The City Council met on September 16, 2025, to receive an update on the flood protection program, discuss a COLA adjustment for council members, and address several ordinances and planning cases. Key highlights included a significant cost increase for the flood program and plans for a joint school board meeting.
Welcome to everybody. Okay. We have uh Dr. Ross Hammond and Rosemary out and Mrs. Henry will be running late, but we can go ahead and get started. All right. So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. The first briefing will be provided by our um stormwater oversight board and also our program manager Jacobs Engineering. I give a city council update on the flood protection program. You'll first hear from Jeffrey Waller, who is the chairman of uh flood prevention. Flood prevention oversight board, followed by Alicia Peter for Jacobs. If you look out any window, we have an unplanned uh show and tell item going on outside today. I'm Jeff Waller, chairman of the flood prevention bond referendum oversight board. Flood prevention bond referendum included seven master projects with 21 projects uh in the 2021 bond referendum along with 10 support projects and 10 other active projects. The resolution creating this board calls for a report every three months. I was last year in June, so this is the third month. Um since the last report to City Council. Uh the board has received briefings from uh Mike Tippen on the uh from the Stormwater Engineering Center on modeling stormwater on uh the PC swim model. This provides the foundation for all the work that uh is going into the this program. It shows pipe sizes, pump stations, and tide gates. Another briefing Mike gave was a program summary from day one to our two new uh high school students to kind of explain what's going on in the program. Uh Jennifer Luddengren of Media and Communications provided updates on communications and centralizing communications and post on the website, blogs, videos, views, email newsletters, Facebook, and a fourth grade initiative uh going to Virginia Beach City Public Schools. And and as a side note, I volunteer regularly at Bayeside Elementary School, and I've already told the principal and the fourth grade teachers that when they get this quick and if they want my help help, I'll be down there. The principal asked if I was an expert, and I said compared to a fourth grader, I'm pretty good. And then uh Jonas Alred gave a presentation on maintaining our existing storm infrastructure program. Highlights listed in the uh August 25, 2025 status report from Jacobs Engineering. So the following are underway, uh, and these are pretty much every month. Windsor Woods Tide Gates is getting ready to wrap up in the next two, three months. Uh South Bay South Plaza Trail Presidential Boulevard drainage is wrapping up. Bow Creek Stormwater Park. Um CTAC drainage, first colonial ocean of boulevard drainage. The Eastern Shore drainage improvements brick project. This is a building resistant infrastructure communities. Uh includes two pump stations, Cape Henry Ditchwork, and Elevating Lynn Evan Drive. And this is being uh ready to go to advertisement. One one highlight in the August report shows that the total program estimate has increased from 1.1 to 1.5 billion with the B dollars. And I hate to give this to Leisha, but she has more details that she'll share with just a minute in just a minute. Future activities for the board include uh we want to do a site visit uh again to Bow Creek Stormwater Park. We've been there a couple times. Uh next summer we want to go back to Lake Windsor Tide Gates because the construction of some of the bigger improvements is getting ready to start. And the shore drive work will begin next year. And we want to go out and see that. So uh our our request of City Council. Um, we had the presentation from the community communication group. This is a great outreach for our community, and the board supports the expanded community outreach for the uh flood prevention program. So if that ever comes up, it has our support. The board will uh advise city council members when the topic of our monthly board meetings is in your Drist district, so you can join it. Join us at our meetings. And I'm sure you already do this, but please remember your the flood prevention program for your district meetings and your uh open houses.