Good afternoon or good evening, I should say, everyone, and uh welcome to the uh Hampton City Council uh legislative session.

Um I'm gonna begin with asking the clerk to call the roll.

Councilman Bowman.

Present.

Vice Mayor Brown, here.

Councilwoman Campbell, present.

Councilwoman Fairby, present, Councilwoman Harper, present.

Councilwoman Muggler, present.

Mayor Gray.

Present.

And uh this evening the uh invitation will be given by uh Councilmember Martha Muggler, followed by the Pledge of a Pledge of Allegiance.

So please uh stand and join us.

Heavenly Father, we ask your blessing on our meeting tonight.

We ask that you bless each of us on this dais with wisdom to make wise decisions on behalf of the citizens of Hampton.

We ask that you watch over our um first responders and um and keep them safe in their work on behalf of our city and our citizens.

Watch over this meeting tonight and uh help us to make decisions and hear from all the citizens of our community and make decisions that will please them and please you.

Amen.

Okay, just uh a couple items on the mayor's comments this evening.

Uh first of all, just as I announced last week, uh we are working on a slight change in this sign-up uh time for public comment and public hearings.

Uh normally uh we allow sign up to run all the way through 6.45, which is 15 minutes after the beginning of our meeting.

We're gonna change and move that back to 6.30, but increase the amount of time that people have to actually sign up downstairs.

So uh we'll we'll this is the uh second announcement on that, and uh we expect that change to take place beginning in May.

So uh please uh pay uh pay attention to that if uh you're a regular speaker or if you plan to speak and uh plan to come in and sign up and be signed up by 6.30.

The reason for that is that uh that 15-minute grace period, oftentimes when our meetings run slow, we have to uh we have to kind of uh pause our meeting in order to wait for the 645 time frame while everybody signs up.

So in order to keep the move the uh uh council meeting moving along, we're just gonna make that minor adjustment.

So um for those that may not get the message, if you come in on that first night and you're running a little late, we'll certainly extend you some grace and and allow you to speak.

But we just want to uh provide regular announcements of the changes coming uh beginning in that first meeting in May.

Uh the next thing is uh uh you know, as many of you may know, I've been conducting listening sessions uh primarily during my first 100 days uh as the mayor, and uh they've been going well, had a great session at Aberdeen uh community.

I'm sorry, Aberdeen Elementary School, and uh we have a few more sessions that are on the schedule, so if you haven't had a chance to uh attend one of those sessions, uh we do have uh the next one coming up on April 16th, which will be at Fox Hill Neighborhood Center.

That one is actually a reschedule because it was scheduled to be the first of my sessions, but uh we had a snowstorm that uh that night or that morning and uh had to reschedule that one.

So April 16th, 6 p.m.

at Fox Hill Neighborhood Center is the next one.

Um members of our uh disabilities community have asked for uh a listening session, which they uh the uh mayor's committee is uh organizing the mayor's committee along with uh other organizations uh organizing a special session.

The location is to be determined, but that will be on April 30th.

And then I have a session scheduled on May 12th, which is for the youth in our community.

We have several youth groups coming together, I think four of them, which will be a pretty large group, and we'll have a chance to uh you know allow our young people to weigh in on you know our strategic priorities and uh to make sure that we're capturing their input on how we do things in the direction we're going with our city.

So looking forward to that.

When on May 21st, uh we'll have one at West Hampton Community Center, June 4th, one at the Senior Center, and then there's a couple more plan behind that.

So uh Facebook, City e News, uh to stay tuned for those uh announcements coming up, and I hope you'll come out and share your thoughts with us on uh at least with me on um you know our our strategic priorities and uh how we're meeting those and uh we always welcome your input on how we can do those better.

So looking forward to the additional sessions.

And then lastly, um we will kick off youth violence prevention week on Monday, April 21st, with the uh mayor's classic Hope After Dark, and that is a gathering at the uh uh Access 2.0 Center uh on um Cunningham Drive.

And uh that will be with the Greek organizations uh from all the colleges in the area coming together to talk about uh their concerns as well as their getting their input on how we make our community much safer.

So we're looking forward to that.

Uh April 21st, uh April April 27th, then the reunion of hope coming up.

That will be at Goslow's Hope Park on the 27th from one until five, and then uh hope for Hampton Football.

I believe that's uh flag football, and that will be uh at Gosnowhoe Park at from 5 to 8 p.m.

on April 28th.

And then the Hope Fest uh for middle school students, uh grade six to eight will be at uh that will be a special session with a student field trip, and uh that one is not open to the public, but just to let you know that they are reaching uh all segments of the community with uh discussing uh you know violence in our community and how we reduce it.

And then uh finally the Hope Fest uh with the high school students on uh the uh 30th, and that's for grades nine through twelve, and that'll be in Hampton High School.

So a lot of activities coming up organized by our Office of Youth and Young Adult Opportunities.

They're doing a wonderful job with working on violence reduction in our community uh through some of their initiative.

We've been able to reduce violent crimes by 50 percent over the past year.

So we hope to see uh this year that our numbers are gonna look even better because we're really really making some great progress in that area.

So that uh concludes uh my remarks for this evening.

And so I'm gonna move on now to uh we do not have any proclamations, presentations, or awards.

And so uh next up on the agenda of public hearings, and I'm gonna ask the clerk to read the protocol for public hearings, and she's looking at me like I forgot something.

So what I'm sorry, sir, we have one item on consent tonight.

Consent agenda, okay.

Just one, so it'll be quick.

All right.