Good evening, citizens of Portsmouth.

Uh everyone who is joining us online also want to welcome our city staff and our leadership team who is with us today.

Thank um Manager Carter for being here, certainly our attorney, LeBron DeGram Williams, and our clerk, Miss Deborah White.

The members of our planning commission.

And they're going to introduce themselves once we get through this part.

But want to acknowledge again and thank everyone for participating today.

We look forward to getting work done on behalf of the citizens of Portsmouth.

And with that, Madam Clerk, would you please call the role?

Yes, sir.

Ms.

Bryant, present.

Dr.

Dotson and Mayor, he's running a little late.

Yes, ma'am.

Mr.

Hugo.

Present.

Mr.

Moody.

Ms.

Thomas.

Here.

Mr.

Tillage.

Here.

Mayor Glover.

Here.

Since we've gotten that part out of the way, we'll go ahead and move forward.

I think Mr.

Carter, sir, the you you have the floor.

Thanks, sir.

Tonight we have the right, right, right.

Okay.

I was sorry, Mr.

Carter, but we need to call their role.

Right.

Oh, okay.

And then I'll find the commissioners.

As I call your name, please reply with a verbal response.

Commissioner G.

Commissioner Carey.

Present.

Commissioner Taylor.

Present.

Commissioner Jiggets.

Commissioner Melvin.

Here.

Commissioner Glover.

Present.

Commissioner Johnson.

Four members of the planning commission are present.

Thank you, ma'am.

Now we'll move forward.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Council.

We'll have the planning council with us tonight.

Um first of all, let me saying Council Wise Cross and got the late notification.

I personally appreciate you pivoting and being able uh to adjust your schedule and be here.

So thank you for doing that.

Uh if not unappreciated and unnoticed that that did happen.

So thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um so um where's she there?

She is Dr.

Russell has this uh presentation that she'd like to uh kind of go through with us and it kind of outline some of the things that uh both of these bodies need to address collectively.

We also have uh HROT, Mr.

Harrell, his team is going to come in and uh provide a presentation once this portion of the meeting is completed.

So uh there may be some time for this group to exit if we're gonna allow that before we'll bring that next group on.

That that would be appropriate, sir.

All right.

Dr.

Russell.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, Dr.

Bush.

Good evening.

All right.

Okay, keyboard right arrow.

Got it.

Good evening, everyone.

And I am going to uh briefly set the stage for our meeting this evening, go over some information relative to the planning commission's performance over last year that we were able to clean from the planning commission's annual report.

Uh we're gonna talk about two specific projects, our zoning ordinance uh implementation, specifically around some uh land uses that um have a higher priority for uh the community, namely uh entertainment districts, event spaces, uh, and short-term rentals.

We want to talk about the implementation plans for the link district, formerly known as our innovation district, and then we have some questions that we'd like to pose just to facilitate a discussion between the council and planning commission relative to what your priorities uh are and what we will jointly um commit to for our priorities going forward this year.

All right, so uh planning commission's uh performance in 2024.

Um this is a pretty good score if you just base it on ABCDEF.

We have an 88 percent, which is you know, I I hail from from academia for a couple of years.

That's an A- is it not, or is it B plus concurrence?

Concurrence between the Commission recommendations and council's actions relative to those recommendations.

So the commission considered 11 use permit requests, two rezoning requests, five Chesapeake Bay exception requests.

So council members rarely see those, but that's when a developer wants to or a property owner wants to impact the buffer areas that are designated for the Chesapeake Bay Preservation District.

We have one street closure, one street name change, and that's probably because after that request, the council adopted an honor honorary street name policy, and that is the street name tool that most applicants have used since that time.

You adopted the innovation district plan, and the commission hosted 10 public hearings.

Um with that tool, and we have identified some.

So we're directed by the manager to consider uh formalizing how we regulate that use in the city of Portsmouth, and we will be moving forward with uh that effort.

That's an excellent segue to the comment about community education and outreach.

And we had a citizen send uh communication this afternoon in response to this uh item being on the agenda that uh we uh are strongly encouraged to uh have community engagement and public outreach any time we're considering changes to our ordinance.

That is actually actually a best practice, and unless it's an emergency situation, that's our preference for how we move forward with uh the proposal of land use regulatory changes in our land use policies.

Um best practices prior to a public hearing, and while you're developing those regulations that you would reach out to the stakeholders uh in your community who are most likely to be impacted by those regulations, and then post-adoption of any regulatory changes, like we're proposing to do with the entertainment uh venues and the event centers to make ourselves available very broadly to discuss what those potential impacts are.

With respect to council alignment with needs, uh we always want to discuss how changes impact businesses and how those changes will potentially impact trending in the community as it relates to development.

Uh in anticipation of tomorrow's meeting, for example, uh, what is the the impact for uh whatever what is the frequency of short-term rentals in our community today?

In anticipation of tomorrow's meeting, for example, what is the impact for uh what are what is the frequency of short-term rentals in our community today?

And so uh the best way to try to get that information is to see what business licenses were issued.

Uh, but I went to Airbnb and uh Burbo VRBO today and looked for listings where they were making available the entire property, right?

And so the code of Virginia were stipulates that if the property owner lives in the property, uh then there it's permitted as a by-right use.

But if the property owner is making the whole property available, then it is operatingly consistent with the local ordinance, right?

Right.

It's all out of that.

That's all out of it.

It was like 20 pages of it.

I didn't know 20 pages, but it's a lot, it's a lot.

Um consistency with interpretation across boards, uh, all of our boards and commissions, which finding commission board zoning appeals, our historic preservation district commissions, our um wetlands board.

We accomplish that consistency with very frequent and consistent training, and that is training even outside of a proposed change.

And I was trying to remember phrase that Mr.

Carter shared that I like, and he says, most of us train to the point of competency in the other part of it, but not to the point of muscle memory.

But can you tell it?

Share it with us again.

It's a whole different phrase.

The intent is there.

Yes, the uh an amateur phase until they get it right.

Okay, a professional trades until they can't get it rolling.

That's what we need to do with all of our boards and commissions.

So just so I'm clear, is that a Carterism?

What is it?

Absolutely.

I call it C business.

C philosophies.

Okay, all right.

Okay, okay.

So I was very I was tickled, you know, uh, about once a month we all the department heads meet with um uh new employees uh in the HR conference room.

Uh and I always start with something like, What do you know about the city of Fortsmith?

And the last time I met with our new group, they said there's so much happening downtown, and we're so excited about that.

And I thought that was just really telling for where we are in terms of the implementation of our link district, formerly the innovation district, our waterfront redevelopment plans.

I would say there is a lot that is going on behind the scenes, and in the planning world, there's a lot that happens before you ever see earth moves, like you know, and so that our uh new team members know that is really exciting.

It's exciting to me, but this is what's going on.

We have uh recently, it was a delegation of about 19 of us, you know, 2020, I think it's 2021, 22 of us traveled to Greenville, South Carolina.

Uh three-day trip uh because Greenville is uh an award-winning community that is known for its uh re uh innovation of itself over 30 years, it's bike pit friendly, uh family-friendly, healthy economy, uh, and not just Portsmouth, but Portsmouth, Richmond, uh communities outside of the United States, Continental United States are visiting Greenville to study uh what we can do or what they can do in their own community so that we have similar outcomes to Greenville.

We actually just did that, I think it was April 16th through the 18th.

On the 16th of September, we're gonna have a debrief of that meeting for those of us that participated in that outing to determine what are the short-term and long-term implementation opportunities in Portsmouth so that we can be known similarly as Greenville, South Carolina.

So that's one thing.

On October 21, we're gonna do a facilitated discussion with the economic development authority for implementation of the link district, and what we're gonna do with them is uh an exercise where we say what is it that you like about uh the design of various communities that have some call it innovation, some call it other things, but innovation districts.

Do you like the very roof lines?

Do you like the facade treatments?

One thing about Greenville is the the PED bike-friendly aspects of it.

It was just beautiful in terms of the landscaping, the lunch, lush landscaping, the public art, those types of things.

So if we collectively come to a consensus that those are elements that we like and we desire here in Portsmouth, we can design our regulation so that we accomplish that those outcomes in here.

So that's what the EDA on the 21st.

A week later, we're doing the same activity or exercise with the city council.

So the 16th, the debrief for those that participated in the trip, the 21st, uh EDA, and then the 28th, um, City Council.

And so we're moving forward very quickly, hopefully with some opportunities to implement um uh projects in this current fiscal year um and going forward.

That's all right.

There we go.

All right.

How do you know that we're gonna online at a time?

Do one stuff at a time.

All right, so we're interested in uh some shared perspectives from our city council members and our planning.

Uh we want to talk about issues or concerns uh for council uh and commissioners.

Uh work we want um commissioners um to share with council members where we need support or where you need support.

Uh and then where are there opportunities for joint leadership for citywide priorities, namely innovation district implementation, uh, zoning ordinance, um text amendments and implementation of the same.

Um and then are you wanting us to engage to the community differently going forward than we have now?

Now I will tell you um, and and you know this as well with respect to the most recent changes.

Um we we didn't engage in a um uh proactive community or public engagement opportunities.

We were more reactive, responsive as people called, uh, and that's why we're doing the the effort in the next few weeks with existing operators.

Um I'm going to sit close to the podium and take copious notes while you all have this conversation.

