Good evening.

Good evening, everyone.

And also want to acknowledge our city staff while those who are participating with us today.

Yes, sir, Miss Bryant.

Mr.

Hugo.

Miss Thomas here.

Mr.

Tillage.

But before we I turn the meeting over to Economic Development Authority and its chair.

I would ask that Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Mitchell, go ahead and ask your team to introduce themselves.

Certainly.

My name is Malcolm Mitchell.

I have the privilege of being chair of the Economic Development Authority.

And I'm Neil Barber, Vice Chair of the East Economic Development Authority, and I have the privilege of working with these fine folks on the Wake Owner Award.

Thank you, Mr.

Mark.

Good evening.

Joe Harmon, Economic Development Authority.

Good evening, Teresa Sinus Smith, Treasurer Economic Development Authority.

Sir.

Good evening.

Brian Donahue, I'm the director of economic development and the secretary for the Economic Development Authority.

I would also like to recognize we have Mr.

Charlie Bowman, our assistant director, and assistant secretary for the here tonight as well.

Thank you, sirs.

And real quick, I want to acknowledge our city manager, Mr.

Steven Carter, and our city attorney, Mr.

LeVander Green Williams.

Thank you, guys, for being with that, sir.

Mr.

Mitchell, I just turn the floor over to you.

Okay, we'll do our call to order.

Yes, sir.

Mr.

Mitchell.

Here.

Mr.

Barber?

Here.

Mr.

Saunders Smith.

Here.

Mr.

Brown absent.

Mrs.

Cherry is absent.

Mr.

Harman.

Here.

Chair, we do have a call.

Well, I'm excited about this meeting.

Before we get started, I'd just like to say this weekend I had an opportunity to go to the North of Jasper.

It's one of those really beautiful days in Hampton Roads where the music is great.

The weather is gray sitting on the river.

As I came back across on the ferry, I said to myself, I cannot wait until this is developed.

Where we have a boutique hotel with a rooftop bar, retail space downstairs, families walking along the river excited.

And if that's gonna happen, it's gonna be happening because all of us in this room.

But it will be a magnificent day, and I cannot wait.

You're here.

Sure.

Yes.

So today what we'd like to accomplish is to communicate the status and opportunities for the key economic development initiatives in Portsmouth.

Um talk about the roles of the EDA owned property, identify action items and next steps.

And while it's not up here, I think we need to have a healthy conversation around the Greenville trip.

I think a lot of people have some thoughts and opinions and how we can um uh take some of those experiences and hopefully transfer some of them to um Portsmouth.

I'm gonna start off talking about the um EDA initiatives uh for those who may not be um aware of some of the programs that we do.

Um the big one that we do is the business investment grant program, which falls into um three categories business development, business acceleration, and real property investment grant.

Um the business development grant uh was up to two thousand dollars for new businesses and startups in fiscal year 25.

Uh we granted 25 businesses $50,000.

The business acceleration grant is for expanding businesses between three to ten years.

Um we provided ten grants for 46,000 dollars and real property investment grants up to 25,000 for property improvements.

Um we provided 22 grants for 352,000.

And I will say that every quarter um I have an opportunity to meet with some of the recipients of those grants, and they're just wonderful stories about how they have been able to utilize those funds to not only make a difference in their business but in a difference uh for the citizens in Portsmouth.

The second thing that we do is the small business contracting institute uh where we partner with Hampton Road Small Business Development Center to assist people in procurement and contract training, which is a pretty complicated process to navigate through, and this has certainly been helpful to them.

Um the next one, which we are really really excited about.

The commissioners um have been thinking about this for quite a while.

We have had a number of businesses come to us and say capital is a major challenge for us, and so we are pleased to launch the first small business working capital loan program, um, a low interest loan to uh businesses up to $50,000.

And I think that's going to be a significant play for us in the city of Portsmouth.

The next one is the Bloom pop-up.

We wanted to figure out a way to highlight Portsmouth grown businesses.

And so we worked with Bloom to set up a retail shop and gave them an opportunity to get exposure, learn how to market their products, and also manage the inventory.

The hope was that some of these businesses would grow strong enough that they could stand up on their own in different facilities.

And we've had some great success with this program to the extent that we went another year with the program.

So if you haven't had a chance to stop by the Bloom Pop-Up, please do.

There's really some nice Portsmouth-grown products there.

And last is the Portsmouth at Workforce Development Support.

They're probably going to give my understanding they're going to give a presentation later on, but we have done a lot with that group up to $100,000 this year.

And it's a really really powerful program that I think you'll be excited to hear some of their initiative.

So as we move to the big boys, if you will, which is the Crawford Bay waterfront development, the Link District and the Entertainment district.

We have advisory relationship with the city staff at the EDA, and it has been invaluable both in terms of legal advice, making sure that the properties that we purchase are done correctly.

And quite frankly, we would not be as successful as we are without their support.

So it's like publicly, thank you guys for everything that you do to make this possible.

So talk about the waterfront development.

Recent efforts by the city council and EDA have renewed focus on the development of city-owned waterfront property, renewed mixed use development and to generate new revenues to the city.

Phase one, we're looking at probably greater than a $366 million investment, particularly with the tailwinds out there and tariff issues, but it gives us a sense of what this project might cost us.

We're looking at potentially 300 multifamily units, a boutique hotel, maybe 180 hotel rooms, 60,000 square feet retail space, 1065 parking space, and 40,000 office space.

Many many companies are working from home.

So that's just a projection, but I'm not sure how realistic that will actually be.

Yes.

Yes.

The waterfront development does talk about phase one.

We've done a market analysis, geotechnical analysis, an environmental analysis, and a property uh appraisal.

Um we also have procured AECOM to help us in the development of consulting services.

AECOM is a nationally known company.

They've also done a number of projects in Richmond and in Greenville, South Carolina.

So they've worked with small and mid-sized cities, so they bring a lot of experience to the table.

Some of the timeline that we've already met.

We've established the City Council EDA project committee in June.

We finalize the procurement of real estate development consultant for project support.

That's been completed in August.

Up is the city EDA cooperation agreement.

Um then we'll go through what you normally go through when you're soliciting the package development, the RFI.

If it's all works to on this timeline, we'll have a developer selected in November 2026.

Seems far, but it's not when you consider the amount of work that has to be done with this.

Um AECOM, we really got a good deal with them.

Um we got for 167,000.

That is a fantastic price.

Um, we're certainly excited about that.

And as we go through this process, we will provide updates on a regular uh basis to city council and the appropriate uh people in the project.

So waterfront development.

Next slide.

Um of the key factors influencing the project, uh, a premier mixed use development site in Hampton Roads in the East Coast.

I don't think nobody can match what we have to offer.

Nobody we already know there's a demand for housing.

Uh we have seen just a spike in housing in Portsmouth, uh, and also a demand for additional hotel rooms.

Um we recently um had a study for uh old town to talk about dining options that were available.

Um they came back and said there's a significant need for more retail and more restaurants in Portsmouth, and the leakage, which was the number of people who go outside of Portsmouth because they're not able to find the restaurants that they are looking for, was significant.

So I think that the market is telling us there's much that we can do here in the Fort Smith to meet that consumer demand.

Some of the challenges obviously is the on-site parking requirements that I talked about.

Um the availability of the utility infrastructure.

Do we have the uh power lines, the water lines, the sewage lines uh for a project of this size, um, and obviously the rising construction and financing cost is an unknown variable that um we'll have to address finally next up is the link district.

Um really excited about that.

I think the link district uh is really built on the spirit of Lincolnville, the people who in difficult situations created a retail banking place of uh comfort and inspiration, and that in that spirit we want to recreate that um in the link district.

Um, as you can see, we own City EDA owns quite a few properties within the link district.

Um we certainly want to obtain more, but I think we're off to a relatively good start, and it provides us with a unique opportunity to determine how each one is utilized to encourage economic uh investment and revalorization.

We have had a number of conversations, the commissioners in terms of uh what that role should look like in the past, quite frankly.

Uh, what we did, we would acquire a building, gut it up, spec it up for a developer to come in.

Often, and in my opinion, we ended up attracting some things that maybe didn't make sense.

So this time around, we are trying to be selective in what goes into the link district.

Um, in some cases, we may have to be the one that kick started, and so that can be part of the broader conversation that we might have here tonight.

Let's take a look at some of the properties that we have.

Um they're pretty substantial.

Um I sort of will be torn down, um, and that's the good news.

But it's a pretty sizable assemblage of a property there, so I think we can certainly make that attractive to a developer.

1117, 1121 High Street is another on the outside, quite frankly, it doesn't look the greatest, but it is huge when you go inside.

So it lends itself to a number of things that we might be able to do there.

1220 High Street, which was the old enterprise store.

We acquired that.

We have very close to signing up, but maybe we have already signed a roaster, and it's going to be a coffee shop.

It's not going to look like that.

And I think when you see the final drawings, you will be excited as to what we have been able to do with that building.

And we really wanted that building to kind of be a statement to some degree of what the quality of development that we're expecting in the link district.

And the last property we just purchased was the 934 High Street, which is also a really really large building.

And we're going to have to have a number of conversations in terms of what makes sense in that particular building.

Those buildings also lend themselves to artwork that might be reflective of the link.

So that's another plus that we think will will make sense there.

So we try to put together as many properties as we can to make it attractive to a developer.

So if it's a building that just looks really, really horrible, in some cases, we are able to remove it.

That may be something that we can look at, or some other things that I'm not aware of, but certainly we need to address that.

We have a lot of buildings that quite frankly people are using for storage.

That's right.

And they look horrible.

But we think if we do it right, we will have business attraction and retention.

And there's a lot of units going on in the link.

That's about a hundred new housing units.

Baines Points 50, King's Landings 49.

And at 724 High Street, 12 units.

So when you go down High Street, you can see the dirt being moved, and it really looks good, I think.

And in a couple, a year or so, it's going to be a dramatic change.

And if we can support that with the appropriate type of retail, I think it's going to be a really beautiful statement there.

Strategic alignment between business recruitment and innovation district plan.

As that area changes.

Some of it has been zoned for vehicle paintings and stuff like that.

We don't have to look at that and then try to rezone where it's appropriate and make sure that in the future those types of businesses may not make sense for the link district.

Also the infrastructure improvement, making sure that we have the water lines, the electricity available.

And a nice thing is that that also has a high-speed internet.

So that really opens up an opportunity maybe for some companies to take a real look at that area as well in the Dallas data centers.

The other thing is the mobility and access.

Maybe we have a small bus that transports people back and forth.

But I think it's an opportunity to move people around the link, waterfront, old town, and use it as a marketing tool for customers and consumers.

And entertainment district.

Wow, this has been a home run.

It was a 340 million dollar investment, 1,300 positions.

In two years, the city has been has received 39 million dollars in revenue.

And I think it's just gonna go up.

The landing hotel, the pictures are fabulous.

I think it's just going to draw more people to Rivers Casino, and it's going to create at least a minimum of 60 new jobs.

And the nice thing, I always look at businesses to see not only how they look the first year, but how do they look the second year?

Do they still look fresh and clean?

It's things painted.

The grass still being cut.

And I can say Rivers Casino is at home run on all of that.

The place looks just like it did from day one.

And that's really a testimony, I think, to their strong management check.

Just an overview.

And these include two out parcels bordering Missy Elliott Boulevard and three parcels bordering south of Louise Lucas Drive.

This parcels were conveyed, conveyed on March 11th and beginning four years after that date when the casino parcel was conveyed, which will take it to March 11, 2026.

The EDA will have the right to solicit other developers to partner with Wright Street on the development of the remaining properties.

Simply stated, they're okay with us bringing people to the table.

EDA will have the right to terminate the casino development agreement as to any remaining properties that Rush Street has not acquired.

We have had limited engagement with them, not because they're not willing to work with us.

I think they have been focused a lot on the landing hotel.

And I think once they get that project up and running, we'll initiate additional conversations with them to see what types of services make sense in that area.

So just to recap, um we have a project committee.com, a real estate consultant who is going to help us draft up the information that's going to go out to potential developers.

And then developer solicitation process.

Thank you, Chairman Mitchell, and I really appreciate the presentation.

Man, I can tell you these are really exciting times and and as the chief visionary officer, which I will continue to coin myself as um we are in a very good position.

So as we go through the discussion, I want everybody to really think about now is our opportunity not to think small.

See, we can't make any small plans to do big things, and it's gonna take some commitment, some vision.

I will also say, and I want everybody to think about this as we go into the discussion.

We will not have this opportunity again.

And so it's imperative that we put a lot of thought and conversation into it as it relates to the way forward, because we won't get this opportunity, probably in our lifetime again.

But it can be tr it will be transformational, and it will make this city a whole new city as it relates to development and people coming to our city.

It will be an attraction.

With that, Vice Mayor Moody, you have the floor, sir.

Thank you, Chief Visionary Officer Mayor.

