City Council Meeting

Catherine ReadGood evening. I would like to call the regular meeting of October 8, 2024 to order. I'm glad to see such a full chamber. I'm going to read a motion to conclude a closed meeting. At 6.41 p.m., the City Council concluded its closed meeting to conduct interviews for boards and commissions and discuss appointments to boards and commissions. I move that each of us certify that to the best of each council members of knowledge one only public business matters Lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and two only public business matters Identified the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered all council members in favor of the certification motion

Please signify by voting aye aye those opposed nay or abstentions two abstentions the motion passes by a vote of four with two abstentions all right I would like to invite Girl Scout troop 55130 down to the well to help us with the Pledge of Allegiance so can the Girl Scouts please join us down here in the well thank you and prior to doing the pledge of allegiance we are going to ask that if you are able and so choose to please rise for a moment of silence and I would like for us to think tonight about the people who have suffered during Hurricane Helene and to keep in our thoughts and prayers the people who are in the path of Hurricane Milton Okay, Troop 11530, can you turn around and help us with the pledge?

Start us out. I pledge

Speaker 28allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Catherine ReadThank you, ladies, very much for your service to our city council meeting tonight. You are welcome to stay. Or not. It's a long meeting. And with that wonderful start to our meeting, I am going to now ask Dale Lestina to come down to the well to Mr. Listina. This is kind of like reading poetry to you, but not quite, because it's a proclamation. is a poem.

Dale LestinaI'm

Speaker 28looking forward to hearing this.

Catherine ReadOkay. Whereas, on September 26, 2000, the City Council of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, passed a resolution authorizing the establishment of a non-stock, non-profit organization known as the City of Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corporation. And whereas, on December 5, 2000, the City of Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corporation was incorporated as a Virginia non-stock corporation and... the City of Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corporation seeks to provide the City of Fairfax homeowners an opportunity to upgrade their homes while encouraging community revitalization. And whereas Dale Estina led this one-of-a-kind program as president of the corporation from December 22, 2000 to June 11, 2024, by helping to manage an investment by the City of Fairfax

Catherine Readof $4.7 million. And whereas, Dale's motto that the corporation's Renaissance Home Loan Program is one of neighbors helping neighbors to keep the city of Fairfax a wonderful place to live. And whereas, with Dale's guidance, the program has consistently exhibited sound management in meeting its fiduciary responsibilities, the value of loans supported by the program has grown, and the scope of the program expanded detached homes but also townhouses duplexes and condominiums to better serve the needs of our evolving community all while navigating changing financial market conditions and real estate cycles and whereas Dale has served as a tireless advocate of the program always seeking to promote and

inform all segments of the community of its benefits apprising the City Council of the program's accomplishments and needs and working closely with city staff to program participants and whereas under Dale's leadership a volunteer board of directors has administered the Renaissance home loan program to serve hundreds of residents and improve neighborhoods across the city with 286 home improvement loans closing through the corporation's partnering banks representing over 27 million dollars in investments by city homeowners in the quality of their own homes with an additional 4.7 million provided from the Now, therefore, I, Catherine S. Reed, Mayor of the City of Fairfax, do hereby unanimously express sincere appreciation for his dedication, service, and contributions over the past two decades to the residents of the City of Fairfax through the work for the City of Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corporation.

Dale Lastina, the City honors you.

Speaker 28Thank you. Thank you very much.

Dale LestinaThank you, Mayor Reed. I appreciate what you've said. It falls in on very open ears to me. I thank you very much. The concept of the housing corporation, as I call it, began with the livable city task force in the year 20, well 2000 really. And from there, from 2000, the gentleman who was the attorney at that time for the city, sitting in Mr. Lubcom's place, Brian's spot, was Bud Rader. and we then explored how we might do what you just heard. And it turned out that the whole year 2001 was a developmental year for the program. 2002, we did provide our first loans. And as was said, 286 loans up till now, satisfied customers. Once you see the individuals who participate in the final tour, the looks on their faces,

the smiles and how proud they are of their project that is now complete is really a nice reward. Now, just a word of the board. The board is a mix. When one is building a team, whether it be a football team, basketball team, or whatever, you've got to have people with different kinds of expertise. And we have the only other charter member other than myself is Jim Shipp. He has served as the secretary of the corporation. He has been a realtor for 46 years in the city, and he knows before we ever enter the house what the floor plan is, are probably going to be and from there we proceed on our first visit as to whether we would be approving that particular request. Okay, so I would I would close by saying thank you mayor, thank you members of the City Council

one and all and I very much appreciate it and I know I've got some board members here that makes me proud to be associated with and also Brooke Harden would have a loan of his secretary and without Tina Gillian she really keeps the thing running real nice and smooth and you're That makes it a lot more easy to deal with, as I know Brian would attest to. So my last couple of sentences would be this. Thank you so much for this award. And in one week from today is my 88th birthday. And I'm taking this as a very nice birthday present. Thank you very much. You are very welcome.

Catherine ReadI'm going to now ask John O'Neill, our fire chief, and Stephen Sites, our assistant Fire Chief to come forward. We have very very important things to say about fire prevention week. Come on down team come on down team. whereas the city of Fairfax is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting our city whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally and homes are the locations where people are at greatest risk from fire and whereas home fires killed more than 2,700 people in the United States in 2022, according to the National Fire Protection Association, and fire departments in the United States responded to 360,000 home fires. And whereas roughly three out of five fires deaths happen in homes with either no smoke

Catherine Readalarms or with no working smoke alarms. And whereas working smoke alarms cut the risk of dying in reported home fires almost in half. And whereas smoke alarms sense smoke well before you can, alerting you to danger in the event of fire in which you may have as little as two minutes to escape safely. And whereas it is recommended the city of Fairfax residents install smoke alarms in every sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area, and on every level of the home. And whereas the city of Fairfax residents will make sure their smoke alarms meet the needs of including those with sensory or physical disabilities. And whereas the City of Fairfax residents should test smoke alarms at least once a month.

And whereas residents who have planned and practiced a home fire escape plan are more prepared and will therefore be more likely to survive a fire. And whereas the City of Fairfax Fire Department and Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department are dedicated to reducing the occurrence of home fires and home fire injuries through prevention and protection education. the city of Fairfax residents that are responsive to public education measures are better able to take personal steps to increase their safety from fires especially in their homes and whereas the 2024 fire prevention week theme smoke alarms make them work for you serves to remind us the importance of having working smoke alarms in the home now therefore I Catherine S. Reed mayor of

the City of Fairfax do hereby proclaim October 6th through 12th, 2024, is Fire Prevention Week in the City of Fairfax, and urge the community to make sure their homes have working smoke alarms and to support the many public safety activities and efforts of the City of Fairfax Fire Department and Fairfax Volunteer Fire Departments.

Lesley AbashianstaffThank

Marissa Peronipublic commentyou all for helping to keep

Catherine Readour city safe. Words, Chief O'Neill. Thank you. I'll go to

Speaker 8Chief Sight, just pick it off. Chief Sight? Okay. No problem.

Speaker 33Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, for those

Speaker 4kind words in our proclamation. I just want to say to the citizens, it's very important to have smoke alarms. Already in 2024, there's over 1,500 home fire fatalities in the United States. So we continue to be concerned for our citizens in our homes and in our businesses. So smoke alarms are very important. We would encourage you to contact the fire department if you have questions about smoke alarms. we want to make sure every person has one thank you

Speaker 28and

Speaker 8just to follow up on it like to invite everybody that's watching from home and of course everybody in the audience and children to stop by and see us is coming Saturday at the fall festival for our annual open house and we will have safety materials available and and little thing fun things for the kids to do so come come see us

Speaker 23that's a hot

Catherine Readtip it really is happening at the fire department at the Fairfax Fall Festival. Okay, a photo.

Speaker 28Alright, thank you all.

Catherine ReadAlright, I'm going to ask Leslie

Lesley AbashianstaffAbashian and the community

Catherine Readresponse team to come on come on down because we are going to talk about World Mental Health Day and I think it's just important to talk about the fact that mental health is health care and everyone should have access to health care of all kinds including mental health care. Whereas close to one billion people around the world are living with a mental disorder, and whereas relatively few people around the world have access to quality mental health care, and whereas the global community is reeling under the effects of wars, displacement, and the climate emergency, all of which have adversely impacted the well-being of the world's citizens. And whereas it is imperative to understand that embracing human rights and

fundamental freedoms must be a precondition of care and a first step to address social justice and reduce stigma and discrimination toward people with mental health issues. And whereas many mental health conditions have traditionally received too little attention and concern by the general public, the general health care system, and elected and appointed public policy makers, resulting in inadequate priority being given to these disorders. And whereas there is increasing evidence that the prevention of mental illness is possible by using both general and targeted evidence-based interventions, which can improve outcomes for individuals across the spectrum of mental disorders and life course. And whereas there is a need to establish global mental health and well-being targets that

can bring together evidence that captures the social determinants of health, including exercise, widening access to good nutrition and food, all of which will have a positive impact on mental health and well-being. And whereas the World Federation for Mental Health has designated the theme for World Mental Health Day 2024 as it's time to prioritize mental health in the workplace and urges the employers and co-workers to be the agents of change in the workplace by combating stigma and encouraging open discussion on mental health. Now therefore I, Catherine S. Reed, Mayor of the City of Fairfax, do hereby proclaim October 10, 2024 as World Mental Health Day in the City of Fairfax and encourage the community to shine a light on mental illness and fight stigma,

provide support, educate the public, and advocate for equal care. Thank you so much for all of your efforts words all

Lesley Abashianstaffright all

Speaker 28right I

Lesley Abashianstaffjust want to remind people that if you are in a behavioral health crisis you can call 988 even if you just want to talk to somebody you're having you know some struggles and you just need to talk through the feelings that you're having call 988 or if you call 9-1-1 they will get you to the right you know get you to 988 or they might get these folks see you but don't ever think that you're in a you know you're by yourself and you're alone there are services out there and it's really important that each and every one of us are paying attention to one another and also encouraging one another to get services when we need just like we would if somebody was having a medical crisis he needs you know sometimes we all need a

little assistance when we're having behavioral health crisis thank

Catherine Readyou

Lesley Abashianstaffa

Catherine Readphoto a photo all right I'm looking for Stephanie Kupka Anna Safford and the Environmental Sustainability

Speaker 28Committee.

Catherine ReadCome on down. All right, and the subject is Arbor Day. And it's great that we have Arbor Day, but every day could be Arbor Day, really, if you think about it. Whereas in 1872 the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to be set aside for the planting of trees And whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate change by reducing the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water Cutting heating and cooling costs Moderating the temperature Cleaning the air Producing life-giving oxygen And providing habitat for wildlife And whereas trees are a renewable source, giving us paper, wood for our homes, fuel for our fires, and countless other wood products. And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas, and beautify our community,

and wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. and whereas the health of our community's trees is constantly under threat from invasive vines, infestations of insects, disease, and blight, necessitating a constant vigilance and a variety of resources to be employed in their care by all of us and whereas the city of Fairfax has been recognized as a tree city USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation and desires to continue its tree planting ways. Now therefore I, Catherine S. Reed, Mayor of the City of Fairfax, do hereby proclaim October 26, 2024 as Arbor Day in the City of Fairfax and urge all residents to actively support efforts to protect the health of our trees, preserve our tree canopy, and to plant a variety of native tree species for the enjoyment of our community and future generations.

A laudable goal. Words?

Speaker 33I'd like to say that the committee is very grateful for the support that it

Speaker 4has received from the city, from the mayor of the city

Speaker 33council, from the entire community to enable us to help establish and expand an urban forestry program here. And every year we celebrate this with Arbor Day and redouble our commitments to making and healthier for trees and every year it seems to become even more important and so we are so grateful once again to have the opportunity to do that and the committee is very deeply grateful to the support from the staff as it has been able to provide support for this thanks again very much

Catherine Readthank you all right if no more word do you want words all right photo all right All

Speaker 28right.

ShinneberryclerkWe can move on to the adoption of the agenda.

Jon Stehle JrIs there a

Catherine Readmotion to approve the agenda? Councilmember Staley.

Jon Stehle JrThank you, Mayor Reed. I move adoption of the agenda as presented.

Catherine ReadSecond. The motion has been made and seconded. A roll call vote.

ShinneberryclerkCouncilmember Greenfield. Aye. Councilmember Ross. Aye. Councilmember Lim. Aye. Councilmember Staley. Aye. Councilmember Doyle Feingold. Aye. Councilmember Bates.

Billy Batesaye

Shinneberryclerkmotion passed unanimously we'll go to the initial general public comment I had one speaker sign up prior to 5 o'clock p.m. today could Marissa Peroni please step forward

Marissa Peronipublic commentshould I start I want to love Fairfax as a teacher and a mother of two small kids it's easy. As an avid cyclist, it's a little more difficult. I love an uninterrupted bike ride, especially on the W&OD or Cross County Trail. It's a perfect way to de-stress as a working mom. I often take my kids in a bike trailer, but I have to drive to more bike-friendly towns like Vienna or Arlington. It feels counterintuitive to increase my carbon footprint just to enjoy a bike ride, but biking with my kids here is inconvenient and unsafe. I I recently read This is Where You Belong, The Art and Science of Loving the Place Where You Live by Melody Warnick. She explores place attachment, defining it as loving where you live and feeling connected to it as a part of your identity.

Warnick argues that this can be fostered by supporting local businesses, engaging in community activities, and immersing oneself in nature. She emphasizes the importance of trails in creating these connections. Minneapolis and Indianapolis with bike infrastructure inspired by European cities like Copenhagen serve as successful models resulting in thriving urban centers and an influx in young residents locally Arlington exemplifies this ranking in the top 10 cities for recent college grads according to livability.com Millennials in Fairfax often yearn for a place like Arlington where getting around without a car is possible values are shifting in 1998 83% of all daily trips were made by car. However, by 2013, there was a sharp shift.

60% of all homebuyers stated that their priority was a walkable, bikeable neighborhood. They wanted to be able to bike to work, their kids' schools, and local businesses. To deny Fairfax the bikeability update it so desperately needs is to align ourselves with the values of 30 years ago, not the values of 30 years from now. Speaking of the future, that's who this is really for. My daughter is in first grade and her bus stop has 25 kids at it. There are even more children in Cambridge Station under the age of five. In the coming decade, where do we want these kids to be? I'd love to see a future where these kids could ride their bikes to school or a part-time job. I asked my daughter what she would do if there was a bike trail near our house.

Without hesitation, she answered, scooter to Compass Coffee. As one of the newest members of Fairfax Alliance for Better Biking, I would like to emphasize our need to stand up and support better east-west connectivity for our city We need the George Snyder trail as an important connector to make biking safer and more pleasant for everyone This is the Fairfax of the future. Thank you

ShinneberryclerkWe can move on to consent agenda

Catherine Readis there a motion to approve the consent agenda councilmember staley

Jon Stehle Jri think you may read i move adoption of a consent agenda for agenda number 7a consideration of the september 24th 2024 special meeting minutes agenda number 7b consideration of the september 24th 2024 regular meeting minutes agenda number 7c consideration of the october 1st 2024 special meeting minutes agenda number 7d consideration of boards and commissions appointments I move to approve the consent agenda items number 7a through d and the motioning accompanying the consent agenda item as printed

Catherine ReadSecond a motion has been made by council members daily and seconded by councilmember Lim Are there any items council would like pulled for additional discussion? Seeing none a roll call vote

Shinneberryclerkcouncilmember Bates

Catherine Readaye

Shinneberryclerkcouncilmember Doyle Feingold councilmember Staley aye councilmember Lim I on everything except 7c I abstain councilmember Ross

Thomas Rossaye

Shinneberryclerkcouncilmember Greenfield

Thomas Rossaye okay

Shinneberryclerkmotion passed unanimously except for one upset abstention on 7c so we will go on to public hearing we only have one item tonight and as the public hearing and council action to consider approval and adoption of amendments resulting from the five-year review of the city of Fairfax 2035 comprehensive plan I'll acknowledge Paul Napty planning division

Paul Nabtistaffpresentation. I'm going to defer to Planning Commission and Vice Chair Lockhart to get us started.

LockhartGood evening Mayor Reed, members of City Council. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present this document to you this evening. I was appointed to the Planning Commission just as the previous edition of the comprehensive plan was being finalized. It was an incredible primer for the workings of the city, its various boards and commissions, the government itself. Reviewing the document now, revisiting it, I think the city should be extremely proud of how much progress was made against all of the actions included. There was a significant, I don't know the exact number, perhaps Mr. Napti does, but in terms of completed actions, even in that four years, five years since the previous document was put together.

So I don't want to say we gilded the lily, but we did take a firm look at the actionability of the comprehensive plan going forward, making sure that the language reflected not just sort of ideals, those ideals as a city as a community we did a lot of outreach to the various boards and commissions of the city and we're very grateful for their participation for their candor for wanting to get their hands dirty and make sure that their portions of the document really reflected what they're doing I do think this document is very heavily integrated with many other documents and initiatives throughout the city that was also very important to us and it was reflective of all the good work that's going on not just in a general sense but

in a very specific sense so this cross references with other comprehensive of plans, actionable plans, being put together by city staff, city commissions. I'd like to thank Mr. Nabte and Ms. Denny for their work shepherding this document through the many, many reviews and work sessions that we've had as a planning commission, and I am happy to take questions in conjunction with the planning staff. Thank you.

Billy BatesThank you.

