The Richmond City Council held a budget work session on April 7, 2026, to review the proposed FY2026 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and related budget items. Administration officials, led by Mr. Donald, answered questions from council members on a wide range of topics including transportation safety, utility rates, affordable housing, public safety facilities, and downtown development. No formal votes were taken; multiple requests for additional information and follow-up were directed to staff.
Specifically, what you're trying to learn more about, we can pull some information for you. But looking at page 391, because I don't have the other one, this was shared with me. Um, where it talks about West included, you've got the description and the scope. So is all of your traffic common measures are lumped in here, your pedestrian safety and crossing, your ADA enhancements, your uh traffic control devices that I just relayed to you, as well as the various programs and how those funds have been spent in the past. I think you're looking for individual uh request what this two million. Yeah, so it's listed in here. Um, so I I still need some specifics because I I think I understand what you're saying. I don't think it's the same as what this council member is saying. You want more detail within various areas, but what type of detail are you looking for? Because that would be in your specific questions. So you've got two million allocated for photo speed enforcement. So you know that the first responder uh wellness program is where that $2 million sits is under criminal justice services. You know, the purpose is to promote well-being of current and retired first responders. The funding opportunities intended to provide resources to agencies and nonprofit organizations. Sounds like in that area, you're gonna be looking for the specific projects. You wouldn't necessarily have that laid out in your budget book, but I'm not sure. That sounds like what council member Lynch is looking for. Well, at the moment, we're we're gonna address, we'll get to Councilmember Lynch. I'm gonna question to get clarification here with council member Gibson. Yeah. Um I we are in a process of looking at a budget to determine if it's gonna meet the needs of city residents. And we've seen multiple city residents die. Yep. And what I'm understanding is that it perhaps it may not be reasonable for me to expect that there would be information in this budget enough to determine if what we've allocated towards this effort is sufficient to prevent future residents from dying. That that's that's what I'm trying to get at. I would recommend that we dedicate a future meeting here in OD to look really specifically at Vision Zero funding, how much money we're getting from these speed cameras and red light cameras, how it's being allocated, and and what we've done with that funding specifically, understanding that that funding is supplemented by additional federal funding. I want to have a comprehensive understanding about how this money is being used to ensure that our residents are going to be safe. And that's the will of the council. If y'all do that, and if the administration agrees to it, I'm sure you could have that either one-on-one, you could ask some of those questions with the I think right now we're at about 600 questions that have been asked total that we've responded to. Uh I'm not sure again, you want a work session on this part of the budget. I think you mentioned you like work sessions on a lot of the various parts of the budget. I'm still trying to understand the individual question that you're asking, because we believe that we have put together a budget that helps to move us closer to vision zero. So we'll we'll work to determine the best strategy to make sure that the questions that the council member is asking gets answered, whether that's individual or OD or whatever the case, and get back to you and staff. Thank you. So the other question that I had was regarding the people's budget. Has any of the money, the 1.7 million dollars allocated been used? And then just to finalize my questions on the CIP, I would also like to understand a bit more information about the fiber optic program. There was 1.2 million dollars that was allocated in last year's budget. This year's budget, it's been modified so that there's no future allocations through 2028. And I wanted to understand what is going on with that program and um what the plans are. Thank you. Well, our leaders come back on uh fiber optics on the people's budget, as you know, uh that group was actually with council up until a couple of months ago. And so there was a total of I think three million allocated. I'm not fully up to speed on that. So what we've done is basically revamp the full program. You've got 1.7 million that was voted on. Those uh dollars have been allocated in the budget and they've been assigned to specific projects. We've been working with Mr. Slatz and his team since we brought them on so that we can provide full reporting. Um, some of that was actually included.