Well stated, I agree with that.

And thank you, Mr.

Uh Chairman, with uh stepping us through uh a strategic plan that uh I think we all will look forward to the day when it comes to fruition.

You did say one thing that caught my attention, and that's uh blight uh tax.

I believe we're allowed to increase uh our real estate tax, which is one thirty uh up uh to 25 percent above that, which would be 124 now.

Well 124, I'm sorry.

Uh uh we're allowed to increase that up to 25 percent above the 124.

Uh so I believe I don't recall any ordinance uh uh establishing that, but I think it's something we need to look into because we we've got blight that we need to deal with is costing us uh in a lot of different ways.

Um so uh uh Mr.

Mayor, I'd like to uh us uh look into that uh and uh so we can uh hopefully implement something to that uh uh end so uh uh and when we talk about funding, uh that could be a source uh of funding and cleaning up our city, especially uh as as we start developing the link district.

Um and there are areas Lord knows all of us can probably pinpoint areas all around the city uh that are blighted and have been blighted for uh way too many years.

So uh hopefully we can uh look at uh look into passing uh an ordinance to that effect.

Absolutely, sir.

What else?

Uh council Thomas.

Thank you so much, uh Mayor.

So I do have a question, thank you for your presentation.

I true too, I'm truly excited about the the moves and the vision and the future, and I agree a rooftop, a rooftop bar would be great.

Um and also before I go into my question, I agree with uh Vice Mayor that we should move forward and look into establishing some sort of light ordinance that won't only help the future developments but help our current um areas and neighborhoods as well.

I know the vice mayor's been sending emails like kind of highlighting some of those areas that we should look into.

My first question is from your last ask.

Um about the request for the EDA direct funds.

So, how do you get the funds now?

Um, like how is EDA funded now?

It's funded through the cell property.

So just do the seller property.

So you sell property, then you acquire property and keep okay.

All right, thank you.

And then uh I have a note here.

I don't know how to ask this question.

Um, as you were going through the link um development, you mentioned that there have been some issues like around the zoning and maybe looking into updating some of the zoning, and that's been an issue.

Someone I I think Dr.

Russell here, I'm not sure who to direct this question to, but how do but how does EDA align with the planning commission?

Um, especially like with the comprehensive plan, that we should be future development should align with the comprehensive plan.

How are those two things meshing right now?

I think we're up for a new cycle of a update a comprehensive plan.

So how are we meshing that together as we are looking towards the future, building for our new vision, but also updating like big picture comprehensive plan for the city?

How are these two things talking to each other?

I guess I should um I'm gonna defer that.

Okay.

Um and I'm looking at Brian and uh the the um Dr.

Russell, I'm not sure we can ask that too.

You wanna try it or you won't read it?

Yeah, please.

Okay.

This comprehensive plan, when you're putting this together, it takes a lot of different pieces and all of those pieces uh we work through our planning group to make sure those things work together.

But there's meetings with all the different uh entities in our city, including a public entity where people just get to say what they want to say about it.

But all these things are factored into the plan as it's being developed.

So it's not a it's not a one track, a one group that does have a group that's responsible for actually putting it all together, but all groups that I see is gonna be part of the development.

But the plan so Dr.

Russell's planning department, they are part of this new committee, like any committee that's for future development for the link, whether it's for the Crawford, they are part of that discussion, so that when we're doing one development, it has still the big picture and big feel of the overall city conference of plan.

That's that's what I'm trying to understand and get a better idea because if we change the zoning as we should to make things development easier for the link, how are we updating the overall conference of plan to make sure that it still aligns with the overall big picture strategy for the whole city of Portsmouth?

Is what I'm asking.

Ask it one more time in a different way.

Okay.

How do we make sure that we're not just changing things here and there, but we're still keeping a big picture in mind strategically for the overall city?

Each development has its own field, but overall Portsmouth, we should have an overall big vision that aligns with the conference of plan.

How is that how is that alignment happening as we're approaching these big projects that we're doing?

Every project that happens in this city has to go through the planning our department.

There's no project that happens in this city that don't go through planning.

Right.

There's already a future land use map that we look at to say, okay, yeah, this is what we think is the best and most appropriate use for any project or any any land that's in the city, even if we don't own land, we still think we know what's the best most proper use for the land.

So all these things are coming together.

We're we're measuring it against those.

Remember, every project starts with planning.

Right.

So when they show up at planning, planning look at the comprehensive plan.

Yes, and future use maps and say, okay, yeah, this this works or don't work.

Okay.

So it's not haphazard.

I just asked that because I think we're in the cycle for updating our conference of plan, right?

So that's right.

So that's where I'm thinking about like we're in the cycle for updating our conference of plan.

Are these two things kind of aligning with where we're going big picture citywide and then these individual projects?

That's kind of where my my mind, my question was stemming from.

The short answer is absolutely okay.

And then my my last question for now is um with all of this, you know, I'm gonna always, Mr.

Carter, this is probably for you too.

Always gonna have that MWBE hat on, and how we're aligning um or incorporating MWBE in these future developments.

Um, can you all speak to that a bit and how we're looking to approach that process?

Since it's new for the the program is new for the city, how is that being incorporated to all these different developments that are happening, especially the waterfront, which is huge and huge opportunities for those MWBE um, you know, contractors, subcontractors, etc.

And WBE is a part of our DNA.

That's what we're wanting to do, everything that we do as part of our procurement process, not just for large developments, we're supposed to, but for small is also so we have a young lady who is taking care of that whole, she's the one who manages, she collects all the data, she give us a reports.

Uh we will have a a score for ourselves by how we're reaching our goals or not reaching our goal.

She's implementing programs to have minority businesses or or small, even small businesses, not just minority businesses, so that uh they can take a part of our procurement process.

We're developing those programs now, educating them, educating the internal staff about how we need to look at things when we're per doing our procurement.

So is that process part of this like timeline for the waterfront?

Is that process?

Like when we talk about uh you know solicitation for developers, is that process that program that you know the scorecard that we're keeping is that part of this current process?

It's part of every dollar we're all spending this city.

So that new person is part of this process.

They don't they don't sit on the board.

Okay, so however it goes through the office procurement.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

They're the ones who says, okay, this is what the goal is for this project.

Are we meeting or not meeting that goal?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I may add we'd over towers.

70% went to SWAM.

Um the second grant program, the business acceleration, 60%, and the $25,000 grant for property was 32%.

So we've done an outstanding job.

Making sure that uh we offer programs that are reflective of the community.

I will say you all have done a great job, and I want to give you additional kudos for even the Bloom.

I shop there a lot.

Um, I see a lot of you know, small, you know, women, um, minority businesses in Bloom, um, blooming and growing their businesses.

Um, my only concern was that you know we're about to put a lot of investment into development in the city, and just wanted to make sure that we have that door open.

I'm not thinking small, I'm thinking big businesses that can contribute to the development and the investment that we're gonna place into these properties.

So that's I just want to always put that at the on the table and thank you, Paul, for answering that for well.

I I I might just add that I I think that's a obviously a big question.

And um, what we try to do is size up what are our shortfalls.

So I'll just say, for example, that maybe we don't have enough brick masons.

You know, and maybe they're saying I can't grow my business because I don't have capital while we started the capital program.

But we also need to have a discussion with existing brick masons and position them so that they can be eligible for some of those contracts, or they can work with people that have those contracts.

Um I think I speak for the commission.

We are deeply committed to that process, and we will do whatever we can to size up and lift up where it makes sense for small businesses to participate in that.

Absolutely.

And I would like to also add that we are always constantly looking at in the obstacles that will prevent minorities from from being a part of the process, and this is where we support trainees and all kinds of things to bring them in the loop to get them certified.

So that is our our eyes on that constantly.

Yep, thank you.

Councilman Dodson, sir, you have the floor.

Thank you, sir.

I have a couple of uh comments and questions here.

Apologize, I have a cold, so I'm gonna um so when we did the infrastructure catch-up uh at the beginning of our um session with as new council persons.

I ran through some of the numbers, and a rough estimate is that we're about three billion dollars behind in infrastructure.

When I look at some of these projects that you're bringing along, I estimate that we need an additional revenue of 50 million a year just to catch up, but it'd be nice if we could have a hundred.

And I look at what you're doing here as just an incredible catch up towards those numbers of getting us there, but I I I roughly estimate, and I don't know how close I am, that we really need 50 million dollars more a year in the budget to really do the things, a minimum to get where we want to do.

And I'm concerned that any we are a poverty blight stricken city, that the cleanup that you guys are doing desperately needs to be done, desperately, and we are supporting a very low end of housing, and these projects I think need to be targeted a higher end of housing so that we can support the lower ending houses that we need because you can't continue to tax the poor to feed the poor.

It can't be done.

We need some higher-end businesses and some higher end houses.

So when I look at uh the Crawford Bay development, I look at it and I go, I hope this is going to be higher end.

I think that some conversations that I've had with you said it's gonna be.

Um, to complete this project on that whole block and encourage the developer to say, hey, listen, let's incorporate that into the project.

Um so that that doesn't age out at a far end where we can't support it with some odd type development later on.

So you define the age out.

I'm not quite sure.

What do you mean by uh I'm not sure I don't have the exact I wasn't prepared to bring the exact numbers, but that building is aging.

Um it won't be here as long as the project that you're gonna build right next to it, and it'll be surrounded by that project, which will make it difficult to renovate or replace that replace that project as time goes by.

Um so it'd be nice if we could consider bringing them into this project and consider possibly making them partners with the new developer.

Um possibly demolishing that building and rebuilding with the new one.

It'd be wonderful wonderful if they could be part of it.

The second part of that um project right there.

I'd love to see it, and I know that I've had talks with one or two of you about it.

If we could target um high-end yacht people, we we need some rich people in this city to help support some of the projects that we have.

It'd be so nice if some of the waterfront along here with this project was considered to make be made available so that people that do own large yachts that come through.

We're ground zero, uh marker zero is where we are, you know, navigation terms.

Um, and it'd be so nice if we could have some of the big yachts, the big rich people.

And although they may not generate that income, they'll generate the spark that will generate some of that income, and if they might even buy condos in this, were the two projects with the marina and this project also somewhat friendly and integrated along with the two.

This project, in my estimation, will bring uh when you all see 366 million, I'm thinking that's about five million dollars in property tax revenues.

Am I close in that number?

When I say somewhere give or take something in there, and possibly some others with the retail uh volume that we're having in there.

Um when it comes to entertainment district, it looks like the hotel's gonna bring us around another million dollars in property taxes and the hotel taxes to bring us a million dollars.

So we're well on that way towards my but I would consider the goal I'd like to see at that minimum 50 million dollars well in the way.

This is really good planning on you guys to get us toward that.

What I think is holding us back though is the zoning for these districts.

I'm you know, inside my insights are going, gosh, can we get the zoning things going faster and faster and faster so other businesses can come into these zones and saying and say this is the type of business that we're looking for?

How can we attract them?

Because I keep asking questions about what's the zoning for these districts, and it doesn't seem like it's being pursued kind as fast as I'd like.

I know government moves slower than me as a person as a businessman in the community.

We may tend to move a little bit faster, but I get a little anxious when I look at it and go, can we accelerate that?

Is there anything we can do as a council?

I think to accelerate that zoning so it could be defined more closely to start building interest in these districts.

In the link district, um I had a somebody come to me and said they had been interested in a piece of property, but were told that it was in a uh uh flood zone, and in order to build in it, they would have to elevate the property.

And I didn't know the truth of that statement or if it was actually substantiated.

So I wanted to throw that out there and see if y'all had heard anything about there being some elevation problems in that area that we as a city might need to navigate in order to make properties in that area uh more business friendly.

I can't speak for the entire link district, but I can't say the property that we've acquired flood is flood zone without an issue to my knowledge.

Do you have an address for the property?

No, I don't.

I that's what I'm saying.

It was secondhand information, and I don't can't substantiate it, but I wanted to I wanted to try and see were it a known problem in that district.

Is it something that we as a city need to address?

If it's not, then let's throw it off the board and ignore it.

But it was a secondhand information that I got from somebody.

Um, but anyway, so that those were the issues.

Councilman Dotson, I will say that um King's Landing, um, which is going to be priced um market competitive.

I think it's going to be in the 250s, maybe no, no, no.

300.

So that um that project goes well.

Um, it certainly will introduce um higher priced um condominium departments, etc.

And we have tried to, in the property we've had, we've tried to be considerate to make sure we have balance um between affordable housing and market rate housing.

We are the affording affordable housing capital of the tightwater area, I believe already.

I don't I don't know if that's a plus or a minus along as there's quality housing, but I can say that we have tried to have an effective blend.

Yes.

Um the last thing that had to comment on was when you're asking for money.

I don't see any amount here.

Are you waiting for us to come up with that number?

Do you have numbers that you're willing to ask us for?

I'd like it's hard to act on generalities where I'd love to see some specifics.

