city and for the people.

He was passionate about education and health.

He was passionate to keep our city safe.

And he was certainly passionate about as he fondly referred to it the branch.

And I know that this section of the trail is close to their home.

Carol and the family will drive by it every day.

John's admirers will.

Anybody call on the question?

I'm so unused to having a gavel in my hands.

You'll have to be careful.

We have a motion and a second on the floor.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote.

Please record the vote.

Happily return the gavel to its rightful owner.

Thank you.

Ms.

Vice Mayor, I appreciate you.

Next is citizens' comments on services, policies, and affairs of the city, not agenda.

Speakers, Madam Clerk, do we have any?

Yes, sir.

The first speaker is Robert Altman, speaking on speeding on Ambrose Street.

Is Robert here?

The next speaker is Gary Caitlin.

He's speaking on issues in Chesapeake, followed by Vic Nichols.

Good evening.

My name is Gary Catlin.

I work with the uh homeless in the South Norfolk section of the City of Chesapeake.

And I'd like to talk about sex trafficking in Chesapeake.

The Bible tells us do not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness.

Think about it.

The land will be filled with wickedness.

A former South Norfolk Street prostitute tells how at about seven to eight years of age, her mother sold her for drug money.

She told her monet, she told her mother, there are too many men.

A South Norfolk homeless street prostitute tells how when she was a minor, her best friend lured her into being raped by her best friend's father.

A South Norfolk homeless street prostitute speaks with great anger about her pedophilic stepfather.

From my work with the homeless and study of prostitution, I have learned that most prostitutes were sexually abused as children.

The going rate for a street for a South Norfolk, homeless, drug addicted, and HIV positive street prostitute is $30 to $40.

But the drug addicted will exchange sex for drugs without money.

A former drug dealer tells me how he would pocket the money from the work of drug-addicted prostitutes and give the prostitutes drugs for their sex work.

This is a very lucrative deal for the drug dealer.

The street prostitutes in the city of Chesapeake all share the same story about how in the process of working their trade, they are raped.

The common story is that they go to a hotel, are drugged or forced to take drugs, and then the predator charges admission for other men to take a turn with the unconscious woman.

The women are deeply traumatized by these experiences of brutal exploitation.

Strangely, to me at least, I have learned that the drug addicted prostitutes finds nothing wrong with her prostitution.

After all, the prostitute, to quote their sentiments, learned as children that the sexually sexual exploitation and rape of girls and women is the way of the world.

Yet they correctly understand their gang rapes by men is rape.

Unfortunately, the men who commit these crimes do not believe that there is anything wrong with raping an unconscious woman.

Over and over again, I hear the same story.

That some politicians, police, and pastors are among the men who rape children and engage in prostitution.

In 2024, a former Chesapeake police officer was convicted of 34 counts of possession of child sex abuse material.

Two counts of indecent liberties by a custodian.

And one count of an obscene image of the sexual abuse of an animal.

A Virginia Peach Beach pastor was among the men, but his record was expunged in exchange for specialized counseling.

And there is increasing evidence to suggest valid allegations that former presidents of the United States have been engaged in prostitution and child sex abuse.

And yes, some homeless men and drug dealers are clients of prostitution and sexual exploitation.

Homeless men engage in illicit sex activities called trains, where a place, date, and time is set up for multiple men to exchange money for sex.

A homeless man is a homeless man was convicted of one count of child sex abuse material.

Street sources claim that drug dealers will give drugs to a parent or guardian in exchange for carnal knowledge of the addicts' children.

So your allotted time is up.

Thank you for your work.

Next speaker, please.

Vic Nichols speaking on affairs of the city, followed by Casey Stalworth.

I wanted to address a couple of things that were talked about earlier.

I'm as discussed about having various groups being able to serve.

Well, I don't want specific groups of people available to serve simply because they're in a group.

I want people who are successful, fact-based, perceptive, driven, love Chesapeake more than anything else, and have an understanding of an experience of being able to deal with all that comes of running a multi-billion dollar business, because that's exactly what we are, while not abusing the power and authority inherent in that position, once you can deal with those who believe differently in a respectful manner.

You see, giving more money to people before proving competence is why New York City is such a disaster.

Requiring volunteers to submit two forms of ID and a social security card while opposing voter ID laws, actions like that show a complete lack of awareness that should never happen in a leader.

Promising free, but then raising taxes usually doesn't say a lot about ability, experience, or competence.

See, it's not about the money.

We have social workers.

