This special formal session of the Virginia Beach City Council, called by Mayor Bobby Dyer, featured briefings on regional talent attraction, cannabis legalization preparations, budget efficiency recommendations, transit service plans, and a new military appreciation weekend. Council members also discussed district naming and public safety workforce concerns. Presentations were given by representatives of the Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable, the Cannabis Advisory Task Force, the Process Improvement Steering Committee, and city planning staff. No formal votes were taken on the briefing items, but council provided direction on next steps.
Good morning, welcome all uh to our meeting. And Mr. Dehaney, we're ready to get going. Okay, uh, but first I got to uh read a letter because we're gonna have a little bit of a special session. Um honorable members of City Council, in accordance with the Virginia Beach City Code 2-2-21, and by authority vested in me as the mayor of Virginia Beach, I hereby call for a special formal session of the Virginia Beach City Council on Tuesday, uh January 13th, 2026 at 1 p.m. of City Council conference room, room 2034, uh building one second floor, 2401 courthouse drive. The purpose of the special session is to conduct public briefings on the city council comments discussions and listed in the attachment public agenda at the conclusion of the uh public briefings, the city council comments discussion council will uh convene into a closed session where the following matters will be considered. Publicly held property in District 2 and District 6 and personal matters, uh council appointments of uh boards, commissions, uh committees, authorities, agencies, task force, and appointments at the conclusion of this closed session, uh the city council will reconvene into an open session uh for the purpose of certifying the closed session. The special uh formal session will be broadcast on uh cable TV and Virginia Beach.com and uh Facebook live and signed by Bobby Dark. Okay, we're ready to roll. Mr. Mayor, members of the council the first briefing. But before we get going to the first briefing, just want to make um note of a slight change on the agenda. One of the items, agenda item D, the disparity study update for logistical reasons, gonna have to move to another date. So that will be rescheduled at another time. So that's a slight change on the agenda. But the first item will be a briefing regarding starting Hampton Roads, and this will be led by Nancy Gerdon, president of CEO of Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable. So at this time, Nancy will um come to the stage and come to the podium and kick off the presentation. And Nancy, I got several people listed here. Uh so Lauren and I are doing it. Okay. So it'll be Nancy Gerdon, President of CEO, and also Lord Roberts, who is the vice president of marketing communication for Hampton Roads Chapter of Commerce. So Nancy, the floor is yours. Thank you. Well, they're both here. Thank you, Mayor Dyer, and thank you, members of City Council. We we are truly excited uh for the invitation today. And uh Lauren and I are actually going to tag tag team this, but uh two things. We'd like to update you on a really exciting uh in-force activity starting Hampton Roads. Uh a little bit of background on how it happened, uh, what's happening with it today and where we want to go, and then obviously uh entertain any comments or questions uh that you might have. So I I just want to say a couple things. Number one, that this is truly a regional activity. Um it literally started uh well over a year ago when we uh number of us who are regional organizations, uh the Alliance, the Workforce Council, the Chambers, others, uh looked around the region. Obviously, we are seeing data that concerned us about out migration and retaining our talent. And so uh that really precipitated uh a study well over a year ago now between the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, whom I know you know, and the round table to really understand sort of what what was what was the thinking behind it? What why were people staying? Why were they going from Hampton Roads, big picture? And so we started with that, um, and we're fortunate enough to get some seat funding from VEDP, Virginia Economic Development Partnership that is now complete. So we'll give you a little background on what happened with that, some of the amazing results that happened uh way beyond anybody's expectations, and then and then we'll we'll roll forward from there. So uh again, just as just a little background, as I mentioned, uh we wanted to understand a little bit more about what was happening in Hampton Roads. Um so we we we engaged an organization called Fahrenheit, who did some work for us to really help us understand uh what was going on um in the region. Fast forward to today, when we didn't present a lot of statistics. We know that's really not the purpose of the meeting, but we can tell you a couple things. Um the good news is Hampton Roads and Virginia, broadly speaking, are doing better in terms of not losing as much uh out migration and talent, but we are not uh we are not attracting enough. And there was a recent U-Haul study, many of you may look at it. It's kind of like an early warning signal for data uh that the census does, and a number of the regions that we compete with across the country, the the Raleigh's, uh the Jacksonville's the Nashville's, and so on, we're continuing to gain population. And we are a little flat. So we don't want to be flat, we want to grow. So there's no no change in the rationale for why this is so important um for the region, broadly speaking. So a little bit of why we learned at the time why people were concerned about leaving Hampton Roads.