We we certainly could do that.

We just didn't think it was appropriate in this fall to understood.

I'm just looking looking for for it in the future, but love to see the numbers what you're looking for.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Council Woman.

Thank you, Mayor.

Brian, you have the floor.

Thank you, EDA.

Thank you, Chairman.

Wonderful presentation, and echoing the mayor's sentiment that this is a very exciting time to be in this seat.

And I'm really looking forward to watching all of this come together.

Um couple questions, some small, some more conversational.

Um can you guys describe the difference between blight and storage?

So we said that some of these properties are just people own them and they're just store and stuff in them.

They've done that for years.

How is that different than blight, or is that the same?

Maybe that's for the manager.

Maybe that's for the manager.

Blight is a definite uh term that's defined so that we can do well, not so that we can do things, but it identifies um property in your city that has been derelict or going without maintenance.

I think what they're talking about with storage is there's some buildings in this area.

Um that's maybe not necessarily blighted, but you can't really use them for anything else because the owner of the building has store material in the building.

Two separate tracks of things, and it could have a blighted building that's that has storage in it, but storage don't necessarily mean it's blighted.

So are those two separate things that we need to be looking at?

We need to encourage through uh Vice Mayor Moody's initiative possibly of removing blight, but also encouraging property owners to repurpose their spaces.

Okay, so those are two separate issues.

That's sort of what I was arriving at.

Um very excited about the opportunity to create art and new spaces.

And I I watched your meeting with the the branding discussion on how to brand the link district.

Um, really, really curious how we're gonna link these three um spaces together, and I love hearing the idea of some creative transportation.

So I just love to say that I think we have a lot of opportunities here for showing environmental awareness, things like biking paths, walkability, um environmentally friendly transportation.

Um also branding, I think it's very cool to have the branding idea for the link district.

Um, and maybe as we look at high street and the waterfront, maybe that's something that we do in those areas too, um, so that they're defined, but they're sort of also drawing people for different purposes, but you can still get from one to the other.

Um also would really like to see us communicate our progress on all three of these very um, I think there's a a lot of curiosity across the city about where do we stand on this, where how how quickly, and we're all so eager for this to happen, that if we could make some communication milestones to put out information so that people are aware, this is the phase we are with waterfront.

This is the phase we are with link.

Um, I think that would give people an opportunity to really buy in, support the progress, um, certainly promote us as a city that is on the move, which is coming off of our state of the city dress.

So um, if we could discuss ways that we can do that, that would be and and certainly we all can help you with that as council members going to civic league meetings and such updating residents on what your status is.

Um weosely talked about getting around the topic of Airbnbs and with the idea of a new hotel coming to the waterfront and also new hotel coming to the casino.

Curious how that all fits in, and that's just something that maybe we can just think about as we have that conversation down the road.

Um what have other cities done with Airbnbs and how does that play into our ideas to develop more hotel space?

Um it may be very early phases for the entertainment district.

Um, and thank you for letting us know how the casino fits in with the properties surrounding.

Do we have any very early ideas on what could possibly go on those properties?

I don't even know where to begin to sort of imagine what would go there, but is there any discussion yet, or we are we too early on that?

Uh I think we're too early on it.

Uh, one of the things that we talked about was maybe looking at some of their existing properties to see what they have around um Pittsburgh.

Um, I think they have something in that could be connected, yeah.

Okay, so it's still it's still early for that.

So we're not thinking like water park or something like that.

Um I think in that situation, what you're looking for is something that complements the as you know, yeah.

Right.

Okay.

I think you know how correct me if I'm wrong on this.

They the reason they're wanting to have some input on this is so that they can kind of make sure that the thing that we're looking at putting there, or well, the thing that we're approved to get put there actually fits within what they have their model is, so they don't really create an issue for their business model.

Right.

Um last question.

As we look at the link in particular, and it it takes some time, it's going to take some time to get these projects off the ground.

Um we have talked about the area that has the murals mural festival.

Are there opportunities for temporary type parks or um recreation that if some of that is cleared out, um some of the blight is taken care of that we can in the meantime have maybe something like a dog park or an event space, not an event space, um state park, how to get into that right now.

Um some sort of yeah, pop-up park or or pop-up opportunities, concerts, things like that.

Oh that's an ongoing conversation that we have how we can utilize the property until we get a developer.

Um Joe is leading up a task of Commissioner Harman working with the Portsmouth Arts Center on murals, if you want to speak to that.

Yeah, so if when you bring that up, we are actually working on that right now.

We own the property at 1028 High Street.

We call it affectionately the homes property.

It's three buildings that will be demolished by the end of the year, right?

Hopefully.

Uh, with that, because of its proximity to King's Landing and Baines Point, we don't want them to see the blight out of their window when they're paying over $300,000 for a condo or even affordable housing.

It's a new area, it's a new epicenter for them to live.

We want it to be very welcoming.

So what we want to do is the link mural park.

Where it's uh it's very conceptual right now.

Um, if any of you remember the concept that happened over in Norfolk before they built the main, they had a temporary park called the plot.

There was an issue with the historic preservationists when they had to go in with billing the main and they wanted to reconfigure that entire space.

It took time.

It was a construction zone, a war zone.

They city of Norfolk took properties or took elements that they already existed um from the old Grammy Mall when Granby Street was pedestrian friendly.

We had old potters and plants and benches.

They took all these things, repurposed it into a new park.

They had the art center come out and really literally like a boots on the ground project just to get it so it looks appealing until development happened.

And what happened?

The main was built, and that park moved to the neon district, and it's still there now.

So similar to this, the link mural park will be right across the street.

Um it would face where the murals are now.

There's an alleyway where all the murals are.

Um it will be a focal point due to the interest for development.

We have to leave the concrete slabs on these buildings on the foundation.

Okay.

That leaves a selling point for us to do like a turfed area park.

Um, I am envisioning like maybe even partnering with the mayors to bring some shipping containers to paint them, um, maybe a small stage that's very visible, so it's visible from all sides.

Um, but just a place where the community can be proud of and see that something is happening in the link until we really get development.

We can use existing things.

We have the jail about to be torn down.

I've been looking and eyeing those old planners from 1968.

They belong in the link district.

Um it will take a move of God to move them, but we're gonna figure that out.

Um I can envision the letters being bold on those planners link um using our support of course with art community.

Um the historic you know, commission fine arts commission.

Like there's so many outlets that we can hone into to get that going.

And guess what?

When development happens, everything there is transient, so we will leave there and go to the next block that needs to be development.

So we're working on that right now.

Wonderful.

That's wonderful.

Thank you.

No, okay.

Did great job.

Councilman.

So you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

So uh I want to roll into the Greenville discussion because we saw a lot of things in Greenville that directly tie into the presentation that you just finished, uh, Mr.

Chairman.

I appreciate the presentation, but I appreciate that that uh the EBA joined us on this uh trip to Greenville along with the manager and city staff.

Uh it was uh exciting and eye-opening.

Uh we so I'm just gonna hit some some what I thought were highlights from from the trip to stimulate the discussion.

So starting with the city manager, uh one of the things that she told us was uh uh while they have done a lot of work to bring new development in, they made a decision that they want to invest in the people that are already there.

So y'all have a 25,000 dollar um facility improvement fund.

Uh she said we're getting ready to uh open a cut the ribbon on a property where we spent quarter of a million dollars on facade improvement.

Now, so the manager and I were talking about this earlier today.

Um they're a town of 78,000.

So how they found a quarter of a million dollars, which is 10x what we're spending to uh to help our business owners.

Uh what we got some more homework to do to try to understand that, and I know he's following up with his counterpart down there to uh to see how they're how they're punching above their weight, I think was uh was your description.

Um both the city manager and the mayor during the walk-around said uh the key to their growth and development was getting people into downtown.

So the fact that uh that our phase one and phase two on the waterfront are aimed to be mixed use.

The fact that we have housing going into the uh the link district uh are all right on track with uh with the things that both the mayor and the city manager said were key to them, bringing residents into those areas and and that promotes the foot traffic and all of the things that come from from uh having uh new customers uh living in uh in those areas.

Uh the city manager said to uh to the comment about affordable housing, city manager said that they include a 20% uh incentive to developers to include 20% of their developable housing to be um I'll call it uh workforce housing.

So affordable seems to have a bad connotation.

The the point here was it's it's not cheap housing, it's quality housing made available for public uh safety folks and teachers and you know people that that uh maybe can't afford a mortgage payment on a $400,000 uh home.

Uh and uh both the mayor and the city manager talked about uh the importance of public-private partnerships.

Uh I always had in my head, so PPP means big millions and millions of dollars.

Uh the city manager actually said a couple hundred thousand in incentives is the difference between getting a developer in and not getting a developer in.

And so the notion that we don't necessarily have to be in this for uh millions and millions of dollars as a city, uh that that there are things that that we need to look at to sweeten some of these deals that that will maybe make the difference, at least in their experience, the difference between a developer choosing to bring their development there or to take it somewhere else.

Uh and uh uh during our walk around with the mayor, um he said you know, number one priority is uh people getting people down there.

Uh and he described a uh uh a businessman who who came into downtown, bought up several buildings, and immediately turned the upstairs into residences, high quality residences.

Well, we got buildings just like that building all up and down our high street, and so there's uh I mean we won't have to wait a long time.

We just got to get the right people with the right motivation and convince them that uh turning our upstairs and along high street uh into those kind of residences uh uh can help us uh uh turn the corner.

Yeah, thank you.

Um it was uh interesting, I think, really to all of us uh the streetscape along their main street.

So um lots of landscaping and landscaping plans.

Um very green, big trees, lots of shade, the the sidewalks were all shaded, uh, but more than just the big trees and uh shading the sidewalks, which we have, they have landscaping in front of all the buildings, landscaping between the sidewalk and the street.

I mean, it was pretty impressive to see, and it just kind of gave you that warm, cozy uh this is a place to take a walk.

Uh, and uh, and there's things I think particularly as we're getting ready to do our waterfront development, uh, where we want people to stroll along our waterfront.

But as uh we talked about uh while we were down there, the waterfront development that we've done so far is uh is kind of the stark concrete, and you stand out in the the 80 badillion degree sunshine uh with no trees, and so as we're thinking about uh our waterfront development, figuring out uh how do we take a take aboard the things that we saw in Greenville and and uh and leverage those uh to make them work.

Um we have a coffee shop going into the link.

One of the very first businesses in their downtown was that that business guy that put the residents upstairs as he was in remodeling the building and discovered a uh a basement and the basement became a coffee shop, and the lady who was uh coffee shop coffee cart lady turned into the coffee shop lady and has been running that coffee shop for 30 years.

So uh again uh kind of we we have business people like that in our farmers market every Saturday that are looking for these kind of opportunities to go from a tent and awning into brick and mortar uh and and so you know, working collaboratively.

I think we can we can help figure that out.

Uh Mr.

Harman mentioned uh putting uh connex boxes over in the link.

Uh so I know uh Mr.

Donahue's met with a lady who's interested in bringing freight farming uh to Portsmouth.

Um turns out we don't have zoning that allows that over in the link.

So as we're looking at zoning, we need to take a look at these uh so makers.

What do we need to do differently to accommodate makers?

What do we need to do differently to accommodate commissary kitchen?

And the kind of things that we've been talking about, innovative that we want to put into the innovation district, but that our zoning right now kind of has us uh aced out from from being able to do that.

Um we uh spent some time with uh with a couple of their city council people, and kind of the punchline from them was don't think small, go big.

So like go big or go home.

Their their encouragement was if you think you're thinking big, think even bigger.

Uh so as we're rolling into some pretty big projects, um we we just need to uh to to stay uh thoughtful and uh and continue to think big.

Uh and then uh to uh to councilwoman uh brand's comment about uh telling the story.

Uh so we had a discussion about it's time for us to take charge of telling our story.

So we got a lot of good story that's uh getting ready to explode, and we can either tell it or we can let somebody come in and tell it for us, and you can be sure uh if we tell it uh we we get to control the narrative and we get to talk about the positives and not focus on um on the negatives, and so it's gonna be really important uh as we do all of this uh to uh to grab hold and and tell our own st uh story.

Uh and I think uh the manager and his marketing team are already thinking about ways to do that, including making sure that we have scripts so that we're all as we've talked about before, all singing off the same sheet of music.

So when we go engage, whether it's a civic league or the Realtors Association or whoever invites us to come and talk, uh that we're we're all uh telling the same story with the same facts and figures, and I know Councilman Dotson likes numbers, so by golly, we're gonna put some numbers in there uh to make sure we're all telling the same numbers story.

So uh there's some some things uh and I'd be interested, and the three of you uh got a chance to to uh take that long bus ride.

I I'd be interested to to hear your perspectives on what you guys saw.

I was impressed by the city.

I I know um I did a lot of walking back and forth down their main street, just looking at some of the resources and some of the repurposing or some of the similarities between Portsworth and Greensville.

