And Madam Clerk, if you'll provide us with the chamber emergency evacuation announcement, followed by the roll call and then the docket review.

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 and hearing impair visitors with exiting the building.

And Madam President, for the record, all members are in attendance this evening with the exception of Councillor Robertson and Lynch.

You do have a call.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Let's proceed with the document review.

Starting with the consent agenda, item number one, ordinance 2026 076.

Um governmental operations standing committee recommended approval.

Item two, ordinance 2026, 087, land use, housing, and transportation standing committee recommended approval.

Item 3 and 4, ordinance 2026 089 and 091.

Governmental Operations Standing Committee recommended approval.

So this item is to be continued to the July 27th council meeting.

Item 6, ordinance 2026 102.

This paper was continued previously at the May 26th council meeting, and it's currently being continued to the June 22nd council meeting per acre request.

Item 8, ordinance 2026 106.121.

This paper was committed referral weight.

Items 15 through 17, ordinance 2026 122, 123, and 124, planning commission recommended approval.

However, I believe I do have a request that all these items be moved to the regular agenda.

If it is the consensus of council, item 15 through 17 will be moved to the regular agenda.

Okay.

Councilwoman Gibson.

Thank you, Madam President.

I um I made the request to have those three items moved to the regular agenda.

Is there a consensus?

Always about to ask any further comment, question, discussion.

Councilmember Chairman.

Why?

Sure.

The thinking on these is one this involves the sale and transition of property from the schools.

Um, and uh when this was first brought to the school, there there was uh much discussion about it.

Um my personal interest is to ensure we are um cognizant, you know, that the schools are getting compensated for the transfer of property.

Um, and the other piece to this is this is also another um uh instance of uh of making a transfer at the same time the property's been surplused, which violates this our code um regarding surplusing properties uh prior to sale, so what school is it?

You said there was a school involved or some land the land, um so as you see uh 2026 uh-122.

Um this property at 1461 Commerce Road is uh was uh as a school division property, it had been used as a facilities uh facilities for facilities use, yes.

But it says they're giving up the deed, a quick deed to accept a quick claim deed.

Because I know that's where the casino was gonna go at one time, and we we stopped that we didn't let that happen, and the land's been vacant for all those years, and I think it's retail and all that.

That's something that I know that my district definitely needs some retail and mixed use and all of that.

And how many acres is it?

Is anybody here that can?

Okay, let me take the additional comments and then I can come back for any questions.

Uh, council member Robertson.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um these papers uh uh in have been in discussion.

The issue of the land transfer from rich and public schools to the city, uh, and also the other papers in regards to this, the three papers um part of a development that we have been working on for I don't even know how many years, many many years.

We've been talking uh with schools as well as with uh the uh city central, and a lot of meetings have been held with the community with the administration, um, in regards to these papers, there is a opportunity for us to significantly look at um schools have agreed to the relocation strategy that has been uh adopted by the school board, and the assessment values have been done by uh the city as it relates to the sale uh agreement that has been reached.

Uh it's been something that's been in process for quite some time.

It's an opportunity for us to provide a significant level of development, uh housing development and other uh mixed public use as well, and a guarantee to satisfy rich and public schools uh relocation uh strategy that have been put in place.

Um if they're I would really prefer that we continue with the papers where they are and would request that we continue to have them on the agenda as presented.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comment question?

Councilman Breton?

Um, I would be interested to just hear all the details about the proceedings that have gone into this and understand, you know, when it comes to land transfers, I think it is worth it that we just make sure that they're given their time so the public knows that we're paying enough attention to all the details on these.

So I'm pretty confident that it will probably be approved after we hear all the details, but I think it's important.

I would support putting it on the regular agenda just to make sure that gets that level of attention and time.

Can I get a sense of whether or not there's uh consensus to leave this where or leave these papers where they are, and or to move them to regular agenda?

Any consensus on leaving them where they are?

Movement to regular agenda, and I see okay, thank you.

All right, so item 15, 16, and 17 all will be moved to the regular agenda.

Item 18, resolution 2026 R023.

Committee referral was waived on this item, and this item will be retained on this evening's consent agenda.

On the regular agenda, we have item 19 or 2025 231.

This paper is to be amended later this evening and then continues to the June 22nd council meeting.

This paper was amended at the May 26th council meeting and is currently being retained on this evening's regular agenda.

Item 21 ordinance 2026 059.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Just uh Councilmember Trammel.

Madam President, um, I think there was some questions on this, and I see that um Chip Decker is here, and I would like to call him up with him to answer a question.

And I think the question referenced the implementation plan for what was being proposed in terms of the committee has made recommendation.

Uh and then uh what was attached to that was I believe 30 days and so the uh inquiry was about the implementation plan.

So it's okay.

Mr.

