The City Council met on July 9, 2026, at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers. All seven members were present. The meeting included proclamations, public hearings on four zoning amendments, public comment, and a code amendment. All votes were unanimous (7-0).
City Manager Mary Bunting responded: addressed Joan Weaver's concerns (sent code violation info), noted parking permit program for Shirazi Drive, shared letter from property owner to Faro's, reported police and fire inspections found no violations, explained data center study with SIR (joint with Newport News), and provided preliminary info on police technology guardrails.
Good evening and welcome to the Hampton City Council legislative session. Madam Clerk, will you call the role, please? Councilman Bowman. Present. Vice Mayor Brown. Here. Councilwoman Campbell. Present. Councilwoman Fairby. Present. Councilwoman Harper. Present. Councilwoman Mugler. President. Mayor Gray. President. And the invocation this evening will be given by Vice Mayor Brown, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. So will you please stand and join the proposal? Oh Lord, how great is your mercy and grace in the earth? Tonight we look at our world as discombobulated. There's confusion, there's civil unrest, their wars, their lives being lost, their earthquakes, and more rumors of war. I pray tonight, God, for peace in the world. Pray for the young men and women who are defending our freedoms in this country. I pray for them. I pray for their families. Pray for our first responders who responded to earthquakes. I pray for those who have given uh mutual aid to those in Venezuela. I pray tonight, God, as we do the business of this city, I pray that we'll be civil. I pray, God, that you would be in this place tonight and that you would wrap your arms around this great city. And I ask tonight, God, that the peace of God which passes all understanding. I pray that it'll keep our hearts and our minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you, Lord, for our great staff, a great community, and great people in this great city. And so as we do business tonight, let us think about what we're doing, making decisions for the most. Marcellus Boo Williams, who is uh Hampton native, uh Phoebus High School graduate, St. John University graduate, and a legend in the AEU basketball circles. And uh, you know, obviously we also have a sports plex here uh named after Boo Williams, and the sports plaque attracts you know basketball teams and tournaments from all over the country. It's big in our city, and we're proud of Boo Williams and the uh you know the work that he's done. He also coaches basketball as well, and so Boo Williams, 17 and under Nike Elite Youth Basketball League girls were selected to represent Team USA at the 2026 International School Sports Federation World Basketball Championship in Zlatobor, Serbia. I think I pronounced that correctly. And that was from June 14th through June 26th, uh 22nd, where the team came in fifth out of 28 teams. And uh we have representatives of the team with us tonight, and some of them were not able to tend attend, but we're going to uh present them with the city coins and also provide uh opportunity for you to see them this evening. So before we do that, I want to show a small clip of what the basketball team has done. So play the video. Like my country is like looking at me and our team, like to represent and like dominate. I was definitely assigned it, uh it's not a lot of opportunity a lot of people get but I'm definitely like now kind of nervous because it is like far but I was definitely assigned it when I was very excited for that a lot of people don't see it's like it's a great opportunity to go so let's do um overseas and that's a lot can only take a lot of faces, and that's I'm so grateful for that working on this one for the fan of the so Williams himself could not be here tonight because he is with the boys team out in Las Vegas and uh these girls sure have some wheels as they will head out tomorrow to join the boys in another tournament. So uh please join me in congratulating these young ladies and you're gonna be able to meet them tonight and uh I'm gonna call names and ask them to come up along with the coaches uh Josiah Babb Uh Tamia Dyson Tanya Henson Justice Brown Jones Sidney Youngblood and London Ferguson and then we have coaches uh Adrian Webb and Nina Robinson uh who is the team logistics coordinator is also here with us this evening so I want to ask them to come up as well so uh we're very proud of these young ladies and what they've accomplished and uh obviously they're gonna get them back out to Las Vegas gonna be doing some other great things out there so go Blue Williams team so let's go down with city council members and uh take a couple photos I didn't really like you want to be back to that is I think you were right I'm not I'm thinking of it right here and I'll put it on the other way as a nice we wanted to present you all with something as well if you put your keys saying what representing USA was also a little birdie kept emailing me and saying um Vice Mayor um Brown said can you just please bring him something back from Serbia as a souvenir and I did I bought you something to hang on your refrigerator yeah, we'll leave it in the morning and to leave tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Oh, thank you. Okay.