One of the things I noticed that we lack here is um other than just the entertainment district, uh like venues.

They have placemaking areas in their downtown area that are venues and that draw attraction.

They have a stadium baseball team.

They said it's not a very good baseball team, but people show up to the games for the hot dogs.

They have uh the Peace Center, which is um what was equivalent to what uh Chrysler Hall was kind of an entertainment center where they have pleas and concert things and whatnot going on.

So the the district, the area is very local, very friendly.

Um it was almost eerie because everybody was so proud of being in front of the city.

You talk to people on the street, and they would know the history of the city and be able to explain to you um how the city came about being the way that it that it is now, and um like the council said I was very impressed with the just the landscaping and the overall facade of the the city.

I even went around trying to look for bed areas.

But I did find um a common link between Portsmouth and Greensville.

They have a entertainer there, Pig Lig Johnson.

They have a statue of him there, and at the bottom of his statute, there's a quote from Ruth Brown.

So that's a like a link in the entertainment link between those two cities.

Interesting.

And I was gonna say that um too was impressed with the streetscape, the landscaping, and so they said that one of the first things they did was to hire a landscape architect so that there was a conformity, a unity of everything that was going on, and that you could see and you could see that thing, you know, as you were going on.

Um also they when you were talking about the um people who knew were so knowledgeable of what was going on in their city.

They actually developed an institute, and all of the people who work in the downtown and the areas, uh, they became certified tourist ambassadors.

So they knew about the city.

They actually, you know, and they were friendly and and really willing to tell you about their city.

A lot of the owners that I talked to, and some of the businesses came there before the big boom, and they saw what they saw there was the potential and the landscaping and the streetscape.

That's what made them want to come and bring their business there.

So there are a lot of things that we can do prior to the big development getting there.

Um I I just I was just very impressed with it, it's just the feel.

It was just the feel that you got when you were um were there.

Uh one of the big P's with me is signage.

Everything they had a uniformity of signage.

You know, you could see everything was just neat.

They positioned it so that you could see it way down the street or right on the street.

So and and I asked them whether or not they had some rules or of how you would do your um your your uh the facing of your building because it was nothing shabby, everything was very neat and very clean, and they offered incentives um for people to to maintain their building or to um um to do their the face of their buildings.

I think cleanliness is just I can't under I can't say enough about cleanliness.

And they told us that they had a dedicated staff that were just for those particular areas.

They were there at four o'clock in the morning, they were structuring the street power washing, they were clean, those are the kind of things that you can do to prepare yourself to get people in that mode of wanting to come downtown and to bring their business there.

So the mayor um mentioned a very profound statement and finding your waterfall that goes back to they had this bridge that was a you know highway bridge that literally hid one of their hidden gems, which was a waterfall.

Um it was a very controversial time.

I was told as he told in the 90s with them either replacing the bridge or removing it to expose um this waterfall and to build on it with like a park and nature scene.

Um the nature one, and it became a focal point for the entire city, um, to the point where there was a developer that came to Greenville, and he didn't even own the property, but he said, I want this property, and he bought it and built a brand new hotel there within three or four years.

Um we need to find our waterfall in Portsmouth.

We have more water than Greenville has.

I mean, just putting it out there, and what they've and another person said what they've done with a little bit of water.

We have an entire Elizabeth River right here that is underutilized.

Um, to your point, we want more um more boating access by swimming point.

We want to see that area um a little bit more lively with multiple people and ethnicities and everyone enjoying what we have to offer.

Um, when people are in Portsmouth, they look at Norfolk, it's one of the best views in Hampton Roads.

Um, how do we um tap into that?

There should be water, there should be ship restaurants that are ships made out of restaurants, you know.

Um repurposing what we have.

One other thing that they also did, they embraced the old.

They didn't just bulldoze everything that was here.

Portsmouth has the largest collection of historic homes and properties from here to Charleston or here to Alexandria.

We should embrace that.

Yes, blight is a thing, but you know it's also a way to keep blight and turn it into something really beautiful.

Um the last thing we want to do in this, especially with the Link District, um, people may walk or drive down High Street and say, oh, the blight and this and that.

There's beauty in that if it's done properly.

Look at Richmond, Chaco Bottom was a very dilapidated property.

And look at it now.

There's food vendors, it's it's alive all the time.

They've taken an old area and made it something new and gave it a new purpose.

The last thing we want, which is not what Portsmouth is about, we don't want a cookie cutter city.

We're not here to build a green briar or a town center.

We already have that.

We should embrace what we have and build upon that.

And Greenville was a very um important opportunity for us to see that.

Now there were some challenges because the population demographics were not quite the same as Portsmouth.

Their split was about uh 80 20, right?

Yeah, it was like 78 to 20 percent, meaning 70 per you know, 70 percent Caucasian, 20% African American.

There was a difference with the shift there.

Not saying that that's a good or bad thing, it's just a challenge that we need to work with.

Um, we do have a higher poverty rate than Greenville had.

We do that.

That's a acknowledged challenge.

But I don't see that as being a end-all be-all.

Um, so it was a very enlightening trip.

It was an eight-hour trip to and fro.

Well, twelve, what, sixteen hours total?

Um, but the biggest piece was you're right, with the training, it was obvious that there was training that had been done, that everyone knew about the basics of how to get where.

If you ask anyone going down their main street, they knew exactly where everything was with a smile.

Imagine a piece of that here.

And we have that, we have that family element right here.

It's a it's a small family right here in Porta.

We just gotta really embrace that.

One final thing I like to say, I was really impressed with the repurposing of their buildings.

I mean, banks that have been you know vacant for quite some time and they turned it around.

Gas stations, you know, they did a lot of repurposing that fit, you know, the overall scheme of the the of the property.

A couple of takeaways that I had, and and we'll we'll kind of move on because we are gonna have a follow-up meeting uh where we'll discuss more in detail and get everyone in the room and share those experiences and decide on the way forward.

But but a couple of real takeaways I had.

So I I had the privilege of talking with the folks before we even got there and and reading the book and understanding.

Think about this for a minute.

Just think about it.

And the reason why I said think big, think about 150,000 people coming into your town every day.

That is what the mayor said they have.

So they have 150,000 people coming into their downtown proper every day.

What if we had 10,000 more people, new people coming down into our town to enjoy the amenities that we have?

That's attainable, folks.

And I submit to you that many of the things that Greenville had, you can't tell me that our people don't have pride in our community, but I believe what has happened over time, uh, we've we've had to overcome bad decisions, bad leadership, and that's contributed to a mindset.

And if we are going to get to the place that we desire to be, we're not far away.

What took them 30 years as a concerted effort, and people have to keep in mind, Knox White has been the mayor for over 30 years through the city of Greenville.

Now that means something.

Because not only when you guys listen to the manager, what did she say he was?

He's a lawyer by training, but he was a planner by thinking.

And he brought together all of those things to determine what the community could look like with others, but he led the charge.

And so what I want us to think about is let's think about how we change our mindset on what we can become.

We have the pride, as Joe just indicated.

We have people.

I was just downtown with a group, Bobby Dyer came to see me for lunch, and he brought the VP from steel here to the city of Portsmouth.

We're talking about doing some workforce.

She grew up in the city of Portsmouth.

You know what she said about Portsmouth?

I love my town.

This town is such a beautiful town.

And I was looking at it a little bit like I just listen, but that's the kind of love we have for our city.

But what we've got to do is we've got to raise the expectations and no longer accept not being our best.

When they talked about, give you another example.

When they talked about people taking pride in their downtown, so me and the mayor, we were walking and everybody were walking with us.

Um the mayor talked to the guys that were press watching.

They said, What's up, Mayor?

And and he said, you know what, Mayor Glover?

Do you know these guys actually have a YouTube video where they're doing like a routine while they're power washing.

And thousands of people come to watch it.

Their busiest time is on a Sunday afternoon when they have thousands of people in their downtown engaging in shopping, other things.

The point I'm trying to make, guys, is it's good to go to a place like that and see where you want to improve and perhaps where you want to go.

But most importantly, I'm gonna challenge this group and myself.

We gotta be better.

We gotta be better because we've got a future to build in the city.

And that means in every aspect.

We listen to these folks, and I started chuckling to myself when the mayor said, So, you know what?

We had a hundred and eighty-five people come from Richmond, Virginia.

See Greenville.

We had 135 people from Baton Rouge to come see Greenville.

You do know that Greenville was voted as the number one best town in America.

And that didn't happen overnight.

So as we're looking to do and become what we endeavor to be, let's remember it's gonna take us some time, and I will say, I like to be realistic.

We're gonna have to make some tough choices.

But as a point to which you said, here's my other takeaway mixed use development, right?

Mixed use development, residential retail.

That's gonna residential is gonna solve all your problems.

If we had another 10,000 people downtown, we'd have to have better lighting.

We'd have to have better security.

Think about it.

If we had 10,000 more people coming downtown every day with that expectation, we would have better restaurants, we would have better retail.

And for the ladies in the group, I don't mean to be sexist, but I asked the question, I said, man, what kind of retail do we need?

He said, Lady retail.

Exactly.

That's what that's what you saw when you walked the street.

He said, You need some lady retail.

And if you want upscale retail, if you want higher-end retail, guess what?

You gotta put some higher-end people in those buildings.

Now that's not to say you don't have a mixed income thing going on, but you better have some people.

If you want, they they have a what's the name of that grocery store, Publix?

They have a Publix downtown.

They have a CVS.

If you want to attract that, then you better have the rooftops.

You better have the people walking on the street.

That's a reality.

And I think we're headed that way.

But what we got to do is coalesce around this vision.

This group, this team, is responsible for doing that.

I thank you, Malcolm, for bringing that up about the extra dollars.

You know, we will work to see what that means.

And here's why it's critically important.

High Street Corridor is our gateway.

People can talk about, I know I hear people say, Well, you always focus on high street and no town.

Yes, because guess what?

That's our that's gonna be our gateway.

And it is our gateway.

So we gotta focus on what's gonna bring us everything that we desire, which is gonna allow for us to help everybody else.

Because here's the reality.

Once you bring more business and you have public-private partnerships, and you have investors knocking on your door and saying, I want to be in that corridor, guess what's gonna happen?

You're gonna get more tax revenue, you're gonna get more people spending money for all across.

It's gonna lift everybody.

But to your point, we've got to be very intentional and deliberate on how we manage that corridor.

For example, we have some people in there now that it's gonna be hard to get rid of.

And if we allow people in that corridor today, and I say people or or allow people that are there and they don't want to buy into the vision, we've got to find a way to move it.

And that's just a hard reality, and it requires tough decisions.

We don't want to negatively or adversely impact our citizens, but guys and girls, we have a vision for our future.

And what that vision has to entail, it has to entail people getting on with the vision, and for those who don't want to get on with it, we just gotta find another place for you to go to.

And we have to be okay with that as leaders.

I know some people think that you know everybody's gonna be on the trip, but everybody's not gonna be on the trip.

And that's what I heard.

That was my takeaway.

It's a beautiful place with beautiful people, a lot of amenities.

But when I when I really sat down and thought about it, we're a beautiful place.

A lot of beautiful amenities.

Just come together as a group and focus on who are we, what are we, but it's gotta include people, man.

And that was my takeaway.

If we don't bring more people downtown, and we don't improve that corridor, then we might as well just go home.

And we'll talk more about it.

As I said, we're we're gonna have a uh a focus group in and share our more in-depth information.

They're gonna send us some stuff.

So there will be a follow-up.

Deborah's gonna be contacting everybody, and so we'll have everyone in the room here take part in that discussion, as well as some of the business owners that were on a trip as well.

But I want to thank you all for joining us.

Coming down and taking that that sixteen hour bus ride and eating a cracker bell and all that bad food we ate.

But some would say that we ate too much.

We went to Panera too.

So I'm gonna be a little bit a little bit fair on that one.

But it's really it was I'm gonna say this as as the mayor of the city of Porchmouth.

I was really proud of this group when we went there.

And the mayor even said to me, he said, Man, this is a good group of people.

And so that left me with when I left, I just felt really good about everybody who committed to do that because you didn't have to.

It took time and it took effort to do that.

And even Mr.

Brown, I can say, you know, I didn't know know Mr.

Brown as well as I do now.

And he's right.

I mean, you know, he he was engaged the whole time.

And I know you've been doing good work, but just to see it happening, Joe, you know, what you you were talking about, some of the vision that you were bringing to the table, and so many of us, you know, Brian and the manager, look, Mr.

Moody, who's been around this town a long time.

He was a lot of us didn't have a whole lot to say.

But I think we've got a lot of ideas, and we're gonna put them in play, and we need everybody at the table to make it a reality.

Thank you, guys.

So with that, we're we're finished.

Um and want to thank you again, uh, Chairman Lynch and Manager Carter.

Um Thanks, guys.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

No, we have a we have a zoning.

We have a zoning.

