The Virginia Beach City Council held a two-day retreat (January 26-27, 2026) at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. The meeting focused on budget guidance, an in-depth review of city dedications, a governance self-assessment, and policy discussions on election signs, use of city resources, town hall staffing, honorary namings, board appointments, and meeting scheduling. The council provided preliminary budget direction and directed staff to explore adjustments to several dedications to address infrastructure and other priorities.
No formal votes were taken on these items; all were directed to staff for further development and future council action.
In accordance with Virginia Beach Code Section 2-21 and by the authority vested to me as mayor of the council of Virginia Beach, I hereby call for a special meeting of Virginia Beach Council on Monday, January 26, 2026. And today, Tuesday, January 27, 2026, beginning at 830 Virginia Beach Convention Center. 1019th Street Suite 3. The purpose of the meeting is to uh conduct uh city council retreat as listed in an attached and published agenda. The special meeting will be broadcast on Capable TV, Virginia Beach.com, and Facebook Live. Sincerely, Bobby Dyer, Mayor. Okay, thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. And once again, compliments on both of you and your entire staff. Uh you know, for the presentation yesterday. It was beyond excellent. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I appreciate that. Staff worked really hard in putting all the information together in collaboration with all the city departments that helped uh gather the information. So I really appreciate that. Um, Mr. Mayor, I'm just gonna do a quick overview of the agenda for today. Quick recap of what we did yesterday, and then pivot to talk about dedications this morning. So the yesterday we talked about the budget a lot, and you all gave some preliminary budget guidance to the staff so that they can work on the budget to meet your guidance. We've got a few of the notes still on the wall, but um process-wise, staff is going to come back with an opportunity for you during the budget hearings to have more meaningful conversations, and so presentations um will probably be shorter to start with, with a whole lot of information in your packets, so that there'll be more time for you to focus on conversations with revenues and expenses and CIP. You heard the presentations and gave some preliminary feedback as well for the conversations or the the budget development. Um so nothing totally finite at this point, but enough uh guidance for the staff to move forward. Uh today we're pivoting and talking a little bit more about dedications and speaking of um super staff work. This was a request late yesterday, and they were able to pull information together today. We'll then talk a little bit about different roles of the governing body and do something a little different than just presentation, and then we'll have governance discussion on a variety of topics. So that's the plan for today, and we plan to adjourn later than so with that. Absolutely. All right. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. Good good to see you again today. Uh credit for pulling the presentation together so quickly goes to uh deputy director of budget, Katie James. Um she took all the information and put it in this uh digestible format to begin the conversation discussion of dedications, which city council um requests a deeper dive on yesterday. We had some preliminary information in your packet for discussion for context, but this will allow for a little bit more granular look at that information. Uh so this slide here provides a summary of the dedications, uh kind of working down top to bottom and left to right. The outdoor initiative, uh, it's a dedication that was established, and you see in second column, 1990. The dedication generates about 3.9 million dollars a year, and that's generated from a.47 cent uh real estate tax dedication. So this is specifically for the purpose of funding um three or four CIP projects in the Parks Rex section of the CIP documents, such as tennis court renovations and replacements. Um I happen to know for a fact that Parks Works has requested additional funding in the upcoming CIP process for further discussion as we're developing the city manager's proposed budget, as there's a maintenance backlog in these existing um areas of need within the parks infrastructure system. So there's likely uh not much capacity for discussion and redirection from there. Uh the Parks and Rec Special Revenue Fund dedication. We talked of this um pretty good length yesterday about how the dedication to the Parks Works Special Revenue Fund, the 3.467 real estate dedication is primarily for the operation um repair and maintenance of the existing rec centers throughout the city. The Sandbridge Special Service District, this is was established in 1994. Total dedication amount is about 6.1 million. That comes from a 6.5% hotel dedication, $1 per room night of the flat tax that is generated within that geographical boundary. And there's additional real estate surcharge tax of one cent. And I'll talk about a little bit more about Sandbridge on the next slide. The economic development investment program or reference to EDIP. This is a dedication from 16 cent equivalent of the cigarette tax rate generated about $1 million a year, and this is transferred to a CIP project for utilization and economic development to provide performance grants and in SIDM grants to the business community.