Paul NabtistaffI'll now get started with the presentation. As the city council is aware, the Code of Virginia requires that the Conference of once every five years to determine if it should be amended. Our process for this began last summer when the Planning Commission reviewed the current comprehensive plan and determined that it should be amended and identified the process we see here. I would be remiss if I didn't also thank the Planning Commission members for their participation in this. They are a volunteer board and they took it upon themselves during the second phase here to go out to numerous other boards of commissions to meet with them to discuss the comprehensive plan and make sure they're getting all the information

they needed in order to make this update. The following phase was a compilation phase. We spent several months over the early part of this year at every planning commission meeting discussing the various topics and providing updates based on the feedback we received from boards and commissions and the general public. And then we went through the refinement phase where we took these recommended changes and put them in front of the general public with city council and others and continued to refine them until we headed until the final phase, which we spent over the course of the summer, which is putting the document together. and then we last had a discussion on this with the City Council on September

10 where we heard some feedback about some changes that should be made we had our public hearing with the Planning Commission on September 23rd where they recommended approval with conditions and I'll explain what those were in a minute and so now we're here for our public hearing I will note that in your packet you have the formatted document and attachment one this is the draft This is approved. This would be the final document. And along with that is a text markup so you can see the exact changes that are made. In the text markup, there are a couple of sections that are highlighted in yellow. Those are the items that have changed since we last talked to you about this on September 10. So for tonight's presentation, I will go through the changes that have been made since we last

talked to you on September 10. And then I will go through a very quick summary of the major items that we're looking at changing with this comprehensive plan update. a lot of smaller items we won't go through everything obviously so to get started the two primary text changes that have been made since we last talked to you in the introduction and background section there was a piece that was added that was acknowledging inequities of the federal housing programs that were in place at the time that a lot of our single-family growth happened this section was added to the the background of the city description to follow up with the discussions we had earlier in the process with City Council about incorporating discussions about equality and equity throughout the comprehensive plan

as opposed to having it as its own section. During the discussion with the City Council, it was suggested that we add language that identifies some of the measures that the city has begun to take to address inequity issues. And during our conversation with the Planning Commission during their public hearing, they asked us to expand on that by identifying specific projects. So that shows the language that has been added to that section. Then the other change is in the Environment and Sustainability Guiding Chapter and the Action for Natural Environment 1.1.5. We have a similar action that was added to several of the guiding principles of the Comprehensive Plan, including transportation, economic fatality, land use, and parks and recreation

to ensure that we are cross-referencing between our different sections and that we are thinking about what the different sections are talking about. It was suggested that since the environmental sustainability and stewardship is the second goal of the city that we put more emphasis on this. And so the yellow highlighted text is added, so this is what's different between this action and the actions from the other sections, ensuring that we will be considering sustainability and environment issues when we think about both public and private projects. Some other changes that have happened since the last discussion with you. Staff recommended change in the transportation project list. Again, this list is required by the state code for us to identify potential upcoming capital projects

and have cost estimates associated with them. Staff is recommending that we remove three of the projects shown there in red. These are really ongoing maintenance type projects. They were actually removed from the map, but not the chart, and so we recommend removing those. And then lastly, last time we talked to you, we didn't have any changes to the appendices or the index shown. So there are two appendices in the comprehensive plan. The first is the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Plan, and the second is Transportation Practices and Policies. And I'll explain the changes that are proposed in those two sections. There are no content changes proposed to the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Plan. However, there are three data sources that are updated.

First is the citywide floodplain map. FEMA updated our floodplain boundaries approved earlier in 2023, and so the new map shows those new boundaries. We have updates to our impervious cover just based on changes that have occurred over the past five years, and there are updates to the underground and above ground chemical storage tanks throughout the city. This is based on state data, so that chart was updated as well. any changes to recommendations or text in the Chesapeake Bay Preservation

Jon Stehle JrPlan.

Paul NabtistaffIn Appendix B, Transportation Practices and Policies, one change that is recommended there is a section about different types of new types of transportation modes that can be used. One of those is bike share. At the time that the current comprehensive plan was written, we did not have bike share in the city. We now do. So the text has been changed to identify that it is something where we are participating in. Lastly, in the index, the index basically includes explanations of nonstandard terminologies that are used in the comprehensive plan. This includes things such as our street types and our place types that are unique to us. So a couple of the changes there, we remove the boulevard street type, and I'll explain

that more when we go through the overall changes. And then we've adjusted several references to activity centers that previously talked about developing new smaller area plans and those types of things while most of those are adopted now. So that is a summary of the changes that have occurred since we last talked to you on September 10. And I'll go through a very brief summary of the major updates that we're looking at with this for anybody who's new to this conversation. First, this is the cover to the comprehensive plan. The previous one is shown on the left. The proposed one is shown on the right. Very minor differences, essentially the same cover. We've just moved the colors around. So the point here is to show that this is the same comprehensive plan, but it is more of a change than that we would get through a single amendment,

such as through the adoption of a small area plan or a language request or those types of things. So over the next five years, if you see the title box that has a darker blue color, you know you're looking at the updated comprehensive plan as opposed to the previous one. But as far as content is concerned, these are some of the major items. As again, as I mentioned, there are hundreds of changes proposed, but most of them are much more minor than this. So the first major change is the addition of a new mixed-use place type on the future land use map. This came about from earlier conversations about accommodating fluctuations and uncertainty in the commercial markets and considering whether we want to expand support for residential uses in commercial corridors.

So the approach that the Planning Commission ended up taking was to establish a new mixed-use place type This is different from activity centers because identity activity centers are focused on specific named places and so they cannot be expanded or established in new places But the Planning Commission also had concerns about opening this up too much So the way the new mixed-use place type works is that it is not mapped on a future land-use map however it is identified for two sites in the city under what are called partial specific considerations meaning that those two sites could request this land use type through a language request but no other sites in the city could request that at this time this is essentially laying the groundwork for additional

mixed-use or residential areas in commercial place types in the future but if you were to expand this it would be on the initiated by the city not by a this five years from now when we review the comprehensive plan again we'll see how the commercial market is then or if something significant changes before then we could open it up earlier but again it would be initiated by the city not by a property owner the street types there are some changes proposed to that I mentioned the removal of the boulevard street type this is a street type that was is very similar to our commercial main street type which are our main roads or Fairfax Boulevard or Main Street those types of roads and they just were very similar and it was confusing to have both of them and so they were

just consolidated together a couple of other changes are that in the activity centers where we have adopted small area plans in some cases they recommend different street types and what were shown on the comprehensive plan so we changed this to make it consistent and we also updated the locations of what are called neighborhood connectors these are kind of the main roads and to be consistent with what are identified as neighborways on the bicycle master plan because these are the routes within neighborhoods that would be used for through bicycle traffic. We updated the transportation projects list. That's the list that I showed you on the previous slide. These are primarily smaller projects.

We may have new bigger projects that could be added to that in the future based on upcoming transportation projects and studies. We incorporated the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Program, or at least some of the recommendations, into the document. As you saw, the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Plan is an appendix to the comprehensive plan, but there are certain elements of it that we thought would make more sense being directly in the body of the document, so they're more properly referenced. So this includes things such as identifying and preserving and protecting natural resources and establishing sustainable landscaping and invasive management

Jon Stehle Jrpolicies.

Paul NabtistaffWe have strengthened the resiliency goal. This is based on recommendations from the Environmental Sustainability Committee. Some of the actions here include limiting additional limits to development in floodplains, developing floodplain projections for the future, risk assessments for city infrastructure, and reducing the heat island effect. This is the first time the heat island effect is mentioned in the comprehensive plan, and we think this will be a very important element to be thinking about with future policies. And then lastly, accommodating new business types. This was based on recommendations for the city council to be proactive and recognizing the ever-evolving types of businesses that are potentially interested in locating in the city

and making sure that our policies are able to accommodate them and not prevent them from locating here when they would benefit the city. So that is, again, our very quick summary of the proposed changes to the comprehensive plan. if this plan is approved and adopted tonight, we will update the implementation plan. These guides are updated twice yearly, and the Planning Commission submits it to the City Council with their annual report in late January or February of each year. So all the new actions we would incorporate into this guide. Planning Commission is also interested in making this more readable so we can focus on really what the main actions are. There are a lot of kind of ongoing actions in there.

on that with them as well. We'll identify future efforts. There are some new actions in here that will result in the need for future studies, additional analysis, and those types of things. So we'll be talking to City Council about those types of upcoming efforts over the next several months. And then of course the comprehensive plan will be used as it's supposed to be used. It will be used as a reference when reviewing both private and public development projects as well as when reviewing the capital improvement program every year so that concludes our presentation I'm happy to answer any questions are

Catherine Readthere any questions of staff looking to my left looking to my right all right then I will open the public hearing Ms. Shinneberry has this public hearing been advertised yes

Shinneberryclerkit has we had one person sign up to speak prior to the meeting Will William Fournier please come up?

William Fournierpublic commentGood evening. I'm William Fournier. I live at 10134 Spring Lake Terrace and Country Club Hills. Inserting the small area plans into the comprehensive plan will mandate their guidance for the development which is counter to the retention of Fairfax City's town lot character. The small area plans are referenced in a number of locations in the document. Action LU1-2.1 regularly reviewed the zoning and subdivision ordinances and the zoning map to ensure that they are able to support small area plans. This will create havoc on our current ordinances. The transportation overlay districts immediately come to mind. Any height or dwelling unit requirements will go out the window. I quote, small area plans should be referenced for specific guidance on physical characteristics

of development for any site within an activity center. You recently rejected the courthouse plaza redevelopment design, which used the small area plan as justification. You won't be able to deny it in the future. The small building artistic renditions in the plans are misleading in how they portray the results of the development. Nine-story buildings are not in keeping with the city since the Massey building was demolished. The small area plans do not necessarily make economic sense. In the Fairfax Circle small area plan, the Home Depot will be gone in 10 years. Home Depot is the single highest sales tax revenue to the city. During the planning commission meeting, Dr. Rice said that Home Depot, like it is now,

is not going away. Although the Commission approved the plan, these plans do not represent what the future should be. In the Camp Washington small area plan, the Lowe's goes away in 10 years. This type of change is just one of the things that invalidates these plans. The plans add a massive number of residents which have a significant impact on the cost of the city. If you just look at the student yield ratio and the school contribution in the proffers, you'll see that there is not a correlation of the costs and what is going to come to the city. Just to recap, these small area plans should not be incorporated because 1. Massive zoning changes will be required. 2. There will be negative economic impact.

3. The small area plans are misleading. for the character of the city will no longer be a small town there are more issues and examples thank you three minutes can cover thank

Catherine Readyou

William Fournierpublic commentplease do not burden us with the small array plans thank you to the comprehensive plan thank you

Shinneberryclerkis there anybody else in the room that would like to speak on this item you may step forward

Catherine ReadOkay. Okay. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Is there a motion? Council Member Staley.

Jon Stehle JrThank you, Mayor Reed. I move that the City Council adopt the attached resolution approving and adopting the City of Fairfax 2035 comprehensive plan dated September 27, 2024.

Catherine ReadSecond. Motion's been made by Council Member Staley and seconded by Council Member Lim. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Ross.

Thomas Rossthank the Planning Commission and the staff for their due diligence in the past number of months looking at what we need to do to update our Comprehensive Plan. If I recall, when the Comprehensive Plan was developed and approved by a previous council, it was well received, I think, not only by the community, but by people throughout the Commonwealth. And it won, I believe, an award for its work, for the work that was into it, the work that was done in a very comprehensive way. And I think that it created almost a new model for our community. I've lived here for many, many years, 44 years to be exact. And we have seen a lot of change in this community over the years. And I think that this update adequately and correctly places in place those things that are important to the future of this community.

We're no longer a small town. We are growing. We're changing. And I want to, for a minute, address some of the concerns about the area planning. I think the area planning is a very vital and important part of this community. higher density and certainly maybe not nine-story buildings but higher buildings I think are appropriate in the activity areas because they will in turn provide economic opportunities for the community and protect our neighborhoods I ran on that two years ago and four years ago because I I see the area and our own community changing, and we need to have sound planning in order to have activity and economic activity where it's appropriate and to, in order to maintain the quality of the kind of community we want now and in the future.

So I will support this. I think it's another step along the right path to ensuring that we have a strong future. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadAny other discussion on the motion? Seeing none, a roll call vote.

ShinneberryclerkCouncil Member Greenfield. Council Member Ross. Aye. Council Member Lim. Aye. Council Member Staley.

Speaker 28Aye.

ShinneberryclerkCouncil Member Doyle-Feingold. Aye. Council Member Bates. Aye. Motion passed unanimously. to our second general public comment if there's anybody in the room that would like to speak for general public comment they may come forward okay we'll move on to item oh sorry

Speaker 4hi i'm mike fabio 3920

Mike Fabiopublic commentchain bridge road i also represent the fairfax city citizens for smarter growth like to speak about the transportation funding agenda items as stated in your goals of transportation plan are to provide easily safely and efficient movement within and between neighborhoods by walking bicycling using public transportation and driving walking and bicycling contribute to health by providing us exercise and peace of mind yesterday i saw a bumper sticker worry less. So I think that is a very good motto. They also contribute to our sense of community by meeting nearby neighbors, exploring new neighborhoods to better understand their perspectives and needs. And they contribute to public safety. Walkers

and bikers slow traffic. Crime is reduced as there is a greater presence of people on the streets. Combined with the use of public transportation, walking and biking are good for the environment. There's less less production of greenhouse gases, less unhealthy exhaust emissions for us to breathe. But to achieve our transportation goals, we must apply for government funding five years ahead of advanced planning and even longer in advance of construction. Furthermore, we must compete with other state municipalities for those transportation dollars. The City Transportation Department over the past eight years has been able to save our taxpayers many millions of dollars by such planning ahead. In fact, only 7% of the spending was city money.

Therefore, to improve walkability and thereby reduce vehicular traffic, to promote a healthy lifestyle, to improve access for both pedestrians and automobiles, to provide easier access to the Q bus and other mass transit, to facilitate neighborhood interactions, to promote old-town businesses, and to maximize the recapture of our tax dollars sent to Richmond and Washington, I urge you to get the ball rolling without delay and select the projects you wish to adopt from the list provided you tonight by our transportation department. Furthermore, I urge you to stand behind and advance the projects that you have already approved. One of these will be the Chain Bridge Road Eaton Place project that you have before you tonight.

And as an aside, on Arbor Day, trees are a renewable resource. Please keep this in mind when you talk about trails. And I thought that Marissa Peroni's comments this afternoon were very pertinent. Thank you very much.

ShinneberryclerkIs there anybody else in the room that would like to speak?

Kevin Plummerpublic commentHello, Kevin Plummer, 3403 Park Hill Place, and I'm also President of Fairfax Little League, so I apologize for my lack of suits and an appropriate dress here. I just came from a practice. I just wanted to talk quickly about the next item on the agenda, hopefully the approval the contract to redo the ice. Fairfax Little League will be turning 70 next year and we've been a big part of this community. I think a lot of people, they've played, their parents have played, their grandparents have played, they've coached. I think rec sports is a really important part of our community and I think it relies a lot on the city and the Parks Department who do a fantastic job to help us as a volunteer organization

provide the spaces for those children to be able to play you know especially rec sports which are less expensive which keep kids in their community whether it's baseball, whether it's soccer, whatever it is. And so I hope that the city council approves the full funding of the renovations at DICE and hope that we can be playing on those fields for another 70 years. Thank you.

Katie Johnsonpublic commentKatie Johnson, 101-32 Spring Lake Terrace. Trails are good, but they cannot be at the expense of our natural resources. All of the necessary connections that have been spoken about can be achieved through existing pavement, and you know that. We must improve the roads if we want to get away from cars. We must improve the roads and make them walkable. We must improve the cyclable and multimodal. We must improve the roads before we change the forest floor. It's ironic. I got a Facebook memory on Arbor Day last year that the GST vote was deferred. Again, I show up on Arbor Day as you recognize the importance of trees. That's great. And trees may be renewable, but the forests are not. that says our forests on the East Coast are failing they are failing to

regenerate and we have as the Virginia Native Plant Society Potomac chapter chair testified we have a mature healthy hope oak hickory forest that we must preserve for everybody to enjoy there are existing paths there are alternatives that can satisfy every transportation need without sacrificing the forest.

ShinneberryclerkIs there anybody else in the room that would like to speak under this item? Okay, we can move forward to items not requiring a public hearing. Our first item is a consideration of an award of construction contract to Bright Masonry Incorporation in the amount of $7,725,650 for the redevelopment of Theis Park. I'll recognize Stacey Summerfield, Parks and Recreation Director, to provide the staff report.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffGood evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you so much for having us back to talk about the Theis Park redevelopment. Tonight I am joined by our project manager, Saeed Masood, as well as Public Works Director David Summers. So tonight we're going to just briefly go over the history of the Theis Park project, the redevelopment that's planned, the existing budget, our bid process, and staff recommendation. So starting with the history, Theis Park itself is almost as old as Little League, not quite. It is over a half century old, and currently the park is comprised of one standard size field, four very non-standard size fields of all different shapes that have been fit over into the space over the years,

very aging clubhouse with aged plumbing, an aging park pavilion, and just a few weeks ago the playground on the site was finally reached the end of its life as well. So the park facility itself is coming to the end of its life. It is a well-used park. It is also within the eastern side and near the Circle area, one of the only community park spaces that's walkable to those residents who live in the circle area. The fields there are booked an average of 265 days a year, so it's well used, and it also serves as kind of our unofficial trailhead for the Cross County Trail. A lot of residents park there to jump onto the trail. So understanding that it's in need of a facelift, we have been working on the

redevelopment, so many of you have seen these plans. So we take our four non-standard size fields and turn those into two standard little league size fields. We retain the one standard size field on the site but then we add a lot of community park amenities so we have a walking track for individuals to come and use we have an ADA accessible playground a clubhouse they'll be available for both Little League but also rental opportunities there is a family restrooms a concession stand half-court basketball area and adult fitness space so really turning this park into a community center along with that we do increase the parking but we remove some of the asphalt area from the floodplain add in a lot of trees and are really able to bring the park into the

new century when we last spoke to you in March of 2024 this was our approved budget so just over eight million dollars we went out to bid and closed our bid process in September of 2024 so we received four bids our lowest approved bidder is from Bright Masonry. We did bid with some alternates. The alternates were the five-row bleachers, the scoreboard, the sport lighting for field one, the ADA playground, adult fitness area, and half-court basketball area. A lot of the cost drivers on this site are the earthworks and the things that you necessarily don't see as a community member once you go to the park. So removing those alternates really changes the the face of the park of what we're trying to achieve here for the community.