Decker, thank you.

Welcome, Mr.

Decker.

Thank you, President New Bill.

Members of City Council.

My name is Chip Decker, I'm CEO of Richmond Ammon's authority.

Um we've been working with this paper for a while now, and uh so the question is about an implementation plan and what it would take to do that.

At this point, we are reverting back to the way it was run for 30 years, and so the plan should be in place, and uh so if there are any specific questions, I know on my side, my team is uh willing and able to start doing the emergency medical dispatch call taking whenever council sees fit, Mr.

Decker.

Just a question.

You indicated that the um what you have been doing for the last how many years, from the time the ambulance authority was put in place until a year and a half ago, I think it was don't hold me on that.

Okay, it might be give or take when the DC stopped transferring the caller to us.

So what this would require is for DEC once they get the chief complaint is to add the AMP's authority onto the call, and we would take over the uh interrogation for the rest of the questioning following the script that we both use.

Okay, and I think the only inquiry was what is that um plan?

It's just it isn't turning a switch overnight.

Is there staff training that has to happen?

Is there uh any staff movement, whatever the various components of bringing that to what this committee has decisions should be the plan, and having that be clearly articulated as an implementation plan?

That was the only question, right?

And how long it would take to take to do delineate that.

My side is ready.

I Director Willoughby might have uh some other you know challenges to to make it successful.

I'm not aware, but it isn't about my side, is about us in the city working together.

You know that, Mr.

Decker.

Absolutely, okay, and so how we take into consideration that piece and working and communicating with so that it's all coming together.

I think that is really all the inquiry was about.

Right.

The Richard Ambass Authority stands ready, you know, to proceed as council wishes.

We're reverting back to what was working.

So we can have the most accurate information moving forward.

So we know what type of response that the uh citizens actually need.

Thank you.

And again, it isn't a matter of change of decision.

The committee has made a recommendation to this body.

It's just getting clarity on that point.

So I have a question, Councilwoman Jones, and then Councilwoman Robertson.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I too agree with the if there's possible an implementation plan.

I mean, there are questions.

If RAA goes down, what's the backup?

There are questions that are being asked that we should be able to have the answers to.

And if we're saying we're going to make this a 30-day transition, then I think that it's only fair for the public that we have something that we can speak to as well.

And right now, we I personally do not have that information, and I'm not clear on who's doing what, who's backing up who, what is happening.

So I think that it would be helpful to have that information.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Robertson.

Don't go yet, Mr.

Tucker, please.

I think just in case they're enough.

Thank you.

And let me apologize first.

You reached out to me last week and I have not been successful in getting back with you.

Um I would like to better understand.

I mean, making sure that we are providing the best service for our citizens that call people that call and looking for service from the city is extremely important that we are providing the best service that can be provided.

Um this paper and the request, there is some on my part, there's a lack of understanding what change took place, why it took place, why um what is being asked now, and how that's going to improve the quality of services that we're providing.

Um I've gotten different information that is not uniform, and what I'm hearing, I don't know which how to decide uh between the information that I've gotten, and so I do think uh Madam President, that is worthy of us having a full me having a full understanding of the change and making sure that is is getting us to the place of providing the best service that we can, and I don't know whether or not um we should hear from uh Mr.

Willoughby as well as to what's going on, um, just to get a full understanding.

That would be helpful.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Albabaker.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, as someone who um is patroning this and um has been studying this for the last year and a half on public safety.

Um I would be happy to one speak with my colleagues about any kind of questions that there may be, in addition to um, you know, uh bringing um either Mr.

Decker or Mr.

Willoughby up here.

Um, they've um endured quite a bit of uh QA from the public safety committee over the last few months.

Um I would also say that I I always appreciate um an implementation plan and think that that is possible within this 30-day implementation.

So I I think it's sort of an and with this.

We need to um, as we've all said, like this is a this is of critical importance, so we need to be moving forward while also making sure that we are um providing the best sort of pathway um from a process standpoint.

So I think both can happen.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I see that our CAO has joined us.

And I guess I would just, you know, kind of refrain to some of the questions already.

This is such a critical service, and I just want to say I'm grateful for everyone at RAA who feels these calls and goes out to responds.

Everyone at our 911 call center.

That's this is an extremely stressful job that people show up to every day and do their best.

And I know we've got great training there.

I would just love to understand a little bit better because I think there was acknowledgement from the city that co-location and one center for these calls was the way to go, and we it was a result of a study that the Robert Bob group did.

So I don't know, I guess I would welcome understanding to the point of an implementation plan.

What was in how did we implement this change before?

Are we learning lessons from when that switch ever happened?

Um and then it sounds like parties are open to co-location still as a cost saving measure and making sure we're being as efficient as possible with all of our resources.