And then we have a closed session after that.

Can we take a five minute break?

Please take a five minute break.

Um, and we'll we'll reconvene at seven o'clock.

Mr.

Carter, you have the floor sir.

Thank you, sir.

We're back to you, sir.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Uh ladies and gentlemen, uh, mayor, council.

Dr.

Russell here with us, excuse me.

She's going to talk about some of the issues that we've recounted as we've got to move through the language change.

And an opportunity to review.

We've got some feedback from several of you.

Uh, we'll go through those this evening.

I ever the goal of this is to leave this meeting with a consensus about what you're going to vote on tomorrow.

Yes, sir.

So it is going to be imperative that we agree on language that will be presented to you tomorrow.

Because you won't have an opportunity tomorrow to talk about it.

It will just be a vote.

So we got to get that out, and we've got to get to a point of work.

The group is called with what will be presented to you tomorrow to vote on.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Dr.

Russell.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening, Dr.

So let me share with you that we're going to just walk you through proposed amendments to the forcement zoning ordinance as it relates to core use groups, restaurants, private clubs, entertainment venues, event centers, and paternal social and paternal clubs.

The intent of the proposed provisions to the ordinance is to improve outcomes that result in strengthening public safety and addressing community concerns related to just the number and frequency of the jet centers and entertainment use permits that you were considering.

When we took a look at this, we've been looking at this particular type of use, these particular types of uses since fall of last year.

So it's been some time.

Staff had some concerns about regulating restaurants and whether or not we would be overzealous in attempting to regulate these types of uses.

But we believe we've reached a reasonable compromise with the regulations, and those regulations would essentially require that restaurants that serve alcohol after 12 a.m.

would be required to submit a security plan, would also be required to have digital surveillance, and then that we would also restrict outdoor amplified sound after 10 p.m.

And they would have enhanced lighting at their entrances and around their parking areas.

If those same restaurant venues uh proposed to have entertainment, then they would have to be regulated the same way that we are proposing to regulate our entertainment venues, and they would have a use permit.

The proposed draft ordinance stipulates what we call supplemental use standards for all entertainment venues and event center venues.

And they're too numerous to go through, but they include a security plan, they include an agreement for uh parking if they're gonna use neighboring commercial parking spaces, capacity limits, and things of that nature.

Um we have some provisions for restaurants that include a revocation trigger, and I believe Mr.

Moody has some concerns about that, but that trigger is if there are two or more verified police responses and a 12-month period for disorderly conduct fights or alcohol-related issues, the use permit can be revoked.

Um the restaurant proposed regulations do exempt restaurants that are associated with casino establishments.

The proposed regulations for noise, um they must not have excessive noise, uh, odor smoke, any potential off site impacts, the operations as a benchmark across the board.

The hours of operations will be limited to 8 a.m.

until midnight.

And we've received a lot of comments about that midnight time frame.

It's a little bit too early.

Um is the essentially what is being stated.

But keep in mind the horsemen zoning ordinance has always included a provision for use permit applicants to modify the supplemental use standards by request.

They can make that request while their application is being vetted for staff to consider uh and developing the conditions, those recommendations are then made to the planning commission, um, and then ultimately the decision is left to the council for whether or not the hours of operation are extended.

And so, as a placeholder standard across the board for everybody, it would be midnight, but applicants can make a request to extend that, and the considerations for the extension really need to be what the neighboring uses are and the potential adverse impacts for longer hours.

Security plans are also required for or would also be required for entertainment establishments as well as sound proofing for the entry and exitways.

Um outside promoters or leasing to third parties for events uh at these establishments.

Uh rear doors would not be propped open or a means for ingress and egress into and out of the facility, and if their ABC license is revoked for any purpose, then the use permit also becomes also revoked.

Again, the revocation trigger locally would be two or more incidences by the local police or violence in a 12-month period.

Someone, one of council members asked if it was an error that we had two opportunities for revocation of a permit.

One is by city council, one is by the zoning administrator.

Um the zoning administrator can't revoke this issue by the council.

And so if the council issues a use permit, then it would require a subsequent action by the council to revoke that permit.

As an interim measure, the operator would be ordered to cease and desist from operations until such time the council can set consider a revocation request.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

That answers it.

He was volunteering that it was him.

Oh, that's answering.

All right, thank you, thank you.

All right.

Uh event space banquet halls.

So in short, the event space banquet halls, with the exception of the ABC regulation piece, follows the draft regulations for the entertainment venues.

The reason why we've crafted the language that for the ABC license is that you'll recall for the event centers, the C the C pools can pull a temporary ABC license, right?

And so the difference there is that it doesn't make a lot of sense to tie to the event center operator owner that if they lose their ABC license, then that use permit becomes a null and void because more than likely they don't have an ABC license tied to the owner operator anyway.

Right.

Okay, they're all on the same page.

Initially, when we proposed the draft ordinance language to the planning commission, lots of concerns about civic social or fraternal clubs, and how do we address concerns about the private for-profit operators, but not harm the fraternal, civic, and social organizations in the regulations.

And so the draft language actually includes a new definition for private clubs that separates out the operator of a civic social fraternal club from a private club.

Um let me also introduce this.

Um would apply, right?

So the non-compliance for uh the ABC license issues or two or more police calls in a 12-month period.

Those could result in a revocation of an existing permit, but relative to improvements to the property and things of that nature, they're vested hours of operation, they're best, so they they would be fine.

Uh we've tried to craft the language for civic and social and fraternal clubs so that if they're primarily not for profit and their membership um primarily membership organizations, there are some restrictions relative to can't join the day of an event, right?

There's a waiting period for that.

The number of participants in the venue can't exceed the number of members at the venue that should address the concerns related to not causing undue hardship to this type of user in our efforts to strengthen the regulation of private clubs and event venue uses.

And then the last item that I'd like to discuss is enforcement.

So our zoning permits, zoning permits are administratively issued, those can be revoked by the zoning administrator for non-compliance.

Use permits can be revoked by city council only, uh, although a temporary cease and desist order can be issued administratively.

Uh special exceptions can revoke by city council, our board is owning a fee uh appeal, our ABC, if for any reason your ABC license for the entertainment venue, private candidates are revoked, then they automatically must cease and desist from operations.

And then there's an appeal period for the administrative revocation.

Uh they must do that within 30 days.

And that if the use is um revocated, then that same type, same use application is prohibited for six months.

And that's really per, you know, to address like gaining the systems because you could legally change an entity's business name or something of that nature and and and continue your operations essentially seamlessly.

Um but if it's the similar in all respects with except for the name, six months, no go.

All right, with that, I have asked uh Mr.

Travon Boone, our zoning administrator that joined me in this presentation this evening, and together we're gonna try to answer your questions and and move this forward in a way that uh we can have some resolution in our after our public hearing.

Um you have the floor.

So one of the questions I wrote in was about the two uh violations, the two violence citations that they have.

Um when we look at the crime statistics, most of those occur outside the business, but but developed in the business, then spilled outside.

So these businesses could just kick everybody outside real quick, and we still have an incident that happens outside it.

The way it's written, it seems to me that it's we're only gonna find it if the incident is logged as occurring inside the business.

So I would think there would be some sort of legal definition to include those that might have spilled out from the business and happened like in front of the door just outside the business owner just pushing them out quick so they wouldn't be in violation of it.

I'm concerned about how we word that and enforce it and if if uh law enforcement might help us with that, or if you've already thought of it.

No, I hadn't thought about it before I saw it because the statistics when I see them from the police show a whole bunch of violent events right outside.

Yes, but not inside.

I think um the best way to handle that is to confer with um Chief Jenkins upon his well Wednesday, right?

He would be ready, but we can we can still reach out to them.

Okay, yeah.

We let's let's um discuss that as an issue with Chief Jenkins and share the language with him.

Okay, and the other question that I wrote in was about some organizations just charge like uh an entry fee and the booze is all free, so they're not really charging for the booze or need an alcohol license because it's a private club.

How is that how was that covered?

Um, and when I read it, I'm not sure I understood what the concern is.

Is it because they aren't licensed, they would not be licensed by ABC?

Well, no, because we could still have a violence-related event for an alcohol serving it, but the way your ordinance is worded, it's only for those that charge for alcohol.

Alcohol can still be, they can still walk around your ordinance by uh not charging for the alcohol, but charging money in other ways.

So I think it would be where alcohol serve, not necessarily where it's charged.

Some people in some clubs you can bring it in yourself and just log it in your locker or log it in.

It would be a way around your regulation.

They wouldn't be regulated by then if wouldn't have to fall under.

I'm not sure how I think that's an issue that we would need to confer with the chief about.

Um the so private clips are required to meet the entertainment establishment standards, the police compliance, must compile with nurses.

It's not it is not if they serve alcohol, if they have two or uh police incidents in the 12 month period, or if they lose their ABC license, it's not needed.

So I think it's still a some of them don't have an AVC license.

For instance, one of the businesses that I ran, uh similar businesses to me could apply for a museum license, and that museum is an exemption under the ABC that allows you to discharge them an entrance fee and serve alcohol all day long.

I think I think what she's saying is that it's not an and it's an or.

So ABC or violation involving alcohol by the by the police.

So with the license or without, I think we're covered.

Okay, it didn't seem clear to me in the way it was written.

It seemed like it's only those that charge for alcohol.

No, no, because remember that was that I thought I had it.

Cheat sheet against me.

Do you have a cheat sheet off?

Yeah, that's the parish.

Okay, I don't have that printed out.

Yeah, it was in that other comparison sheet, and I don't have it in front of me.

She said it was a neck of case which needs a few more volumes, which I can do about the police or recur in or indirect connection with the establishment for getting four clear it because I mean she already shook some photos.

So look at page six.

Um that 14.

Yes.

See how that language is included or it doesn't tie it to the alcohol.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to find.

I didn't see where it was tattooed.

It's isolated.

Tanted an expensive man, not necessarily alcohol.

You see that?

Page six.

Yeah, that paragraph covers what you're concerned about, I believe.

Well, I'm not sure that I'm not sure that some of them need a use permit for a some of the private clubs that I'm talking about.

That's the zoning administrator, so it's not tied to a use permit.

It's tied to the zoning uh administrative requirements.

And if I'm wrong, please jump in there.

I I believe um Dr.

Don said the private clips would not be tied to a use permit.

Is that what you're saying?

Right.

But so page still two, every district where there's permitted, it's requires a use permit.

Page what?

Two this chart, this table I mean.

See it.

Okay.

Again, there's that one exception for a museum that you might want to look into, also that ABC provides a cutout for.

Okay, I think I'm just having a little bit of trouble, but I think you said museums.

ABC provides a cutout for museums to also serve alcohol for just a an entrance fee, too.

And so you want us to look into it to see how it would be applied.

There's a beer museum up up outside of DC that does that.

Um you can put you pay a ten dollar admission fee and drink all the beer you want all all day long, no charge for the beer.

You just it comes in the glass, you buy the buy the glass, you can get a free beer.

I just remember what you do that.

So you have no okay on under restaurants on the two uh verified police responses within 12 months.

Um there again, a lot of times uh restaurants address is used for disturbance that's in the street, right in front of the restaurant.

And I I know there have been uh restaurants in Portsmouth.

He just gets to read it.

Their address has been the reference point when actually the disturbance didn't happen on the restaurant's property.

So that's that's a concern.

uh restaurant's address is used for disturbance that's in the street right in front of the restaurant and I I know there have been uh restaurants in Portsmouth their address has been the reference point when actually the disturbance didn't happen that's the other on the restaurant's property so that's that's a concern and also if a restaurant tour is got some uh unruly uh patrons perhaps they don't want to pay for their meal what what whatever uh didn't didn't like their meal and they get loud and uh the restaurant tour might might uh call 311 or 911 uh and uh had the police come there yet they're being penalized for a hidden off a potential uh disturbance uh so I I just don't see uh I to me it looks like they being treated unfairly uh uh in those cases so I think I think uh um unless it's uh the you know uh uh uh disturbance uh of a physical type uh a brawl or uh uh something like that uh I just don't see uh why we would uh uh count two verified police responses that may not be the uh the the restaurant's fault can can I just jump in here one thing I want to say about that I think if you make a good point um but you have to remember that each of these required notice and opportunity to be heard and so the restaurant would be able to make that point to um on the appellate level so that uh there can be some distinction between whether this was just so those so those facts can bear out.

What would that appeal look like um you know any time that you're going to be taking um action on a business you have to give them notice which would be the citation and then they would have the ability to come in and argue to whomever whether it be the zoning administrator or the BZA for the appeal or the court each of those levels and so those facts would bear out and hopefully it wouldn't even get to that if the administrators looking at it saying this was just some loud mouth it's not drunk people being violent the kind of you know there's some discernment in the person that's evaluating it.