So looking at the bid with the alternates included, it does bring us over our budget by $1.44 million. Looking at the bids, we were really going through them and trying to figure out what we might be able to remove, and thankfully we were able to meet with our CFO, JC, and we spoke about reallocating some of our ARPA funds from the Van Dyke project. As you know, the ARPA funds have to be allocated by a deadline that's fast approaching, and this is a shovel-ready project. As soon as we kick off this redevelopment, we will move to the Van Dyke redevelopment as well, but we are not certain that we'll have a shovel-ready project, and so we don't want to have to return these funds. And since these funds are earmarked and need to be allocated, we would reallocate 1.44

of the Van Dyke Park funds over to the Theis Park project, allowing us to complete the and then moving on to the Van Dyke redevelopment and I want to turn it over to JC for a minute if there's anything else he would like to add so

JC Martinezstaffjust really quickly let me expand on what Stacy was saying so as she noted ARPA funds are required to be obligated in its entirety by the end of this fiscal year or the end of the calendar year December 31st 2024 additionally all funds have to be expended by december 31st 2026. as she noted we had allocated city council on may 7th when they adopted the budget appropriated the remaining amount of those funds a little over 9.5 million dollars we're not asking to increase that appropriation we're just moving money within that allocation uh from like stacy said from van dyke to thias to account for this it is more shovel ready allows us to be adaptive and again not to give back any of these federal funds as required by the Treasury happy to take any questions now

or after and

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffthat gets us to our staff recommendation which is to accept the bid in full with all the alternates to reallocate the 1.44 of ARPA funding from Van Dyke over to Theis Park and then just to also say that well later this evening we'll be talking about the parks foundation and so we will staff will continue to push to offset some of the site costs such as site amenities the pavilion playgrounds different pieces through the foundation to hopefully be able to offset some of those costs as well

Catherine Readthank you very much are there any questions of staff councilmember Ross

Thomas Rossyes thank you for this the presentation And I want to give a special credit to our CFO for being able to look at how we could make this project work, use additional funding so that we are not at risk of losing that funding. I think that's really important. And that's a pretty critical role. And I'm grateful to the CFO for being able to find it and being able to make this work. One question I did have, we all know how much work has gone into the master plan, the strategic plan, and the planning for Van Dyke Park, which is a very high priority, I think, for this community and certainly for me as long as I'm on council and even after I'm on council. Has the PRAB endorsed this way of proceeding?

Because obviously this will mean we'll have to find a way to address and deal with the shortfall or the concern over funding for Van Dyke Park. And I would hope that we would certainly not lessen our desire to complete that project. So thoughts, comments? yes

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffthere is still a lot of enthusiasm from both staff and PRAB moving into the Van Dyke redevelopment we really see that as a kind of our flagship city park it's right in the center of the city it's one of our largest parks and so we will continue to push forward on that PRAB has endorsed this reallocation of funds because they would like to see this this the Thijs Park completed in an entire community park and so to be able to get that project done while continuing to push forward on Van Dyke is definitely a high priority of theirs.

Catherine ReadAny other questions? All right is there a motion? Councilmember Staley.

Jon Stehle JrThank you Mayor Reed. I move to authorize the purchasing agent to award a construction contract in the amount of $7,725,650 to Bright Mason, Inc. for Theis Park construction provided the contract is approved as to form by the City Attorney.

Catherine ReadSecond. A motion has been made by Councilmember Staley and seconded by Councilmember Lim. Is there any discussion on the motion? Councilmember Staley.

Jon Stehle JrThank you Mayor Reed. I just want to say how excited I am tonight to be able to make this motion. I want to thank Little League and PRAB for their collaboration, their work on this, the walking track around it, the additional amenities. You know it is going to take us to the next level for what we do at that park and it has been a long journey but I'm very excited to get there. I hope that this partnership continues to move forward. Little League is such a great partner community and people can see and value this this is a day to celebrate incredibly excited to make this Thank You Mary

Catherine Readany other comments from council member Doyle Feingold

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank You mayor I want to say thank you to mr. Martinez for finding those funds and making sure we didn't lose them and also just to echo mr. Plummer's comments my oldest plays on travel soccer with F P Y C I think recreational sports are super important to the community and having those places to play and for parents to be there and watch and siblings is really important so thanks for all the work on this i think it'll be great

Catherine Readwonderful any

Thomas Rossany other comments uh council member ross i would would be remiss if i didn't say as someone who really places a priority on the importance of parks and recreation facilities in a community i've spent my entire career in that field and and to me this is one of the most we can do in a community is have high quality park and recreation facilities and this is going to be an incredible addition to our city and an upgrade so thank you thank you all

Catherine Readright well I will just echo everyone else's thanks for the collaboration finding the money working so hard to try to create something we can afford and coming up with this as a solution this is excellent so with that a roll call vote

Shinneberryclerkcouncilmember Bates

Catherine Readaye

Shinneberryclerkcouncilmember Aye. Councilmember Staley. Aye. Councilmember Lim. Aye. Councilmember Ross.

Billy BatesAye.

ShinneberryclerkMotion passed unanimously. So we'll go to our second item, discussion of the security pilot initiatives to address community concerns of safety. I'll recognize Lazlo Palco, city manager, to provide the staff presentation.

Speaker 12Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. Tonight I'll be joined by our Police Chief, Aaron Chiebel, our Parks and Rec Director, this is a cross departmental coordinated initiative back in the summer we agreed to city council and the mayor on the homelessness task force policy priorities at that time we was requested by the city council that we return in the fall with some pilot security initiatives We have a license that will give you $3,000 in the city council budget for these initiatives. What we presented tonight is proposals from each department for how to address the security and the safety and well-being of all of our residents, including those who are most vulnerable to human services recommendations.

I'm now turned over to our police chief, Chief Douglas.

Speaker 23Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk on this matter. One of the things that we have recently implemented that has been working really well is our community liaison officer. So in the late spring, we deployed an officer in uniform that is directly responsible for liaisoning with the businesses in our high traffic, high crime areas. He's made a tremendous impact. And the reasons he's made that impact is because the visibility and the connection with not only the citizens and the community members, but also the businesses. So really to scale that, to have it in force multipliers, our recommendation to enhance the safety in particular communities is to deploy a security, uniform security but not armed security.

And that's sort of the liaison between the businesses and the police as filling that void. We'd like to do that. And so Parks and Rec currently uses Alpha Security. So that's a really easy segue for us to utilize as a pilot. The areas we're looking at are the Stafford Drive Park and the Draper Drive Park, and then the Old Town Business areas. So really the high traffic ones, the parks are situated behind communities. They have trails. We get a lot of complaints, and there's a lot of children there, so that's really a higher priority to have higher visibility. The Old Town Business area, because of its location and nexus to the jail, we get a lot more activity. so the high presence of a security person or a uniform person there will act as a deterrent.

Some of the comments we've gotten from businesses have been amazing. So we had a CAC meeting, and one of the CAC members have really noted in the circle in particular the reduction of criminal activity, the fear has gone down. They talked to Zips dry cleaning, and that business in particular said they don't lock their doors anymore. So there's just a different sense because of the presence and because they know the officer's going to be there. So the continuity of the uniform and of the security has really, really helped transition that whole community at the circle. We want to sort of do that as a force multiplier in both the Old Town area and in the parks to create that higher sense of security.

Perception is reality, and if you don't feel safe, you're not going to be safe. And so having that visibility is going to increase the safety of our residents. And we've seen it, empirical, the Safeway, the ABC stores. It's reducing larcenies. It's increasing their level of presence or security. And they've said they haven't had to call the police for weeks. So for us, I mean, knock on wood, the pilot program that we deployed the officer as a community liaison for businesses in the community has worked really well. So I sort of went through some of the justifications already. page and the time frame we were looking at doing really 24 not 24 7 7 days a week from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. mid-october through november for the parks in the old town business areas we're looking monday

through friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. mid-october through november really it's it's catching the businesses and during the daytime hours when it's most traffic to have a security personnel patrolling, stopping in, talking to the businesses, are there issues, and then liaisoning directly with our agency and to see how that works. The cost section of this, so for the Stafford Drive and Draper Drive, 35 hours a week for the full week for eight weeks is approximately $8,404. The Old Town business area, 35 hours a week, Monday through Friday for eight weeks is about the same 8400 the total cost for the eight weeks pilot program is sixteen thousand eight hundred eight dollars and forty cents there any questions any

Laszlo Palkostaffby voicequestions for chief yeah

Catherine Readdo we have any questions for the chief councilmember Ross

Thomas Rossyes I have read through this and in fact my question is more generic to all of the proposal that has been made tonight for us to First of all, I think this, I really like the concept of this, and I really think from what I have heard, there's been a big improvement in the areas that you touched on. And if you recall, or I know we all, I hope we all recall, we talked about this before the early part of the summer when we talked about being able to undertake some pilots and then evaluate their success. These are consistent, I think, with the recommendations coming out of the Homeless Task Force, and I think it shows that we are listening and we're taking action to address some of these concerns.

And I'm very comfortable with any of these being sort of pilot, and I think we're all supportive of the idea of evaluating it. My question is, where is the funding for this coming? Do we have, are we using appropriated funds for this? Are we tapping into another source? I'm just curious where the funding from this is coming out of money that we've already budgeted.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceSure. And can I address that at the final slide of this presentation, if that's okay, we can come back to this. That's fine. Because I cover the funding for this. All right. Maybe if it's okay, we'll go through the presentation and then we'll open up for questions after that.

Thomas RossAll right. Fine. I want to come back. Sorry. Thank you,

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceChief.

Thomas Rossquestions early.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceLeslie?

Lesley AbashianstaffGood evening. All right so what I'm proposing I'm calling it the first steps and what you know we all know that housing is fundamental right it you know helps with health well-being quality of life and one things I was thinking about if if I had some funding available to remove barriers, to support people to either stay in housing or get into housing, you know, just to take that first step forward. And really, I'm not looking for, you know, the money to go put somebody in a house forever or to do something more substantial. It's more of taking that initial barrier away. And when I was pulling this together, I really did talk to the facets and LAMC. I talked to some of the folks that work with some of these, the folks that would be using these funds or having this assistance to see what would make a difference to them.

I don't want us to duplicate what some nonprofits do because I think there's a lot. I mean, we're really rich in nonprofit engagement with some of these needs. I think that oftentimes there's a nonprofit that could do or could fill a gap, but not always. So this would fill those gaps that are not readily available, and it would be something that could happen quickly. One of the things that, you know, when I was talking to Michael Dykes from Facets, he said, you know, sometimes, I mean, as we all know, there's some affordable housing issues now, right? hard especially for people that are below 30% AMI to find apartments that they can afford and so when they're working with somebody and when they're

trying to get them into housing you know sometimes if they find an apartment that's open you have to put an application fee in for them to even check and check you do your background and check and see if they would even move forward with allowing you to rent that place but even you know it's Like facets can sometimes find the money through some of their foundation, but it takes time. And when you take time, then you don't have that, you're not able to move forward, and a lot of times people lose the units. Or if you have somebody that is just wanting to move, like maybe you have somebody that's precariously housed and you're trying to get them into a better situation, but they just don't have the money for security deposits.

and if you have that access then you can get them in you know get them into that that new apartment and maybe it'll be a better place and it'll be stabilized. I think sometimes you know folks that we're working with they may or may not be engaged at Lamb Center but you know when you talk to individuals that are in-house they're a lot of them desire they want to work they want to be productive they want to you know be connected and doing maybe even what they did before they lost their housing or lost just you know their jobs and whatever but it takes some things to to be able to get a job and you know I was talking to this 22 year old that goes to the Lamb Center and he was talking about how hard it is when you're living out of your suitcase to get ready for a

job to go and do a job interview or to get your hair cut you know you know all still when you go in for a job interview you want to look nice right and sometimes somebody didn't have 30 to 50 dollars to go get their hair cut so that would be another thing and my goal with this is for us to work with the outreach people that are already working my community response team when we get our new housing manager just having a framework to make the decisions if somebody gets some one-time assistance we can monitor it and you know we to be able to quickly respond when we're trying to deal with those barriers. And, you know, I'm asking for a modest $10,000. And, you know, I'd hopefully, you know, this would be something that we really could, you know, support to move forward

because I do think it's important because if we can stabilize a housing situation or if we can get somebody off the streets and support that, then, you know, they're one step forward to maybe having their life back. Is there any, I don't know, are we asking questions? No. Okay.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceThank you so much, Leslie. Stacy?

Stacey SommerfieldstaffGood evening again. All right. So I will say that the parks piece here is a little more expensive. We have been actually working on this with risk management for a while now, looking at different security camera options in our park. I will say from other parks I've worked at previously here, we utilize security cameras both to dissuade people from committing vandalism but to also recoup costs afterwards. So we have begun looking at the first two parks identified. The first is Stafford Park for an upgrade of security cameras. So looking at the overview of the park here, we would be placing cameras, two cameras on the restrooms, one facing towards the parking lot, which would have license plate reader capability,

area kind of behind the restrooms where we do see some behavior in the evenings. Also, we would be including an emergency box on the restroom, so those blue light boxes where you can push the button and be immediately connected with dispatch. Those are extremely handy for not only a sort of crime emergency, but also a health emergency. If someone were to have an emergency at the park to be able to hit that blue button and be able to get help dispatched to you immediately. Over on the far side of the Stafford Park, we would be looking at utilizing a Dominion pedestal there to get power and put in two poles with cameras enabled on the top of them. One camera would be overviewing the field and the other camera would be looking over the

playground. We would also include on those poles below the 15 feet maximum some safety lighting for nighttime to be able to increase the lighting around those areas. These cameras would be AI enabled, so this is a system that's utilized by a lot of the schools in northern Virginia. It can recognize if there is a large group of people playing on the field at 2 a.m. It can just automatically alert the police of that incident for us. It is connected to the police dispatch center, and St. Leo's just recently installed the same system and has been able to connect it to our dispatch it also identifies it has a number of different settings it can identify license plates or individuals the second park we looked at adding security cameras to is Draper

Park so similar set up here we would have two cameras on the restroom along with that blue light box and then a camera in the center of the field on a pole along with some safety lighting and over where the trailhead from Cardinal road comes into the park, we'd have an additional camera on a pole with safety lighting. We have been looking to try to reduce our overall costs. This is a pretty heavy lift as far as the infrastructure installation goes, and then it becomes much less expensive over the next years because we have the infrastructure in place already. We are still working with our security contractor, and Mr. Summers has been very helpful by providing various staff to look at ways that we can offset our costs by doing some of our work in-house,

conduit ourselves bringing fiber into the park in both of these scenarios we would bring fiber into the back restroom closet on the restrooms have a have a have our full electric setup in there and then be able to run a secure Wi-Fi line to the cameras within the park and so that way we would have a solid connection to the fiber into the restroom but then be able to run all of our cameras off of there we are also exploring utilizing solar for the electrical so that we don't have to run as much conduit so we are still honing down our price to try to look at ways that we can save money off of the original security estimate for both parks the security estimate is approximately a hundred thousand dollars to install the original the initial

infrastructure all

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceright thank you very much Stacy just want to thank the entire team for their great work on this and all the initiatives we've done to date I think we're making progress on this issue and we're excited to implement this pilot if the council so authorizes us to so we can proceed with making improvements to our safety and security to discuss the

Speaker 12funding so the first of all this is kind of a holistic approach

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceyou can see that this is both the security and a human services approach we believe that everything we do as a city has to work in unison right even the work that our economic development team, our community development and planning team. That all is involved with development and providing opportunities for our residents, human services, providing safety nets, and for our law enforcement, providing security. So we like to work holistically as an organization here, specifically for funding, to the earlier question. So there's two funding sources for these initiatives. As you can see, clearly, we don't have enough funding for these funding sources for the security cameras but we're working on some CIP implementing some of the

security initiatives that directors Summerfield mentioned earlier with the risk management team for security cameras but to start off we have the fifty three thousand dollars that the City Council approved for homelessness task force implementation revenues then we have the Old Town service district tax revenues about thirty five thousand so the Old Town service district tax revenues. We want to utilize that for the security presence at Old Town, so the $8,400, so we would not expend that entire $35,000. For the Homelessness Task Force, $53,000, it'd be in three parts. One, the security presence at the park, Strayburn, Stafford, as a pilot initiative, and then to fund the First Steps program for $10,000. As you can see, those two initiatives together leave about

$35,000 of the Homeless Task Force implementation revenues, which we can either hold on to if we want to think about other programs in the second half of the fiscal year, or we can utilize to provide that additional funding needed to make sure that we can implement any security camera initiatives for our parks. So I hope that answers kind of where the funding is coming from.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Ross and then Councilmember Greenfield. I guess I'm

Thomas Rossstill confused. We're talking about, and I understand that this would have to be done in stages because of the funding issue, but we're talking about, I know we had talked previously about the implementation revenues of $53,000, almost $54,000, but perhaps it would be helpful for me to get a better perspective on one, is this money in the budget, number one and number two where is it coming from because I would assume and maybe my question is for our CFO on things like the Old Town service district revenues I thought I was operating on the assumption already committed or planned for particular projects in the budget. So maybe you could help me, Mr. Martinez, explain how this is a part of the budget and the appropriation process.

JC MartinezstaffSo looking at the slide, Councilmember, the Old Town Service District tax revenues, I think the 35,000 that's listed there is excess. Yeah,

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceI can address that one. So there was a total pool that was larger than that. I checked with the economic development team about how much was needed for the approved initiatives. There was some excess to the CFO's point that was available, this 35,000, for additional initiatives in Old Town. So we thought this was an appropriate use to assist with security initiatives because, as you heard from the chief, safety and security in Old Town.