So how does I'd just like to hear a little bit more from our administration about how does this play out if we vote this forward, especially in a tight timeline, and is there a more optimal timeline because I think we've seen unfortunately timing again when we do switch over with technologies or processes, sometimes it doesn't always go smoothly, and this is just way too important, even though I understand it's been in committee for a long time and appreciate my colleagues who've worked on this.

Thank you, Mr.

Decker.

Did you have were you looking like you were about to comment?

I would.

Okay, Mr.

Donald.

Any comment?

Welcome, Mr.

Donald.

Yes, thank you.

Good afternoon, Council.

Uh, to answer your question.

So, first great uh comments, Councilmember Abba Backer about implementation plans and the need for those, and I think same for you, uh Councillor Jordan.

Uh, that is one of the things that's very important.

Uh coincidentally, a few years ago uh in Augusta, we had to make a transition in Augusta, Georgia of gold crawls to I forgot who the new provider is, and uh that was all within one entity, not uh to an external entity like uh RAA and that transition took about the implementation took somewhere in between three to six months, and of course there was co-location, and I know with that being one of the things that you're discussing, I'd imagine it'd take about the same period of time or a little longer, but I know that that's something that we're looking at uh currently, and so the implementation is one of the things that I would encourage us to make sure that we look at doing uh is ensuring that we have, you know, as you transfer the calls, you have a clear timeline and process to be able to do it correctly.

I've heard from all of you the seriousness of making sure that you know when we make mistakes in this area results in bodily harm, loss of life, and things of that nature, which I know that none of us want, and so ensuring that we have an implementation plan is important and key, and so I just appreciate y'all making those comments and hopefully allowing for us to have that uh those are my experiences with timelines in the past, but we always been to the will of the council and what you believe is is best here.

Thank you, Mr.

Donald.

Um, members, just based on the conversation thus far, I'd like to get a sense of where we are relative to the opportunity to create a implementation plan.

And I'm putting forth the question as well so that I can get response when people come back because what's on the table is not a matter of any change of the committee's decisioning, but a implementation plan.

So I want to hear about that as well.

Ms.

Gibson.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'm also a co-patron on this paper.

There are actually four co-patrons on the paper.

So we're we're just one shy of a final vote.

Um I wanted to just have a point of clarity as it pertains to process now.

So this is scheduled to be on the regular agenda this evening.

And I my understanding is that generally the time here in informal is to is to finalize that agenda.

And we really had just now a wonderful discussion about this paper.

Um, that I think would be valuable to have.

I'm hoping we can essentially repeat this discussion when we are in our formal meeting with the public and um you know, and with kind of full visibility.

I think we can have this discussion about um, you know, about that with the with the public, um, and then you know, in that formal meeting, determine how the body wants to proceed, um, given that this is a regular agenda item.

Unless I'm I'm not sure if I heard you know, if the interest is in continuing the paper, but I'm not sure um I have heard that, so I think it would be worthwhile to to have this discussion in the regular in our regular formal meeting.

I'm certainly open to that.

I think that based on what the nature of the conversation has been, it would be continuing to come back with the implementation plan.

Uh, that's it.

So uh members, your pleasure.

Question.

Councilwoman Robertson.

I'm having a little bit of difficulty following you, but are we saying that we um want to see the implementation plan prior to adopting this paper, or are we saying something differently?

I'm not sure I'm clear on that.

I think what I've heard is that there is a desire to have an implementation plan come with it.

Yes.

So uh motion to continue and request that the implementation be attached.

Uh with the ordinance, yeah, is that what you're putting on the table?

Is that correct?

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Ms.

Albacher.

I would recommend that we have this to Councilmember Gibson's point that we have this conversation informal, and that for right now this remain on the regular agenda, so that we can have this discussion.

I also would like to point out two things.

One, um, the implementation.

I think we need to be really careful about separating.

There's two pieces here that we're talking about.

One is what is at hand, which is the process by which medical 911 calls are handled by DEC and Richmond Ambulance Authority, and then two, secondarily, um, a second a secondarily conversation is going to be about what co-location or pooling of resources could look like.

But that that piece of it is not on the table yet because we haven't we haven't we haven't gone through that in the public safety committee meeting, we haven't had hearings on that, um, we haven't heard from the relevant parties about what sort of you know path forward they want.

They've both said that they're open to it, but that is two separate things, and so the implementation that uh Mr.

Donald, well, I appreciate his um the one in Augusta.

That was, you know, he referenced that that was co-location and a process.

That that is different than what we are putting in forward of forward in this body, which is that it is actually just about the process itself.

So I would request that we continue to move forward with this again.

Again, this was heard twice in committee, um, and has been something that we've we've been talking about for a year and a half, and it is important.

And the administration also agrees that this is important that we move forward with this process and then simultaneously have a conversation about co-location.