The reason that we have to have it so broad councilman is that we have to be able to capture be able to capture those circumstances that don't naturally fit specifically and so if we just say violence that covers the the domestic dispute that constantly happens in this lounge that we're trying to you know get away from and it also allows for us to distinguish between a rowdy customer it's really hard to write those specifics into legislation like this because you don't for everyone you capture you lose a couple so that's why that notice and opportunity heard is is that that's lost on opportunity and to me that outlines the uh really the danger of it because it it's kind of kind of all over the board and and then you got your zoning administrator being the being the judge of uh perhaps revoking the uh the restaurant's uh uh use permit so I I just don't see that as uh not use permit no one can do that but council but the zoning ability to occupy that yeah yeah yeah the the zoning occupancy so the that that's but that that's a broad uh brush uh I think one of the things I like to consider in in that language is um you're talking about a situation where the I guess the owner of the restaurant or the manager is calling the police right yeah but this talks about a violent incident even if the manager is calling if it's a violent incident I think it sure really needs to fall into this because uh whether it's violent because I started a violent because you started it everybody else in the restaurant in jeopardy because there's a violent incident going on and that's what we're trying to curtail.

And I'm trying to figure out who did it at this point.

We're trying to make we just want it to go away so if you know if uh if I'm a great guy most of the time but I create multiple violent incidents in your restaurant that's probably something we need what if you uh run up uh a bar tab or or uh you you've got a uh large group uh for dinner and I skip out on the bill did they become violent uh no but I call a cops but that's not violent who who's gonna determine that the cops as a legal definition it would it would be documented by the that's what it says in there two or more violent incidents if it's violent you know if you call the cops because you know something's going on and there's no violence then that's not a violent incident.

Okay.

Now if you skip out on the tab, and what I tell you about it, oh, you free installed a brawl, then I still call you, but that's that's violence deal.

Okay.

On this point, yeah, go ahead.

Uh so wait, wait, let him finish then you got a floor.

Yeah, the the other concern I had was on the private clubs, and I don't know that we've defined the difference between a nightclub and and a private club.

Uh we have we have.

We've we've attempted to private club and a civic internal celebration.

So the private club is for profit um to the nightclub.

Well, that that that could be Lisbith Manor.

Um Elizabeth Manor, I believe, would be the civic fraternal social.

Is that what it's defined?

Well, you you have to you have to pay to join.

And the and they sell alcohol, and they're for profit.

So let's look at the definition.

Civic, social fraternal club, logic structure and related to social owned and operated by corporations, association of work within the things established for fraternal social educational regular recreational or cultural enrichment of its members, and primarily not for profit, these members need certain qualifications for membership and pay dues, and then that user, and which is not a private club.

Right.

That's important.

Additional language.

And then the definition of private club is refers to the ABC.

It says primarily it doesn't, it doesn't exclude it from being for a profit entity.

And by the way, you're a member of a country club, you pay to be there.

Um it's not open to the general public in that sense because they do have a board and they choose who joins those organizations.

And how about how about the Portsmouth Service League's uh woman's club and uh deport's uh club that's been there for years on high street?

Uh that's a private that's a private club.

It is it I think they're they're co-defined to try to make the distinction.

What you all describe, they added the language, and which is not a private club.

So that would exclude the places that y'all are concerned about.

The private club is then defined underneath it.

I'm looking at exhibit A page one.

Is that what you all have?

Yeah.

And so unless it fits under private club, you have to do some flipping between four.

It's also on page five, okay.

No, these are the use standards.

That's different.

The definition let me let me be clear.

The definition is on page one, exhibit A.

What you were describing by the use of rights.

So you just have to make sure it doesn't fit within that definition, which it should not.

Wouldn't the enforcement service league be considered a nonprofit organization?

Right.

So it wouldn't be a private club, right?

Right.

That that's why I think it should be uh I'm sorry, I just want to show a separation there between a private club and a nightclub.

So this here these two are the distinctions.

So we think all of them.

Would a night club follow the entertainment though?

And I mean no, I guess.

Mainly because of the city.

Private club is defined.

It's a for profit.

Oh, okay.

Okay, I got you.

So it's so you have to read the two together.

And that should be the same.

No, well, according to the social.

Well, it's important that one person gives the definition.

So if we could just have whoever's going to be the person who is the expert, give the definition so we're not confusing our hold on the mark has a question.

So let exactly.

We've got to use our professionals and our legal team who instruct us to move forward.

Um council does reserve the right to make the changes and amendments.

The the zoning is owned by council, so if we don't get it 100% right tonight, we still got to move forward with something if that's the pre if that's the pleasure of counsel.

So um go ahead with your question because I know you had something, and then we're gonna take it back to Dr.

Russell.

Okay, thank you.

So back to uh the question the council uh that the vice mayor was asking about the two incidents.

So on page four, Roman number three, it says restaurants that exceed two verified police responses on page six, Roman numeral fourteen, which has to do with entertainment uh uh places, two or more violent incidents.

So the language is a little bit different.

One is two police responses, the other's two violent incidents should be the the first one is on page four, Roman numeral three.

Okay, restaurants that exceed two verified police responses, so it's nothing in there about violence.

Page four wait again.

Remember, those are we gotta look at this, you don't just take it isolated, these are use specific standards, these apply across the board, whether you're zoning or use permit.

So these are these are the standards that we already use.

Most of this is already in there.

So these are not gonna be specific to uh the these are these are things that you all can include in your in your conditions when you're looking at things.

All right, Dr.

Russell.

Okay, so that's why there's a there's a difference because you maybe you throw that in there, maybe maybe you put something else in there.

So this is a laundry list you pull from.

The first pages are I I don't I don't get that, yeah.

I don't understand.

Uh I would I would think the language would be the same.

Why why wouldn't you use the violent incident?

Because we got we're we have to first isolate the type of business we're talking about, so we know the type of uh use or or permit or if it's a zoning issue or if it's by right, because then it triggers when a violation comes, who gets to do what and so that's why there's a difference.

So we can't if and so what the what the team tried to do is really isolate it to the actual entity being regulated under a certain given circ circumstance.

Well, we're talking about restaurants, okay.

So restaurants are by right.

We're not talking about entertainment, we're not talking about club private club, we're talking about buy right uh Roger Brown's just giving out food and drink.

But so if you have until that standard applies to that entity, not the other, unless you unless council so choose to add.

So I understand what you said.

I'm not sure you understand what uh question I'm asking.

Okay, in the case of restaurants, the threshold is two police responses.

Yeah, that's on page four.

Roman numeral three.

Exceeds two.

Okay, police responses.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, that's that's start that's the threshold police response.

Related to that matters, related to disorderly conduct, fights, or alcohol related offenses at or in direct contact to the established within 12 months, within 12 months period, subject to zoning permit revocation pursuant to that other provision.

Okay, okay.

I'm tracking with you.

Okay.

So then go to page six Roman numeral fourteen, which is not for restaurants, it's for entertainment stuff.

And the language there.

Okay, I'm just following from the top.

Live okay.

Let me just make sure we're all in the same room.

We now change to recreation entertainment.

So we got the laundry lists, we're going six, yes, six Roman numeral fourteen.

Yes, yes, ma'am.

Two of them.

There it says two or more violent incidents.

Documented by the city.

I'm not so so I'm trying to understand why we say violent incidents for entertainment, and we say police response involving fighting, etc.

etc.

for restaurants.

It seems like the threshold.

Well, because one, you all want it the language from Norfolk.

Norfolk's language is what you read the first time, which is the restaurant.

Okay.

Okay, we didn't have that before.

We stole that from the second part is what we already had, pretty much we were using anyway.

Um, in our own ordinance.

Am I right, Dr.

Russell?

Okay, and so that's why you have the difference because we're shoehorning something that we want it, and we're spitting it in what we already have.

Okay, so now so now we we acknowledge that we have different language for different categories.

Should they be different just because of the way we kind of got here?

Yes, or should they be the same?

No, they should not be the same.

They're different, they're different entities, they're different types of businesses, likely to have different types of circumstances, and if we're trying to get to the root of violence for what we know, we know that in a restaurant is likely just gonna be that, which that covered, and in this case, in entertainment, we want it to be um consistent with all the language.

And if we're trying to get to the root of violence for what we know, we know that in a restaurant is likely just gonna be that, which that covered, and in this case, an entertainment, we want it to be um consistent with all the language.

I know we just pulled that little bit, but there's a lot more language in there, we want it consistent with that.

So I think that's why we keep it.

And if it turns out that somehow that's confusing as as we apply it, then we can always come back and change it.

I think I think it is confusing.

Noted.

Not going we know that.

Yeah I I see a lot of heads going up and down that that uh that that's confusing.

Why why can't we have consistent language?

Well, well, I I agree.

I I think I agree with the fact that I think the language is appropriate.

Because if you look at it historically, when we have had shootings and fights historically, they've mostly occurred in nightclubs, not restaurants.

And so what what we're trying to get to, as I said, it's not necessarily an ideal, but when one would think of a restaurant, um, I know that there's usually in an environment where people are coming to eat to dine.

Perhaps there could be a violent situation, but if you look at the statistics, perhaps more importantly, the violence generally occurs after hours in the nightclub environment where people had too much to drink, and they get into some type of melee.

That's what I've seen, and that's what I've witnessed.

I don't think there's a contradiction.

I think clearly, and I I think it makes sense.

I mean, at the end of the day, a restaurant is not the same environment as a nightclub.

Period.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Um just for more clarity, uh, I get what you're saying.

Um, but for example, a bar, just a regular bar on high street.

Okay.

Um, not to name any in particular, but if they are just they're operating as a restaurant until 2 a.m.

serving liquor until 2 a.m.

They're technically just a restaurant, but we've seen instances along the highest corridor where violent situations have occurred um at such establishments that are not they're not club, but they're just uh eater eating location that allows a bar to be open until two.

And so I think that's where the confusion part comes in.

Um, and I think one of them we've recently talked about not too long ago.

Well, the the real difference are really just the numbers.

Right.

Restaurant says exceeds two, so that's three or more.

And so you get a little more leeway with the restaurants.

What we've always said from the very beginning is we want to nip violence in the butt in these entertainment places.

So two or more, that's all you get.

So at two, we can come in and start snooping around and taking some stuff from you.

So I think really the question is do you want to make it less?

I mean, because then it's just one or more, or do you want to make it more, like we do the restaurants and make it three or more?

That's really the only distinction here between the two.

Uh, just to follow on that point, because I've been listening to the conversation between the distinction and between the wording here, I think.

Is it be is it because of the word response versus incident, or just the number of uh so I'm just trying to try to match the why we have a difference in the speaker of language in the two places and I think councilwoman Thomas hit on something.

It's a difference between an incident and a response and a response.

You don't think so?

No, I absolutely do.

I I just what what I'm cautioned on is that this was worked on by this team together in a work group, looking at the entirety where you all are just pulling sentences that sound look like they should sound alike, and we want and we probably and they could be that you're 100% right, but what I would hate for us to do is disregard the group thought that made these distinctions, which aren't that vastly different until we've had them applied in the ways that trust me, if you can if we if I could put death in front of he would say the same thing.

I've argued with him just this morning, the very point.

And what was what was made clear to me was that the group thought for entertainment was very different in this laundry list, so that they could cover everything.

This is not just that section alone.

There's a laundry list, which is very different from restaurants, which we were trying to make have a uh uh higher level before we got to mess around with that, the entertainment.

And is it fair to say, you know, look, if it's a violent act at a restaurant, I think based on the police report and the severity of the accident or or the incident, that will take things to a different level.

There are other options that are currently available.

So I think if we get in we're getting hung up on a word of violence versus incident, um if we've got language that we need to let this is a process, I believe.

And we haven't been down this process.

And I get the fact that we want to get every word and sentence right, but we've got professionals here, and we asked them to go and do a job.

We asked them to bring forth something that we could put in place that will allow for us to have better enforcement and accountability.

And at the end of the day, that is what we're seeking in the short term.

Is it all gonna be absolutely what we want?

Perhaps not.

But we can't keep having this kind of dialogue in terms of holding up the process, and I appreciate the dialogue, but the reality is we are where we are.

We asked our team to put together some really good sound enforcement parts of this this ordinance, and I think to the most part, I've read it and I've read it over and I've asked questions of Dr.

Russell and our legal team.

I feel comfortable with it.

Is it a great work of art that I think that doesn't need any adjustments?

I I don't, I don't, but at the end of the day, guys, we we we're gonna have to come to some type of agreement.

Because I can assure you, if we don't move forward now, the next time it's gonna be something else.

So that's just a point of conservation.

I'm sorry, can I just add one thing just so that the distinction is clear?

In the restaurants, again, remember this is they're probably by right, and the zoning administrators go to only a fourth, and they have more, they have to have more incidences before the zoning administrator can do that, and then all the appellate processes come into play.

But here on the two or more violent on page six, which applied to the entertainment.

Remember, this goes directly to you guys.

Yeah.

This is so you're gonna see this, you're gonna have this come before you, and you can say, What?