Thomas RossGetting back to the question I raised with the CFO, so these funds were not appropriated for a particular part of the budget, or were they? Again, I'm looking to him as the CFO for that answer.

JC MartinezstaffI'm going to say not. So we had a four-cent increase that brought in an additional $200,000 150 of that was set aside for the EDA OTFB, so the remaining balance from that roughly $40,000 to $45,000 or what's listed there would probably be the balance that is not appropriated and or categorized for a specific use. Okay. If I answered that. So

Thomas Rosscorrect me if I'm wrong, but if I understand our process, this is additional spending that is being proposed. be going through a supplemental appropriation process where we would have this introduced at one session and then acted on it at another as opposed to being asked to approve this tonight?

JC MartinezstaffI would say not. When the budget was adopted on May 7th, we counsel appropriated the entire amount, all $400,000 of that revenue. These funds are sort of left over. I think the city manager is for direction and ability to utilize these funds specifically for this, if I'm saying that right, Matt?

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceYeah, that's correct.

Thomas RossMaybe I'll come back to this, but I'm still a little confused over the process, and maybe I'm just old and forgetful, but I'd like to hear the other questions and comments.

Catherine ReadOkay. We'll check in with Council Member Greenfield.

Jeffrey GreenfieldThank you, Mayor. Regarding the security cameras at Stafford and Draper, if we were to go forward with these cameras, would they be adaptable, usable with other initiatives that we might want to try? So for example, if we moved at some point to doing what's often referred to as real-time crime are we able to take these and then add to it so that we have a larger network so for example you know we have a real issue along the trail behind Home Depot and other areas around the Gateway Regional Park so it may be over time we want to be able to add additional cameras that would give our officers that ability to see things happening in real time. And so would like to get a sense of whether these are cameras that will only work here

or we can expand that network. And if the answer is we can expand the network, if we determine that this is the best camera option that would enable us to do that.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffYes, I can answer that question. We have been looking at a number with our security contractor. we really want to be able to utilize the AI capabilities. And as part of the system that we're looking at, the hardware can be updated with new software. So it is a real-time system. Some of the exceptionally nice parts about the system are if an emergency is happening at the park, we're able to share immediately links that are accessible to police responding EMTs, even if they're outside the city's network. in real time. So we actually have been working with our continued CIP to look at utilizing this, whichever system we go with, AI-enabled security cameras at all of our parks facilities as well.

So looking at using that at Sherwood, Old Town Square, different other places that we've identified that would be helpful to have security eyes available at all times.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceAnd these would be networks so that the police could access them and utilize them? or be responded to security concerns. And we do envision in the future potentially evaluating partnerships between law enforcement and the EDO to work with businesses on a voluntary basis for their security cameras as well to provide that enhanced network.

Jeffrey GreenfieldAnd I would take that one step further. There's the ability to have homeowners opt in with their ring doorbell cameras so they wouldn't see anything else. You don't have access to their entire home security system, but it allows that ring doorbell in case of a crime happening real time that police can be able to build where that person is going and tapping those cameras along the street. So just something to look at. I've been doing some research on this. So there's an organization down in Louisiana, and I'll get you the name of that, that actually does a number of grants for local governments. to help implement this type of an initiative so I'll be happy to share that information for us to be able to explore further so thank you

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Lam Thank you

So LimMayor so on the comments you made city manager earlier about do we want to utilize all of the Homelessness Task Force revenue towards the entire pilot project, the security, you know, the cameras, the First Step program, or just save it for future needs. Are we voting on that or just?

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceThat's your discretion. Yeah, I mean our recommendation is to authorize us to use the entirety of the fund and get these security enhancements done this was the recommendation of the team when we brought them together

So Limokay I don't know I guess that's all for discussions I personally for me I would rather not exhaust the entire set-aside fund for the homelessness task force I would like to just use the portion of it to do the security presence at the Draper and you know Stafford and Old Town them and save the rest for possible needs later. And the security cameras, so what's the timeline? Security cameras for the, if it's approved tonight.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffOnce we have the full amount, we would just be, the timeline would be fairly quick as far as just getting the infrastructure in place. So it would involve some moderate light construction at the parks as far as installation of the poles, some running of conduit and fiber. But everything that we have looked at is available on the market right now and can be purchased and installed. Okay.

So LimAnd then how is it monitored?

Stacey SommerfieldstaffYeah. So part of the AI-enabled security, it is nice because in the evening it is connected with police dispatch, so they have access to see it at any time. capability. For example, St. Leo's has an AI-enabled camera in their back parking lot where their basketball hoop is, and it alerted the police a few months ago at 1 a.m. because the number of people had pulled their cars around the basketball hoop, had their lights on, were drinking and playing basketball at 1 in the morning. So it completely bypassed alerting school officials because that's the settings that they have to just immediately let the police know what's going on. So it is somewhat monitored by AI. It can be reviewed at any time by staff.

It has some AI search functionality that's very nice, so you can review specific areas of the footage, not have to kind of scrub through it manually, and then it's always available to dispatch as well.

So LimOkay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Doyle Feingold.

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank you, Mayor. I really appreciate the broad scope of this, the social service approach and the police approach and the parks. A couple thoughts I had. The George Mason Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, their director has said they will commit time to submitting grants to get us funding for police projects. There was one that came up a while ago. We just couldn't identify the right projects at the time. But, you know, they were looking at $200,000 that if we could identify it in the right process, they did the work and we got the money. So, you know, the Stafford and Draper Park security program could be a great opportunity for that. And I'm happy to, you know, email Stacy and make that connection.

They're there standing by. They do a lot of work with a lot of communities. and they're willing to do all the grant paperwork and all that. One thought, I work in AI and sort of how we ensure that it's safe and fair and the legal policy and all the stuff that's happening right now in my day job. I just think it's a good idea for us to think carefully about how we use it for identifying individuals. I think it's very effective with license plate recognition and things like that, but there are a lot of concerning anecdotes. But it could be broader when we're talking about identifying individuals and just making sure that we have that human interaction and review of anything that comes in. Are my thoughts there?

I think that it's a really good idea for Draper and Stafford, like I mentioned before. soccer she's there late at night and the lights go out and it's very dark and it's chaotic and I think the you know just the additional safety lighting can make a big difference too the first steps program sounds great I would encourage also reaching out to a place to stand I know they do a lot of work in the city and they know a lot of families and kids in need from Daniels run and Providence They also are often putting out calls for, we're trying to raise money for this specific family that needs a security deposit or needs this rent to make it to the next month kind of thing. So it might be a good way to make the most out of the money to use those systems

that are already in place to identify people in need. But my inclination would be not to sit around on the HTF money that we allocated. I mean, the intent was to use it for these concerns. They've been identified. These are really great priorities. We spent a lot of time developing these initiatives here. And when you sit around and wait, things just get more expensive. And so I think we should use it because it's a community concern. And I think all of these have been really well thought through. So thanks.

Catherine ReadOther comments? Councilmember Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. Just a couple questions first off. With regard to the Old Town Security Initiative, would we be – so I'm assuming if we were to make that permanent, that would include events that take place in Old Town, possibly an enhanced presence during events, and then would we be looking at possibly doing that elsewhere in the city or is old town really just the only uh location in the city that is sufficiently walkable for uh okay thank you

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceyeah old town is the the best place for this because it is more walkable uh unfortunately our other smaller areas are still primarily motor-based economies uh so they're not the best for for these foot patrols so the initiatives that law enforcement is already taking with having expanded police presence in the circle we'd like to probably continue that on a more permanent basis and then if we do if this is successful and we proceed on a permanent basis the things we'd be evaluating is whether we want to stick with private security or build more of kind of an internal security component for Old Town and potentially for for city facilities as well if that if that makes sense and yes it could be

as well.

Billy BatesYeah, and for the, as far as the parks proposals, do we have figures for everything else except for the cameras, the cost of that?

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceFor everything else, you mean the infrastructure

Billy Batesyeah with the lighting you know the emergency blue boxes that kind of thing

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceokay

Shinneberryclerkso

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffthe $100,000 we have an estimate from our security provider that includes poles security lighting the cameras it does not include currently running the fiber line into the park so we are still investigating that the Stafford Park is actually close enough to the intersection that we can splice in off of the city's line. We would have to start a new connection at Draper, so Saeed has been working to get a price estimation on that. But the $100,000 cost is largely the majority of the infrastructure minus the fiber line, and then looking at how we might offset some of those costs by running our own conduit within the city.

Billy Batesone more thing so this we're looking at right now would not you know it would be a small fraction of that cost that 200,000 total if we were to want to wait and save that HTF funding and wait until we get something fully funded for all that Do you have an idea of how much that would set us back timeline-wise, or would it set us back?

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceI don't think it would set us back, because once we're ready for the full proposal, we'd bring it back, and you would just have to vote that evening to add this funding towards that initiative if there's any additional funding needed.

Billy BatesOkay, thank you.

So LimCouncilmember Lim. So, you know, the security officers to be dispatched, so it's just an eight-weeks program. So are we just going, like you say, it's a pilot program. So are we monitoring and see what the results will be? And once, you know, we decide that it's a good program and let's just implement it permanently, then we'll talk about funding, I guess, at that point.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceYeah, so it would be a FY26 budget conversation or FY27. But, yes, this is an eight-week pilot program. The law enforcement, our police department did look at some data in terms of call data, so both quantitative and qualitative data with their Fairfax Circle Initiative, call volumes, number of incidents, and then qualitative data like the antidotes they receive from businesses and how much safer they feel. So that's going to be the same approach we'll look at here for this eight-week initiative and see what kind of impact it made in Old Town.

So LimRight. So I just wanted to further explain why I think it's better to save some money, like just spend the $18,400 towards the security officer and the $10,000 first step program and reserve the $35,000 rather than spending that towards the cameras. It's because once the eight weeks pilot program is done, then we may decide, okay, let's have another four weeks pilot or eight weeks pilot. I mean, we've done that before with other pilot program that we've extended the pilot programs. So if once you decide to go ahead and extend the pilot program, if all the funding is already exhausted, then you have to come back to us again. I'd rather have you guys have that money available later. if you wanted to extend the pilot just go ahead and do it the money already

allocated you don't have to come before the council to get that done so that was my reasoning behind you know saving that money and let the HTF have the more funding available rather than using that money towards the cameras thank you

Catherine Readcouncilmember Staley

Jon Stehle Jrthank you mayor Reed and to echo councilmember Lim just so I'm on the same page. You already have $53,923 to spend on whatever you can, provided it is in line with whatever the appropriation was, of which I think the $18,000 makes a ton of sense. I appreciate the briefing on that. Thank you for the openness. I think it's great to inform the community of that. I say go now and conquer on that. What I heard is you need about $200,000 to do the security cameras ballpark, right, and there's some more information to do in there. That, to me, is a supplemental appropriation. We should be doing it in Q4, ready to go. and you should get head nods from all of us to prepare whatever you need, and I think we should move forward on that.

But you can't go out to bid with only $35,000. You can't solve the problem. So I think it's a great initiative. I think it's well thought out. I think we're going to need to have a serious conversation with the community about where does the video go, who holds the video, all those pieces. I think it makes a lot of sense the way it's been outlined. But just from a pure math perspective, I think you need an appropriation for the security part cameras on there. And I agree completely with Council Member Lim. at least when I voted on the $53,000, it was to give flexibility to do exactly what you brought back. Security presence, a first-step program, go fast without having to come back to us, and if you need it another three weeks because it's there, you've got it.

We knew we would need to spend more money on this. We all said that when we voted on the budget, that there were more things coming. I think that $200,000 makes a lot of sense to have it teed up. I mean, I don't think you heard anybody on the dais tonight say, slow down in there. I think you get the bids back in, figure out what the phasing is, let's have a conversation on it. And we've got our Q4 appropriation coming up here shortly. I don't think any of it slows down. So I think for me this was a great update of what's there. I don't think you need any action from the council tonight because you've already got the authorization to deal with the two ideas you've got on here with the Security and First Steps program.

And you've done a great job, and I appreciate alerting to us that, hey, we want to do cameras. Cameras are more than $35,000. back to you here shortly for what we think makes sense I think you've started a great conversation for the community about how we're continuing to be proactive can you move forward and I would welcome you know coming back with you know our CFO and city manager as to where we get that funding from so we can get you teed up and appropriated don't slow anything down it strikes me that this is the perfect time to get it teed up because mr. Summers is amazing and his team is fantastic however building and installing cameras in the next two right so you're coming into the fall anyway and so for me getting those

cameras up as soon as practical seems to be the springtime right which I think makes a lot of sense to get it up give the community awareness that people see what's going on so from my perspective this is a great discussion I think you get exactly what you need which is go forth on the security presence go forth on the first steps program and you've given us a great heads up in the community that there's some cameras coming and let's let's dig into the appropriations process let's not slow down if anything I've said here is off wave your hands and say we need something different but i think you've got full system go there to rock and roll thank you mayor

Catherine Readcouncil member

Thomas Rossross yes i want to thank my colleagues um council members lim and staley for i think clarifying where my questions were and and i'm on the same page on this i think that as i said earlier i think this is exactly what we asked you and the staff to do is come back to us with some pilot efforts and recognizing there's a limited amount of money. Security cameras, I think, are a very, very viable option, not an alternative. But I do think I am much more comfortable with saying go forward with security, additional security, and with the First Steps program, and let's come back at a later date with the cameras. And that'll allow for some additional research. If there's opportunities for some grants and some other outside funding, some additional research.

But I'm very much in agreement that we should go forward at least with the first two pilots who were identified with additional research on the cameras and having a look at some ways we could fund that. Thank you.

Catherine ReadOkay, just a clarification on the OTSD revenues. those revenues are for this program in old town correct so the money that's collected there the revenues collected there anything we do in this program is just in old town correct

Speaker 28that's correct

Catherine Readokay just make sure so the thing about the homelessness task implementation revenue is we haven't even seated our housing and health and communities advisory board in fact we just voted on that tonight for most of these people we haven't even we haven't even seated everyone and so we're basically proposing to spend all the money and tell this brand new advisory board good luck with your recommendations because you won't have any money until July of next year and so to me spending all the money when we allocated money to address the 38 recommendations and the 10 priorities This is all going to, I think security is important, but is it the only thing? And I think if you're using all the money for this one thing and

then you're asking an advisory board to come up with ways to address the things we identified were priorities. I can see, as Council Member Lim has stated, spending the $18,400 and not just spending down every penny of the money we allocated. Because we have an advisory board who hasn't even said hello to each other, much less reviewed what we said we're trying to do in our community. So I can see investing $18,440 in 20 cents of this, but I don't see draining every penny of that budget and leaving this advisory board with nothing till July councilmember Greenfield

Jeffrey GreenfieldI'm not sure I'm following with you because if we're taking some money out of the Old Town tax district for security in the Old Town then we would still have if we took the other 18 for first steps in the other area we would have 35 000

Catherine Readleft

Jeffrey Greenfieldstill left for that

Catherine Readother things and i just want to protect that money

Jeffrey Greenfieldyeah i i don't disagree with you but i just wanted to make sure you right we're tracking that it wasn't draining it it is taking some right because we can't take money out of old town um service district right and and put it somewhere outside of that service district so it still gives them another $35,000 and quite frankly we're right on the heels of another budget conversation for next year anyway so that at least gets them through some initiatives you know between now and and when we would start the budget process the next council would start the next budget process

Catherine Readand that's and I'm fine with that I just don't I don't want us to come back in eight weeks and say we need more out of that bucket that's what I'm saying I can't just keep using this until there's nothing left after this pilot program

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceseems like the majority is go forward with $18,000 then with a 35,000 continue to evaluate the initiatives collaborate with each cabin determine the next steps for that 35,000 plus come back to the security initiative or the security cameras in the future

Catherine Readyes yes do we want to do this by acclimation can we do this by acclimation everyone agrees we are acclamation we have an understanding and an agreement thank

Lesley Abashianstaffyou everyone who contributed to this

Catherine Readit was a very excellent discussion thank

Lesley Abashianstaffyou

Catherine Readall right then I guess we're going into work session my goodness gracious is it that time already we will take I'm gonna bang the drum here I will now recess the regular meeting to go into a work session we will take a five minute recess to go into the work session room Thank

Speaker 28you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Shinneberryclerkand we're back the start of the work session

Speaker 28all right

Shinneberryclerkour first items of discussion overview on the urban forest master plan Anna Safford urban forester will provide a staff presentation

Anna SaffordstaffGood evening, Mayor and Council. So tonight we're here to provide an overview and then receive feedback on the Urban Forest Master Plan project. Tonight I'm joined by Dr. Garrett Wolf, who has been leading the stakeholder engagement

Kate Doyle Feingoldportion of this project. We'll

Anna Saffordstaffgo over the work plan, engagement plan, project timeline, and work done to date. And then we'll open it up for any feedback you have, as well as answer any questions that come up. So with that, I will hand it over to Garrett for the presentation.

Garrett WolfeGreat. Thank you, Anna. Ladies and gentlemen of City Council, thank you for having me to speak about the Urban Forest Master Plan. You can go ahead to the next slide. As Anna mentioned, I'm Dr. Garrett Wolfe. I'm the Director of Environmental Resilience and Ecosystem Restoration at Marstelde, the firm in the middle up there. Marstelde, as Anna said, is leading the outreach and engagement portions of this effort. I'm going to briefly introduce the other team members with the other firms on there. So the prime on this contract is Davia Resource Group, or DRG. They're led by Matt Erb. He's a senior associate consultant and a certified arborist. He's also joined by Ashley McElhaney, who's an urban forestry planner and a certified arborist.

