The Hampton City Council convened for a work session on March 11, 2026, at 1:00 PM in Council Chambers, 22 Lincoln Street, Hampton, VA. All seven council members were present. The meeting included two presentations: an update from Virginia Peninsula Community College (VPCC) and a briefing on proposed amendments to the camping and storage on public property ordinance. Following open session, the council entered closed session to discuss appointments and later certified the closed session before adjourning at 2:11 PM.
Good afternoon and welcome to the Hampton City Council work session. Uh, Madam Clerk, you call the role, please. Councilman Bowman. Present. Vice Mayor Brown. Here. Councilwoman Campbell. Present. Councilwoman Fairby. Present. Councilwoman Harper. Present. Councilwoman Mugler. Present. Mayor Gray. Present. And we have a couple of presentations on the agenda this afternoon. So I'm going to ask the city manager, city manager to introduce the first. Ms. Mayor, our first item today is a presentation, an update from the Virginia Peninsula Community College, which is a wonderful asset in our community for everyone from our high school students all the way up to adults who are seeking to improve their skills training or just want to learn. Good morning, good afternoon, actually, esteemed counsel. Thank you so much for having us. We bring you greetings from President Brandon and Virginia Peninsula Community College. My name is Nikia Maidry Smith, Director of Campus and Community Initiatives. And we were sort of introduced already, so I don't know if we want to do it again, but sure. Hi, I'm Ada Badgley. I'm the Chief of Staff. Steve Carpenter, Vice President of the Finance Administration. All right, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. And we we thank you for the time and this opportunity to kind of present some of our college updates, some of the things that we're working on, some of the things that we're excited about. So we're extremely excited to report that for the first time in many years, some years we're growing. So after some decline, we have observed two consecutive years. Excuse me, there we go. Two consecutive years of enrollment growth, and we are on track for that third year. We do feel that this is unique to BPCC because many institutions here in the area are still struggling with enrollment. Um that's both at the four-year and the community college level. As you can see here in this chart, Hampton students play a big role in our success, representing about 24.7% of our total enrollment. In addition to our students here, we attribute this enrollment success to how we are engaging with students on the peninsula. We hold fast track events where students can enroll in a day. We're at middle schools, high schools, we host open houses, new student orientations, small and large group campus tours, and personalized care through one-on-one appointments. On the workforce side, fast forward funding has become a critical component for how we can deliver on our mission to provide access to short-term credential programs, which lead our community members to high-paying, high-demand jobs that also fill that workplace uh gap for our employers. The workforce credential grant is a state-funded program that covers two-thirds of a student's tuition. They pay that first third up front, and once they successfully complete that credential, that two-thirds kicks in. But I would like to point out that with other funding options, other assistance programs, most of our students pay little to nothing, so we're very excited about that, proud about that. Since established in 2016, we have seen growth in the fast forward program by about 127%, representing about 20% year over year. So the VCCS has been reallocating funds up through fiscal year 2025, but beginning this year, fiscal year 2026. Um those budget adjustments just weren't possible, and so it has impacted our ability to serve a larger number of students through the that fast forward funding. These programs typically range from two weeks to six months, and they're designed to get students to work very fast in these high demand fields.