We're absolutely not doing this, or yes, this is exactly what we wanted to see.

Okay, so that the rest of that paragraph talks about how you all get to step in and look at that.

So let's not forget the full picture there.

All right, I'm done.

Thank you.

Okay, thanks, Mary.

Um, so that said, let's move forward with this, and then we sort of monitor it like we've discussed what does that look like?

Does that mean we're a year out, we're six months out?

Is it longer than that?

Um, and then do we circle back and have a conversation amongst us, or do we wait and say, like, there's clear loopholes here, we need to act quickly.

What what might that look like?

Well, you we want a cons you know, some some time to identify problems and to see if it's uh uh you know uh a one-up, you know, or if it's a pattern.

I believe that we're also considering um making some proposals in our legislative agenda that would help the city of Portsmouth with the regulation of these types of users, so we want to at least wait past that point.

So I think we're talking about at least six to twelve months, okay.

Um unless they're just some significant problems.

Okay, and it could be sooner.

So there's nothing that prevents council from directing um staff to reconsider the proposed language as we did this time.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Tillage, go ahead.

Thank you, Mary.

Um so I have two, maybe three uh issues.

Uh first one being the 12 o'clock for entertainment videos.

Um I think that that after coming back from Greenville, and if we want to become that type of location, I think a 12 a.m.

cutoff is going to be destroyed, excuse me, terrible uh for the future of Portsmouth.

Um, we have a lot of businesses that have invested in Portsmouth.

Um, and we're gonna see a huge um, in my opinion, you're gonna see a large um you're gonna you're gonna see a negative impact when it comes to people wanting to invest in Portsmouth, um, and also the people that we're looking to bring into Portsmouth.

Um, let's be real as a entertainment location.

Uh people go most time they're not going out until 10 p.m.

Um they're hanging out until 1.30.

We cut off for liquor is at 1.30, um closing at 2 o'clock.

And so I think we really need to be very uh mindful of those businesses.

I do not support um us ending entertainment at 12.

I understand where you're saying that you know council can do conditions here, but ultimately we could have done that all along.

Um 80% of this ordinance is not new.

Most of the stuff has been on the books for years, which leads to my next point is the lack of enforcement.

Uh we've gotten this far, not because we didn't have things on the book, but because there's no enforcement, and businesses know Portsmouth has been laxadaisical when it comes to enforcing.

And so my question on that point is how do we what is our enforcement look like from this day forward?

Um because let's be real, nobody's gonna be out surfing the streets at 10 p.m.

until 3 a.m.

Um so how are we going to do that?

Are we gonna have a team that's out during that time?

Um, and how are we going to enforce this?

Because if not, and I think because at 12 o'clock, you're just gonna you're gonna add to even more illegal activity because people are having their business, they know that their crowds coming between that 10 and 12 o'clock time period.

Well, I'm gonna bring in my DJ anyway.

So we're we're kind of you're gonna get united in the consequences than what we're we're looking for.

So, how can we better work with the nightlife entertainment to get a better feel?

And which leads to my third point is how do we I really wish we had our nightlife incorporated throughout this process, like when we do our community engagement for economic development projects or with anything, I feel like the night life in the restaurants should have been a table to help us with this working group on how do we implement and what's best for business, but also what's best for public safety.

Uh because I really do think that that 12 a.m.

cutoff period is gonna be very uh it's it's gonna have negative consequences for business's enforcement.

Okay, so I um let me ask answer the question about hours of operation and I like to pitch to you, Mr.

Carter enforcement.

Um there are instances in and in my tenure, there's there's the the one how just sparing where 12 o'clock does make sense because of the process to the residential users.

Yeah, um, and I think it in instances where they are not you know immediately next door to a residential use, two o'clock might be appropriate.

132 o'clock.

You know, it's but that what the use permit does is permits a site specific evaluation of the appropriateness of the use.

Um they all require a use permit, they all require our use permit if it's a new user, and so it's as simple as asking for it.

That's not a heavy lift.

So when we talked about the non-conforming, those that are already exist, they're not conforming, they can continue to operate since the enforcement provisions.

So if they were permitted to two o'clock before, they're still permitted to two o'clock.

So you know, I I just I want some feedback from you about asking and that being vetted by the fining commission and the council, is that do you still believe that's detrimental to the night life enforcement?

So when you're reading the language, for example, it just says 12 a.m.

So unless the city tells me, oh, I can ask, I'm not gonna know.

And so let's be real.

I'm not, I mean, none of us are gonna be here forever, but that's the next zoning director is uh not an advocate of 2 a.m.

There's no direct step is not and qu not to let applicants know that.

And so I think if we're gonna if there's gonna be a 12 a.m.

cutoff period, but they can there's enough uh requests, maybe we can incorporate that in the language.

Um I understand in certain districts you may not want a 2 a.m.

location, but for example, in a downtown area or in a very commercialized area, 2 a.m.

is appropriate.

And so once again, that's that's that goes back down to an individual's interpretation um to decide whether or not that's gonna happen or not.

And I think it's gonna lead to uh it could possibly lead to a situation where it looks as if the city or council is kind of picking and choosing who gets 2 a.m.

and who doesn't get 2 a.m.

There's a remote thing in the ordinance.

We could recite that there in the standards.

And and those are okay.

So as long as it's related to the impact of the use, which is why the distinction between neighborhood and not neighborhood is important.

The other thing is that all of these provisions are ones where council had apply it ultimately rest with council.

You have the purview to amend it as you see fit.

So if you think 2 a.m.

is good for this entity, then you all can vote for that to be, or if you think they don't need uh security cash.

You have the ultimate say.

So then my thing is if we have the ultimate say then in the ordinance, why are we putting in black and white 1200?

So they have a range.

I know, but then it's like we're going against our own ordinance.

No, you're not.

Everybody, everybody knows if if you're in this business, you know that these are use standards, and that the standards have the ability to be amended by the person given that authority across the board.

No matter where you are in Virginia, that's how it's but but once again, I I'm just I'm just confused with so like for example, if we had 80% of this was already in writing, it just wasn't being enforced.

But you can always add conditions, conditions were never a part of ordinances.

But we knew that we could use we could have used conditions.

Now we're trying to pick and choosing which which conditions are now gonna be in an ordinance, but then we're saying later on that well, it's up to you to decide if you want that in the ordinance or not.

I mean, in the conditional use permit.

Why don't we just keep the ordinance basically like it is and just add and take away conditions as we go?

One of the reasons we're sitting at the table having this conversation is because this body decided that there's a group of uh establishment, a category of accession, I say it that way, yeah, that you wanted to have more control over.

So we wrote the language to give you more control.

Correct.

We can't give you more control and not give you more control.

So if there's an issue like the time, all right.

What I would prefer you to do is hey, because at the end of the day, I need language that you're gonna agree on.

So if time is a problem, will you guys change the model?

Do you want to modify the time?

Or do you want to keep the time the way it is?

That's the real question I need to answer.

Well, and and and and I know I I want my colleagues to say something, but I I need to add this because this may be important.

So myself and councilman Hugo, we were called to a meeting last Friday, and when we got there, there were five club owners, um, nightclub owners in the meeting that we we got surprised on.

But one of the questions that was the overriding question of all these nightclub owners was hey Mary, you're gonna put us out of business.

Um, you know, we we we we can't comply with all of this, and here's what we told them.

We're not here to put you out of business, just like Dr.

Russell just said, right now it's all non-conforming.

If you're in there today and you're operating the way you're operating, you're good to go.

But here's the reality.

If you break the rules, if you violate any of these rules this day forward, right?

You're held to this standard.

Now, to your point, and and if they were all in agreement with that, just so you know.

All the clubs were in agreement with that.

All the club owners that are on on George Washington and on victory, they were all in agreement with that.

When we met, were they in agreement with that, sir?

So the point I'm trying to say is I think we're confusing this.

We we we asked for this in the sense that we want the whole folks accountable that we know that have created different kinds of situations.

The reality is to the point, we ultimately control it.

If to Dr.

Russell's point, when that person comes for that use permit and they have a meeting or they come and meet, which I encourage all of them to meet with planning, they can outline all of the parameters.

Is that fair or not fair?

Fair.

And that business owner has every right to ask the question.

And for you to suggest or for any of us to suggest that we should lay out everything for them, I don't agree with that.

If you're a business, you should know how you want to operate, and you should be able to ask the question, and we should be able to tell you whether it's permissible or not.

If the business owner asked a question, can I stay open at two o'clock?

Well, sure you can.

But here's what you gotta have in place, and you gotta take that before council so that it's approved.

That's the reality to me.

It gives us the the autonomy and the accountability to say, do we want this here or do we not want to hear?

It's not picking and choosing.

At the end of the day, everybody from this point when we adopt this, they're green, they got green lights.

What it is, it's enforcement, folks.

And we talked about enforcement, but now we almost don't want enforcement.

And I'm confused because I thought that's what we wanted.

I thought we wanted to create, and here's what I said to that group of club owners, and and the councilman will tell you.

I listen to their concerns.

I say, guys, here's the non-negotiable.

Safety is a non-negotiable.

If you operate under the guise of safety, and here's what they had to say to me.

Well, we know who the shooters are, we know who the bad bad actors are.

We banned some of the people from our industry.

I said, wonderful.

Well, you should be self-policing your industry, because if you want your industry to be viable in the city of Portsmouth, guess who needs to hold everybody accountable?

You do too.

So that was the conversation.

So just so you all know, we've all thought about this, but what I conveyed to that group was simply what Dr.

Russell and our legal team put together is accountability going forward.

Is it going to be perfect?

No.

But we, yes, we do get to pick and choose, and that's your right of counsel.

And and it doesn't have to agree with everybody.

So my biggest concern though is just that we're putting something in black and white that we're going that we're agreeing on tonight, that tomorrow we're gonna say we're gonna.

If we're going to allow a business to operate past midnight, all I'm saying is where it says the hours of operational entertainment shall be from 8 a.m.

until midnight, and then comma unless approved for like for some type of extension.

Because reading this, we're we're just totally going against what we're agreeing, should be so you just want a later time in midnight.

That's all I'm doing.

Or request or put a comma, unless granted by council.

That's every one of these.

But the it's part of it is like understanding how this works.

And you shouldn't have a business know that these are all use standards.

So standards are all flexible in terms of the council can change.

That would be added on all of these.

That's what that's that's the point that we're trying to make is that it's not just the hours.

It's council can negate or add to any of these.

You won't have the power to do that.

Only you as a body.

So, but if it is that you want it later, because it looks ridiculous to have an entertainment till midnight, then that's then that's the discussion we should be able to do.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about.

Yeah, but I think it's ridiculous.

So then we're gonna read it.

But know that once you put it in writing, that is the that's the norm across the board that everyone's gonna expect.

And so then you're gonna have to get four people to to take it back, plus the plus planning, your staff, plus the planning commission, who's also gonna be looking at before it gets to you.

And so remembering that we had shootings, we have cases.

I'm involved in it, my team's involved in it.

We've got staff, and we got four different enforcement groups out here doing what y'all asked them to do.

And if you put this in there, I I lose, I lose, I lose leverage, they lose leverage, we lose leverage.

And but in our fairness, and I'll end it with this.

In all fairness, I I don't think shootings are related solely to entertainment districts or entertainment facilities.

Absolutely.

So for this whole conversation to be because shootings are happening, we're right.

We have shootings in broad daylight, yeah.

Um, but the extra two hours I don't think is going to cause uh a huge difference, especially if things were being enforced, which is where the city's the city comes in to do.

But at the same time, we're we're we're we're a city of small business.

We just did a whole meeting about embracing small business and growing business, and yes, you can embrace business and growth business, still have the public safety feature without causing damage to smokers.

Yes, and I just think that this is gonna hurt businesses unless we uh we just have to stay true to what we're gonna vote on, and the fact that this is in black and white, I just don't like saying something today, and then next week, oh I just think we should change it.

I don't like that okay.

I have a different question, so I wanted I didn't want to leave the topic of hours yet, unless we're good to move forward because that's what we don't have a decision.

Okay, that's what and that's why I was I I heard you Mr.

Uh Mr.

Carter about I was about to say Mr.

City Manager.

So let's let's finish the conversation so we can determine what the next steps are.

Right time go ahead.

You have the floor.

Oh, okay.

So I can move to the next no, okay.

You give you on hours.

All right, so hours.

I asked this actually in my email, and uh Dr.

Russell, you know, your what you just explained out here.

I also just seeing the the time laid out like that, kind of was jarring, like eight to twelve, and like for inner under entertainment, um, was a bit jarring to see it that way.

Your however, your explanation regarding they can through the use permit process request extra time made sense, and I understand your reasoning regarding there's different situations if it's um an entertainment close to residential that might require a different you know time based on if it's you know a club or entertainment um venue that's not near residential and not won't be impacting you know citizens trying to go to sleep or whatever.