They love what they do and what a boon they can be, but they don't make a lot of money.

Just think about the influence our teachers have.

They don't get a lot of money, but yet they do it for love of the kids because they like teaching.

They like the atmosphere.

We have to take into account that it doesn't matter the group that you're in.

It's the heart and where it's at.

That's what matters.

As you see, if you remember a few years ago, the health leaders told us to mask up, to distance ourselves, and to leave people to die alone in hospitals.

I was vilified and threatened on more than one occasion for years for saying the science doesn't add up.

Unfortunately, he was proven right, the non-MD.

Because my values were different.

And that's exactly what we need to have on council, our different values.

And that where we place those is going to make a big difference as to how we serve.

Now going on to the regular stuff for Green Bar traffic.

Thank you for at least sending someone out there to police car to take a look at the traffic issues because people instead of barreling across Greenbrier and blocking Eden Way, they actually stopped on a dime because they saw the cop car.

After that, they quit.

So if you're looking for another way to get money, this is where I kind of wonder about y'all actually, is it should have been suggested to the General Assembly that if you're gonna put in red light cameras, maybe you need to do something like that and have them where they go out into the intersection and block it.

Because, well, you know, hey, if you can do it for right turn on reds, you need to be able to do that too.

This is something they invented.

It's another way of getting money that hopefully would solve some traffic problems, because I'm not convinced that the right turn on red is doing that.

Cops haven't produced any data that shows that's true.

Well, the treasurer's office.

Had problems trying to log on today, I still haven't gotten an answer about.

You know, two people, two treasurers ago, we had the city manager take over some responsibilities until things could get straightened out.

Do we need to do that again?

Y'all need to be leaders.

Because you know what?

Things were quiet, everything was going good, and now they're kind of a disaster.

I mean, we were sold on you need an accountant, not a lawyer.

Well, I actually we need a business manager.

Thank you.

Casey Stalworth.

There you go.

Gotcha.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council.

My name is Casey Stalworth.

Um my nonprofit is Universal Kings and Queen Society.

And um we're embarking on a historical marker for the maroons of the dismal swamp.

And we're embarking on this marker because I think it's necessary for the city of Chesapeake to understand our deep roots in history.

For people to know that um where we come from that we're not hiding any truths in our city, and that this right here can bring a lot of things and a lot of connections in the city.

I feel like I can bring with my connections, I feel like I can bring a lot of uh I see I talk about money problems and stuff in the city, and I I understand those things because my family goes through those type of situations.

I feel like um I can be a standing voice in the community.

I'm from South Norfolk.

Um I grew up in crime.

I grew up in drugs, everything they was talking about prostitution.

My mom was a prostitute.

My family has a lineage of.

I had a slave, I I had a slave in my family called Stefan Topley.

That was my great-great-grandfather.

He created uh medals, the swords for the Confederate war in Danville.

My great-great-great-grandmother is Alice Williams.

She was a slave, she took care of the slave on the children.

Uh, she got so she got so good with the slave master that she took care of the kids so much they taught her how to read.

These is new things that I'm learning that I think that these things should come to the forefront and we can uplift the burdens that's been in the city for a long time.

I feel like if we have something like the Maroon Legacy Festival or something like that, we can bring, make this a mark here.

You know, you know, my partners, one of my partners is a Grammy Award winner that's from South Norfolk.

I have another partner that used to be a business, he used to shoot videos for Timberland.

So we have the connections that make things happen.

I'm just asking the city council for permission to get this historical marker to show that the history here.

I have I have connections with the Virginia Museum, uh history and culture that are backing me on this project.

And I didn't need no to write.

This is straight for my soul.

I'm a city, I'm a I'm a person from the city of Chesapeake.

I just want the city council to be in agreement.

I don't just want one person.

I want all the y'all to be in agreements.

I'm trying to change the streets of South Norfolk.

Nobody's trying to do that.

I had I grew up with no father.

I know the, I know what the kids are going through right now.

You know what I'm saying?

I know about being, I know about my friends giving drugs to my mom when I'm leaving and messing with my mom, paying my mom for sex.

You see what I'm saying?

I know I can teach the kids out here and change this this economy.

It's gonna be something new coming up.

It's gonna be gonna be a whole new one when when these people leave, it's gonna be a new economy, it's gonna be a new government.

I'm trying to help and be a part of that.

I'm glad y'all listening.

I'm glad you know.

I just want to bring something to the city that people can recognize and that people could see that hey, all that racism stuff, we getting rid of that.