My team also consists of Madison Freiberger, who's a support facilitator and landscape designer. and wetland studies and Solutions is providing technical support on the invasive species portion of the project next slide So as Anna mentioned some of our objectives this evening We're providing an overview Of the UF MP what it entails how the community will be engaged in the project timeline And then we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback and if you have any questions for us please let us know and with that I'll provide an overview so to start an urban forest refers to all the trees growing within the city this includes those on both public and private property an urban forest management plan is a

planning or guiding document that allows strategic planning and resource allocation for urban tree management in the long term generally urban forest master plans explore tree maintenance planting needs staff capacity budget invasive species tree related policy volunteer opportunities and additional relevant topics for a community for Fairfax's urban forest master plan we'll be covering a 20-year planning horizon this this master plan will identify the community's shared vision goals priorities and address specific challenges and opportunities for the city which are revealed in part through our outreach efforts including this discussion tonight So a brief overview of the purpose purpose and goals of the urban forest master plan

This will be the first urban forest master plan for the city of Fairfax It will create a cohesive management strategy that maximizes the city's time and taxpayers dollars and respond to current and future conditions using a variety of recommendations The master plan will address three overarching goals. Sustainability to ensure that the actions support long term goals and use resources wisely. Resiliency to address challenges such as climate change and plant disease. And equity, ensuring all members of the community have access to and benefit from the urban forest. Fairfax's urban forest provides significant benefits to the community, such as improved air quality, carbon sequestration, and The bottom line is that an urban forest is an important asset for the city of Fairfax and will benefit from a cohesive management plan

You see the topics up here on the slide the urban forest master plan will cover the following topics existing conditions of the urban forest results from public outreach and engagement activities which take place throughout plan development a shared vision for the urban forest recommendations to attain that shared vision implementation guidance on five year cycles and metrics for implementation success to monitor progress and efficacy community engagement is a major part of this process from start to finish and it's important that the plan works for both the city and its residents provide a little bit more detail about how this planning process will unfold the master plan will be developed in two phases which we will discuss more in the

upcoming slides public input is a critical part throughout this process and I will talk more about the engagement plan on an upcoming slide currently in phase one which focuses on understanding existing conditions through data collection and analysis so far the project team has completed an invasive species assessment and a review of existing tree related policies and documents. The invasive species assessment documents existing conditions and is determining several scores for an ecosystem score through biodiversity and disturbance levels, a non-native invasive score, what infestations exist and how severe are they, and civic engagement cultural value score for amenities present at community use and affected sites. WSSI is currently working

completed currently in the process. The project team has also reviewed several documents, including the 2021 Urban Forestry Program Evaluation Report, the 2035 Comprehensive Plan, the Zoning Ordinance, the Public Facilities Manual, the Tree Preservation and Planting Guide, part of the Public Facilities Manual, and the Stormwater Utility Credit Program Manual. All of the process of data collection and analysis helps us understand the condition opportunities and constraints of the city's urban forest and management practices next slide the state of the urban forest report which is currently in progress be assessing tree inventory data including tree species conditions benefits of the urban forest urban tree

canopy change over time it uses a set of universal indicators of a sustainable urban forest to evaluate Fairfax's trees stakeholders and management strategies it's also reviewing city operations to understand how urban forest how the urban forest your program functions and what additional needs exist the report will summarize key findings and will inform the master plans goals and recommendations the master plan outline will be developed near the end of phase one and into phase two with report drafts and find the final report being in phase two now for discussion of the engagement plan as part of this planning effort we've developed an engagement plan which is essentially a work plan specifically for the outreach strategies of the urban forest master plan it is a

living document that we're constantly updating over the course of the project to make sure that we are adapting to the engagement needs of the community it It identifies who will be involved, how and when. Some of our strategies include a steering committee, a steering committee which meets every other month to provide updates and receive input. Members serve as liaisons to other groups within the city. Stakeholder interviews, meeting with specific internal and external groups to get details about operations, involvement, challenges and opportunities. stakeholder tracking and tiering Developing a database of who has been involved and when it serves as a reference throughout this project and for the city's use

After we've completed the master plan tabling city staff and project team members Have and will continue to host tabling events at public events will be at fall fest. So we hope to see you all there To further spread awareness There's a public survey that is currently active to gauge the public's connection to and perception of the urban forest we are holding public meetings two per phase the first meeting was an information session held in July I recognize that some of you were there and the second one will be next week meetings three and four will occur during phase two the engaged Fairfax web page serves as a project hub with updates for meeting information, public surveys, and frequently and answers to frequently asked questions.

These strategies aim to provide the community with a variety of ways to get involved. Engagement efforts, of course, strive to accommodate as many residents as possible and reduce or eliminate barriers to involvement. Meetings are offered both in person and in virtual formats. The virtual format allows for closed captioning and translated captions. this virtual format is also recorded and allows residents who could not attend the in-person version or the virtual version to watch it later it's posted on the engage Fairfax web page we've selected meeting locations with ample parking accessible space and access to transit in terms of advertising we've engaged both digital and paper advertising and we encourage as many

people as possible including yourselves to use word of mouth to recommend to the public survey is hosted online and can be translated in the browser it is also available as a paper version I saw it on the table when I walked in so let people know if they need it key materials are also translated so the vast majority of material on the engaged Fairfax page is translated into Spanish for the convenience of those in the community for whom English is not their primary language method of tracking public input varies depending on the for public meetings we provide meeting minutes and recordings for the survey the results will be tabulated for stakeholder interviews the feedback is summarized for the stakeholder

database we use that to track the involvement and what topics are important to various stakeholders we incorporated feedback as appropriate for upcoming outreach activities and we'll re and we will reference public and stakeholder input heavily as the master plan is being developed Comments on the master plan drafts will be tracked and responded to using comment matrices.

Speaker 4Next slide.

Garrett WolfeSo I'll provide a brief overview of where we are in the engagement process. I mentioned some of these already. Two steering committee meetings have been held so far, one in July and one in September. We held public meeting number one in July at the Sherwood Center with over 60 attendees between our virtual and in-person events. We're preparing for public meeting number two the in-person version will be October 17th and the virtual one will be held on October 23rd This will be a workgroup style charrette. So we'll be breaking Breaking everyone up into smaller groups to discuss kind of their perception their needs their goals for the urban forest as we try and help Understand their vision and support recommendations for it

The public survey is live for five weeks through October 25th Stakeholder interviews have already been held and will continue to do so through the fall. Next, we'll see the project timeline. So as you can see there, we are just about smack in the middle of Phase 1, already completing public meeting number one. The survey is live. Stakeholder interviews will be continuing throughout the fall. The Phase 2 schedule, which will be developed in more detail as Phase 1 progresses, but primarily includes the outline of the master plan several drafts of the master plan steering committee meetings to further provide feedback Tabling events to public meetings including a workshop and a final presentation

And of course updates to the engage Fairfax web page at every step along the way next slide So as I mentioned previously I keep mentioning this because I'd love to see you all there and for anyone who's listening Public meeting number two is coming up on October 17th in person and the 23rd virtually We'll continue to update Information for meetings and any outcomes on the engaged Fairfax web page. Please visit our survey and answer the questions And if there are any questions or comments that you'd like to share of course, please contact the city's project manager Anna Safford So to wrap up, I just want to reiterate that the master plan covers a broad range of topics that affect both the city and its residents, including tree maintenance, planting, policy,

stewardship opportunities, and invasive species. The need for public and city input throughout the process is critical. We appreciate any feedback from city council on topics shared during this presentation. That input will help us create a responsive actionable plan to guide Fairfax's urban forest management activities for the next 20 years one last slide So we're interested in getting that feedback in particular on the work plan the engagement plan and the preliminary development of the Project we're also happy to answer or follow up on any questions that you might have for myself and Anna here tonight So I'll give it back over to the City Council for any of those potential questions you very much for your time

Catherine Readthank you what a great presentation any comments or questions from the it's not a dais from the table and councilmember

Marissa Peronipublic commentdo

Catherine Reada feingold

Kate Doyle Feingoldthank you I just say I I think it's a great plan great outreach I've already heard from a lot of people who are excited about it and responding to the survey I appreciate the variety of methods of outreach and that things are video recorded if you can't make it so it's not a one opportunity and you missed it and you know I think also the education on preservation and health is is super important too so thank you

Catherine Readcouncil member Staley

Jon Stehle JrI think Mary Reed so I'm not gonna be on a dais when this comes back so you get a full download of Intel right now, right? So this is an exciting work session, so hang on there. What I would love to see when I'm not on this dais and looking at it is what I do as an individual. I'm going to give you a couple stories, right? So if I live in a condo association, and I'm the president of HOA, which I was, and we decided to plant 100 trees, which we did, I should probably talk to Anna before I make that decision. We did not. You didn't exist back then in that role, which we now have, and we should let people know that, right? Because we didn't have any clue what we were doing. We went to the landscaper and we had a budget and he said, these are good ones. Are they good ones? Are they bad?

I have no idea, right? But now knowing what I know, I should probably talk to Anna before I do that. And I think just that simple tactical element of what we should do as leaders in the community makes a lot of sense. Take it to a single family person, right? Before I plant a tree, I should probably talk to Anna, right? I should ask the question of, is this the right tree? Is this where it needs to go? What does it need to be? And I'm not going to know that if you don't make this plan that actionable, right? The how-to guide, the one-pager, are you thinking to plant a tree? Here's what you need to do, right? Think about it from that lens. I would encourage you to think about it from the student lens.

We had Faisal Lum here earlier, right? If her team at Katherine Johnson isn't like number one on your list when you get the phasing there of what they want to do, because that group of students will be here 20 years from now, some of them, right? And that will be their force to inherit. get them rocking right now what it means. Tell their parents what they ought to be doing, right? You want to talk about languages? They're all right there, right? Help them engage in that particular space. They would be great ones to be doing that engagement and what needs to be doing there. What do I do as a volunteer, right? Are we going to offer certifications, stickers? What do we do with a, you know, a Girl Scout club that comes in there, a troop comes in there,

a Boy Scout, a service project that a high school team wants to do about invasives? If I want to get engaged, how do I do that, right? Think about the tactical actions that could be there so that I can roll in there. And lastly, I'd encourage you about elected officials, right? Every, right now it's two years, you got a new group up here, right? What do you want them to go through? What's the field trip they should do prior to Arbor Day, right? What should their cadence of operation be? And this plan, now that we have you, which I was a huge proponent of, and thankful for many members on this dais to help get that position funded, we want you to lean into this moment, right? Make it so this dais has to go out and do something.

We got planning commissions, right? We got all kinds of groups. Help us understand what we're getting into because by making it that tactical, suddenly we'll look at it and know when the zombie vine apocalypse is happening in our next door neighbor, what we need to do to tell them what's going on there and why it matters. So I think you have a chance to take this from a theoretical with all the engagement into the what are the steps you need me to do in each particular case. And I cannot wait to advocate as a citizen for that. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadAll right. Any other comments? Council Member Ross.

Thomas Rossto what my colleague just said and I was thinking along the same lines I think it's really important to get the schools engaged especially at the nope thank you forgot my microphone it has to be green

Catherine Readit has to be

Thomas Rossgreen green

Catherine Readthere

Thomas Rossyou go you're on

Speaker 28you're on I'm not going to touch IT'S ON. YOU'RE GOOD. NO, IT'S NOT HOT. IT'S COOL.

Thomas RossBUT I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO GET THE YOUTH INVOLVED. AND THE MIDDLE SCHOOL, ESPECIALLY THE HIGH SCHOOL, I THINK ARE REALLY GREAT AVENUES FOR REACHING OUT AND HAVING THEM ENGAGED IN THIS PROCESS. THE OTHER, AS MR. STALEY SAID, WERE SCOUT TROOPS, BOTH BOY AND GIRL SCOUT TROOPS. WE'VE GOT SOME GREAT SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CITY AND THEY OUGHT TO BE PART OF THIS. And finally the neighborhood associations are really critical to reaching out to thank you

Catherine ReadOther comments All right. Well, I have much to say not quite like councilmember staley, but you know I Walk my dog and people will stop and ask me questions about trees and I don't know the answer right and so my concept I love what the city has done with no before you throw and you get emails all the time about your recycling and we need the same thing for the stuff in people's yards. And that includes invasives because, as you know, I do believe there is a zombie apocalypse of invasives in the city. And I also see those when I walk my dog. There has to be some incentive for commercial landscapers who are taking care of commercial properties because the commercial property owners do not care.

And they are not instructing the people pruning those shrubs to pull up that ivy and those vines. So there has got to be some incentive program. matter of people clear it out of their yards because it will be back because commercial properties are not taking care of invasives that's a huge one for me helping people to understand when they need a permit to take a tree down there's some dead trees standing there and you know the neighbor next door is like it's gonna fall on my house and what do I do if it falls in my house there's so many questions out there that are really practical tactical kinds of things that people want help with and so a program that just pushes out An FAQ that people can find online that has videos that shows you things like,

what does an invasive look like? Things like that. Yeah, because I think a lot, too, is that neighbors don't want to say something to their next-door neighbors, this is true of me, about all the ivy climbing up their tree. Like, if you don't have a particularly good relationship with your neighbor, you're not going to, like, knock on their door and go, do you know that your tree is, like, literally dying in front of your eyes and your ivy's going to spread all over the neighborhood? I think from a practical point of view, we really have to help our community in knowing what questions to ask, where to find information, how to talk to your neighbors, how to prioritize invasives. Because you can plant all the trees in the world, but if, you know, three years into their life, they've already got ivy climbing up, that's not helpful.

and also the community needs to recognize when you're walking in public areas like parks like our little neighborhood pocket parks they need to recognize when they see something that is a problem where do you tell somebody that you see a problem you know how do you report you know I see this invasive species eating up you know this part of city owned land because I think if we kind of make everybody a scout no matter what their age they will go forth looking for these things but they need to know what to do to solve the problem and I think our community who which is highly educated deeply engaged in everything having to do with the environment and sustainability we have the best community in the world for people who are like I want to do

something just tell me what to do and so i am very excited about this this urban plan this this this plan is very exciting to me and i think the more community engagement we get but we have to have some actionable steps so that people keep this going after that outreach stops they know what to do and where to find it so i just i love everything about this

Speaker 23anything

Catherine Readanything else All right, do you need anything else from us?

Garrett WolfeI just want to say thank you for the time and for your engagement. And I agree the residents of the city are deeply committed to this. And we have appreciated the engagement so far and look forward to continued engagement. Thank you.

Catherine ReadFantastic. Go forth. Do great things.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceI just want to say one thing about this as well. since as we talk about initiatives again putting my city manager hat on we have to talk about resources to implement those initiatives as well and that's something we we've already talked about but I just want you all to know that as well that there's there's plans there's initiatives and then the capacity to do those initiatives because Anna is one person and we got to think about her team and how how they can get this stuff done

Catherine Readgreat yes definitely let's talk about grant money a separate conversation

Shinneberryclerknext on the agenda

Catherine Readour

Shinneberryclerkis a discussion update on the transportation two-year program Wendy Sanford transportation director will provide the staff presentation

Wendy SanfordstaffGood evening, Mayor, members of City Council. We are here this evening to present the two-year, the draft two-year transportation program. And I'll be giving the presentation, but I am joined by my wonderful team this evening, Chloe Ritter, David Summers, Kurt McCullough, Sunny Sarna. These are the people who are getting it done. So tonight we will talk through the two-year program, what it means, why it's important. I'll present an infographic about the process to do a transportation project, our new project roadmap. We'll go through the two-year program scorecard from the last two-year program, discuss some potential project options for the current two-year program, the outreach, and then next

steps. So first, what is a two-year program? The two-year program is the short-term work plan to implement the long-term transportation vision. What that means is that we're looking, in other words, it's a list of projects to pursue, to do concept plans for, and determine if we want to keep them moving along to pursue funding and then proceed to design and build. So this is a new roadmap that we have developed and there is a more in depth version of this that I'm going to show after this, but this is sort of the level and what it shows is that projects start on a path and that path is long and a project can take anywhere from five to ten years to proceed along that path so it'll start at the start line it'll go through a planning phase and

then into a concept plan phase and then if it proceeds from there it goes into a funding phase, design phase, and a build phase. And what we've shown here is approximately how long it takes to proceed through each phase of a project. And then you'll see after the funding phase, there's a break in the road. Because often, once we find out we receive funding, we have this waiting period. And it could be anywhere from one to five years until that funding comes online before we move into the design phase. So what you see here is that a project takes a long time to go from start to finish. There's a project investment meter at the bottom that shows that as we proceed along that road the investment in terms of time, money, energy

goes into the project. So this is the very high level look at that roadmap. Here is the more in-depth version and what it shows I know this is a lot of information but this is a project that we have been working on and I want to thank Chloe and our communications temp Elena who worked on this with me and we put this together and this was a lot of work and this was really I call this an infographic and what it's doing is putting into a graphic the process that we already take and the purpose of it is to show the lifecycle of a project and how long it takes and when there are council decisions, when there is community engagement. So what you see, and I'm not going to walk through the entire thing, but I'll walk through

it sort of generally. That first step, the blue steps, that's the planning phase. And what we see is this is when a project is going into the two-year program and we're sort of vetting it and seeing if this is something that we want to pursue. If the answer is yes, we proceed to the orange phase of concept. That's when we're developing concept plans, going out to the public, asking the public, do you like this project? Is this something that should proceed? Is this something we should pursue for funding? And you see that there's sort of exclamation points in this area here. And this is where we're soliciting feedback. And that's, and we're putting the exclamation points because this is an important moment.