So I understood why um how applicants can request that later time.

It was just a bit jarring not knowing the how would an applicant get past this 12 if they're reading this, do they know they have the option to go beyond midnight?

Um so for me that was a bit that was my only why why I asked that question in the in the email uh follow-up when when kind of reviewing this.

So I under I I I get why we why we're doing it and why you need the parameters.

I just didn't know that they could you know go that route, but it makes sense with our current process.

So the only recommendation I could have to add to this is I mean, I guess since it's all based on use permit, um I'm fine with it unless we just don't mention hours at all.

But I think the reason we mentioned you're saying the reason we mentioned hours is because we needed some restriction and some some some boundaries around it.

Every use permit that we have had didn't that we pass, we were livid that the hours were what I I wish I could roll back the tape.

Every instrument, it was about the hours, was one of the main gripes.

So that's what this is here.

Okay, yeah.

And so I'm fine with that.

Can I go to the next question I had?

Well, yeah, go ahead and then council Vicemair Moody.

Okay.

And my next question is also related to what I sent um in the follow-up, and I see it here in the presentation as well, highlighted under entertainment establishments.

The restrictions, no outside promoters or third party events for entertainment establishments, but if a restaurant then also gets the use permit for entertainment establishment because they want to have a DJ or something like that.

So we're I don't think we can't bring anybody in.

Yes, for third party.

So that means no shows, no.

But we have restaurants right now where we have events.

They we the restaurants, well known restaurants can rent space for third party events, reunions, homecomings.

Um you get where I'm going here.

So if they if a restaurant now has this entertainment use permit attached to them, does that restrict them from I I personally think that might be an issue?

We have oh yeah.

So the restaurants that currently do that, are they not having they don't fall under this?

No, they don't.

Right.

As long as they're vested.

Am I ready?

Actually, it sounds like y'all know which restaurants you're talking about.

Actually near to finish it because I'm thinking it might if they're already doing it, yeah.

Then aren't they vested under the non-conforming yes staff?

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

That's that yes.

That's my thought.

Now, the l the the one thing that Dr.

Russell was alluding to with the statute where we can limit um the timing of use permits, which is what we're looking at down the line.

That opens everybody back up to it once that time frame kicks in.

So if we get added to that statute, we can then start limiting use permits.

So everybody gets everybody gets a little taste of the new stuff once we do it that way, which gives us a little more tease.

So I'm gonna use a uh a very loose example here.

Um that's not so relative.

But let's say um I'm hosting a family reunion and I want to host uh you know, night banquet or something at a restaurant.

They I want to bring in a DJ, I want to bring in people, they have space in a back room or something that I can use.

The restaurant is no longer allowed to if they're also have the entertainment uh use permit attached to them, they're no longer allowed to entertain that type of event.

Is that are they already doing it?

Do they have no if they're a new restaurant and they you know restaurants have extra space and people that are throwing events like the restaurant has the use permit for the restaurant, but they also have the additional use permit for the entertainment because they have DJ for brunch or you know, you know, they have other things going on that qualify under entertainment.

So now does that put that restriction for no outside promoters or third party events?

Well, it's a little bit more than that.

If you're just talking about X on five, I'm on page.

Yes, that's it.

Neither.

So it's set for profit.

That's really the distinction.

So neither the establishment nor any portion of it shall be lease, let or used by any third party for an entertainment event for profit.

That's what's missing from the from the little cheat sheet.

This one, yes, yes.

So for so unless you're unless your family union is charging tickets, then they're good.

Or you got some outside promoter coming to host it.

Okay.

Then you're good.

Let's say I have a clash reunion that charges to get away.

The question though is did you charge for the f the the the reunion or did you charge for that event?

Hey, reunion, I just we talked about a very particular thing that happens.

Very particular place.

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

By very particular group, and they're vested, so that's probably gonna be fine.

But moving forward for a new place would not be able to.

Because I think the issue that we're limiting the number of places that needs to be able to do that.

Okay.

That's and you gotta draw the line somewhere.

Okay.

I think this can be summed up in two words.

Be careful what you ask for.

Yes, I got you.

Um be careful.

I still I still think a greater distinction should be made between nightclubs and private clubs.

I.e.

Elizabeth Manor, uh Woman's Club, that sort of thing.

And my question on the night club.

And and I think initially that's what got us into this.

Uh was what was happening after two o'clock.

And I agree with Councilman Tillage.

I I think uh you know, cutting everybody off at 12 o'clock would be too restrictive.

But my question is on a nightclub, uh what what are the hours?

How late can a nightclub operate?

However, as late as you want it to be.

See, that there lies the problem.

Uh Norfolk and I mentioned Norfolk because we somewhat uh looked at what they were doing.

If their language I'm being facetious when I say that.

Well so you'll know on nightclubs, uh, they can't operate between uh 2 a.m.

and and 6 a.m.

So their city, their council, just like you can give a exception to that to allow for that.

But but that that may be, but I I'm just telling you what's in writing, what's ink, and and to councilman Tillage's point, it whatever we want, if it's not in the ink, and and I know use permits, we always have flexibility.

But so then it so then we we we can take that language if that's what you all want.

That but you you gotta live with it.

That that was some of the problem as to what was happening uh later than 2 a.m.

Uh we hours in the morning.

So most of those places aren't open past you, but there's only one.

Just takes one.

There's multiple, actually.

But I do think you know, cutting the time off at 12, and still things happening at three.

And so because people they're they're not gonna go home.

And so why not have them in a place that is a business that we can ensure we can help to work with public safety on instead of having them in the streets or having them in an environment that we know no good is happening at 3 a.m.

It just doesn't that's why it should have been a distinction between nightclubs and and restaurants and and private uh uh clubs, like a woman's club, like Elizabeth Manor, like uh uh deporis.

I I stand by the principle that we have done that.

I just think it's very legal least language, and it's not because we have we're trying to we're trying to cover the universe of but I assure you that they're they would not fall within the restrictions outlined the way we've written it, unless we come up with some new combination of something that we just didn't consider, but it's it's it is in the preamble in paragraphs threes and three and four on the front page, and it's also in the definition under exhibit A on page one, and we tried to really go to the core of what the organization was and not so much the name or where located or what it really the core of what those organizations serve, and if it's any of those fraternal social educational recreational culture and risk enrichment, you know, those soft things, then they're not a private club and they're not an entertainment, and it covers it.

No, I think you're right.

And and and if we could just you did you want the floor, sir?

Go go ahead just for a second.

Thank you.

Um I believe uh Mr.

Tillage's point might be, and I I agree with Mr.

Tillage very much, can be solved by saying for reference in this line because it's one line.

If I was a businessman just reading this, I would run right away.

I wouldn't even ask the question, but I would say we need just need some reference in that line to say it uh something like it might be extended at council's approval to 2 a.m.

Just a supplementary line that directs them to say if I'm if I'm coming from out of town and I'm reading it.

Yes, you guys are gonna have to give me time because if I put it in this statutory race statutory interpretation is if I put it in this and I don't put it in others, that means that it doesn't exist in others, and that's not true.

So we have to if you want to extend the time, just extend it.

Give me another number to put in there.

Yeah, no, but I I agree with you when you're saying that we still need that midnight restriction for certain neighborhoods.

We need to have it, but we also need to know you still restrict, but but here's coming in as a new council member, and I if I read this as a new council member and didn't have the council that you just gave me, I would I would look at this and go, Oh, okay, sorry, I'm not coming here at the Portsmouth.

Well, I I don't agree with that totally.

I I and and I I say that because that that's a one point of view.

Here's the reality.

All of the establishments that are in place today, it doesn't impact them.

It does not impact them.

Going forward, as it is written, um, they have they the business owner that you say looked at that.

Well, if I'm a business owner, if I'm a proven business owner, I'm gonna ask some questions.

I'm not gonna look at something and then run for the hills.

So, and I've been in business long enough to know and I've talked to a lot of people.

The reality is we're creating the environment where people have to be accountable.

That is what we said, that is what we're doing.

Everybody that's opened their doors now that are in business are not subject to this.

Only to the degree that they cause or problems arise at their institution or they or their business, then they come under these new rules.

It's enforceable.

And and and I uh I I gotta go back to what I said when we met with this group of club owners.

We said these same things, I said these same things.

I we had them all sitting around the table, and I said, guys, is there anything you object to?

No, we don't we just don't want you to shut our business down.

Well, if you follow the rules that are written in place to protect us to provide the public safety that we said was important to us, then you ain't got a problem.

And guess what?

Now, y'all might have had some different conversations, but everybody that was at that table agreed.

And I told him, this is not this is not intended to be punitive to anybody who's currently in business operating or anybody who seeks to come in business operating.

This is this is intended to be enforceable rules that we have established as a council with the guys and understanding that the number one priority, which is our non-negotiable, is public safety.

I stand by that.

I think our team has done an amazing job.

Is it a hundred percent perfect?

Is every word show up?

No, it's not.

But guys, you know, we got people waiting.

So if y'all, if y'all want to keep on moving it back, if if that's the pleasure of council to keep it going, we can keep it going.

Well, we're gonna just prove the ones that are later.

I I want to reiterate what you say, Mayor, and say that I think what we have here is what we asked for um to the degree that it it can be.

Of course, there's opportunities maybe to revise it as we go on, but we put this forward with the goal of improving public safety.

That was our number one goal coming out of our council retreat.

We've made incredible gains in that field, and this supports that.

There are opportunities for us as a council to make adjustments based on businesses as we go, and there are opportunities down the road to change any part of this if we feel necessary, as we got a handle on public safety, if that is an outcome of this.

Um so I would encourage us tonight to move forward with this as it is, with all of that understanding that our goal is public safety.

We are looking at redevelopment large parts of our city and creating lots of new opportunities here, and this is something we can revisit.

This is something we need right now.

Thank you, ma'am.

Vice Mayor Moody.

Uh, my question has anything changed with the use itself.

It still goes with the uh with the property.

Yes, that's right.

And there was a little bit of change where we changed the lessee less or relationship.

We didn't make that a little bit tighter, um, so that the let the less sore couldn't just hold their hands up and go, that guy did it, not me.

So we didn't make that a little tighter.

So right.

We also discussed a review process on use permits.

So that's that language that we're talking about in our legislative packet where it will end at a certain time and we can go back and people will be in a period of two years.

That's exactly right.

We don't have an automatic review or termination, so they'd have to be a termination.

Yeah, whatever.

So that'll be in our legislative package.

And I I think that'll be a good tool as well.

That'll give us so I think have we have we gone around, Robin, on this one enough that we can so tomorrow we're gonna be taking a vote.

And we need to determine is this good enough for us to go forward, or are we going to push it back and have another revision?

I'm opening the floor now for us to have a call for a consensus.

Uh someone from the floor call for a consensus for us to move forward.

Councilman Hugel is calling for a consensus.

Can we have that consensus to move forward?

Um I guess um, what is it, finalized or approved and the consensus by a show of hands?

Are we changing anything?

And we're gonna prove prove what's on the table, and we're gonna m gonna continue to hear out and deal with them on a one-by-one.

Is that fair?

Thank you guys.

And this has been a very good discussion.

I'll just close out by saying the zoning rest with council.

Is that fair, madam attorney?

That's right, don't you rest out all the time.

So so we have the ability to do what is in the city's in the citizens' best interest at any time.

Okay, so uh my question is about moving forward and tomorrow.

We had some applicants that we delayed, right?

Yeah.

And I still want to make sure I'm clear on the they apply before this package.

So does this apply?

Well no, I think they're five.

They're good to the degree go ahead.

I'm sorry, I'm not going to.

They've not vested it yet.

So because they've not vested it yet.

But again, council has a say, so you don't want something that's in there.

So it and that's my okay.

So my follow-up question regarding the hours.

If their initial package did not include requests for a time beyond twelve, is that something that we grant them without them asking?

Or is that council?

You have the floor, I'm sorry.

Uh B and Brown asked.

And uh draft other resolutions reflect their request.

Okay.

Um seeded.

It's hot this very midnight.

Because of the proximity to residential areas and concerns raised by neighbors.

Okay.

So um, but again, you will have a final say if you think 2 a.m.

and disturb all the neighborhood okay.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

So um great, great, great discussion.

Now we are in need of a closed session.

So if I could have the vice mayor please read the closed session motion, we'll go ahead and I move to go into a closed meeting pursuant to Virginia Code Subsection 2.2-371 A one for the purpose of discussing the performance of the city assessor and the process for retaining a new city attorney.

Second.

You have a motion and a second.

Madam Clerk, you call the role.

Yes, sir.

Miss Bryant, yes.

Dr.

Doxon?

Yes.

Mr.

Hugel.

Mr.

Moody.

Yes.

Ms.

Thomas, yes, Mr.

Tillich, yes, Matt Glepper.

Yes.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're in close.

We got a f we'll have a five-minute for transition.

Thank you.

Yes, it doesn't be a thousand.