You know, everybody coming together.

The city of Virginia Beach coming together.

I've been doing stuff in the city of Virginia Beach.

I went to Danville, but I'm a Chesapeake native.

I want to do something in Chesapeake.

I love Chesapeake City Park.

I see the Jubilee, but we need more.

We have the ability, we have the skills.

We got the musicians, we got hidden things here that the world needs to know about.

And I think that we can become great.

Like I think we could, I think our time is now.

I really think our time is now because the way that I'm the way that I feel, my grandmother just passed away October 31st.

And it really put that fire.

Mayor Krasnoff, he trained my Uncle Melvin in wrestling.

You know what I mean?

He passed away.

So I'm trying to keep a legacy on for my family.

The Star Wars is embredded in Chesapeake.

My grandfather, y'all probably know my grandfather, your Star Wars, he'd be at all the events, you know.

He'd be everywhere, you know what I mean.

But I'm just one of the young ones, and I'm gonna stand for Star Wars in this way.

I just need y'all, you know, approval.

I'm not begging, I'm just asking.

I need your approval.

Because Suffolk has a part of the Desmal Swamp.

They could take that history under their hands, but I want to take it here in Chesapeake, so we can do something big here that's never been done before.

I believe in it.

I solely believe in it with my heart and my soul.

Thank you, Mr.

Stallworth.

Appreciate your heart.

Anna Ruby speaking on women's health.

Let me make sure I oh the button is already on.

Hello, everyone.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and the council.

My name is Anna Ruby.

This is my first meeting that I've ever been to.

So I please excuse if I stumble on some of my words.

But I'm here today because I care deeply about women's health and the safety of women in our community, especially in light of recent concerns connected to the Chesapeake Regional Health Care.

Situations like that can create fear, silence, and mistrust.

And I believe we have an opportunity as a city to respond not just with accountability, but with support.

Thank you so much.

My name is Anna Ruby.

Thank you for your time.

Brad Moore speaking on Women's History Month.

My name is Brad Moore still.

I'm still a resident at 1300 Park Avenue in the South Norfolk Historic District.

As Women's History Month wraps up, I wanted to express a few words of gratitude for the ladies working in the historical services division of the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism.

I think Mr.

Barber is hiding some Easter eggs in the back of the council chambers right now, so I hope he's taking notes.

And as someone who's extremely passionate about history, it was a wonderful opportunity to hear from speakers about women, such as Mary Perth, an African American woman who proselytized in the maroon communities just mentioned a moment ago in the Dismal Swamp before navigating her path to freedom to the North during the American Revolution.

We also heard speaking of the revolution, we heard about Polly Miller, who was a tavern keeper at the um typically associated with the Battle of Great Bridge over here.

Another speaker provided a well done exposition on the life and activism of Laura Etta Davis Titus, a black female philanthropist from the area who history now rightfully credits uh for filing the charter for what is now known as the young women's Christian Association of Southampton Roads.

Um there were also a few speakers discussing some more modern history makers who were women in Chesapeake, such as uh Marion Whitehurst, the first woman to serve as mayor in this city, um, and the first woman mayor in Southampton Roads.

So it's really something to celebrate.

And there was even a speaker um to discuss uh Western Branch Bruin cum Tony Award winning actress and singer Adrienne Warren, um, who those who don't know, she received a Tony for um portraying Tina Turner on Broadway.

So all the way from Western Branch.

I think Dr.

Ward is her seats there, but um, all the way from successful Western branch um up to Broadway in New York City, um, and a few places in between.

Um, but I wanted to say that this event was well attended, and I truly appreciate the effort that went into providing this as an invaluable public service.

It was nice to hear about you know such an impressive cross section of local women's history um over the course of just a single event.

So please allow me to share my thanks with Jessica, Larissa, Kim, Alison, and Toby.

I don't want to drop all their last names, but I'm sure Mike knows who they are.

Um, and their colleagues who are she rose in their own right um for the work they do in preserving and interpreting Chesapeake history on behalf of all of its citizens.

Um and since I think I have a few seconds and it's on still on the topic of history.

I know there's a presentation.

Um Larissa has a exhibit along with Department of or the Division of Historical Resources coming up at the portlock this weekend on the 28th about um school desegregation in the area.

Um that exhibition has been running all month by appointment, but it's nice to have it open on the weekend for folks to come in at their leisure at the time.