Thank you, Ms.

Alba Barca.

At this point, I have a motion but no second on the table, correct?

Or continue.

Then it will be on the agenda for discussion at formal and any further decisioning about recommendation for continuing pending the desire to get something back in terms of a plan.

So thank you.

Madam Clerk.

Item number, so just to make sure everyone is clear, item number 21 will remain on this evening's regular agenda.

Item 22 or is 2026 090.

This type is scheduled to be amended later this evening and then continue to the June 22nd council meeting.

And items 23 and 24 ordinance 2026 092 and 2026096.

Both papers are to be continued to the June 22nd council meeting per the patrons request.

And Madam President, that concludes the docket.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Let's proceed with our discussion item.

The discussion item is the 2026 General Assembly session update.

Welcome, Ms.

Gabbott.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

Council President, members of Richmond City Council, thank you so much for having me today.

I'm Devin Cabot from Two Capitals Consulting, and I have prepared a handful of slides to go over the recent legislative session and discuss some pieces of legislation that will become law, many of which become law July 1.

Some have delayed enactments, but this is just a handful, a sprinkling of legislation that will affect the city.

And so do I control?

Thank you.

Okay, these first few slides I'm gonna go through very, very quickly.

They're just setting the stage for session as we went into it in January.

Of course, we have a brand new statewide administration from Governor Spanberger, Lieutenant Governor Hashmi, and Attorney General Jay Jones.

They were sworn in on January 20th, bringing a lot of fanfare to the city of Richmond, but also a lot of change in approach of state government.

This slide just represents our general assembly leadership, both in the House of Delegates and the State Senate.

There is a larger majority, Democratic majority in the House that changed a little bit of the dynamics in that chamber this year, but you can see here there's um pretty good diversity regionally across the commonwealth represented in leadership in both chambers.

Then we have here our delegation that represents the city.

All of these folks are folks you know.

I wanted to put a slide in here about the new local government leadership.

This committee has two new leaders at the helm.

Senator Losherese aired from Henrico County, took the chairmanship of the Senate Local Government Committee about halfway through session, and then delegate Dan Helmer from Fairfax County became chair of the county cities and towns committee at the start of session.

So this year was a 60-day long session because it fell on an even year.

In the even years, the legislature crafts a new biennial budget.

The slide basically represents just the amount of work that is done in 60 days.

They passed uh over 1100 bills, not including all the joint resolutions and resolutions that they also heard in committees.

Governor Spanberger signed 1,132 bills and vetoed 31 pieces of legislation.

There were 447 bills continued to next session.

And then, of course, the big kahuna is the biennial budget.

Those conversations are still ongoing.

So let's move a little bit into bills and issues.

So this slide represents six issues that took up most of the oxygen in the room this year.

These were the big issues that oftentimes were worked on by the patrons and the majority for years on end.

Some of them got all the way to previous administrations and were vetoed.

So they had a lot of momentum behind them, a lot of pent-up pressure behind them.

Of course, we have a collective bargaining, the establishment of a retail cannabis adult use market, the regulation of skill games, the setup of a statewide paid family medical leave program, issues surrounding data centers, specifically how they're taxed and how the data center sales and use tax exemption is seen in the commonwealth.

And then affordable housing.

There were over 50 bills with just the phrase affordable housing in them this year.

That does not cover all of the housing bills, but that gives you a good sense of how important that issue was to the legislature.

I'm gonna go through each of them briefly.

This is my favorite one, the paid family medical leave program.

This was legislation carried by delegate Sewell and Senator Boisko.

It establishes a statewide paid family medical leave program for 12 weeks of paid leave through the Virginia Employment Commission.

This is every employer and all local governments will have to participate in this program.

It's funded through a split tax between the worker and the employer.

The worker will be entitled to 80% of weekly wages when they have a qualifying event and they qualify for the 12 weeks.

They will get 80% of their weekly wages with a cap at 100% of the statewide average of wages.

Payroll contributions begin April of 2028 with benefits being distributed starting in December 1 of 2028.

It was signed by the governor, and the program will become the bill will become effective on July 1, that's when they will start rolling out the regulatory structure and kind of begin talking to the Commonwealth about how they're gonna roll this out in coming years.

These are three big pieces of legislation that did not pass in the long run.

The first being cannabis legislation from Delegate Kriesek and Senator Ayard.

This was to create a legal framework under the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority to begin sales starting in September of 2026.

It established a 6% sales tax along with a 5.3% sales and use tax and permitted municipalities to levy an additional local tax of up to 3.5%.

The funds, the statewide funds were to go to childhood education and a new fund called the Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund.

The governor sent significant amendments to this legislation to the General Assembly, including delaying the start date, increasing penalties for public use or improper use possession by persons under 21 years old.