Uh, and then we want to follow that conversation with what our priorities will be going forward this year.

All right.

Okay.

So maybe I'm sorry.

Oh, sorry, no, I don't want to jump in front of the uh manager.

So go ahead.

Okay.

Well, great.

Um one of the things that we want to talk about this evening is um the recent changes that we've made to the zoning ordinance.

How that was kind of conceived, rolled out now the aftermath of that.

Uh we have some other zoning type changes that we're going to propose with the uh the short-term rentals being one of them.

Um how do we improve on that process?

How do we make that more uh easier on the plan council or plan commission, the city council, but more importantly, how do we make that easier on our citizens?

Um we gotta make this a process that's palatable.

We we know what our intent is, but sometimes that intent they'll get um relayed to our community in the same manner.

So we need to do some things that kind of make sure that uh we don't end up being reactive in how we roll things out, but more proactive in in the process.

Uh so I'd like to start with that conversation.

There's a couple of things I like to bring in after we finish that.

So councilwoman, maybe you have the floor.

Um so Mr.

Carter, that's you your first opening question is the exactly where I kind of wanted to go with my question and first thanking the planning commission for all the hard work that you all have done to even work on these ordinances and get them to us at a place to vote.

Um great work.

I know it wasn't easy taking the you know back and forth feedback.

So thank you, Dr.

Russell, and to the Planner Commission.

I think to your point, we you know, lessons learned from this first rollout with the entertainment venues.

Um one, um, what Dr.

Russell already mentioned, like more proactive engagement.

So with those entities that will be impacted by any changes, getting their feedback, um, even making them aware that the changes are in discussion of happening.

It has to be, I love um, it has to be something that's quick bullet point communication, like these are the top things that how you might be impacted, how your business might be impacted, how you might have to do things differently.

Um, I want to make throw out for a recommendation.

I like the um side-by-side comparison that Dr.

Russell put together for the entertainment um event venues.

It was very straight to the point, a quick reference of the main changes from the current ordinance to the new ordinance.

I think that type of communication is helpful to the general public.

And sharing making I again I want to stretch making sure that we put ourselves in the shoes of the public that they're not reading, they're not going online and reading through an ordinance.

They'll do it later when it pertains to their business, but in the initial part to calm some fears and calm some concerns, having that quick, you know, read for the public.

Um, I think it's always beneficial.

And that side by side comparison you provided in our tour center email was very helpful, even as a council person to be able to go back to the public and relate that information without combing through the jargon of the actual ordinance.

So I'll I'll throw that out there.

Thanks, ma'am.

And also I want to welcome the members of our planning commission, certainly uh vice chair, uh Dr.

Curry, if you have anything that you would like to bring to the floor, or any members of the commission, uh, where we're we're here to listen and engage at this time because I mean we want to know what is happening, and uh we want people to feel like this is a body that wants to hear not only those individuals that we appoint to these boards and commissions to do the work um to make our city better, but more importantly, to engage with the citizens, and it's important that we all engage.

I will say um from my experience on being a liaison to the planning commission, it is important that we all engage.

Um I I know that folks may say that they they don't have time or access to information, but this is pretty important stuff.

And and what happens is when we don't engage, I think we kind of cheat ourselves a little bit.

That doesn't mean you've got to know all the answers, but here's another thing that I think we should use and we should deploy.

Many of our citizens and our board members, we have a staff in the planning commission.

We have a zoning director.

And and I would argue when I needed to know about zoning and what happens in planning, I took the time to go to those folks and really kind of listen to them because at the end of the day, they can break it down for you.

And it's important for us to use our resources because those resources, quite frankly, you you know, my mama used to say if you do something without asking and you didn't know better, then it's on you, right?

But if you do something and you don't know better and you want to know better, I think it's important that you ask the question.

And so I would encourage everyone, myself including my colleagues, use our resources.

We have very smart people in our city, and they're here to help.

I don't think anyone in the planning commission is here to be a deterrent to what you want to do if it's by the rules.

But I do think they want to be a part of providing information to help you make a better decision.

With that said, sir, you you have a floor.

Oh maybe oh uh one of the things that we did have the issue with I did call Dr.

Russell was when the vote was made on the rental.

Um, I went immediately just went on to social media and it was um, you know, the topic debacle, whatever you want to call it, it was that, and it was a lot of misinformation.

Um, and so I immediately call um Ms.

Virginia Johnson, like, hey, you know, I know we made a vote on this.

Is the right language correct, or am I missing something that we didn't do correctly because it was just so much going on?

I mean, I know this information is not correct, but I'm not gonna question nobody on social media because many people want to be right in the eyes of their people when they're absolutely wrong.

Because they're not gonna read.

They're not gonna go back and read, they just want to find someone to accuse and save somebody else's fault without going reading is very fundamental.

Um so that's one of the things that I've learned here.

So I had to call and just make sure to make sure we voted on the right thing and then no language change and make sure we didn't make a mistake.

I'm calling called that we mess up, you know.

I'm going back and watching the YouTube, like that.

I'm going to something wrong.

Um, so I think just ensuring that putting those bullet points like Councilman Women said Thomas said to make sure that the public can't understand for those who do not want to further their reading comprehension, they can go and just watch the bullet points, and so we can have that type of hook don't find it's for people who refuse to go back and do the due diligence.

I think that would really help some of the the community.

Okay, Councilman Hugo, so you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

So uh Mr.

Kerr, I think looking back on what we've just been through, uh it would have been helpful in my opinion if when we started the discussion about hey, we need to fix the zoning language that we paused the planning process for folks that were coming in the queues.

Yes, because we put us and the planning commission, I think, in a kind of painted ourselves into a corner because we started accumulating people that were deferred, and we told them you're deferred until a particular time.

Oh my god.

And so, and we kind of guessed that the time that we deferred them to based on what well, how long do we think we need to get the language fixed and approved?

I know as a planning commission liaison, the planning commission voted on language that wasn't finished, and Dr.

Russell took the time during the meeting to explain because we had just had a council work session and identified some additional things that we had asked to be addressed.

She briefed the planning commission on what those things were, but the team, Dr.

Russell and the attorney and everybody that was working on the language, hadn't really finalized that language yet when the planning commission took their vote, and they needed to take their vote in order for it to get onto the council agenda in time for us to vote in time for us to fulfill the you know the kind of the commitment that we made to the businesses that hey, we're gonna have this done so that we can call the question on your uh request.

Uh and so if if there was some way to interrupt the process before we painted ourselves into a corner and and therefore give ourselves a little bit more time to work together with the planning commission, work together as a team with you all, uh, and and make sure that we we uh were methodical not only in fixing the language but also in communicating what the changes were uh so that that uh we we um maybe cut through a lot of the misrepresentation of what was going on that that ultimately happened, and uh I think the Commissioner Curry's point were there people always gonna go into social media and broadcast what they think, whether it's correct or not correct, it's what they think.

Uh so we can't stop that, but but I think we can get ahead of it better than we did because we were kind of always playing catch-up to try to get the thing into our hands and approved so that we could then get the business owners that were waiting in the queue through their approval process.

So I think that that would be my feedback.

It's good observation.

Mayor.

Councilman.

And I'm sorry, mayor.

So I'm reading the attorney's body language, and so she got something to say about what I said.

Um it is I'm trying to get better, Councilman.

Um I apologize for not seeing the same thing that you saw, but maybe thank you, Council.

I just I just want to point out a couple of things that um for this particular set of of ordinances, we had a very distinct and discrete direction to go in, and it wasn't done overnight.

And I think your comments allude to that.

I know that's not what you intended.

There were several meetings with a large body that included not only my office but also the planning department and other departments within the city.

Many times we updated the community several times at every meeting about what the progress was going to be.

I'm not saying the suggestion that councilwoman has made is not a valid one, but I don't want the imagery to be that we we shoehorn this in.

We researched tremendous amount of ordinances across the state and even outside of the state to make sure that what we have was going to be constitutionally sound, that it would pass the muster of what was in other communities.

And then the council also, the uh commissioners, they pretty much passed what we um had settled on.

So I don't want to give the you the impression that your work was not important either.

Um there were just some things that we needed to tighten up in terms of language, but it didn't change the body of it.

And quite frankly, ordinances are difficult things to make simple, and it is not like uh um everything doesn't have what they call those in school, those um little short forms of stories that you don't see with cliff notes.

Everything doesn't have a cliff note, and I appreciate that we want to make it accessible to our community.

I'm I'm supporting that, but I don't want them to get the imagery that you show up in court with this cliff note that it's gonna get you past the muster of what happens when you show up to commission with these cliff notes because words um have are defined throughout the body of the ordinance, and I just don't want to mislead the community to believe that that's how they're gonna get their points across.

That's not how it is.

And so I just want to be very clear on that point while we're thinking about this, and that was it.

I respond.

Sure.

So you're right.

I don't and what wasn't intended to convey that we took some expedient path to get there.

I know there was a huge amount of work that was being done behind the scenes to get the language put together.

I point to only we put pressure on that group to hurry up and get that body of work done, and I don't know that we necessarily you know couldn't have given them another month, two months if we needed to, except that we kind of boxed ourselves in because we started deferring requests with a and then creating an expectation hey, we're we're gonna get to you.