This is when we're saying this project is really important and we want to pursue funding for it. And that's when we proceed to step six and seven, those orange ones. And you can see the gavel and that's showing council action. This is where council is endorsing the project to proceed with funding. And then you see the break in the road. We're waiting because that's when we have to sometimes sit. And it'll go through a couple of city councils even. And then the funding comes online and we're moving into design, which is the green boxes. the project, developing engineering plans, going to the public hearing, and then moving into the blue which is build. And so what you see in this roadmap is everywhere again where there is council action and community engagement. And so

again but the main purpose if there's one thing you're gonna walk away from from this graphic with it should be that a project takes a long time and so we want to get it right at the starting line. And that's where we are right now year program and that's where the two-year program comes in it's where this is we're saying let's identify projects to put it that start line and let's make sure these are the projects that we want because as you see it then has a long life ahead of it so let's get it right so where do those projects come from that we put up at the starting line they come from a lot of places but they come from our mostly our adopted plans and adopted policies and that comes from our vision for transportation which is in the comprehensive plan it comes from

the City Council goals it comes from our strategic plan and as I mentioned our adopted city plans and there are a number of them we have our comprehensive plan all of our small area plans our bike plan our economic development strategic plan our parks and recreation master plan and these are plans that have gone through engagement process they they've gone through public vetting they've been adopted by the City Council so what that means is that these are concepts that have already been endorsed by the City Council. So why is a two-year program important? As I mentioned, transportation projects take a long time to develop, fund, and implement. They span multiple City Councils. There are significant time, money, resources going into every single project. So it's

important to identify the right projects to advance. And why is it two years? Well transportation funding applications in Virginia occur either every year or every two years so what that means is over a two-year period we're going to hit every funding application at least once and so we want to step back and think about what are the projects that we want to pursue then and apply for funding during that two-year cycle and so this is where that funding cycle fits into the roadmap into that area where we say are we going to apply for funding yes then we come over to the wheel and sort of mix and match the funding applications and i want to pause and just mention right here one thing that you'll see is this is the funding

wheel which i know you're all familiar with the asterisks are when city council action is required and what you see is this yellow bar and that's the development of the two-year program we used to have this um further up around the wheel closer to like 10 o'clock 11 o'clock on the wheel what we found though is that that wasn't giving us enough time or it was a really compressed time schedule to be able to to develop concepts do public engagement and get everything ready for applications so we're backing it up and so that is why we are kicking this off now so that we can have a draft list of projects go out to the public and this will come back to the new city council in 2025. and just to give you an idea and again we've talked about this but I feel like this this

understand sort of what's at stake and how much money is available out there. Since FY14, the city has received almost 250 million dollars of non-local funding for transportation projects. We have spent approximately 20 million to get there. I realize this is a lot. What you're focusing on is what's in the blue box. That shows you all of the money that we have received non-local. And what we have spent, the 20 million, is either the local fund for revenue sharing and transfer for matches for certain funding sources or for application prep and so what that's showing is it's worthwhile to put that money in up front to leverage it for this outside funding. This is the two-year program that was adopted two years ago and I'm not going to go through

all these projects but these projects were adopted into the two-year program and they are all now either we've applied for funding have been awarded funding and some of them these projects they they start to take on a life and now the the all of these projects are somewhere else in that map and i'll show you that right now um so what this shows is again now you're used to seeing these boxes and where they are on the road map so this is showing projects that are underway now and sort of where they sit um along the road um there's one extra box that we added here which is this purple box which is where the where that break in the road is so there are a number of projects that have been awarded funding that are just hanging out right now and

they're going to sit there until that funding comes online and when that happens they will then move into the green box the majority of projects as you see are in design phase because the design phase is long it's one to four years it's when we really are getting into the engineering and and the engagement and so we have a number of projects and as you can see there's three on that list that have a star that are about to move into the build phase so we the projects we move the projects along the road and as as we as I've mentioned there are various opportunities for City Council votes and public engagement and here you are with the project options and now this is where we're going to talk about specific projects so I'll go back this is what we have and now this

is what we're talking about adding that new black box on the left so now we're going to focus on the five projects that are proposed for the two-year program that starts the upcoming two-year program. The first project, Fairfax Circle intersection evaluation. As you know, we've done some very high-level concept planning for Fairfax Circle. We had a TLC grant to do this. We looked at it again through the Fairfax Circle small area plan, but it's been very high level. So what is proposed now is to take that next step to develop an actual concept that we would want to pursue. And so what the small area plan stated was that the final design will be determined later. Well, now we're saying that time is now.

Let's do that. And we would be using some of the funding in that CIP project that it has a set aside to develop concept plans to do this. And this is a major undertaking to go through this process of deciding what Fairfax Circle should look like. And the idea is if we come to consensus on this, in a couple of years, we would bring it forward to go forward with funding if we go through all the steps and it comes out positive. So right now, the project would be to do the evaluation for what the final design would look like for Fairfax Circle. The next project is bicycle route wayfinding and implementation. The bike plan recommended the establishment of a bike route throughout the city, and one

of the recommendations was that we develop wayfinding. And so what this project would do would be developed a plan for uniform wayfinding signs and striping and this would be done in concert with the Parks Department as they're developing their wayfinding program as well. So again what this project would be would come up with a concept for wayfinding signage. The third project is to develop an intersection concept for the intersection shown here of Lindhurst Drive, Main Street, and Trap Road. We recently completed a safety audit of Main Street. This was funded through a COG program. And it was recommended that we make improvements to this intersection to facilitate better pedestrian movement across this intersection.

And so what is proposed is to develop a final concept for this intersection. There were some high level concepts proposed But what we are looking at is coming with a final concept, having the public engagement, coming up with a plan that if successful would be then endorsed for a funding application at a later date. Next project is improvements to the north side of the Vienna Metro Rail Station. If you're familiar with the Metro Rail Station, you'll see that on the south side, a number of lovely improvements have been made to improve the bus shelters and the seating and the lighting. there's a photo on the bottom that shows what the south side looks like and then you can see the top which is what the north side looks like this is actually

Metro property this is not the city but we have been talking to them and said we would love to investigate the possibility of a joint project the north side is where the Q buses all come through so we would really love to see that improved along to look like the south side so this is something that we And if we were to pursue funding, it would potentially be through the Commuter Choice Program at NVTC, which is the Toll Payer, the Inside the Beltway Toll Funding. And that would be something that we potentially would apply with Metro or as a partner with them. I don't know the logistics, but again, this is something we're just discussing with them. And then the last project is to do a feasibility study for sidewalks on Rust Road and Westmore

Drive. We've received sidewalk petitions from residents on both of these streets and they connect to each other so that's nice because this would form one nice project there are no sidewalks on these streets and so we know that there is public interest in this and so what is recommended for the two-year program is to do a feasibility study for sidewalks on these two streets and this would be funded from the residential sidewalk program budget which is part of it which is a CIP project. Those are the five projects that are proposed for the two-year program. However, there are a couple of other projects that I want to just mention that will require City Council action. They are outside of the two-year program. The reason they are outside

of the two-year program is because if you see the circles on the wheel, their applications are actually, one is right now, due at the end of October, and the other one is due in February. So these applications occur right now. As you see, though, the rest of the applications, and it's really the sort of the bigger funding sources, all occur on the right side of the wheel. And so these two are more minor. One is the HSIP, which is the Highway Safety Improvement Program. They provide funding for a variety of things, for two projects which I'll speak to in a minute, and secondly, the RSTP which is due in February. And again, we need to submit these applications ahead of the adoption of the two-year program.

For the HSIP, we are proposing two projects. One of them is the installation of new high-visibility crosswalks, new ADA-compliant curb ramps, and potentially rectangular rapid flashing beacons just at a couple of locations. And these are all on Main Street west of Old Town. And then we are also looking at pedestrian lighting upgrades on Main Street east of Old Town. And this was a recommendation from that same road safety audit that I mentioned a few minutes ago. And so we are looking at these two applications. And what I'm proposing is to bring these to your next city council meeting and put these on the agenda for endorsement of these applications. And then the second is RSTP. This is the one funding source where you can use it for maintenance.

And so what we're proposing, and this is for six years out, you don't have to actually specify the exact project. So you can say bridge maintenance and then in six years decide which bridge, based on a report or an inventory of our bridge conditions, decide which bridge needs the improvements at that time. So those are the two projects that are not included in the two-year program due to their applications being due ahead of the adoption. So here we are back at the roadmap and the box on the left has the projects that are proposed to be at the start line. And so that is what we're talking about, the two-year program. And so the questions for this evening, and again, this is the kickoff. There will be more opportunity and again, adoption will come next year.

But do these projects reflect City Council priorities? If not, what's missing? A future step would be to endorse funding applications for some of these proposed projects if they move through the roadmap successfully. And so the next steps would be this. Right now, here we are on October 8th at the kickoff. As I mentioned, at the next meeting, we'll have the endorsement of the HSIP application. And then really starting November through January, public outreach on this list of five projects. and we're rolling out the this this that roadmap and both five projects are already teed up to go into the November city scene and we'll come back in January have another work session kick this off again and review the public outreach and then in February we'll be requesting adoption of the two

year program in terms of outreach we're developing an interactive map through engage that'll show the locations of these projects with descriptions people have an opportunity to make comments propose potentially other projects we're utilizing social media the city website targeted emails to the neighborhoods where some of these projects are proposed to make sure they're aware of them putting that roadmap in city scene as I mentioned and this is all being coordinated with the communications department this is a postcard that we're putting together that we're handing out at the fall festival this weekend the front has the has these comments. It says, which project should be at the starting line? Here's what you need to know.

Transportation projects take anywhere from five to ten years from plan to build. There are about 20 active projects at various phases along the road. New projects are added to the starting line every two years. And it's critical that we identify the right projects to put on the road before resources are spent. Leave your comments here. So this is a postcard that we're putting together and that will be available starting this weekend. THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION AND I'D BE HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS.

Catherine ReadTHANK YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. VERY ILLUMINATING. DO WE HAVE QUESTIONS FOR THIS TEAM? COUNCIL MEMBER BATES.

Billy BatesTHANK YOU. SO THIS POST CARD, I BELIEVE YOU MENTIONED YOU'D HAVE IT AT THE FALL FESTIVAL. HOW ELSE? DO YOU ALL PLAN ON DISTRIBUTING THAT?

Wendy Sanfordstaffum well we can make it available at in public places at the library at city hall that's typically what we do when we have other outreach materials we are not planning to mail it out

Billy Batesokay thank you would

Catherine Readit be possible to put a version of that in the in the bus shelters with a qr code

Wendy Sanfordstaffyes yeah

Catherine Readi mean people are already using public transportation even a bike share if you just had something small poster size with that information front and back but just say QR code and leave us your comments because those people are already using active transit any councilmember Greenfield

Jeffrey Greenfieldthank you thank you for the presentation certainly don't disagree that transportation projects can take a long time it took us 18 years to get the uh north facts project done and back then nbta money wasn't an option so it was state federal and local and all those hurdles that you had to continue to jump through like it and to keep that moving over so many councils was a feat in and of itself as we've certainly talked about over the last couple of years the challenges of not getting something executed um but i i think what's changed in a good way is is the early engagement with the community to ensure that it really is something we want to pursue so I applaud you for even even starting earlier but talk to me though about the vision zero where are we with that and

what's the outcome okay

Wendy Sanfordstaffso the vision zero so we it's funny you should mention this because we were looking at this and we said we have some projects that are like the Vision Zero, the pedestrian plan, that we weren't sure where to put on this map because they're the plans that are going to recommend projects that would go to the starting line. But that funding has been awarded to us, and we are currently in the procurement phase for that project.

Jeffrey GreenfieldAbsent getting that plan and given that we're looking for stuff for the next two-year cycle, I still feel that we are woefully short in doing things to improve pedestrian safety. I think some of the lighting that I've talked about where you walk up to it, it comes on, you cross the road, and you get out of that cone, and the light goes off when it's dark. It goes straight down on the road, but it lets folks know that, hey, there's a pedestrian there. we should be looking at that in a number of areas Blenheim Boulevard there's a number of places where it you've got a lot of people that go back and forth to Daniels run to Van Dyke Park we won't be doing any improvements with the Blenheim Boulevard transportation project in that area and so I'd love to see us look

that's just an example don't don't zero in on that and say that's the only location i think we we should be looking at a number of locations across the city and then applying for funding that would do things like lighting i know we've got some other stuff here with high visibility crosswalks that's great um but i don't know if the wayfarer bike route wayfinding is that critical when so many people have apps on their phone that's telling them exactly where they need to go and what they need to do. So we've got to balance is really my point here. I agree with, you know, multimodal. I agree that, you know, doing more with bikes is great. But again, I feel like we're short on doing things for pedestrians.

So I'd love to see you come back to us as part of this process we could include for the next two-year cycle for money that we could go after?

Wendy SanfordstaffOne of the things that the pedestrian plan will be doing, that again is in procurement, will be identifying. And since we are in that, we have not started it yet, one of the things we can do is ask our consultant to prioritize improvements for pedestrian lighting so that we can identify where we need better pedestrian lighting. So that actually, I would say that that is underway. I wouldn't be able to identify all of the locations outside and the Main Street Road Safety Audit had some and that's one of the projects is for pedestrian lighting on Main Street yeah

Jeffrey Greenfieldbut that's on Main Street I'm and I again I appreciate that it's a step in the right direction but there's a lot of things between residential neighborhoods that we could be doing you know there's additional things along Chambers Road where you have folks that are crossing the road without a crosswalk because there isn't a crosswalk and so you know you don't have any visibility and so I mean we can go out now we don't need a consultant to go out and drive around and look at some of these areas and see where we have crosswalk but where we don't have lighting that we could explore so I just simply do not want to miss the funding opportunity and say that we have to wait for a consultant to give us some feedback and

and now we're outside of the window to have something included in the two-year program

Speaker 3one thing that we're it's not on here because it's not a transportation project mr. Greenfield but the sustainability division is working with Dominion to change all of the street lights in the city to LED a lot of them are very old sodium vapor they don't provide enough lighting the new technology really helps you know target the lighting and so even though I agree with what you're saying for crosswalks I think the the transferring of all the LED streetlights will help some of the residential areas we're talking about

Jeffrey GreenfieldThank You mayor

Catherine ReadOther comments councilmember dole fungal

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank You mayor. Thank you for this presentation. I'm curious. Can you send us the main street report? report and can you talk about more what else in that report was related to pedestrian safety? Are you able to speak to that?

Wendy SanfordstaffTwo things. The report is online and I can send you the link to it. There is a webpage on our city webpage about the Main Street Safety Audit. And then I'm actually going to ask Chloe to speak more about what's in the plan.

Chloe RitterstaffYeah, so I don't have the report in front of me, but it did cover a lot of different both corridor-wide things like lighting and then individual locations of where there's safety issues. Not just pedestrian safety issues, but pedestrian was certainly one of the focus areas. And where did it

Kate Doyle Feingoldstart? What was the geographic location of Main Street that it was talking about?

Chloe RitterstaffThis was from East Street to basically Pickett Road. Okay. So it looked at that. It's about a one- So some of the downtown area. What's that? Some of the area in the downtown area. We knew that we were going to be doing an Old Town circulation study, so we didn't go really into Old Town because we wouldn't want to duplicate our efforts. But there were, I think, three main safety hotspots that we looked at based on where there's a lot of crashes in front of the Main Street shopping center. What did they recommend there? There's a number of access management issues, and these are going to be, I think, bigger projects because it's going to require working with the property owners like how do we make trade-offs to make things safer so that so that shopping

center was one Lendhurst and trap Road was one and we'd heard from residents in that neighborhood previously because there was a fatality there a year or so ago and then third the third big area is around Pickett Road where there's Woodson High School on one side and the shopping center and the other and then there's also other things like in between like ADA improvements like Reducing the curb radius is on curb radii on some of the really wide radius is So there's just a variety of things and there's some some that are gonna be easy and something to be take a little more

Kate Doyle Feingoldtime I know we've received a number of comments about the main street and that crosswalk and area there So maybe if there's something we can look at that we could do in the more immediate future that might be an opportunity for Increasing pedestrian safety in this shorter term Which enters which inner outside of main street marketplace? yes

Chloe RitterstaffI'm sorry I was referring to the the one near Tedridge Avenue and I can't remember the exact name of that shopping center where that's not mainstream

Jeffrey Greenfieldwhere Dunkin Donuts is fairview shopping center

Chloe Ritterstaffokay yes Main Street Center and I do think we can also look at the Main Street Marketplace as well but in terms of like where the highest number of crashes were was the Fairview or the main street center so okay thanks yeah

Catherine Readcouncilmember Staley

Jon Stehle Jrthink Mary just a quick note I think this postcard and your flowchart is as awesome as the funding wheel was when councilmember Miller was up here saying I want to get my head around it and if we don't apply for a VML innovation word next year or publishes somewhere we're doing a disservice this is the easiest I've been able to understand that I've been at this a fairly long time of where things So a fantastic job and please share that out mayor I hope you could take that to the next transportation wide meeting in there and shout out the amazing work is on there because that's an excellent visualization Thank you mayor.

Catherine ReadI Agree, I think that visual helps a lot and helping people to understand I mean more and more people read less and less and they just want to be prompted by icons cues and visuals In and it's colorful and that's why I think the more places we can put it and just put a QR code on it prompting people to give their feedback. We do, and we get them on the dais, emails from people complaining about specific pedestrian safety issues. Lots of emails generally from the same few people, but they will definitely want to see us do something. And so where we can do something and what residents have identified as being an issue, I'd like to prioritize that if we can because we hear from them. think they want to see some response other than we're working on it but you know our downtown is

really not that pedestrian friendly it's still very car centric and the traffic goes really fast through there and i would like to see more walkability we have students living down there who are definitely walking and biking and scootering more but you know the level of traffic has not abated just because there's more people using multimodal transportation so my great fear is that, you know, we will end up with serious accidents with pedestrians. Actually, pedestrian fatalities are up all over the Commonwealth of Virginia. It's just a weird thing, but they're up. And so that tells me something about more people being on foot and drivers not slowing down, being aware, following the traffic signals.

Something Patrick LaFlock actually suggested to me that they do in Paris maybe when the light when the light changes the pedestrian crosswalk comes on like a few seconds it's a leading pedestrian crosswalk and he says that makes a huge amount of difference for people to step off the curb before that light changes and people just swivel around and you know run somebody over and so oh I think somebody's gonna tell us something about this I'm excited

Speaker 14it's called a leading pedestrian interval in the US and there are guidelines for its use and we are looking at it and evaluating it at some locations.