Um also wanted to uh let everybody know you should have received an invitation, but on April 11th, the South Norfolk Civic League is partnering with the Sons of American Revolution and planning a Liberty Tree right there at the portlock in South Norfolk, and you're all invited to that.

Um, and we'll dedicate uh that one on April 11th, and then we you know, probably because we're planning a little get together for the Fourth of July itself.

Um we plan on having another dedication for the Fourth of July for a Liberty Tree in Lakeside Park.

Um also wanted to take um a moment to remind everyone with an earshot that an enormous amount of effort has gone into planning the charter to Chesapeake event.

I think it was mentioned a few weeks ago or a week ago by another speaker.

It's coming up June 19th to the 23rd, but an enormous amount of effort um to have I forget the formal title, but the we're uh affiliate harbor, chess the city of Chesapeake is in the Sale 250 uh Sale Virginia 2026 event.

Um, but I know an enormous amount of effort has been put into that event, um, both public and private resources um in commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Um, so I thank you all for your time this evening.

I thank Historical Services for doing the work that they continue to do, and um really we have just a great team that's that's kind of coming into their own in that division, and and I really look forward to seeing the things they provide to the public in the future.

Thank you so much.

That concludes the speakers.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

All the comments, wonderful interesting.

I had asked to speak doing this time.

She signed up.

I don't have a speaker card on non-agenda.

I have the other two, but what was your non-agenda item, please?

Well, my non-agenda items that I wanted to speak about, well, for this time uh here is about Peelsville and things that's going on in the Western Branch area that I wanted to speak on tonight.

What is the time allowment?

Five minutes.

Betty, we'll give you a couple minutes to do it.

You're not signed up to speak, but if you could wrap it up in a couple of minutes, it'd be great.

Thank you.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

And I appreciate that.

Uh, I must bring a serious matter erroneous assessment uh to your attention for 33 months.

Um from November 22 to August 25.

I and at least least 34 other Chesapeake residents in Pewsville would charge utility tax for the city of Suffolk.

The Suffolk Sessor, uh, Mr.

Billy Butts has officially informed me that his office can now adjudicate uh jurisdictional maps mapping areas and that there is nothing that he can do.

Meanwhile, Suffolk Commissioner of Revenue, Miss Susan Dapper has suggested in a phone conversation with me that the city of Chesapeake might drop the charges.

Um if I would drop my pursuit to ref uh of my refund.

Let it be clear.

The city of Chesapeake did not provide service for which uh we were taxed by the city of uh suffering.

No, it did.

You identified these accounting errors until we brought this to you until I brought this to your light.

Uh we were being told the statute of limitation has expired, but proverb 631 tells us that when the thief is caught, he must restore seven folds.

Also, um, I have personally filed uh a group application for the correction of the taxes uh and favor um the money back for myself and others.

Also, another concern is currently in uh done eating.

There are two map uh two um city um reckoning to the city of Chesapeake in PewSkin Done Eating.

We are asking to have one transferred over into Peelesville because we are also uh Chesapeake residents.

I also have my emails and all that was sent to the city of Chesapeake uh to Suffolk concerning uh utility taxes that we had been charged.

Also uh in standing in full agreement with uh Councilman Les Smith, the reason why we are looking to have a more diverse device um group of people on city council is that things like going unnoticed about utility taxes that were stopped in the city of Chesapeake, and the money was given over to the City of Suffolk, and nobody recognized or brought this to attention, and even when I brought it first to your attention, you let it go on for 33 minutes.

Thank you, Ms.

Brady.

Mr.

Manager, if you would just on these issues follow up with who those that you think that we can or at least direct them to uh a resource that that can get their issues or questions.

We appreciate it.

And I will leave these documents for your review.

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Uh next uh are we closed meeting next?

Oh city is uh closed session attorney.

I believe you have uh what closed session next, and then we'll come back and finish the other items on the motion to conduct a closed meeting to one consult with the city attorney regarding actual litigation where consultation in an open meeting would adversely affect the litigating posture of the city council, specifically regarding opioid litigation, and two discuss the acquisition and conveyance of certain real properties located in the Great Bridge Planning Area where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body, and three to discuss, consider or interview prospective candidates for city boards, commissions, and authorities for the purpose of discussing the Chesapeake Commission on Health and Well-Being, Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Health Care Board, Chesapeake Other Post Employment Benefits Finance Board, Anton Roads Disabilities Board, Local Emergency Planning Committee, Southeastern Public Service Authority, Stomp Inc.

and Transportation Toll Advisory Committee as permitted by Section 2.2-3711A13 and 7 of the Code of Virginia.