It's not tonight, it's in two months, it's in one month, and now all of a sudden it's the night of, and people are working like crazy to try to get the thing finalized, and and then we're working like crazy to understand what it is that's being finalized so that it's so that we all know what it is that that's about to happen.

Fair enough.

Thank you.

Councilman Brad, ma'am, you have the floor.

Thanks, Mayor, and thank you, Planning Commission, everyone for being here.

I'm really glad that we're having this conversation because I think there are always areas to improve when it comes to communication because that is our role to serve the citizens.

Um, and I think it's really important to recognize that information and misinformation travels very fast now.

We all witnessed that, um, and that's just where we are in the world.

So I think this conversation is important.

Recognizing, yes, these are ordinances and it is deep, it is a lot to digest, but um, we have talked before with Mr.

Carter about having some unified messaging that comes from council, certainly could also come in the planning commission.

Um, something that we can all say that's a very firm digestible statement about what we just did, and as we travel to civic leagues around our communities or post on TV ourselves, that we can all deliver that message as one voice because that will help people understand it more efficiently.

Um certainly we don't want to minimize what we've done, but but whatever is before us, there is a way to convey something as one rather than I know we were all doing our part to kind of get out information the day after.

Um so I I do really hope we can look into some joint messaging.

Um I think another effective avenue might be targeting the specific groups that are potentially going to be impacted by the ordinance.

So in the last case it would have been restaurant owners entertainment venues.

Um, if we're looking at Airbnbs, if we can somehow target them maybe through civic leagues.

Um if they don't live in the city, that might be difficult.

And we've talked about the difference between Airbnb's where the property owner lives there versus not living there, but um civic leagues might be a useful avenue.

We have several that are very active, and they may be able to simple email or letter to presidents and saying, hey, we're gonna look at this.

If you know of any Airbnb owners in your neighborhood, restaurants in your neighborhood.

Um so hopefully that could be another way to have a direct link.

Yes, and um I again I want to thank you for the attorney, Korean, because I was thinking again, like uh Councilman Hugo Fair.

I I understand this went through a lot long process.

Um I sat on the planning commission as well for four years, and um just thinking back to when I was on the commission, but a citizen as well, the communication.

This is something we've always had to work on the communication of what you do from planning to council, even I back then didn't fully see the full scope of it and understand it.

And of course, I'm gonna kind of step back a little bit because I'm always putting I always want to put myself in the mind of uh of the citizen.

One, okay, planning commission meets at noon, right?

We meet uh in the evening, a lot of information.

I'm not saying that people can't find information, it's there to find, but put yourself in the place of a citizen that's working that's a live living day to day.

An issue doesn't become an issue until it is an issue, if that makes sense.

So how to communicate how to get ahead of that is what I was getting to, and I and that type of communication.

I know we can't, you know, put it in bullet points.

My point of bringing up the side-by-side comparison, and I talked to you, City Graham, about this.

Like, what can I put out was that it it wasn't all encompassing, but it did give a quick like highlight of these are the core points.

Of course, everything goes through council, and we can make recommendations or so forth as we see fit.

That is the process, but a citizen that owns that type of business or that frequents that business that you know entertainment venue, for example, they just want to know what does this mean to me.

And so sometimes if we can just get that type of verbiage out, it's helpful.

And I want to also bring up, I just highlighted this.

Let me see, in your presentation, Dr.

So I wanted to, since we're on this topic.

For example, we have this, you mentioned the link district and the collaboration meetings coming up.

So the debriefing meeting on 9 16, that's with the planning commission at noon, right?

That's a noon planning commission meeting, right?

Is that or is that a special meeting?

Okay, special meeting, okay.

I don't have it on my calendar, I'll put it.

So then the 1021 with the economic development authority, that's during their regular session, right?

Okay, and then 1028 with council.

My whole thing in this is kind of tied into our discussion with community engagement and feedback.

When do we get the citizen input?

Is that are we doing surveys?

Because I think that type of surveying or what uh councilwoman Bryant was saying about civic league engagement or going to those type of businesses, engaging with the owners.

We need to wrap that in all of our conversations, not just with the zoning ordinances, but also with our future development so that we can get citizen feedback.

So I just wanted to throw that out there in terms of communication and remember remembering to put ourselves in this the seats and feet of our citizens that are working every day that are not civically engaged every day, but with something that's important to them that impacts their business, their economic, their entertainment, their day-to-day lives, it will become important and getting in front of that um is what I want to continue to push and for us to tackle and do better.

I cannot fault citizens when they go online and social media.

Do I like it?

No.

But that's that just makes me look internally and say, what could we have done better?

Not to blame the citizen.

What could we have done better to get to to kind of get in front of that?

So that'll be that thing.

There's a lot.

That was important.

That was all of this title right communication.

Thank you, Mary.

Um, not to rehash what my council members said I think community engagement is a huge piece of this.

Um especially when here in the community of you know, things are starting to really happen in downtown.

So that tells you that change is happening.

Change is happening at a much it's not happening as fast as I want it to happen, but it's happening faster than it normally has happened in court.

And so with that comes changes that people are not always comfortable with, uh, which leads to the confusion.

Um and I think that a lot of the Facebook post and the messages that I was getting the day after the night of, a lot of it came from one people didn't read, but also we didn't put the message out clear.

Um, because if I'm not mistaking the night before the vote in this room, majority of council members were comfortable.

And I said that, and I said about the language, yeah, and we we kind of just pushed it through.

But we have to have clear communication so that people can understand the illate terms.

Um at the end of the day, there's nobody in this room, myself included that reads maybe a city attorney, uh, but that reads uh the details of uh legal documents um of an ordinance of substance, and I think it's our importance.

Well, okay, maybe Mr.

Carter.

But I think it's a I think it's really important that we do uh provide those helpful tools to citizens.

Um our job to uh maybe spoon feed people, however, it is our responsibility as a uh council and as a city to educate people and to keep them informed on what's happening.

And I think in order for us to get to that vision that we do have for the city, it is for us to be inclusive, it is for us to have camaraderie and engagement amongst our citizens, and I think whether it's the entertainment, whether it's the short-term rules, whatever it is, when you're changing ordinances that have not been enforced, we really have to put we have to double down on the enforcement.

I mean on the communication aspect on it.

And so that would really just be my biggest um critique of the whole situation and just communication, communicate communicate, communicate.

Uh we cannot overcommunicate too much, and I think sometimes when we think we have done enough, we need to do it again.

Um, and that's one thing I've learned since being on city council.

I don't care how many times I say it, we gotta say it again right now.

Um, and so moving forward, just more community engagement and have the community engagement on the front end of it, and then all the way throughout.

Um, because now we're going back trying to course correct and it's it's good to me.

I think it's gonna make it more confusing.

Ma'am, go ahead, you have the floor.

Um, I would just like to say first, if I inform you, it's education.

If you ask me about it, it's an excuse.

And I think we really should meet the people where they are, which is social media.

So if we compile a message to send out the changes, just make it short, sweet, simple to the point, easy to digest, because there is a lot of language in the ordinance that's like, okay, my head is hurting that could read that.

But we get it, but they don't.

They just want to know how they're gonna be impacted.

So I think we should figure out a way to show up in social media as maybe like video.

Um, of course, the educational video is not always entertaining and fun, but nobody would be able to point the finger and say that we didn't get the message out there.

So that's it.

Sir, you have the floor.

I I am amazed at this meeting to see that we are all advocating for our citizens and we're not standing up here and saying this is the way government works and we're gonna do it this way.

This is an amazing different turn in our city to see all of us and engage and so concerned for our citizens before the government.

Thank you guys.

Thank you guys very much.

Welcome.

Uh thank you.

Commissioner Melvin, sure, you have a phone.

Thank you.

Um, just a uh suggestion.

So when we have uh ordinances or anything that is gonna be controversial, um maybe we can create a pre-plan document of that crosswalk that uh councilwoman Thomas was speaking about of uh impact assessment as the next column.

Um I know during our last meeting we have a high-level executive summary that was pretty pretty uh well, and I I really uh like that was quick and I was able to access um the information that was um about to read.

But if we have a pre-plan approved by uh council, obviously, then as soon as you uh vote on an ordinance, regardless if you know what direction the voting is going to be, even if we release that pre pre-plan as soon as you all vote, and if it's the right direction, then you get in control of the narrative right away, especially on social media, so that um we're not waiting a few days or a week to respond to the citizens.

So, for example, that pre-plan, the crosswalk.

If we had if you all have voted and agreed upon, as soon as that meeting is over, put that crosswalk out on social media.

Here's the truth, control the um positive narrative, and that will um weed out the false narrative return.

So this already establishing that right away, uh will help out everyone, um, not only council, but the city as a whole, and you won't have to worry about those pushing the agenda because it's already pre-planned.

As soon as you vote, soon as the meeting over, already published all happy.

Council, council man, thanks, ma'am.

So I have a question for the manager and for Dr.

Russell.

So we we do have a EDA meeting, we got a lot of stuff coming.

Is there any zoning changing that we need to do for the downtown waterfront development?

Or is the zoning changing that we're really looking at this zoning changing around link because first.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

I'm sorry, I'll just say that was gonna be first.

Uh the link is the lake district is being impacted now.

Okay, so we gotta do things for that first.

Okay.

All right.

The waterfront is future, so we got time to work with that.