Catherine ReadWell thank you because I mean coming out of Fairchester taking a left on Main Street you know where Woodland is that's a tricky intersection to at the Baptist Church and more and more people are scootering and crossing there and people the right because you have to take that left and the traffic is people are like oh got to take a left and they're not realizing that there's pedestrians there and it's really it's quite dangerous and to sit there on a daily basis and watch these people not realize until they're practically in the crosswalk that there's a person crossing the street and also at the moxley too because the when moxley's not people are not used to pedestrians crossing at the moxley so when bevan which is now you can't turn right on

red up you can only turn when the light turns red when it turns red people are like i'm going and like hello someone just stepped off the curb to cross to the moxley i just think this is we've got to do a better job with educating people about where some of these hot spots are emerging because there's different pedestrian patterns but the cars are not changing their behavior and i just see this as a recipe for disaster i'm not sure what the answer is but you guys look like the team to i have the utmost confidence

Speaker 28anything else for our team oh yes

Catherine Readcouncil member bates

Billy Batesthank you um certainly the projects that are up there um at the uh starting line are uh i think all projects that i would like to see realized they are looking at existing infrastructure and um you know adjacent into existing infrastructure and are also, you know, I believe needed for safety and accessibility. Additionally, I'd like to see us look at additional signage and lighting as Councilmember Greenfield has mentioned, but signage as well, reminding drivers to keep an eye out for pedestrians as they're entering an intersection. and a lot of people in the city think that when they have the green light that they just have the right of way even over pedestrians and crosswalk and also as Council Member Greenfield has mentioned before

the signs in the middle of the crosswalk that say to yield to pedestrians converting those to the ones that say to stop for pedestrians which I've seen on campus all around Patriot Circle And anything else that we can do throughout the city to just increase visibility and attention to pedestrians when they're crossing. Yeah, and just try to see what we can do. Also, for bike paths and widening sidewalks, anything maybe a bit more minor like that would go a long way. So certainly, you know, anything that, you know, also signage, as I mentioned before, on shared use paths, this, you know, I'm not really sure. This might be more of a parks and rec item, but letting bicyclists know on shared use paths to use an audible signal, you know, state law when they're passing a pedestrian.

and just anything that we can do to that end thank you

Catherine Readall right anything else all right go forward and do great great things thank you thank

Shinneberryclerkyou our next item is a presentation update on the Cambridge Road Eaton Place project Wendy Sanford Transportation Director will provide the staff presentation

Wendy SanfordstaffBefore we get started, let me introduce the project team. We have Nick Suse and Steve Schmidt here from Timmins, and David, Sunny, and Kurt again. The purpose of the work session tonight is really we're kicking off this project now that the concept has been endorsed. We've gone through the NVTA validation and we're really and I'll show you on the map sort of where we are We're going to review the the design features go through the traffic analysis update Share the updated design information and review the schedule and the in public engagement plan So now that you're all used to seeing this map We're going to show you every time we see you or a project sort of where we are And this is where we are

we have gone through the project and development the concept we were awarded funding and now when while we were on that project break and that is when we re-evaluated the project concept and that is what was adopted by the City Council in April we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute but now here we are you are here at step eight where we are really kicking off the project using the funding that's been awarded we have been awarded NVTA funding and we We are now kicking off the formal design and engineering for this project. So in terms of a brief timeline, this project, and it's color-coded the project to match the timeline in the roadmap. Okay? So when we were at the early steps, we were included in the multimodal transportation plan.

It was approved back in the 2020-2021 two-year plan. We went through a concept plan development and public engagement, and at that time, we at that intersection we applied for and received NVTA funding at that sort of red dark orange stage and then we had that break and so everything here that's listed for 22 and 23 is in this purple color because that was happening during that time while we were waiting for the NVTA funding to come online so in 2022 there were updated concepts that we considered we had renewed public engagement on that concept and then in 2023 last spring city council endorsed the updated concept and then in august the nvta provided concurrence with this updated concept they had to rerun the

project to ensure that it met the same congestion reduction benefits as the prior concept so now here we are in october of 2024 and we're kicking off the green and here we are presenting preliminary plans to both the mayor and city council and the public, which will be next Thursday, and then also online, but there will be an in-person meeting next Thursday. At this point, I am going to pass this on to Nick Susi, who is our engineering consultant for the project.

Nick SusiThank you, Ms. Sanford. Mayor, members of council, appreciate you having us again to talk about this project. So we are now, as Ms. Sanford said, kicking off design. We're at a 30% design and basically what that means is that we've taken that concept that you all have seen before. We went out, we collected field survey information, tree survey, additional traffic information, and we've now put, not pen to paper anymore, but really dug in on the design to make sure things fit the way we anticipated they would fit, operate the way we anticipated they would operate. and so what you see on the screen here is the endorsed concept that you all have seen before major design features they are just being that we want to make sure

that we were maximizing both the operational and safety improvements at the two intersections looking at using the new signal that is now been operational is operational they're coming off of 66 north of Eaton Place and then also looking at options to separate the local or regional traffic along the bike and pedestrian routes and so to summarize some of those key features a little bit more and also discuss commitments that were made back when we last spoke with you all we wanted to make sure that the service road would operate in a way that would benefit the operations of the intersections along Cambridge Road as well as the community. So the service road on the west side was modified to a one-way configuration,

providing a new exit to that new signal that I mentioned on Cambridge Road from the Cobdale west side of the neighborhood, separating that bike and pedestrian traffic, and also looking specifically, we spent quite a lot of time previously looking at the location of the shared-use path along the west side of Cambridge Road. In particular, it's located immediately adjacent to the service road and trying to preserve as much of that green buffer between the west side service road and Chambridge Road as possible in doing so. when we last met and as in Vita in VTA has been rescoring and reevaluating we were had made commitments to ensure that tree preservation remained a key component and that we would develop a buffer management plan for that western

side buffer space that I mentioned we also committed to looking at making sure that the shared use path crossing on the west side of the the intersection was made as safe as possible we looked at a couple options for that and we'll we'll cover those a bit further and then also we knew that the I 66 the new signal built by the I 66 project was coming online and folks would start to change their travel patterns as a result of that coming online and so when we last discussed you know we had made done traffic counts made projections of where we thought folks would would adjust their travel patterns to but now we have real information right as folks are using that new signal and so we wanted to update our accounts and validate the assumptions and projections that we made

at that time so on the tree management front we have now done a comprehensive inventory and assessment of all the trees in the project area we had done a limited effort on this before we're now over 520 trees that are inventoried in the project area we you know we're kind of at the early stages again we're only at 30% design but coming out of this 30% design assuming we have good feedback and we're heading in the right direction in terms of the design features the next steps in preparation for our 60% plans at which time we'll be doing the full public hearing and additional engagement will be to have the fully developed tree preservation plan and a buffer management plan developed at that time

the inventory and assessment we have a rough idea that approximately 220 trees of those 520 would need to be removed as a part of this project for varying reasons you know health condition or direct impact by the project being the variety of reasons but again the next phase for that portion of the effort comes as we approach the the 60% and public hearing phases to summarize one yeah and to clarify one of the key points on the previous slide 25% of those 220 trees are either dead or poor condition and would be recommended for removal regardless of a project so of those 25% there are 16 in the median that we've spent quite a bit of time talking about 16 of those median trees which would have to be removed and will still plan to be removed as part of this

project as we widen the southbound lanes to provide five through lanes as opposed to the four that are out there today so that remains unchanged the next item that we had committed to looking at and are providing an update on here is looking at improving the safety of the pedestrian or shared use path bike pedestrian crossing of the intersection on the west side of Eaton Place so if you look at the top right corner of this exhibit you'll see that initially in that underlying image we had the shared use path a little bit further back away from the southbound primary through lanes of Cambridge Road and there was concern about sight distance and visibility for folks on that path particularly as it related to folks traveling in a vehicle southbound on

Cambridge Road making the right into Cobbdale or the assembly and whether or not they could see folks on that path and so as we look forward in our current plan which is in the bottom view there we've shifted the path further towards Chambridge Road which does a few things but most importantly it opens up sight lines allows those folks on the path to be more visible but also allows them to see cars coming from Chambridge Road southbound or otherwise and we'd look at those areas you know the green space on either side of that red arrow in the for like low growth plantings landscaping things like that not trees that would grow up that would obstruct that sight line longer term and then one of the other big items that we as I mentioned before committed to looking at

and really digging into a bit more is validating the traffic projections and operational benefits that we had shown and anticipated previously and so as I said before the 66 signal just north of chain bridge or north of Eaton is now fully operational what is not done though and it is still proposed as a part of our plan is the reconfiguration of the service road so severing if you look at that image severing the service roads on the east side that currently approach Eaton place that just confused the signal on the east side there that's obviously not done and so we only have a partial shift in traffic but the good news is we at least have some real information to look at and so we've collected additional information and what we found there are a few movements

that are most obviously impacted by that new signal being there so southbound Cambridge Road making a left to Eaton if you were just using that left to then make the u-turn and head up towards willow crescent you would expect those vehicles or we had projected that those vehicles by now would start have would have started using the new signal movements like that again there's nothing stopping them from going down to eaton but naturally based on the operations the congestion down at eaton we would expect that to have taken place so we collected that additional information and finished that collection back in the spring what we anticipated to kind of put it in a high level summary would be roughly 20

to 25 percent of the vehicles traveling through the eaton intersection previously we would see shift up to the new intersection and that is taken across the different movements but as we look at excuse me look at some of the key movements in particular that southbound chambered left onto the Eaton today or back in March, we see that already 20% of those vehicles have been pulled out of the Eaton Place congestion and intersection and are actually using the new signal to go to places like Willow Crescent or the hotel or otherwise. And so at the end of the day, again, what we're seeing here, we can't, you know, we're not there yet. We've still got to build this project to see the full operational benefits. But what we can confirm is that the projections

anticipated redistribution of traffic that were critical to our operational assessments in our previous presentations to you you know showing the benefits that we could get operationally reducing congestion and wait times things like that we're on the right track based on the updated traffic info and to close out that thought along those same lines we are on the right track with our previous thinking of requiring both the two southbound through lanes and three southbound through lanes as it is currently we've reconfigured that intersection so you are down to it's four lanes right so two southbound through and two lefts but that third southbound through lane is needed not only today as we've seen traffic back up through the signal to the north as it is

today but certainly in the future as traffic demands continue to increase so this exhibit is now the updated and current 30 percent design plan package or exhibit again looks very similar to what you've seen before and what what this council endorsed previously a couple key things that I'll point out in a little bit more detail as we zoom in here on the next slides but really not a ton has changed beyond what we've talked about those couple key things as we look to the next slide previously we did not have a continuation of a shared use path along the east side of Cambridge Road so you would have gotten through the intersection at Eaton on its on a shared use path only to have a short stretch of

sidewalk between you and the Snyder Trail so our plan now does incorporate along that route to the east a share a full shared use path connection so you will have shared use paths both west and east sides of Cambridge Road which is a good point there but that's really it in terms of other significant design changes we talked about the traffic the adjustment on the west side for the shared use path crossing and really we're just honing details at this point to continue the project forward

Wendy Sanfordstaffand in terms of the project budget we are looking like we are right on budget in terms of the projected cost we have ten point seven million dollars in NVTA regional funds otherwise known as NVTA 70% funding and we are continuously updating our project budget and making sure that we are within the budget that we have as i mentioned we are here we are kicking off the project at this point we are looking for comments from the public as we move forward towards the public hearing stage of the project and so we are having an open house next thursday to solicit comments from residents i don't know what happened to the font on that page so in terms of public and meeting notification we have a new engage page that has been created for this phase of the project

we're getting information out about this via gov delivery email invitations to attend the open house are being sent to civic associations nearby jurisdictions property owners where right-of-way will be potentially required or receiving direct mail we're putting out news stories the open house is listed on the city calendar we're putting a frame signs on the east side of Cambridge Road to alert office and hotel users a lot as well as travelers and the information is being shared on social media so in terms of the schedule as I mentioned next Thursday October 17th from 5 to 7 p.m. in his atrium will have an open house these will have boards that show the project and it's 30% plans taking comments just making sure we're hitting all the right

notes as we move forward to 60 percent we're anticipating in early 2025 having our public hearing and then moving on to right-of-way and then construction this project can move faster than most of our vdot funded projects because there this is not a vdot project um nvta does not have the same review and and and mother may i with every step of the project um nvta funding is treated more like local funding um we will still have a public hearing though which is what is we'll have that we follow the same process for all projects and so that is the proposed schedule and there's more information at the QR code that will bring you to the engage page for the project so happy to answer any questions

Catherine Readthank you so much for that presentation do we have questions for this team councilmember Ross

Thomas Rossthank you for that presentation and the update and it's It's satisfying to hear that we seem to have accomplished many of the things that were set out when this was in the original design and when we acted on it last year. So kudos to you and to the work that's been all of you on this project. I know it's very complex, a lot of moving parts, a lot of different things to consider. I was pleased to hear the adjustment on the west side with the adjustment on the trail. I had heard that from a number of people when we were going through the citizen engagement process and other things that they were concerned about that. So it's good to hear that. Refresh my memory just so that we're all on the same page.

THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER COUNCIL APPROVAL OR DISAPPROVAL. AM I CORRECT ON THAT? THE PUBLIC HEARINGS, THE OUTREACH THAT WE'RE DOING IS JUST TO CONTINUE TO REFINE THE PROCESS.

Wendy SanfordstaffTHAT IS CORRECT. SO IF YOU LOOK AT THE ROAD MAP, WE'RE HERE AT STEP 8. WE'RE HOSTING THE KICKOFF AND THAT ICON AT THE TOP MEANS PUBLIC FEEDBACK. THEN WE MOVE TO THE PUBLIC HEARING. WE DEVELOP THE PLANS. THEN WE MOVE TO PUBLIC HEARING, WHICH IS STEP 10. opportunity for public comment but there is no council action the next council action you see at step 13 with the gavel is when you award the construction contract would

Thomas Rossbe

Speaker 28the

Speaker 3next unless we have to condemn any right-of-way

Thomas Rossunderstand understand um and my final question was i know one of the the major factors in this whole project was the issue of safety and as i I recall in the earlier presentations there was discussion of this being probably at the lowest level of safety in terms of Virginia standards. I think I don't recall were they letter standards or ABCD or what were they? Have we seen any change or expectation that that's going to increase, that what's being described here is going to make a big difference

Nick Susiso the the letter grading that you're referencing refers to level of service which is actually operations as opposed to safety that was what I was trying to get at with that that explanation of we have seen the traffic pattern shift in a way with the new signal coming online and folks starting to use that signal we've seen folks trending in a way and and the counts show that the traffic flows are turning that will align with the projections that we had, that we would deliver the equivalent level of services that we had projected early on.

Thomas RossSo we'll be meeting that goal.

Nick SusiYes, and again, that's operations.

Thomas RossRight, right, I understand. Okay, thank you. That's all I had in here.

Catherine ReadAny other comments or questions? Okay. Mary. Yes, Council Member Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. I just wanted to say that I'm very glad to see that the shared use path was included on the eastern side as I recalled we weren't sure if we'd be able to do that as part of this project so I'm glad to see that that happened do we know would that be able to extend all the way down to where the new North Fax east-west roadway is proposed or would that you know be something to look at for the future

Wendy Sanfordstaffthis project is bringing it just past the intersection just south of the intersection it would be a different project but we is not part of this project to bring it down to the east west road

Billy Batesokay and it looks like we won't really have a clear idea of the actual tree impact until the 60% plans is that correct

Wendy Sanfordstaffthat is when that is timbins will be putting together the full buffer management plan and and nick i can let you explain this but what i what you told me today is that literally every inch matters um and so until we have the 60 plan it's difficult to do that

Billy Batesyeah yeah

Nick Susiwe can we can approximate as i said before that you know it is clear that around the 220 number that i put out there we anticipate to be removed of the 520. um there are you know when it comes to to tree preservation you're measuring of the diameter of the tree and then that equates to a root zone and then depending on the level of impacts within those root zones varying preservation techniques are required so before digging into all of those details we wanted to make sure that the 30% plan was solid and then once we know that and as we're developing for 60% is when we'll really dig into you know how many additional trees could we preserve how many additional trees could be planted You know, that's part of that buffer management plan that we've talked about, that we know that there are a lot of invasive or poor health or dead trees, particularly in that buffer area on the west side.

And what was presented before and remains true is that in removing a lot of those trees and removing 220 trees, we're not actually adding a lot of pavement doing that. And so there is a lot of opportunity for replanting and new trees. And that's what will be looked at as we start looking into those 60% plans.

Billy BatesYeah, thank you. That's very helpful.

Catherine ReadAny other further questions, comments? Everybody good. Okay. Proceed. Thank you.

ShinneberryclerkOur next item is a discussion on development of a Fairfax City Parks Foundation. Stacy Summerfield Parks and Recreation Director will provide the staff presentation.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffAll right, good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight I am joined by our PREB Chair, Sarah Ross. I want to thank her for sticking around until now to be able to participate in this discussion of a potential Parks Foundation. So just starting with the basic question of what is a Parks Foundation. So a Parks Foundation is an independent 501 that works in partnership with the Parks Department to utilize private funds in order to essentially supplement public funding for programs, facilities, parks, green spaces, events, scholarships, all the things that make the Parks Department great. It helps us afford those items. Sarah and I have been working together to develop a set of bylaws to really provide the framework for the development of this Parks Foundation.