She imposed a large fee on licensing.

Essentially, the legislature did not find these to be friendly and did not accept these amendments, and so thus she vetoed the bill on May 9th.

The next one is skill games.

This legislation was patroned by Delegate Hayes and Senator Rouse.

This created the legal framework for taxation of electronic gaming devices, also known as Skill Games.

It was a pretty comprehensive piece of legislation.

It capped the total number of machines statewide, the number of machines per various types of locations, and the size of individual wagers.

15% of the tax collected was to be distributed to the localities based on the host establishment's location, which estimates were around that might be around 50 million dollars annually.

There was a 6.5% tax to lottery to cover implementation and a 2.5% tax to the problem gambling fund, including another 1% to the state police for enforcement.

The governor vetoed this bill on April 13th, stating that there was a lack of a central regulatory authority for gaming, and she didn't want to move forward additional gaming legislation without that authority, that central gaming authority set up.

And then the last one is of course collective bargaining from delegates TRAN and Senator Surabell.

This was a big piece of legislation.

It removed the ban and the local option framework that is currently in law for localities to institute collective bargaining.

It established the public employee relations board or the PERB to oversee union certification, bargaining units, and to handle any impasses in resolution of disputes.

It created binding arbitration through the PERB, and also this is interesting, it added a home care council within DMAS to serve as a public employer for individual home health care workers who would then be able to collectively bargain through that employment through DMAS.

The governor sent significant amendments down.

The legislature did not accept them, and of course she vetoed the bill on May 14th.

So that brings us to affordable housing, which was Richmond's largest priority.

Our top three legislative priorities centered on housing.

So this slide just reminds us that those three were anti-rent gouging, inclusionary zoning, and the longtime owner occupancy program or the loop program.

And I just included here the statement from the legislative package that you approved that corresponded with each of those items.

So the results of these items.

You can see here we've listed the bills and the patrons of each of these priorities.

The first two went through actual bills, whereas in a loop was mainly budget language, so slightly different process.

You can see that with anti-rent gouging, delegate Clark and Senator Boisco's bills, neither bill passed in their original chamber, so they did not pass or advance past crossover.

With inclusionary zoning, there was kind of more of an omnibus bill that included a whole package of affordable housing incentives that was carried by delegate cousins and Senator McPike.

That bill was signed by Governor Spanberger into law and will become effective July 1 of next year.

It has a one-year delayed enactment in order for everyone to get everything situated and for the business community to understand all the new ordinances and what the incentive packages mean, and then we can get it up and running.

And as far as loop, this was budget language from a few years ago.

We were waiting on a report from DHCD, the Department of Housing and Community Development that would look at this and provide some guidance on how to move forward with this option potentially in Virginia.

When session started, I believe we didn't have the report yet, but it came very soon after it was a skinny report, not very thorough, and so it didn't provide a ton of useful tools to move forward this session.

So there's been some preliminary conversation with budget conferees and the other members of our delegation about whether or not we want to try to include budget language either in this upcoming budget we should see here shortly or in the budget next year.

I wanted to provide an update on a handful of other bills that are going to impact the city.

These are all housing bills that have passed this year.

The first is a bill from Delegate McClure and Senator Locke that codifies the eviction reduction program into law.

It was previously not codified into law, so that bill becomes effective July 1 of this year.

Delegate Carr carried a vacant building registration bill that can a locality can require the owner or his registered agent of any building that has been continuously vacant for at least three years to register the building with the locality annually.

That becomes effective July 1 of this year.

Delegate Carr also carried a bill from the Industrial Development Authorities.

It was actually she worked in tandem, I believe, with the city and with the home builders association, kind of all the stakeholders involved, to enable IDAs to exercise their powers for residential units and allow bonds for the construction of affordable housing.

That becomes effective on July 1 of this year.

And then there is the faith in housing bills, also sometimes referred to as in God's backyard, I believe is the phrase.

These were by right construction bills of housing on land owned by property exempt property tax exempt religious and nonprofit organizations.

It couldn't target just religious organizations, so it's kind of all nonprofits that have that property tax exempt status.

These bills were passed and have a delayed effective date of January 1, 2027, and a sunset date of January 1, 2031.

There was a bill from delegate now Senator Bennett Parker that allows localities to preserve affordable housing by exercising a right of first refusal on publicly supported housing when it's being transferred or sold.

There was legislation from delegates Price and Senator Ayard on the landlord and tenant act that basically provides a locality the ability to bring an action against a landlord on behalf of a tenant if the dwelling unit is unsafe for habitation you know health life health safety threats to it.

If if the if the landlord doesn't remedy those in a certain time period, the city has now authority to bring an action against them.

There was several bills kind of combined that talked about mixed income housing loans.