So the next thing that we're gonna pivot to was current versus future zoning in the link district.

Okay.

And I I guess my assumption on the link district is we have an approved link plan, and so presumably the whatever zoning changes we're thinking about are aimed to bring the zoning code aligned to the link plan.

Yes, yes.

And so if that's true, then kind of coming back to Councilwoman Thomas's comment.

We had several public sessions to put together the link plan, which doesn't mean we gotta stop communicating now.

But importantly, I think we do have a lot of public input already that went into the link plan, which hopefully will mean less controversy.

Plus, there's not a lot of businesses in the link district.

We're really kind of tinkering with the zoning there to attract the right kind of businesses into the empty space that that the link currently uh presents.

So it seems like that ought to be less controversial than what we've just been through.

Seems like I think that that's the next controversial thing we're gonna deal with and the things that we need to take away from this last exercise is short-term rentals.

Because to Dr.

Russell's point, I mean I'm not surprised that she found 20 pages of people that haven't been following the rules.

That's right.

Uh, which just points to we we need to get our rules squared away because right now it's uh kind of wild wild west out there when it comes to short-term rentals.

And so for if there are 20 pages of rule breakers, that's 20 pages of opportunity for us to get nasty feedback that we're cutting into something that they want to do.

And to councilwoman Bryant's point, well, I appreciate that that we want to go to the civic leagues and ask um do you have any short-term rental people in your civic league that want to help us write the rules?

On the other side, we need to ask, okay, there are also neighbors who live beside all of those 20 pages of rule breakers.

We need their input to this process too because they're also being impacted when the rule breakers are having uh you know, rentals that lead the parties that lead to people parking on the lawn and all the other bad things that happen when people break the rules.

Um thank you.

I'm gonna circle back to Commissioner Millie and Commissioner Taylor's point.

It made me think of something I think you both bring up very great points about communication strategy, and it you mentioned crosswalk uh like crosswalk uh commission uh Melvin, and you mentioned a video type communication.

Um it just made me put my project management hat on, Mr.

Carter.

That do we have a communication strategy for every kind of big piece of ordinance or even with the link?

I know we have something with the link, but do we have an overall communication strategy that we can employ for short-term rental ordinance changes that are coming out where we hit certain points along the way to just put a message to our citizens like the commissioners were kind of saying on social media or on our website?

Um Kitty, we were in uh councilman, sorry, councilman buying and councilman tillage, um, are also saying about the need to over-communicate over and over again.

So, what is our do we have a communication strategy that we kind of use whenever we're doing what I would consider a project smaller, smaller big um with the city, because I do think that I consider ordinance change a project from a project manager perception.

So do we have that in place that we can maybe incorporate more as we kind of are learning learning from our lessons learned from this past ordinance change?

Absolutely.

We have a whole team of individuals that all the their whole day of their job is to market the things that we're doing around the city, try to get ahead of those processes.

The uh the problem with that is uh there's more them than us.

Uh so when we start putting things out, um it is it's easy to get overwhelmed in that process with the backlash or other people that have different ideas about how things go.

We we all we always have a plan of what we're gonna say.

Uh-huh.

Um what we're gonna say and when we're gonna say it, and when we're gonna say it, yes, ma'am.

Um however, like I said, there's the world of social media is again is it's more them than us.

Oh, absolutely.

And I it's I'm not even saying just to people are always gonna have comments on social media, right?

I'm not saying to stop that right.

I'm saying that we have something, okay.

For example, in our link district, uh Councilman Hugo said we've already gotten you know citizen feedback.

Um we I did see an update recently about like some of the development happening, but when we're talking about amending zoning for the link district, like are we putting that out like right now, letting the citizens so that we can increase citizen engagement.

What is our goal for you know citizen engagement?

What are our metrics that we're trying to meet for citizens and engagement to make sure that when we're all said and done that we feel good that every citizen that wanted to have a voice had a voice that's what I mean, like by communication strategy, not just putting the message out to kind of silence or minimize some of the social media, people don't say that regardless.

I'm I'm talking about a communication strategy where we can at least say we put our best foot forward and best effort for to increase engagement, increase citizen input, um, and make sure we're doing a better job at making citizens aware throughout the process that this is these are some of the changes we're making, these are some of the zoning changes we're making, this is what it means to you.

Um this is why we want to hear from you, you know, like these coming meetings, like not just on our website, but just in a way that feels more relatable for the citizens and for us to know that we're getting all the input that we need to get or that we want to get um for these future changes, these big changes that are happening in our city.

I I don't I I don't, and I'm not saying we we're not doing it, I'm saying from even me watching our socials, me watching our websites, I think we could do more.

And so that's why I'm um asking what is our communication strategy for some of these big changes um that we're making.

I think it would be more important to give you you know the the strategies that we use.

All right, because trying to talk through you know what we do on everything is probably not the right way to handle that, but I can provide to each one of you what our strategies are when we encounter things, messages that we want to change what the image is, messages that we want to create what the image is.

So we have a strategy for both of those, and I can give that information to you guys.

Very good.

Okay.

And if I could say um councilwoman Thomas, as a fellow project manager, something as wearing my citizen hat that I look forward to is my mayor's minute.

That's a social media delivery system there, and what what I am envisioning is why couldn't we have something that is like a council connection kind of thing?

It's I think when we're getting all of the negative feedback from our citizens, it's because they feel left out of the process, they feel there's a huge lack of transparency, and there's all these people downtown making all these decisions, and then they're going, and this is what we're doing, how y'all like me now.

No, that's and that's not how we want to do things.

And so if there is that transparency of this is what's going on, and guess what?

Here's our roadmap.

Right?

Here's our citizens' journey, and this is how we're this is how we're gonna get here, and this is what we're envisioning the future of Portsmouth to look like.

So there's no surprises to the citizens, and if if somebody's gonna be upset about it, we want them upset about it down here, not over here.

Okay, great.

Thank you, ma'am.

And I think one of the things we have to keep in mind as a city, we're we're we're we're we're not responsible to react to things, we're responsible to respond to things, and just like with social media, I'm listening to my colleagues.

You know, there's a lot of things that are said on social media, and most people don't, it's proven that most people don't spend more than two minutes reading something on social media.

So the challenges I would argue, um, or even submit to you.

Look, communication is a two-way street.

As a citizen, yes, you have a responsibility to be informed.

If you're not informed, is just like we were saying, for example, with some of these changes we made.

We heard from a number of businesses who wanted to know, and I'll give you an example.

Are you going to shut us down?

That was the question.

And what we said to those individuals, quite frankly, Mr.

Hugo was in the room with me, sir.

This is not about shutting anyone down.

We want people to be in our community who want to be in business and do it safely and entertain and do whatever your desire is to do.

What we are not going to accept, and what we don't want to have are individuals who break the rules and who do not follow the rules.

And so I think part of the thing is what I'm hearing is, and we're we we know we have areas for improvement, there's no question.

But part of the challenge is if I am a business owner and I am opening a business, I need to know the rules of the business that I'm opening.

Is that fair?

And if I don't know the rules, they tell you in court, madam attorney, uh ignorance of the law is what?

Absolutely no defense, no defense.

So all I'm saying is we can all do a better job, but at the end of the day, the city has a role to play, but so does the citizens.

Keep in mind this is your community, and to the degree that you participate, whether you want to participate at a low level or high level, that's really your choice, but we make it available to you, and yes, some folks are not able to get to it for whatever reason, and we want to know about that because what we never want to do as a city, at least as as I view it, we don't ever want anyone to feel like they are not having access to us or access to information.

Are we perfect?

No, we're not.

We've got areas for improvement, but I would suggest if we put stations all over the city, and I've been to a lot of cities in America, informational sites all over the city.

You still gonna have people complaining that they never knew it was gonna happen, and that's just the nature of what it is.

But we are tasked, we as a body and as a community, with making sure that we respond, and we promote we provide information to ensure that everyone has access to the information at the end of the day, it is a choice.

Anybody else any other questions?

Uh the only other thing that I want to bring, and I want to make sure that the uh planning count uh commission has an opportunity to uh weigh in on anything that they need to weigh in on, but uh the last thing I want to talk really about in this group is innovation district current innovation district future, uh, and how do we bridge that gap?

And that's gonna be some things that we will work internally on to try to make sure we bring you things to make that decision, right?

But we need to we the the point of this is to let you know that the innovation district is curved is not will not be conducive to the vision that you had for the innovation district, so there's work to be done there, absolutely discussion on the uh just wanted to follow up on council and counseling Thomas's comment.

While we have the three scheduled um opportunities for feedback from the uh delegation that travel to Greenville and then the EVA and the City Council, um that's gonna provide us the opportunity to fine-tune uh an ordinance that was developed um I think it's about a year or so ago.

Uh and then once we have that document, then we'll have the public engagement around the stakeholders along the court property owners along the corridor, and so it's not um going to be a missed opportunity.

And so it's not um going to be a missed opportunity.

Uh it's just a little bit premature for that right now.

So uh Mr.

Carter told me I had about an hour.

I want to I want to share something real quickly, so it's it's bad news followed by good news, right?

One of the things that was asked is what do our clients and the development community, what is the feedback that we're getting from them uh relative to our work uh with the planning commission.

And I don't have that.

We don't have that.