Thank you.

Could we have a motion to go into closed session, please?

Move approval.

Thank you, Mr.

Bunn.

Thank you, Mr.

Butker.

Mr.

Whitaker, please prepare to vote.

Please vote and record, please.

Motion to conduct a closed meeting is adopted by 9 0 vote.

It is now 759.

Council will go into closed session.

And then we'll get it.

Are we ready?

Would you please read this uh language for certification of closed meeting?

A motion is certified that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered.

Motion to certify the closed meeting is adopted by a nine over.

Chesapeake Commission on Health and Wellbeing.

There's one appointment for a sheriff's office representative, Captain Daniel Staller.

Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Health Care Board.

One citizen rep, Angela Corpu.

Chesapeake OPEB Finance Board.

Reappoint William Drew Overton Jr.

Hampton Roads Disability Board.

Pamela Brandy, physical disability representative.

Local emergency planning committee.

There are two vacancies.

Doug Croson, emergency management, and Larry Heel for the Citizen.

Southeastern Public Service Authority.

Jeffrey E.

Spencer as an alternate ex officio.

Stop Inc.

Charlotte H.

Worley.

That is the slate.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve the slate of appointees?

Move.

Thank you, Dr.

Orde.

Thank you, Dr.

King.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote.

Please record the vote.

Motion to approve the slate as presented is adopted by a 9-0 vote.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Council.

Thank you, Ms.

Vice Mayor.

Nixon's unfinished business.

Do council members have any unfinished business at this time?

See none.

New business.

Councilman Smith.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

For the city manager and for staff, I would like to propose that five initiatives be studied to see if they can be implemented in this year's budget as prior to pilot initiatives.

I'll start with the summer work program for a minimum of 250 kids ages 16 and up to fill part-time positions to work for city departments like parts and recreation and tourism, public schools, redevelopment of housing, libraries, et cetera.

Screen programs throughout whatever city department that could possibly do the sorting.

I'm sorry.

The last week of June to the third week of August time frame.

Second is run out of nonprofit grant funding.

I think right now it's just under a half a million to one million program to help support our citizens and their needs.

Goals being is to keep some type of stats over what services are being provided and documents resulting from our funding.

Suggesting that human services assist us with that.

Number three, add agreed upon funding to our homeless program.

Stepping stones consider year-round housing in our current facility.

Staff or not staff, but there have been people coming to me to talk to me in reference to the homeless shelter and us receiving more help or providing more help funding.

More people need health care support with the reduction of support from the Virginia marketplace.

So I've also been approached by individuals from the free clinic saying they need more funding for that very reason some people have lost their insurance.

And then last is I also talked to Director Barber in regress number in reference to number five.

Support program engaging teams during the summer, suggestion of Fund Fridays where the kids of a determined age can participate in tournaments of teams.

They organize to play in three different locations throughout the city at the park and recreation centers to do cornhole talls, volleyball, and basketball.

The city will assist with the organization facility, security, officiating, equipment, and also add in food trucks with limited amounts of free food.

See if we can get sponsorship to help with the uh food trucks.

So that is to also be taken into consideration.

But whatever you can do to find out to help with these five initiatives, please get back with us.

Thank you.

So to be clear, Mr.

Major, uh I I think Ms.

Councilman is asking you to give us a report.

I do I believe I do believe we're doing some of these already.

So if you'll come back with a report and then before obviously anything is there's any cost involved, council would have to vote.

And I should have said this at the work session.

So as with every year, we leave capacity on the bottom line of the budget for council to um to pursue uh uh things that that you would like to that that weren't addressed in the budget.

So last year we, for example, we um advanced some um public safety initiatives, some staffing and some capital projects.

And so I'm sure um you know we'll we'll take council member Smith um uh list as and and and run some numbers on on what that would look like, some things we are, I believe currently doing, but run some numbers on what that would look like, and I expect that I'll get other recommendations or a request from council, and so it you know we'll have a series of work sessions where we can sort of um go through the capacity things council would like to achieve um and uh driving all the way till uh budget adoption.

Sounds like a perfect plan.

Thank you.

You're good with that, Councilman Smith.

Yes.

Uh let's say Ms.

Dowins.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, Mr.

Manager, to that tune, can you also include the cost or for consideration for the two additional fire safety officers for both B and C shifts?

Um you and I spoke about the one that is included in your budget for ASIF, but it would be um best if we could do the two additional funded shifts as well as the community program specialist position.