It established the Virginia housing revolving fund that could make low interest loans to eligible entities that are developing mixed-use housing in the Commonwealth.

And then there's a bill here on recovery residences.

This is from Delegate Price and Senator Van Vulkenberg.

It establishes a requirement for recovery residences and directs the Board of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to establish standards for their credentialing, and then as well as expanded data that they would have to provide and disclose on measures including the effectiveness of the housing, employment, recidivism, overdoses, family reunification, et cetera.

I put a slide here on speed camera bills because there were so many in the legislature this year.

I'm not going to go through each one, I'm going to talk about them a little bit more high-level.

A lot of the bills had pieces of basically an omnibus bill that mandates that localities use speed camera fines exclusively to cover program operating costs and local traffic safety or pedestrian safety initiatives.

It required more signage.

It required that for the first 30 days of a new camera, you only offer warning citations, not full citations.

It requires the Supreme Court of Virginia to create a uniform summons to use across the state.

Senator Diggs carried a bill that extended the school crossing time from 30 to 60 minutes, allowing the cameras to be you know on and used retired sworn officers or locally employed technicians to affirm violations given for a longer period at the start and the Department of Criminal Justice Services.

Okay, a couple other bills to kind of round this out.

There was legislation around vape shops.

Delegate hope and Senator, then Senator Ebon, carried legislation that ships licensing and enforcement from the Department of Taxation to Virginia ABC.

It requires unannounced checks at least once every two years at these establishments.

It requires that you only sell items from the state, the state's official registry of products, which all require some kind of FDA marketing approval.

It escalates fines for selling to the underage, and all of that becomes effective October 1 of this year.

There were several pieces of legislation around PIFAs, the forever chemicals.

The one listed here requires the designation of the certain certain industrial users would have to test quarterly and report manufacturing or use of PFAs to their water treatment facility and then in turn to the Department of Environmental Quality.

That becomes effective in July of 2027.

One bill that I realized I neglected from the slide, it's very important is a piece of legislation from Senator Stewart.

It bans the land application of biosolids that contain PFAS and establishes a maximum permissible threshold.

This is important because as I understand it, the city hasn't test, hasn't done this, most localities haven't done this testing, and so should our tests come back higher than the threshold, we may be required as the city to pay to now send this waste to a landfill as opposed to selling it to farmers for agricultural use.

And I believe that cost was approximately $750,000 annually.

And then lastly, on the slide, I wanted to put at least one piece of gun violence prevention legislation that I know I have heard several of you talk about and the chief of police.

There were kind of two self-storage bills, four bills, but two topics.

One is safe storage in homes where there are minors or prohibited persons present.

Those bills required the firearm to be stored in a locked container compartment or cabinet or made incapacitated by a approved locking device, like a thumb locking device, thumbprint locking device.

Another set of bills that was important this year are the ones listed there.

Those are the unattended vehicles, firearms being kept in unattended vehicles.

These now must be kept out of plain view and in a locked glove compartment or center console.

Those containers can be permanently fixed either as the console or the glove compartment, or it can be a steel box that is welded or cabled, steel cabled to the vehicle to prevent the unnecessary theft of firearms from vehicles.

Okay, so state budget.

This is one where I don't have a lot of finite information, but hopefully we will have it soon.

This slide represents our two monetary asks of our delegation in the state budget.

Of course, we requested a hundred million dollars in each year of the biennium for the combined sewer outflow.

The result of that ended up in both the House and Senate budget at $50 million in the first year only.

That's pretty consistent with what they've done for uh this project for the city in the past, and so what's nice there is that we have alignment in both versions of the budget with that ask.

Then we also made a request for 40 million dollars a year in each year of the biennium for the water treatment plant.

This one was new and of course a little bit more complicated for the legislature.

We ended up with um a proposal in the Senate budget only for 20 million dollars in the first year with some language requiring the creation of a regional work group that would be housed at the Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water, and it would call for state and local coordination and accountability.

Upon working with the administration and others, we determined through conversations with the money committee staff, we determined that we would be able to do this work group and that it would be beneficial to support this going forward.

So we have been advocating to include this since it wasn't in the House budget.

We've been advocating to the House to include this in the final budget.

And then the last thing I'll say I didn't know where to put it because it didn't fit on any of the slides perfectly, but there is obviously a line in our legislative package to support a 1% increase via referendum for school construction and increase in the sales tax up to 1% for school construction.

And there were bills in both chambers.

The House bill moved forward.

The Senate decided instead to put it in their budget.

So we have that language in the Senate budget.

Both chambers have expressed an interest in supporting it, so I'm hopeful that we will see something in the finite budget deal that allows for that.

So quick update negotiations on the state budget are still ongoing.

The budget conferees are working to close a one billion dollar revenue gap between the House and Senate versions of the budget.