Uh uh planning commissioner Taylor asked uh when we queried the planning commission about training opportunities that they wanted.

Uh she asked that we share with the commissioners what are our applicants' experience after they get through the planning commission process after council has acted on a rezoning application or used for any of our routine applications.

We do have that feedback.

And we do have that feedback because we apply for a grant opportunity that requested you know what what are our clients saying?

We actually had to get testimonials from our clients.

So I wanted to do the introduction before I share the bad news we did.

Okay, so where we're not performing well, not the planning commission, but the whole development permitting side is it's it's lengthy.

Uh the feedback that we're getting is it it takes more than um 60 days sometimes to get a permit through the process, and and that's costly, it's costly for missed opportunities, it's costs for carrying uh you know a project relative to debt service, it's that adage that time is money.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that we're working on it, and we've been working on it for some time, and so uh the manager is actually uh leading that effort with a task group of all of the permitting departments, planning inspections, uh, engineering, utilities, and where we are in that process right now is identifying the systems for permitting and where their blockages in those systems and and that's where we are.

So until we identify what those uh blockages are, then we you know we can't develop opportunities to fix them.

So uh it's more of an administrative side than it is the appointed or elected body side for where we need to improve uh outcomes for our citizenry, and so with that, we do want to talk about um next steps.

I hear loud and clear um from the commission as well as city council members that you want us to uh instellar at the public engagement and participatory part of developing uh our ordinances, and you know, we would be remissed if we didn't do that after this conversation.

Uh I do want um a discussion, some commitment for okay, these are our commitments going forward, this is what we're gonna work on, and that's you know, you there we have limited staff resources, right?

And so we can try to do a lot with a little, and then you don't do anything very well, right?

And so it would be better to focus uh to say, okay, this is what we're going to do, and we'll do those things very well, and when we complete those activities, then we pick up the next activities.

All right.

This is what I think that list looks like.

I could be dead wrong.

If I am wrong, I'd like for you all to help tell us that we're wrong, and it needs to be ABC.

Council Hugo, sure, you're on the floor.

I have an opinion.

So I attended a couple of civic league meetings where you all came to talk about the work on the comp plan.

Um the civic league meetings that you attended were pre-advertised that you were coming, and the attendance was poor.

Yeah, the people that were there don't know what a comp plan is.

I I didn't get a sense that could give a hoot and heck about doing a comp plan, didn't provide any meaningful feedback to you all, best I could tell during the times that I know they they were basically in receipt mode listening to you explain what's getting ready to happen.

And I don't know how important the 2040 comp plan is, but there are some other things that seem to be more pressing than that.

And so your item B, I would push down to D.

But I don't know.

What why do we need to hurry up and slide the comp plan update in as items?

Dr.

Russell.

So we do we have to do the update update because it's it's required by the state of and that will you you'll have hopefully you'll have that by the end of the year because you have the planning commission will see it in October.

Um assuming it's not deferred, you'll have it in in November, December time frame.

The uh rationale behind doing the 2040 plan, the current plan was adopted in 2018.

The world is different.

The recommendations are different, the things that we will focus on in terms of long use planning for the community are different, so we need to revisit it.

Doesn't mean we have to start it in FY26, but probably no later than that Y27.

Can I add to that?

Mr.

Carter.

A lot of funding opportunities are tied to your comp plan.

Without a comp plan, you're automatically disqualified.

Okay, so does that mean we simply need to dust up the 2018 comp plan, or do we need to kind of throw it out and start all over?

No professional opinion, if you're gonna do it, do it.

Because what you talked about and decided you want to be in 2018, seven years later, uh that baby has matured quite a bit.

Yeah, and he looks and act a lot different than he did in 2018.

And and how far along do you think we are in the update to the comp plan at this point?

Because I know you've been working on it for a while.

It's it's done.

It's uh the graphic piece of it.

The it'll like I said, the planning commission will get the uh implementation plan evaluation in next month at the first Tuesday in October, so the first week in October planning commission will have that.

Okay, so back to the communication plan.

Um my experience with you in a couple of civic league meetings is we ain't doing a very good job of communicating because I I'm not sure that we even have convinced people that it's important.

So we need a side by side, this is the old and this is the new.

I mean, so somehow we gotta do something to communicate differently than what we're doing right now because there might be three handfuls of people in the city, besides the folks sitting in the room that even though we're updating the comp plan.

Fortunately, that's not one of the sexy things that we do.

Matter of fact, even if you pass it, most people are not gonna be interested in it.

It's just one of those necessities of municipal government.

Uh we try to get people interested, we try to get people's feedback or we try to get people to you know to have a voice in it.

Um but it's like building one of the things that we gotta do right now is replace a lot of our infrastructure that's under the ground.

Yeah, it is not real sexy, but if you don't get it done, everything else is gonna fall apart, right?

So yeah.

So we probably gotta do a better job.

We gotta say some different things, do it a different way.

But at the end of the day, the goal is now we should have 100% participation, but that make sure that we've advertised the message and got out the message and all those outlets that we have to get it out on.

So one of the things that we do is we we don't we don't try to be on every outlet, we try to tell everybody where we put our information.

So if you're on one of those outlets, you know where to come back and find that information.

Yeah.

Okay, so I guess we gotta do a better job of that also.

So being sensitive to the attorney's uh comment about Cliff Notes, uh I did use Cliff notes because I didn't want to read the scarlet letters.

I don't want to read the comp plan either, so it sounds like a perfect perfect thing to do cliff notes to summarize so if 2018 is old and out of date, whatever work y'all have done has got to have some bullet points that describe what's important in the new comp plan that's different from the comp plan that's out of date, and if we could cliff note that uh because I'm not in a position to sit in front of a civic league and tell them what's getting ready to come to us in the comp plan, and maybe we don't need a whole lot of input, but uh being able to summarize what's new would be helpful.

Uh since you mentioned me, I'm not just saying I would like for each of you to take the time to look through the comp plan because the comp plan is the basis of your decision making and many things that come before you.

So I know you were saying clip notes would get kind of caught up, but um it's important that each of you read it.

us in the comp plan and maybe we don't need a whole lot of input but uh being able to summarize what's new would be helpful uh since you mentioned May I'm gonna just say I would like for each of you to take the time to look through the comp plan because the comp plan is the basis of your decision making and many things that come before you so I know you were saying clip notes would get kind of caught up but um it's important that each of you read it um also there are uh liaisons to the committee that most certainly should read it page by page and be the the educational experts to you to the other members but for purposes of the record we all will be reading it thoroughly now as we make decisions based on council one for times yes um I want to say that you're right uh Mr Carter that plan is very you know outdated my name was on the last comp plan as a planning commissioner at that time so it it from my even my own vision and standpoint and input of the city at that time I'm sure it's it's completely changed with the way that our demographics have changed the way our vision has changed for the city so um but I agree completely with uh councilman hugel um from the citizen standpoint of why the conference the plan is important and then even from I I think you just mentioned it uh attorney Grant Williams how it impacts all the decisions that we even make as a council and why I think during our last joint meeting with EDA I was asking how does our development align with what's in our compass the plan and I think speaking on those points or having something to speak to those points when we are going out addressing the civilian is very important and Mr.

Carter even your example of you said it's it's kind of boring the infrastructure that we're gonna fix and that's part of the comp plan that's actually probably important if we can relay that in a a great a better way to citizens because when we are doing rock the block for example citizens speak about like you know the potholes on their street and knowing that a lot of the underground infrastructure is the cause of some of those potholes that's a way to relate that information um and make the conference a plan of what what type of information or decisions and how that impacts them and their streets and their community I think is helpful.

And then secondly lastly on the point of your communication points I think you mentioned Dr.

Russell Mr Card I can't remember um one thing to keep in mind is also different demographics and I'm sure you guys know this receive information in different ways and so um a video uh commissioner gloves mentioned like the mayor's minute that's one way or uh commissioner taylor with the video or you know uh councilman Ryan and uh attorney Graham Williams and anyone that's a parent we receive a lot of information via the school channels so any type of way to reach different demographics different audiences I think we should consider and not limit ourselves in that way so I'll stop there.

Councilman does so you have a thought I've been involved in a couple of comp plans in the past and it's important for a couple of reasons.

First of all we need to know um that we're not going to build on a a lane that we may want a high speed rail to come through and the zoning can plan for that it also allows zoning to make changes that we don't have to be there for to automate that process a bit to me it's a very key and important thing that we need to pay a lot of good attention to um and I I've tried she'll tell you I've tried to insert myself on this process a little bit and uh I am a little frustrated at the amount of communication that we're getting on it at this point I'd like to see more communication on on on that item so that we can get in and examine it and have time to suggest some changes to make sure that it fits our vision for the waterfront and the and all these districts in there.

Thank you.

Thank you sir commissioner Melvin sir.

Thank you Mr Mayor um Dr.

Russell said that um there were 60 touch points for the conference plan.

