The Hampton City Council held its legislative session on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers, 22 Lincoln Street, Hampton, VA. All seven council members were present: Mayor Donnie R. Tuck, Vice Mayor Jimmy Gray, Councilmembers Chris L. Bowman, Steven L. Brown, Hope L. Harper, Billy Hobbs, and Martha Mugler. The meeting covered a consent agenda, proclamations, public hearings on rezoning and zoning ordinances, general items, and numerous appointments. Key actions included approval of multiple budget amendments for grants, a rezoning for a townhouse development, adoption of homestay rental regulations, and appointment of a new City Attorney.
Good evening and welcome. Want to begin by asking our clerk to call the role, please. Councilman Bowman. Present. Councilman Brown. Here. Vice Mayor Gray. Present. Councilwoman Harper. Present. Councilman Hawks. Present. Councilwoman Muggler. Present. Mayor Tuck. Present. Tonight's invocation will be given by Councilwoman Hope Harper, followed by our Pledge of Allegiance. Dear Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for being in this place at this hour. Coming to you as acknowledgement of your power. Thank you for this council meeting and forgive us the wisdom and guidance on either on items before us. God, we ask you to continuously bless our citizens, our communities, and especially our public safety. We thank you, Lord, for the calling that you have given every single one of us and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Thank you for public forward to stands. I'm going to do something that's a little unusual and it's going to catch her by surprise. But I'm going to ask our clerk, Catherine Glass, if she would not mind talking about City Hall Selfie Day. Mayor, you never cease to surprise me. I don't know where to look. My favorite day of the year. Shall I come over here? That would be fine. He's just doing that because I had to pretend she is to work today. August 15th of every year is called City Hall Selfie Day, and it's an event that's sponsored by the Engaging Local Government Leaders Association. And it really is just a day for everyone to have fun celebrating their locality, be it a city, county, town, and they encourage citizens and elected officials and municipal workers to take selfies at City Hall or other city buildings or facilities. And you can post however you'd like to on social media, whether you're a Twitter person or TikTok or Instagram, Facebook, whatever the outlet is that you choose to share social media things. And we've been doing this for about five years in Hampton. But we want the big prize. So if everybody in Hampton, that's our employees as well as our citizens will take a minute tomorrow to just snap your picture in front of your favorite place in Hampton, be at Bluebird Gap Farm, City Hall, your local fire station, and just tag it, City Hall Selfie. Tag it, choose Hampton, and you can also do at ELGL, which is engaging local government leaders, and look at our Facebook page because we had a lot of fun getting ready for this about two weeks ago. We challenged our departments to take selfies, and we got our mayor to do something really cool that usually only firefighters get to do. So check social media tomorrow. It'll probably be the on the city's webpage as well. And we hope you'll have fun with it too. Thank you. And thank you. And now I'll ask you to read the protocol for the consent agenda, please. I know how to do this much better. The protocol for the consent agenda. And tonight, your consent agenda amends the fiscal year 2025 council approved budget to accept and appropriate grant funding, which permits continuation of services and prevention programs regarding homelessness, provide services to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families, supports the sheriff's efforts to meet the risk and needs of incarcerated individuals transitioning back into the community, and support medication assisted treatment to incarcerated individuals with substance with substance use disorder, provide services to victims and witnesses of violent acts to address their emotional and financial hardships and to guide them to community resources.