This all centers around the data center sales and use tax exemption, and conversations are ongoing.

We know that they have been meeting over the past few days.

They are scheduled to continue to meet this week.

The clerk has called the House back on June 18th for a vote on the budget, and the Senate clerk has called that that chamber back on June 22nd.

So once that budget is passed from those two chambers, it will go to the governor.

She will have seven days to make amendments to the budget, and then the legislature will have to come back probably very close to the end of June to take up those amendments that she makes, and then we will have a final budget in just in the nick of time for July 1.

On this slide, I just wanted to provide you with key dates coming up.

These are the statutory requirements either of the legislative timeline or obviously elections and the and the political timeline, but these are the official statutory dates for us to be aware of.

And then this is a slide that is essentially a set of recommendations from us to you on a process for developing the 2027 timeline, the 2027 package and a timeline for doing so.

So this is a fluid process in some ways, right?

Because some of this stuff will bleed from month to month.

But our idea here is that we kick off the process in July with a legislative retreat, something that RJ has been talking to me extensively about forming so we can all get together and talk through policy and how we want to approach the legislative package, the issues in the legislative package for next year.

Then we will go through a formal submission of ideas from each of you and an opportunity for the council to prioritize those ideas.

We will draft a legislative package and bring it to you for consideration, at which point we will have a public hearing on the package, and then we will move hopefully to adoption in late September, early October, which will give us plenty of time to have a state delegation lunch to talk about the package more formally with the state delegation, and then in that process between October and November, we'll be soliciting patrons, drafting legislation, talking to members and their staff to make sure that we have all of our priorities covered.

In November and December, we will turn our focus to the budget amendments that we have and kind of drafting those and making sure those are all keyed up and ready so that hopefully on January 1st, we will have everything ready to go for session, which starts the second Wednesday of January every year.

And that is the conclusion of the presentation.

If you have any questions, I'm here to answer them.

Thank you.

Thank you for a comprehensive report.

Sorry, we don't have a budget yet, but I'm sorry, don't have to have to it.

Members, are there any questions for uh Ms.

Cat at this point?

Uh Councilwoman Albacher.

Yes, thank you.

Um, that was a very extensive report.

Thank you very much.

Um, two questions.

One um related to the housing and God's backyard legislation.

Um, I know that in the nonprofit world, often there is um what there's still a tax on unrelated um unrelated revenue.

Is that like a is there any revenue that can be attained by the locality for housing that is not related to the mission of the nonprofit organization?

Housing that is not related to the mission of the nonprofit.

You mean like so outside their scope or just not to do that?

Yeah, like if it's outside of their scope, right?

So I mean, uh church housing is not necessarily in their scope of their mission, right?

Um, so in federal standards, that would be considered kind of an unrelated revenue source and would be taxed at some rate.

Um, is there any I guess my concern is with the like the improvements on non-profit land that is already not taxable by the locality.

Um, it just seems like we're we're losing more revenue, which again is fine if it's gonna really move the needle on affordable housing, but I guess that would be something that I'm interested in monitoring.

Sure, I think I understand um your point here.

The legislation didn't actually address the tax part at all, it just used tax-exempt um organizations as a definition of who would receive this buy right authority.

I am not aware of any funds available, at least in the state budget for this type of kind of replacement of lost tax dollars and or just even uh, you know, a way to incentivize um if you had that money to offer it to help um to help in that endeavor.

Um, but it is something we can monitor as we move forward.

Thank you.

And then my my last question is around the recovery residences.

Um, this was a big issue in my district, and um, I I worked with Senator Van Vulkenberg about these.

One of the big questions, I mean, I appreciate the additional reporting um and data that is required.

But uh the issue is that these things don't have teeth really to them, um, and that there was there was no real consequence for not um upholding the standards of the the recovery housing.

Do you know in um in either HB 931 or um SB 270 if there was any sort of penalties for not reporting or um or being substandard?

I don't recall, but I would like to look and get and get back to you.

What I know is that it addressed some systemic concerns about conflicts of interest um between parties involved, and um an issue of protecting residents by saying that you can live in the recovery residence, they don't have to require you to also use their outpatient services.

You that's not a requirement for the living there.

So there were some um system concerns, but not necessarily enforcement in this bill.

But I will I will double check to make sure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Robertson.

Thank you for all the hard work that um you've done.

Your team has done this past year.

Um we got a lot of positive comments back from our legislative body in regards to the work that you were doing.

Uh I'm really impressed with the volume of bills that were passed as it relates to housing.

Um, I I really would like to um, Madam President, ask that perhaps we take some time to really look at these each one of these bills and which one of them we may want to proceed with some local legislation to implement the bills that have been passed this year.

Um, some of them I think we can proceed with putting in.