One suggestion is having the marketing department market at least one touch point one to three touch points a week so that you can get that in front of the citizens so they know what's uh going on and then maybe that can bring more engagement to our planning commission meetings so that we just don't stop at um holding you know regular entity uh meetings um people continue to come to our commission meetings and um talk more about the comprehensive plan and what they want to see just in case they weren't at those meetings um and then separate topic towards the leak link uh district and the future waterfront um my suggestion uh with and request from the you uh you uh the council is people have to have more joint meetings um with council and planning or with planning and um the economic development authority uh for example with the 1021 meeting it would be great if any commission can be invited um because I feel like our our schedule kind of holds us back from moving past streamlining processes so that we can um get in front of uh things uh for example we're the first of the month our meetings are first of the month and then I believe economic development authority is the second week of the month and then you all have it twice so if we push something back then we have to wait a whole month and then if you all put something back it's two months but if we have more joint meetings um especially on on 1021 then um economic development authority they can give their feedback at the

Um because I feel like our our schedule kind of holds us back from moving past streamlining processes so that we can um get in front of uh things.

Uh for example, we're the first of the month, our meetings are first of the month, and then I believe economic development authority is the second week of the month, and then you all have it twice.

So if we push something back, then we have to wait a whole month, and then if you all put something back, it's two months.

But if we have more joint meetings, um especially on on 1021, then um economic development authority, they can give their feedback, and then the planning commission can understand what they are looking for and what to inspect when it comes to uh changing zoning in uh uh in the um in the future.

Um even um previous example here with the ordinance we just passed.

When we knew that the ordinance was going to be pushed back because it needed language change at that moment, I would I believe that uh council and our uh planning commission should got together and and spoke on the matters that were um concerns um because when our our chairman he brought up uh um a good point about it because if because if it's experience that could impact the ordinance, and because of that point, we had to push it back and rewrite it again, and then um you all had to push it back, but we were just in the meeting previously together, all of our concerns would have been out in the open.

We would have known what the next meeting is gonna be about or what it was gonna be in the meeting, and we can streamline the process faster instead of waiting months.

Um, because if we if we continue to wait and things pop up um unexpectedly, then I think that's where citizens complain.

So there's more joint joint meetings in the future, especially for the district uh and the waterfront will help us streamline and get us to think more.

Um and then just bringing us in early because as uh many of you all said that some of the citizens might not know what a comp plan is, yeah.

But but we do.

So maybe we could provide our suggestions first, because we all serve the people, and then say, hey, this is the suggestions from the planning commission or the council or economic development authority.

What do you all like about this?

And then citizens can give the details on that if they deem.

Because if we just give them a big um big a big topic pool, they they may be overwhelmed and not know what direction they're heading.

So that's all I have.

Um more joint um meetings, schedule persists, and uh marketing the touch points um before we get to reviewing the comp plan just to see the feedback and for people to come to our commission meeting in October and um when council received it.

So that's it.

Thank you.

So we kind of need to um and I I think uh Commissioner Member, I think that's a great recommendation.

But but but I just you know I don't want to seem like I'm the contrarian, but I tell you um, we have done community meetings, we have done other meetings, we have done off-site meetings, and the unfortunate thing about that is we get the same five people at those meetings, and that's not that's not saying that your recommendation doesn't have validity, but what it is saying is I don't know what the answer is, perhaps, but but meetings and meetings don't bring out more people, not based on my experience.

They bring out the same five people, and and the same five people usually have the same grievances.

And so that's just the reality.

Maybe there's a different way we can do it to engage more people, and we're open for discussion, but but just keep in mind, I mean, we're we're all working together in the same way.

Uh, I think we all have schedules.

Um it's nice to say let's have more meetings, but I think that's a whole nother animal to tackle.

Yeah, and so we as long as we're putting information out, we're all responsible for getting engaged.

And that's the truth.

So I just want to close with that.

But I did want to ask you a question in front of everyone.

How often are we required?

Does the state require we update our zoning comprehensive plan?

Every five years.

You say zoning comprehensive.

Well, well, a comprehensive.

Okay, time for how often every every five years we should be reviewing our competence.

Every five years we should be reviewing our comprehensive plan.

So now we're in that that cycle.

And so those are things that we are mandated to do, and and we do them.

And so we just all need the as I said, we've got a great team of professionals.

But I want to thank you, each and every one of you, for your service because we couldn't get the work done without volunteering as commissioners to get your work done.

And we rely heavily on that from as a body of council.

So I want to acknowledge your presence and your service on behalf of our council.

Let's come back at about seven o'clock.

Carter to take the floor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh our public presentation this evening is from our HRT uh I'm a ruse.

I'm a Russo.

I always mess that up.

Uh they're gonna present our system optimization plan.

So Mr.

Arrow?

Yes, it's our pleasure to be before you.

Um of the major strategic initiatives we have is the system optimization plan and how we focus our resources on the most productive aspects uh of our business so that we can improve our overall efficiency.

So we really look forward to to touching on this high level and being and certainly also have the opportunity to come back as we proceed through this process.

So I'll turn it over to Mr.

Amaruso.

Thank you, Mr.

Harold, and good evening, Mayor Glover and members of council, city manager Carter.

So I'm here today to talk about the European Reformation Renaissance and European.

We'll save that for the next time.

So the uh know about that.

I was supposed to be a history major now.

Thank you, Mr.

We needed that.

So I'm really here today to talk about something really important.

We're doing this for each city council in the workshop session for all six member cities.

You're the second city we already briefed uh Virginia Beach City Council a week ago, and tomorrow night we brief the Chesapeake City Council the other two Apollo.

So the system optimization plan or the SOD is really a study at this point, but it's being done because we're at a key point at HRT in terms of some decisions that have to be made.

It's looking at putting our limited resources and resources of both financial but human beings to our bus operators to the best use by reducing low ridership bus routes.

Just for those of you that know, in the six cities that we serve, we have over 68 bus routes that run through the six cities.

Um not all of them are stellar performers, some of them do very well, some of them are high performers, some of them are in there to provide geographic coverage.

Why is the SOP needed?

We're not in this alone.

Almost every major property in across the country is doing this because we're all facing similar challenges.

We want to increase ridership by putting the service where it's most needed.

We want to improve reliability and keep that compact with our customers that we are reliable.

We will be there when we publish our schedule on time without the city trip.

And we want to reduce costs for our member city jurisdiction.

All city, all six cities contribute in in one form or fashion in paying for that service.

We are kind of in the bottom quartile of our size transit agency in terms of passengers carrying a revenue hour of service.

We are missing trips because we don't have enough bus operators.

This is not unique to end to not transit, but something that's occurring throughout the country.

It's an effect of the pandemic.

Just as an example, in June 2025, there were 1,200 trips missed due to operator unavailability.

The SOP impacted local routes costs about $6.43 more per passenger that we carry than our regional high frequency backbone network.

And I'll talk a little bit about that.

The bus operator shortage is is challenging us because it's preventing us from returning to pre-pandemic service levels, pre-pandemic the uh fiscal year 19.

Uh, we're approximately short, 50 operators just to put back what we used to run in this outside cities.

Uh, and then to fully implement the regional transit system network.

We need another 45 operators on top of that.

Uh, right now a lot of our operators that are newest to the HRT system are forced to work overtime to meet the schedules that we bring.

HRT really needs to match its resources to the network that we have.

The lack of operators mean we cannot reliable operate those 68 bus routes, and right sizing the network will allow us to be more reliable and not miss trips.

You heard a lot about microtransit.

We have two pilot zones or demand responsive service in the city of Virginia Beach and Newport News due to some grant funding that we got through the state.

It's a way to service transit demand that's lower than what is required for fixed route service.

So those routes running every hour and maybe carrying three or four passengers per hour.

You could do better with the minivans rides with other people through your app.

To fully implement the high frequency network, we need to free up bus operators right now of the 13 routes, only three have 15-minute high frequency service.

Two in the north side on the peninsula, Route 20 in Virginia Beach to Norfolk.

Optimizing service on low performing local bus routes is one of the core principles we look at in the planning thing, but we're also going to look at streamlining and consolidating routes in urban centers such as Portsmouth and Norfolk, especially, you have routes that operate close to each other.

Perhaps we can consolidate some.

Realign some moderate performing routes to give them stronger performance characteristics and maintain net six route coverage is another principle.

And adjusting the levels of service, and we talked about this with the comp plan discussion.

Things don't stay static.

Parts of the cities are growing, other parts of the cities are not.

We want to make sure we're adjusting our service based on most current land use planning and land use thinking.

So I have three graphs that kind of uh show a little bit about what we're talking about.

For those who may not be as familiar as some of the council people may have been on council longer, the way we fund services, we get federal and state operating assistance.

We get some money from the Fair Box that the customers pay, and then what's left, the cities pay at the margin, so to speak.

So on average, between the six cities, you're all contributing about 40% for the cost of that service.

Some cities a little bit more, some cities a little bit less.

So the state rewards funding based on how productive you are.

The more people you carry per trip per hour per route, the more money you get because it's it's a process that they award funding based on how you perform against other transit properties in the Commonwealth.

So I have a graph here.

The 13 regional backbone routes are shown in green.

This particular one is looking at operating costs per passenger for two fiscal years.

The state looks at it in two fiscal year bundles.

And you could see our benchmark, the minimum performance benchmark is to at least uh on an operating cost per passenger basis, perform for regional backbone routes at $11.86.

And you can see almost all of them do better than that.

There are two, both of them in Portsmouth, that are waiting for that 15-minute service that are just above the benchmark.

There are some routes that are true local bus routes on your city, the 41, the 50.

I've highlighted them in orange, the 57.

They are not you could see the more you go to the right, the worse they're performing.

