The Government Operations Standing Committee of the Richmond City Council met on May 27, 2026 at 9:30 AM. Chair Jordan presided with Member Gibson present; Member Abbacher was absent. The committee approved prior meeting minutes, heard a presentation from the Office of Sustainability, considered four ordinances, and acted on multiple board and commission appointments.
Office of Sustainability Presentation – Sustainability Manager Tara Warden and Director Laura Thomas provided updates:
Ordinance 2026-076 – Erosion/Stormwater Program Amendments (Presented by Lee Crowell, DPU):
Ordinance 2026-089 – Snow Removal from Sidewalks (Sponsored by Chair Jordan):
Ordinance 2026-091 – Public Utilities and Services Commission Amendments (Sponsored by Chair Jordan):
Ordinance 2026-116 – Sister Cities Commission Codification (Presented by Councilmember Will Perkins on behalf of Councilmember Jones):
Hello everyone, thank you so much for being present for the May Government Operations Stand Committee. Madam Clerk, can you please read the announcements? Upon activation of the emergency alarm signal, all persons should immediately exit the building. Please use the exits to the left or right front of the council chamber or the north or south stairwells outside the rear doors of the chamber. Do not use elevators or escalators. After exiting the building, security would direct everyone down 9th Street to the fenced area located between Clay and Lee Streets. Able persons should assist visually in hearing impaired visitors with exiting the building. Public speaker guidelines. Individuals wishing to speak during public hearings in the public comment period are generally allowed three minutes to speak. Persons appearing before the committee are not allowed to campaign for public office, promote private business ventures, use language of a personal nature which insults or demeans any person, including comments directed at public officials or staff members that are not related to their official duties or address the question staff members directly. All questions are to be directed to the committee chair. Failure to adhere to the guidelines may result in speakers forfeiting any remaining time and further disciplinary action as necessary, which could include barn from attendance at future meetings of the committee for a period of six months. Madam Chair, this concludes the announcements. And all members are in attendance today with the exception of Ms. Abbacher, and you do have a quorum. Thank you so much. If we could move on to public comment, please. Public comment is now open. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this committee regarding items not on today's agenda? Madam Chair, seeing none and no one signed up to speak virtually before the 10 a.m. deadline. The public comment period is now closed and back to the committee. Wonderful. Looks like we have some minutes to approve. The minutes to be approved are for October 22nd, 2025, held at 1 p.m., November 12th, 2025, held at 2 p.m. and February 25th, 2026, held at 1 p.m. for the governmental operations standing committee meeting. If there are no amendments or corrections, then the many minutes, the meeting minutes will stand approved as presented. Those minutes have been approved. Thank you. Okay, wonderful. I believe we have a presentation by our director of sustainability. Ms. Thomas, thank you so much for being here or your representative. Hello, good afternoon. I'll be providing the report today. My name is Tara Warden. I'm the sustainability manager in the Office of Sustainability. We have two topics to cover in this. One is more so related to the disposable plastic bag tax and the third quarter revenue findings. And RBA Green 2050, a quick update on where we are on the implementation of that. So for the plastic bag tax. Tried to answer all the questions that were provided to staff through this, and I'll note what we couldn't find in our in our reconnaissance. The five cent tax went live in January this year. It applies to grocery stores, convenience stores, and pharmacies. The bag tax is split, four cents goes to the city, one cent is provided to the retailer. It's remitted on a monthly basis to the Virginia Department of Taxation. That tax is sent back to the city basically on like an eight-week delay. So the findings that we have are a little bit, they lag quite a bit. From October to December, our staff were out in the community visiting businesses and conducting pop-ups at community events.