I know that uh Mr.

Renton has been working very diligently, appreciate the work you've been doing in regards to one of those pieces of legislation.

Um, but there's several others that are here that I think more detail and more in-depth.

I'm I'm sure if I look at the bill, I'll get what I'm looking for, but um it's quite a list, and just having the experts tease and feedback from you guys would be extremely beneficial uh for those.

Also, I'm very pleased that our chief of staff, Mr.

Warren has been pushing and is planning and having us reserve a date early in July to look at a legislative agenda early.

And I think some of the items that are here would probably be some of the items that we would want to consider on that agenda, and perhaps we could get a proposed uh draft agenda for the July retreat working with Mr.

Warren to so that we can follow up on is like for example the long-term uh owner occupy program.

We've been trying to get that done for quite some time, and so we can put that and other others as well on this uh agenda and get so that we can agree to some of the legislation that we want to uh follow up on as well as additional legislation that we'd like to propose for the upcoming year.

Um there was one other notification that I received of a bill that was passed that would allow local governments to provide an opportunity for tax relief or abatement for nonprofits for affordable housing.

Um I don't see that on your list.

Um I think we did get a copy of that legislation.

RJ, did you so um we'll refer back and give you that the number of the legislation so that we can follow up to see if we got what we receive is accurate, and then we can proceed with whatever uh steps that we would need to take to make it effective at the local level.

But thanks a lot.

Um hopefully we'll get through the um budget cycle.

I'm sure that we will, um, but appreciate your notification of times and any significant action that we as a legislative body can be beneficial and helpful.

Please just let us know.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Robertson.

Um, Councilman Breton, I'll come to you.

But Devin, I just want to make sure that the two things that certainly that Ms.

Albacher has raised in terms of recovery and that councilwoman Robertson is raising in terms of a deeper dive on housing, that we can look at that as a part of our agenda as we come together for July uh meetings.

So just to make note there, didn't want to lose that.

Councilman Breton.

I um I was gonna ask like a very similar um question to what uh my two colleagues just asked, which was that guidance and help on implementation of these new powers that we may have, right?

And so whether that's something that you can provide on which ones require legislation, which ones may simply just require administrative action, you know, the details and and and which ones are delayed and how to keep those moving would be great.

And um to the extent that we have to rely on our own staff, let us know where that would happen.

And then, and not just for housing, but also for I mean speed cameras as well, right?

For any of these things where some type of new ability in the city has been granted to us to make sure that we are not overlooking that ability and not and and not losing time and getting to work on using those.

Then I had a very small question, which was um the water treatment regional working group.

Are you able to speak more to the nature of that group and how limiting or onerous or or what that group might be?

Sure.

Um, we were surprised by the language.

Um, we were not anticipating that they were going to, it's several paragraphs of language in the budget that would go along with this uh 20 million dollars dedicated to the city of Richmond.

Um, but essentially the gist of it is they would like to see the legislature would like to see um some accountability back to them on how this money would be spent and used, and so um I don't think we were particularly happy to have these new um meetings that we had to have, but we were able to talk with staff and see that we could align a lot of what we do, the existing meetings that we have, and some of the existing procedures that the administration has been able to put into effect in recent in the recent year.

And we were able to align those with a lot of what the budget language wanted.

And when we had our conversation with the money committee staff and kind of went through our concerns, talked about what we currently did, they weren't aware of a lot of that.

And so they immediately said, Oh, that seems like it would that would, you know, suffice for this bullet or that bullet.

And so I am very hopeful that we will be able to stand this up in a way that will bring um accountability measures back to the legislature, which they are really hoping to see more of.

Um, but also it forces, I think, um, a public regional conversation that I think the legislature really wanted to make sure that all the region was working together on the implementation of these funds.

Thank you.

Extraordinary porting back, and certainly looking forward to our work together, uh, starting with our July uh retreat.

Just really want to say thank you.

And if you can get that budget moving faster, we'd appreciate that too.

Um, so thank you so much.

I'll do what I can for you on that budget, but um, um, with the items in it that we are uh okay putting forward.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

I'd like to also just uh recognize and thank uh Ms.

Ruth Morrison, who has worked in conjunction with our uh two caps uh lobbies who've done an extraordinary job and really appreciate that ongoing collaboration and effort.

Um so thank you.

With the did you I think I have one more question council or comment, Councilwoman Robertson.

Um sorry, missed my light earlier.

Uh, wanted to be added as a co-patron to agenda item number twenty and number twenty two, please.

Madam Clark.

And Madam President, uh Ms.

Robson has been noted.

I'm sorry.

That those items have been noted.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I believe that that should cover our agenda items for the informal session.

The informal, and thank you, everyone.

The informal meeting uh of the Richmond City Council now stands adjourned.