Instead of numbers like $10 an hour per passenger, you're more at $20 per hour per passenger, simply because you're not carrying that many passengers per trip.

So that's the first metrics.

The second is how many passengers you carry per hour of service.

The bulk of our 68 route in the system run about hourly service.

Some run 30-minute service, and right now only three run 50-minute frequencies.

So one bus per hour, two buses an hour, or four buses an hour.

And you can see here, in this case, what you want to do is carry more people per hour.

And there are routes again on the far right that are not even meeting the minimum benchmark of $6,084.

Six six passengers, almost seven passengers per hour of service.

The 47 and 45 perform very well.

45 runs between downtown Norfolk, right at the NTC, goes through the downtown tunnel, then continues on all the way up to um Dolly and serves uh the Amazon facility as well.

And the 47 goes to Victory Crossing.

The final one is they measure success by passengers per mile of service.

And here again, the more passengers you carry per mile of service, the more you're rewarded with state funding.

You can see the regional backbone routes, even though not all of them have 13 minute uh 15-minute frequencies, are performing very well.

And then again, you see these routes toward the right, and there's some way out on the right, they're very poor performance, less than two passengers per 0.2 passengers per mile of service.

So the purpose of need recap, why is the SOP important?

We need to match our scheduled service to the existing resources we have, too many trips.

Every trip you miss, if you're hourly wage worker and your bus is only running once an hour, and you miss that trip because the operator didn't show up that day, you're waiting a second hour.

It only takes two or three times for your employer to send you to find another job.

So our compact without customers, our work should be our bond.

And we just don't have the operators right now.

Uh, right sizing the network as people that might be enable HRP sustainably operate a reliable service in the long term.

We want to be here and would be important in the long term.

We have some city level recommendations.

Uh I would just use this summary slide and go skip it to.

We have four local routes operating in Portsmouth, which are going to be maintained with no changes.

The 41 that runs between downtown Portsmouth and Serbs Craddock and then's at Victory Crossing.

The 44 that runs from the downtown Norfolk Transit Center to Center Norfolk General Hospital.

You share this funding with the City of Norfolk and then goes into Midtown Portsmouth, the 50 between downtown Portsmouth and Victory Crossing, and the 57, which you share funding with the city of Chesapeake that runs from Robert Hall in Chesapeake along Airline Bluewide from Portsmouth.

For feedback from the City of Portsmouth, we're considering the SOP to adjust the Route 47.

We we've deviated the 47 to provide service to the regional jail, but it also provides service to the Walmart to Frederick Boulevard.

We're looking at the 50 to take over that portion of the alignment to Walmart so that there's enough time for the 47, so it remains reliable and on timed.

We're proposing one new microtransit zone.

Health areas that have very little return.

I'll show you the map, very little fixed route service.

And then you have two regional high frequency backbone routes that are just waiting for operators.

Route 45 and the Route 47.

I have maps for all of these, and they're in your PowerPoint.

I won't go through them.

They're basically showing no changes on these routes.

The 47, there's going to be that slight change we're looking at.

And then the 50, we we lose uh we're going, we're recommending bypassing cavalier manor.

It is a big deviation that's a lot of time for very nominal number of passengers I'd use them in that area.

Um this height low ridership of financial performance.

This route was put in place to provide coverage for the recent route that we do that.

We did it about a year and a half ago.

And then there's the 57, no changes.

Uh we're doing some slight tweaking in the October board, but no changes to this route.

And you share this with the city of Chesapeake.

So in Churchland, we're proposing a new microtransit zone to test that concept of what's it's an eight square mile zone that's overlaid on one fixed route that penetrates the Route 47, but not much else.

Microtransit for those that don't know, is an app-based transit system where you can make a reservation through your phone, and you'll be directed within 15 minutes to a virtual bus stop near your home.

You might meet uh one or two fellow citizens that have a common destination.

You can travel anywhere within the zone, but if you need to leave the zone, we'll bring you to fixed route service like the 47 to continue your trip perhaps your final destinations down.

Oh yeah.

The concept is it's about half the cost per hour of service to use these minivans instead of having fixed route service that runs the street tests that cost uh twice as much to run.

We've been testing these.

We got a grant for Chesapeake and Hampton to test the zone in each of their cities, and we're recommending one for church and just to keep it moving.

Um in total, between all six cities, we're proposing eliminating 12 underperforming routes.

The the elimination of those 12 underperforming routes frees up enough operators to fully implement the regional transit service on the 13 regional backbone routes that provide 15 minute high frequency service.

Um it also uh allows us to have additional operators freed up to bring back some of the pre-pandemic service levels that we've been waiting to bring back.

It uh brings down our full implication, brings down our peak vehicle needs, which is a good thing, and brings our operators up from where we are today, about 428 to 461, which includes an extra board.

So there should be no more mandatory overtime.

Um that's what we get out of the SOP.

Customer impacts, we get over 300,000 more Hampton Roads residents to be within walking distance of a route that's operating every 15 minutes.

That's a game changer.

The little bit of service that we're losing, those bus stops that are no longer going to be served on the SOP account for less than 3% of all body boardings and alightings in the HRT system.

So we carry about 35,000 people a day.

So 3% of that would be lost on those routes.

The lower wait times, you would have uh no more than 15 minutes before another bus comes, or microtransit vehicle comes in your zone.

And we keep that bond of improved reliability, eliminating these trips.

Operational impact, this is a big one.

We can bring the operators in.

We've been doing pretty good at bringing them in.

Uh we are a collective bargaining unit, so those that are newest into the system tend to get to do the mandatory overtime.

It burns them out in 12 to 18 months.

We lose them.

So the resources we bring in training them, getting a commercial driver's license, they get burned out because we don't have enough operators.

So it'll prove operator retention.

It'll help manage operating cost, which is a direct benefit to the city because the more state resources we get, the less city dollars from any of the member cities that has to be contributed.

Contributed.

And enables us to do what we're supposed to be doing, which is bringing forward the remaining 10 RTS routes with 15 minute high frequency service.

So the schedule next steps.

I think my last briefing is October 14th with the City of Newport News.

We're planning on holding sometime in the late fall in open houses, refining the plan, coming back to provide another round of city council brief briefings in January.

And then briefing our own commission in February.

In April, the plan is for the commission to adopt the SOP, the HRT commission.

And then we would do a period of time for implementation planning.

These changes can't be done all at once after we rolled out over what we call three service boards.

This is the anticipated plan.

We're still working with uh the city of Hampton and Newport News are asking for some changes.

It may delay it a little bit right now.

This is our projected schedule for it.

So I really welcome the opportunity to have an opportunity to brief you on this and how important the SOP is.

Any questions?

Okay.

That concludes your presentation, Mr.

Thank you, Ray.

Um also I want to acknowledge um Miss Noelle Pinkard.

I'm sorry, Noel, I did not acknowledge you, but I want to personally acknowledge you as the operational advancement pro person at HRT, is that correct?

Okay.

So we got the whole team here.

Certainly um I'll let everyone know I do serve as board chair of Hampton Roads Transit, and we're going through this optim systems optimization program.

We think it's a good way forward for the obvious reasons.

As you saw in our city, uh, we don't have as much ridership on some of those routes as we would want.

Nevertheless, we still have citizens in our city that need to be transported.

So we want to make sure we give our citizens that opportunity to have that transportation and be able to get to the places that they need to get to.

So I I certainly support the program as it's been presented.

Uh but the floor is open if anyone has any questions for Mr.

Amaruso.

Here councilman Tillage and then Councilman.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, first, uh, thank you for the presentation.

Um comments.

Um, I want to first say um, Mr.

Air, you have a very professional team.

Um, I recently did a uh ride along with um Noelle and her staff.

Oh her team absolutely um along with uh Mr.

Goodwin and um your team is very very professional.

Um so I just want to commend you all for that.

Um during the ride along, I will say that the I was very impressed with the cleaniness of the buses.

Um I was very shocked with that.

Um they were very clean.

Um, in addition, um the bus stops uh they were in pretty decent condition.

Um I would recommend um we saw a couple of locations that didn't have benches or shelters.

Um if we could find a way to at least get a bench um at some of those locations, um, especially on uh I think there's one on the one I saw was Victory Boulevard across the street from the old T uh O TRT building.

Um is very close to the main highway, though it was nowhere for it to wait.

And so some of them were kind of waiting on the street behind it, uh, because it was so close to the main highway.

Um and we were I think we took the 40 was it the 400.

Uh we were on the 45.

45, yeah, from downtown to the casino.

Um, and so it was very nice.

Uh I would like to say that based on the conversation we had earlier with the uh planning commission.

Um I would really like to see HRT play a role with our link um the development of our link district plan.

Um, I think it's very essential, especially as we look to expand uh the downtown area into the link district, and then also to streamline transportation from downtown to the casino to the entertainment area, uh, whether it's through some type of means of uh designated Charlie or whatever that that looks like.

So I think it's very crucial for y'all to be a part of that conversation, yeah.

Uh especially with the ferry, also with the their casino being across the water, uh having that uh easy transit and being able to maximize our uh waterway.

Um also I'm glad to hear about the microtransit.

Uh I've been following that.

I think it's a Newport News and Virginia Beach.

Yes.

Um, so to see that coming in, hopefully coming into Portsmouth and Churchland area.