I think that will also address Councilmember Smith's request regarding Stepping Stone.

I think you had indicated that that would be someone who would work at the resource center part-time.

So if we could have that information as well, and then the cost, but as well as not just the cost to add, but what items we may have to subtract if we were going to add all of these items.

Um if you could show that to us as well, what we would maybe have to lose to gain some of these things.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you, sir.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um I'm not really asking for anything in the budget yet.

Uh but I spoke to you earlier about a couple of items.

One is having talked to some folks out who live out in Deep Creek, and to some of the police officers in the third precinct.

They all believe that the lighting in certain stretches, and I'm sure the second precinct would agree, uh South Military Highway could be upgraded.

So if we could look into and set a meeting with Dominion, a couple of the police officers suggested, I mean, these are on the street, not command people, that changing out the lighting to LED would make a tremendous difference, both in traffic safety and um in uh not just traffic safety, but just crime in general.

So if we could look at that.

I don't know the answer to this.

I guess I've never thought about it.

Do we pay an electric bill to Dominion?

We will look into that.

I mean, if we're paying for something that needs upgrading or isn't working, I I think we should.

And um I think that's all I forwarded some correspondence to Mr.

Wright about the transportation issues getting to the we care resource center.

And it seems to me that this is a perfect opportunity, whether we do it or cast or epiless as a nonprofit applies, to get a what would to most people be a small grant and provide those vouchers for the new on-demand ride program.

So I hope we can look into that.

It's helping HRT, it would be a convenient and quick way to do it.

And with their pilot programs, very affordable.

And we could leave it up to the staff and the volunteer staff that works there to distribute the vouchers, but of course, keep a record so we're accountable for them.

Thank you.

Any other new business items.

Dr.

Ward.

Oh, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um just we did have a speaker this afternoon about uh who talked about the middle communities and even um and I think that because we already have something in place for the Midland communities at the um historical village of the Great Dismal Swamp.

It's you know, side with Corneland School.

Um but he was very serious about that, and I did want to at least talk to him about it.

Um give have some conversation about that because it is already happening, you know, uh as a result of the Corneland School and the historical village.

Uh there's a replica for the Maroon uh people going up, so I would like to for us to reach out to him and let him know that there that's going on in our city the possibility, and it's gonna hopefully be ready by the end of May.

Um, because it is a you know it's very, very, very important as well as the part of that whole district.

So I appreciate the fact that he uh came forward.

Um and we would like to, I would like to have him reached out to us some point.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor West.

Just a couple um announcements.

Um while in Richmond, um I went to a reception from the Conservatives for Clean Energy, and I want to congratulate the City of Chesapeake for winning Clean Energy Champion for local governments.

We won that, I gotta put that on your desk.

So congratulations for that.

And then also another announcement too.

Um I know we all get the departmental report from um Mike Barber.

His report is so thorough.

I just want to thank him for an Alstanding job and his his team that put that together.

It's amazing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Dr.

King.

Just one quick thing.

I've gotten several calls from people who live in this neighborhood.

I have an address.

I'm gonna address you.

Um apparently there is city property.

I think several other council members have also gotten calls from people in this neighborhood.

There's apparently city property that's in the middle of this um circular area in this neighborhood.

And the neighbors are paying to maintain it.

And apparently they've reached out multiple times to city authorities to have them address that issue, but they are tired of paying to maintain that.

Is there a way that we can have someone go out and take a look at that?

It's 254 Coventry close.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

King.

Uh Dr.

Ward.

Well, since we are on the road here, uh, with respect to Mr.

Manager, because you may have the answer to this, uh, several residents from the Camelot area have talked about the street, the uh speed monitoring, and hopefully I think we're gonna we're sort of getting something in place there.

Camelot Boulevard in particular, but it has been an issue for a long time.

And the citizens civically is very, very concerned about that.

But I think that you are beginning to work on that if you could get back to uh Mr.

Franklin or the Camelot leaders to give us some idea of the progress of having the speed monitor there on especially Camelot Boulevard.

I know the citizens would appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Ward.

Uh Councilman King, would you please do our benediction?

Gracious Father, we thank you for today's gathering and for a productive meeting.

We thank you for the guidance you offer and for your presence here today.

Please lead us safely home or to wherever our destination may be.

Keep us faithful and filled with your spirit of love and grace.

Protect us from harm and keep us close and governed by your word.

In your heavenly name we pray.

Amen.

Council is adjourned.