I think that's that's excellent.

Um last thing is the uh payload card and pay by tap.

Uh, I think that's very transformative, um, especially for people riding the bus these days, not everybody carries and coins, um, especially I don't know.

Not everybody cares cash and coins, um, especially I don't I don't care exact change.

So that's to be able to see how people to be able to just pull their phones out and pay for their fare.

I think it's an excellent stepping into uh well moving forward into the 21st century.

Uh so I thank you all for those initiatives as well.

Um but continue the great work.

Well, well, thank you.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, if I could just say we certainly appreciate uh that feedback, and we'll certainly follow up.

And you know, clearly one of the things that is really important to us is to make sure our customers are treated with dignity.

Nothing is more concerning when you see someone sitting on a shopping car.

So uh we will certainly work with the city on those locations because a lot of folks just think you know, HRT as a regional entity has the ability to put in uh those amenities.

Quite frankly, we have to work with the cities.

Uh we can't even put a trash can out without the appropriate city staff reviewing it and what have you.

So we intend to work very closely with Mr.

Carter and his team to uh address those uh particular locations, and uh uh we're also excited about uh working uh with your planners.

Way has lobbied for many years to get the cities to begin to be proactive as it relates to transit.

Uh all over the region, you you know, folks may have parking garages that are free, and we certainly understand to some extent from a planning standpoint why they may be interested in that, but that can inadvertently uh discourage transit.

So uh the fact that that you're encouraging us to to work very closely with your team, we embrace and finally go mobile, which is uh as the mayor knows, uh, is really a change for Hampton Roads Transit technology has been on the back burner, but we have moved that up as a strategic initiative.

It's a game changer, it will encourage uh buses to move quicker because it takes longer for individuals to add cash uh to the fare box uh and also choice riders uh as we move to 15 minute service.

Uh what we've found is that uh people want to use you know their mobile credit card.

So that really is a game changer for Hampton Roads Transit.

Right that you want to follow up.

Looking forward to working as the waterfront redevelopment plans come to fruition.

It's how important that transit's not an afterthought after the developer proposed it to the planning commission and it comes in front.

Don't come to us afterwards after you ward it and say, Oh, we need a transit nodal stop.

It should be thought of ahead of time.

Because oftentimes, and we're experiencing this in some of the other cities, they prove the development and then they come to us and try to retrofit something in, and it's not a very thoughtful way.

So working with the city ahead of time is really a unique opportunity, and I have to push on absolutely thank you.

Right.

And if I may before I give the floor to my colleague, uh as a part of our planning and zoning team, Dr.

Russell, I believe you have someone on your staff that if you can introduce our staff person who actually deals with transportation and those types of issues.

Uh could you come forward, ma'am, just so we can see who you are?

I don't know if my colleagues know how amazing you are uh on our team.

So if you could just introduce yourself and let us know what what you do on behalf of of planning and transportation for our city.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so my name is Megan Gribble.

Um so I am your manager of transportation planning.

Um, if any of you ever knew or worked with Carl Jackson, um I was hired into his role under Dr.

Russell.

Um I've actually known a lot of HRT staff for quite some time.

I worked previously in the city of Virginia Beach, also doing transit planning, and then previously at ODU.

Um I I we were just chatting, and Connor Burns uh CFO of HRT always likes to bring it up that uh he inspired me to get into transit planning back in undergrad.

Um less at the West End when I was a little undecided.

So I I've known the HRT uh main team for for over a decade now.

Um, and they've got some great programs, the bus stop amen and these programs that I've worked with before when I was in Virginia Beach.

Um, and you know, of course, obviously the SOP and other recommendations.

Um so if you ever have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out and I will try to figure out who I need to reach out to at HRT, um, and we'll see if we can get some the ball rolling on some of the things that you're interested in.

Thank you.

Thank you, Megan.

We appreciate that.

Councilman Dodge, so you have to see thank you, uh Mr.

Mayor.

Um a couple of questions.

Um 12 route routes being eliminated.

I didn't see any of those mentioned Portsmouth.

No, there are none in Portsmouth being eliminated.

There's a small piece of one route that serves Cavalier Manor that we're recommending to eliminate.

It's a long deviation to serve that community.

It doesn't have very many bus boardings.

It's one or two people a day at the stop.

So no routes being eliminated.

Second question uh of three.

Um I understand y'all are having talks about some integration with some of our military facilities, particularly um Cedar L Cedar uh Coast Guard.

Um I'm concerned that our military, if y'all don't have the drivers, that uh they those guys got to be 15 minutes early.

Um and I'm concerned if we have that route that it's the first bus that misses it.

Everybody's gone.

Yes.

And and the priority that those routes might have.

The uh Coast Guard uses the ferry a lot also.

We have origin destination survey information.

They do use the ferry a lot, but we still have a route that goes.

Um if you talk about the Coast Guard facility way up there on the past uh TCC campus.

Don't have a route there today, and the only reason we don't I can't bring on new routes because we don't have enough operators to operate where we have.

Right.

First, we have to streamline the network, then we can talk about new service.

Talk about new service.

Just so you know, Norfolk is begging us to have us a route that serves Norfolk International Airport.

Yes.

From North International Airport down to the downtown transit center where they can connect to 14 routes.

We don't have enough operators to do that right now.

Which is why the SOP is so important.

Let's talk about that.

Um the last question.

I saw you mentioned training.

Uh, you guys are doing your own training and recruiting internally.

Is that is that correct?

We help we have training for every bus operator comes in.

Everything from learning how to uh talk to people and de-escalation factors, but we also help them obtain their commercial driver's license training class, but they also have to go and get a commercial driver's license, and we can help them do that.

So and you're familiar with the pr the programs that uh this young lady can tell you all about that were integrating with the education system for the CDL.

Is that right?

Wait, what I'd be interested in directing our school for human resources is looking department.

I think we're picking up we have worked with cities before the pandemic in terms of I think we called it the Drive Now program.

Yeah, but uh any partnerships we'd love to uh to follow up.

The CDL program with the school, yeah.

But the school is oh okay, so I was reading slides for you I should have warned you.

I apologize.

Thanks, but um, but yes, I believe there is a program either upcoming with our new our new education center or it's already in existence, and I'm not sure which way it is.

That's why I was referring to the expert.

Yeah, we'll we'll follow up on some of those details.

So one more time is maybe full.

So now I should put you on the spot, but um, thank you for the presentation.

This is new if some new information for me, so it's very helpful.

And um the service uh it's called the what's the micro tracking?

Um so that's something that's new to me and um new to me understanding it because I'm not familiar with it in the other cities yet, but it's very interesting to me from a standpoint of is this something that would be beneficial to like a younger demographic as well, like our it's could be okay, could be now.

You know, we have a student freedom pass programming.

That's what I was gonna go.

Okay.

Uh any 18 or under they can ride for free.

Yeah.

Um get them when you're young when they enter the workforce.

They're used to using public transportation.

That's a philosophy behind that.

Okay.

We're not alone in you now.

A lot of properties do that as well.

Okay, that's why I was going with that with the trying to capture that demographic that our high school students that work that do um sports activities that might be late or like I said, working late to encourage them to maybe utilize some of our routes more.

Um, and also if they don't have a route close, is this microtransit something they could utilize?

Um, much more cost efficient than Uber Teen.

Um there is the same as a local bus group, two dollars rule.

Okay, so and and it's for the younger demographic, it'll be very familiar because it's an app-based program on there.

Right device.

Okay.

They're very comfortable with that.

Okay, okay.

Very popular.

Okay.

So lots of teams use it.

Okay.

And they also have a customer service office for those baby boomers they want to call in too I'm not pointing it in about that demographic so too councilman Dodson's point about uh including the military since you have this picture up the Coast Guard base isn't inside yellow and since you're drawing the boundaries if you were just a little bit we can provide it the Coast Guard base in microtransit access to that.

Looking nationally the experience anything from eight square miles up to twelve square miles to work best for the tiny band maybe we need to right here if I may um Councilman we have been working really closely um together with Commissioner Good when he's also on our on our um commission and we've been working with the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on the potential for some shuttle type services like we're doing in North and that's very preliminary but those conversations are taking place they have the same parking challenges that Huntington has in four years.

Yeah this the shipyard commander briefed us a year ago and said I don't have a parking problem I have a walking problem parking and the ships are so far apart that the kids are spending a long time working on their feet Mr.

Harold Speaker thank you guys appreciate you thank you all the great work okay thank you that concludes our presentation for this evening have any counsel liaison reports today that's not today.

That's not today Miss White session ladies and gentlemen do have a need to to move into closed sessions I would ask my colleagues to please read the closed session motion move to go into a closed session pursuant to Virginia code subsection 2.271 alpha Aaron Six for the purpose of discussing or considering the investment of public funds where competition or bargaining is involved where if made public initially the financial interest of the city would be adversely affected.

Specifically regarding the process for retaining a new city attorney second.

Yes sir Miss Bryant yes Dr Jackson Mr Hugel Ms Daludy's absent Miss Thomas yes Mr Tillage Mayor Glover yes very close very close

To the best of his or her knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard discussed or considered in the closed meeting just concluded.

Yes, sir, Miss Bryant.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

I was just going to say thank you to all of you for coming to the meeting Saturday, the pastors pray for Christmas.

Very touched.