Starting with kind of how the foundation will be put together, we have a number of directors. So we would have a minimum of five and a maximum of ten directors who would participate in the foundation. They would be voting members. We ask that they be over 18 years of age, demonstrate a substantive connection to the city. So we didn't set a residency requirement for the directors because we also wanted to open it up to people who work or own a business within the city and can demonstrate a substantive tie to the city. We did ask that they not be current elected officials because this is a holistic view foundation for the Parks Department. We did set terms of three years with a term limit of three three-year terms,

so nine years total before a mandatory one-year break for directors. Managing the foundation would be an executive board, So within that we have a chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer. We would be actively seeking someone with a CPA or accounting background to serve as the treasurer to be able to help us manage the finances of the foundation. Also built into the foundation are three associate positions. So two of those positions are Parks Department staff members, and one of them is a representative from PRAB. So it would not have to be the chair. We originally talked about that. we talked about having a representative from PRAB those three associates do have to have a majority vote on any gift with contingencies so for example if

someone wanted to give money but said it had to be used for a tennis bubble that's all I want my gift to be used for is the creation of a tennis bubble well that has long-term impacts on the maintenance budget for the park and it should be a decision that's made along with the parks department so there would need to be a majority of a vote by those associates for any gift with this might include the donation of property different things like that that are going to affect the parks budget and then the foundation would also have spaces for stakeholders and that's an unlimited number of volunteers or interested community members that want to serve on different committees or in different ways with the foundation and they're non-voting members so we would

have our set of directors are our voters and they would lead the parks The type of funding that we're going after with the Parks Foundation would be, first of all, sponsorships. That's a very kind of easy lift for us. Currently, with a fairly limited structure within the Parks Department, we raise about $75,000, mostly for event sponsorships each year. We put out a small booklet that Mitzi and Deanna produce, and it has sponsorship opportunities. We do not actively solicit anyone for that and it just passively brings in about 75,000 We see that as a major opportunity for us to actively go out into community and talk about ways that people can get involved Also grants so currently as a municipal nonprofit

We are not eligible for money that's available to 501 C threes. We have Good examples of this are a lot of utility companies in the area have grants available There's also grants through every major sports franchise in the United States that support youth sports as a feeder program. So there's a lot of opportunities for us to apply for grants with that 501c3. Also planned giving. This is a longer-term strategy but to work with people and talk about potential planned giving that they're interested in. Annual fundraising events set by the foundation to talk about you know each year setting a goal for different And then also I think what sometimes get overlooked, but it's very important are volunteer hours. Those really are

helpful in helping us offset our parks maintenance costs. So where we are in the development of our parks foundation is that we have worked together jointly with prab to develop the founding bylaws that were included in your packet for this evening. Those bylaws have been reviewed by Brian. JC was also kind enough to set up a meeting with the city's auditor so he could review those bylaws as well and talk to us about you know what he saw is maybe some financial hurdles for us or best practices and And so that is where we are right now. We also know that you know the legacy for Fairfax funds We have talked with the auditor and JC about the potential currently We have several funds that do not zero out at the end of each year. That's where our sponsorship dollars go

remaining dollars from the Sherwood sponsorships go our memorial benches and trees some of our scholarship funds long term looking at rolling those funds into the foundation so that they can be managed there they do present a small hiccup for our auditor every time we kind of do the city audit as to why there are these funds that don't zero out at the end of the year we would following this if the council were to endorse the Fairfax Parks Foundation we would begin soliciting applications from the community prab would review those applications and appoint the first set of directors after that point the foundation would be self-sustaining so if someone were to announce that they were going to finish their term and then not apply for another

one the foundation itself those directors would take applications or nominations for another then vote as a voting group as to whether or not that person would be added to the directors group. We are also asking for a one-time seed money grant from the city of $50,000. Those funds will be used to procure and develop a website for the Parks Foundation. They will also be used to procure donor management software. So this is specific software that when donations come in, it tracks the fulfillment of those donations, any sort of advertising different things like that also helps us to generate automatically tax letters and then the third thing would be using the fifty thousand dollars for right away would be to purchase financial software a

program like QuickBooks to be utilized for the foundation so we were we would be asking for counsel to endorse the foundation as part of the consent agenda next week and then we would be working with JC to add the fifty thousand dollar appropriation and we are up to the point where if there are any questions we'd like to answer those for you

Catherine Readquestions from the dais councilmember Doyle Feingold

Kate Doyle Feingoldthank you mayor so the way that

Catherine Readit's structured

Kate Doyle Feingoldit's possible that all the directors and the leadership could they could all be non city residents we

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffdo not have a percentage set for city resident requirement but we could certainly add that into the bylaws we have not added in at this point

Kate Doyle Feingoldokay yeah I think I think it would be odd to have a structure where everyone could be not living in the city I understand you have other connections and it's fine to have variety but I do think you know some language or some consideration towards Having people who live in the city on the board would be important My the other question I have is I looked up a lot of these You know, there are a lot of them across the country. I think there's a great potential there most of them though the original Board members are appointed by the council. Why are why is it structured to be appointed by prab?

Speaker 16is uh since we are looking at the foundation

Speaker 28being a non-political entity

Speaker 16uh you know prab in and of itself is a non-political and sorry i'm not used to having to deal with microphones um so you know prab in and of itself is a non-political entity but we are appointed by council to serve as part of that. And also, you know, with perhaps meeting schedule, you know, we have an ability, I think, to be more nimble in that regard. You know, we know how much council and the mayor have in terms of your meeting schedules and that with dealing with other boards and appointments and especially with, you know, an election coming up, you know, this is something that we would like to see quickly so you know recognizing that if you all were to approve or endorse the the bylaws and provide the grant money that we could you know PRAB could start

moving forward with excuse me I'm you know with reviewing applications you potentially as soon as you know to some our december meeting um you know recognizing that you know for council we could be if it were a council action then we could be looking at several additional months um you know before we are would be potentially up and running be able to apply for the 501 c3 through the state and especially i think with the discussions on Tice and other things you know we have we have a lot of projects you know and you know we're aware of you know that there are there are some conflicts already you know with the existing sponsorships that you know given that the city is a municipal agency I think you've identified that you know we're

not supposed to be advertising you know you know private businesses on the city because we have to acknowledge the sponsors for things like Rock the Block and Fall Festival and whatnot. So potentially the sooner that we can do that, the sooner that conflict of interest could move away for the city.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffYeah, and I appreciate you bringing up the other parks foundations because we have joined the National Association of Parks Foundations to become connected with. There's 145 members in that group. So it's been really a great way for us to reach out to other organizations and look at their bylaws And we're able to look at a lot of different cities bylaws when developing the City of Fairfax Parks Foundation bylaws I agree with With Sarah we are really working to try to kind of play a little bit of catch-up because we really want to be able to as we build vice park Offer these opportunities for sponsorship and to be able to offset those costs of the city

Kate Doyle FeingoldSo what's the timeline you're looking at? And you said you'd be interviewing people in December. So how well, I mean that is the earliest potential

Speaker 16but I'm

Stacey SommerfieldstaffYeah, so I think if we were to you know if we were to get Council endorsement make any changes to the bylaws that you would like to have seen and then also go up with the next supplemental I want

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceto correct that so per the agenda we're seeking your guide this is not a budgeted item so I don't earlier discussion those concerns about how we were funding the initiatives that I brought this is an unbudgeted item so in the memo you see that we're looking for guidance about how you all want to proceed you want to do a supplemental appropriation this is unbudgeted or do you want to make this a part of the competitive grants for the the grant program that we've established or put this in the FY 26 budget process

Kate Doyle FeingoldOkay, thank you. Yeah, I think you know, I think that so this is the first I've heard of the Parks Foundation And I think it's a great start to the discussion, but in my mind I think we should look at the bylaws more in terms of residents and things like that and and think about the funding I don't know that A supplemental before December makes sense to me. I'd like to think more about the shift here and I and I totally agree it has to be independent and separate which even it so the way it's designed PRAB nominates the first three and then it functions on its own which would also be the case if it was council appointing the first three I just think we need more time to discuss and understand so my preference would not be to push forward on a supplemental for

it you know initially

Speaker 16we were looking at having you know a resident the residents some kind of residency requirement but as we've been talking you know our thought of opening this up you know in addition to people that are you know business owners or employees in this area we have a lot of neighborhoods you know that directly abut the city but they aren't city residents you know I mean we have you know people in the Mantua neighborhood you know people that in Fairfax Villa you know they are very I think that you have people that are very invested in you know coming to fall festival they they come to the 4th of July and that you know these are field these are sometimes some of the schools their kids go to these are some of the fields their kids play sports on and

that we did not want to restrict someone who had a vested interest in city parks and recreation and a skill set and desire to use that we didn't want to box someone out but we are not intending for this to become something that would be City residents,

Kate Doyle Feingoldright? Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. I just think I think there's a balance there and the way it's written. It could be without city residents so I just think we should put more thought into the language so that We don't end up in that situation Because I think it's good to have a balance. You can have people who are invested from outside the city But I also think we don't want a parks foundation that is made up entirely of non-city residents Thanks.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Ross.

Thomas RossYes, thank you, Mayor, and thank you for this discussion. I think this is a really exciting endeavor. And these, my experience from my career, which goes back a ways, was how successful some of these park foundations can be in raising additional funding for some of the capital PROJECTS OR SOME OF THE IMPORTANT THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE. AND I THINK THIS IS I THINK THE SOONER WE CAN START THIS THE BETTER RATHER THAN WAITING TOO LONG. I WOULD BE SUPPORTIVE OF SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING AND I WOULD CERTAINLY SUPPORT THAT. I THINK $50,000 IS A VERY SMALL INVESTMENT TO MAKE WHEN YOU LOOK AT HOW MUCH THIS CAN LEVERAGE IN THE LONG RUN FOR CITYWIDE PROJECTS To my colleagues point, I would tend to agree that I think there should be a balance between

business owners, county residents, and city residents. I think if we tilt too much in the way in one direction, the perceptions could not look particularly good. I would like to see a balance. I do think it's important to recognize that we have a long-term agreement with the county and with Nova Parks. We are part of a regional system for parks and recreation. I go over, I sit as the council rep on there, the senior advisory council for the seniors at the senior center. and there's a huge percentage of people from the county that use that facility and same with many of our other programs as you know I don't know what the the real figures would be but again I think there's so much benefit from us looking at at how our partnerships and our collaboration is

and we're going to learn a lot from Fairfax County's foundation and they've been around for years and I know you've already you shared with me the other day that there's been a lot of research A couple of other thoughts. So I would agree. I think there has to be a close liaison with PRAB, and we talked about that. I think it's really important for there be some overlap between who's going to the PRAB meeting and who's going to the foundation meeting. So there's communication, collaboration, and coordination back and forth. And then finally, I would really encourage in the bylaws that there be an annual work session with council I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE REALLY IMPORTANT FOR THE PARK FOUNDATION, AND THEY SHOULD OPERATE

INDEPENDENTLY. I'M NOT IN FAVOR OF COUNCIL BEING INVOLVED WITH SELECTING WHO'S GOING TO BE ON THE PARK FOUNDATION, BUT I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT FOR THERE BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DIALOGUE WITH CITY COUNCIL MAYBE ONCE A YEAR TO TALK ABOUT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES AND THEN REPORT ON WHAT'S GOING ON. SO THERE'S SOME DIRECT FEEDBACK, DIRECT COMMUNICATION with city council. But I think this is so exciting to see, and it's going to fill a real important void for us in the future. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Greenfield.

Jeffrey GreenfieldThank you, Mayor. Sticking on the appointment piece, this is probably moving in the right direction, but I think we ought to be thoughtful. This is the first time we've had a conversation. I don't think we should rush and get it right, and let me give you an example of why I say that. the city code does not actually currently give the authority to PRAB to make any appointments. That is done by the governing body. And so if we are going to give authority to PRAB to make appointments, initial appointments, then we need to make changes to the city code, giving the authority to PRAB to do so. personally I feel it is too important that the council just like we did for the homeless organization I forget the acronym forgive me I wasn't even going to try it so too late um

you know we we plow through that right and I think it's that important that we get this right and we should be the the governing body to work through that no disrespect to Pram but think we can do a fine job that's one of the things that we do I think we've we've found time and time again we have far more talented people in this community than we we recognize and in fact we have more people than we have places to put them so I think that's something that we should take on I I'm also a bit concerned that the the associate that would be a member of prab I think we need to further define that because people rotate on and off of PRAB fairly regularly and being able to recognize that that person can change that position, not the person,

the position that would be a person from PRAB, I think we would want to make sure that we have the ability for that to rotate in and out of who that person is going to be since that is the liaison to PRAB. I still would like to see a crosswalk between why we need to go down the path of the board and what we weren't getting with Legacy Fairfax because we were able to go out. We raised over a half million dollars to support Sherwood, to do benches, to do all kinds of things throughout the city for the very reason that we're talking about here. So I'd like to understand not necessarily tonight, but what we Were getting through legacy for Fairfax and what we weren't getting which is what we would get in in a

Parks foundation, so that's just some thoughts for tonight. Thank you there

Catherine ReadGood thoughts Anything else council members daily,

Jon Stehle JrI think Mary too. I really appreciate putting this together Stacy and I come from Western Pennsylvania where these are all over the place so very familiar with it with the approach What I've heard tonight is that we need to come back together to talk about the the next steps What I think is important is that this dais Start the board right that way whatever comes into the next group right in January can tee it up So whether we come back together in November or whatever it is I think it's important that this get accomplished as it started We approve the bylaws and let the details be worked out under this council. So as long as that happens, I'm comfortable with whatever additional feedback timing that you need to do that.

But I do think it's really important, not only from a fundraising opportunity, but to any time we can make an auditor a little more comfortable, I'm very happy with that approach. So I think there's some very good functional aspects of this that make some sense to move forward. And let's get it stood up under this council. I think you've heard questions that are very very useful to come back in there And so I would encourage us to come back at the at the next practical point Which is either we have one meeting in November and one me in December right now So one of those two and let's get it across the line Yeah,

Catherine Readall good thoughts. I mean, I'm very enthusiastic about this foundation too, but we've learned a lot in setting up h cab as well Setting up an advisory board from scratch how you how you do it how to be efficient. It's a lot of people we have limited time we just have limited time so I understand your concern that will would be able if this was our assignment would we be able to do this and it is it is a heavy lift I'm just going to tell you but we learned a lot of things and in a lot of the seats that were on there were people doing work in the city that was the primary thing they had to be working in the city but it turned out a lot of people doing that work were also residents which was a tremendously wonderful surprise when their applications came in and they're

from all over the city that they were they met the criteria it was very specific you know they were doing specific kinds of work in the city but they lived here I mean we didn't really expect that but that's what we got and that was that was a great thing but it does take a lot of time to do the applique to do that you know to do the outreach find the applicants review it we're doing this right now and it takes a lot of time. So I agree with Council Member Staley. I would like to come back sooner rather than later to talk about the very specific things to answer some questions about what the differences are between what we had and what we're proposing, but then also figure out how this council can help get this started

because the brand new council is also going to have an awful lot on its plate and this is not going to necessarily be a priority for them. But I think it's a priority. I believe that this is priority. So let's put something on the calendar to come back and address all of these things so that we can do this as efficiently as possible. So

Shinneberryclerkthank you.

Catherine ReadWe'll get something on the calendar.

ShinneberryclerkOur last item is a discussion update on the 2025 4th of July fireworks show. Stacy Summerfield Parks and Recreation Director will provide the staff presentation.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffAll right.

ShinneberryclerkWell, we are back

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffto talk about fireworks again. Part of the necessity of having this discussion so quickly is that, as many of you may remember, prior to the previous year, for a couple of years we did not have on July 4 fireworks. We had July 2 fireworks and close to the July 4 fireworks, but not on the day of. We have been able to secure a contract for five years with a vendor where they are willing to guarantee us July 4th launch, which is very exciting because everyone wants to celebrate the 4th on the 4th. And we do not want to lose that contract. And until we make a decision about our launch location, our vendor is not willing to sign this year's contract with us. So we just want to make this decision so that we can continue forward and maintain our July

4th launch. So I know I'm just going to quickly go through this again. We, you know, in 2024, we had the installation of the artificial turf. It is not on the area where we launched from, but it is in the fallout zone. So that did change kind of the look of our ability to launch from our original location. In June of 2024, we did present the new fireworks launch location, which was the Army-Navy Country Club. This did require that we pivot the venue to the high school parking lot. So post-event, we did solicit feedback. There was a lot of critical feedback at the event and online about the ability to see the show. So we did receive 295 emails. A majority of them were disappointed with the evening show and disappointed with the location.

There was also a lot of staff feedback when we met with our partner agencies, police, fire, and everyone else that we work with there to talk about kind of the concerns about the parking lot with its ADA access, the ability to have egress. Unfortunately, when you use a parking lot as the venue, it's very difficult to create aisles that are already created with a venue like the stadium. So once we got a critical mass of people there, it was very difficult to move through the crowd. We did have to cut a number of the fences at the end of the night just to keep everyone safe as the crowd kind of surged into different areas to be able to see. So just to review, when we're looking for a new launch location for 2025, we're really looking for three locations.

We need a location to launch the fireworks from. We need a location to host the event that's safe for the community to be in, that's ADA accessible, that's secure in a way where we can do, for the last two years we've been doing bag checks, just checking coolers and large bags as they come in to keep the crowd safe, to be able to have egress. And we also need a parking location because while we do shuttle a lot of people in from our satellite parking locations, we do need ADA parking on site parking access for vendors and different things. So we did look at a lot of sites within the city. We looked at the Judicial Complex, George Mason, KJM potentially, Van Dyke, Woodson High School. And really, what it comes back to is

that the stadium is a perfect venue to host the crowd of this size. We are looking at our Placer AI data. We were right around 8,000 people on the night of for the evening show. So just being able to host a crowd of that size and have a space for people to comfortably sit down maintain aisleways Accessibility the stadium is the staff's preference for safety And so that's really our biggest staff recommendation coming out of last year's fireworks show is that we want to return to the stadium so with that in mind we have really We have potentially three but at this point in the year but really two realistic options. One is a proximity show. We return to the stadium. We would fire from the roof of the high school. The cons with that it is it is a lower

show. It is closer to the crowd so the crowd within the stadium is still it's still a very impressive show while you're there but it is lower for the surrounding neighborhoods. We do know the cost impact of that and that is between 35 and $40,000. That cost impact is because there are more fireworks. We're but we're shooting a bigger show. They would utilize the lateral nature of the roof to kind of create different scapes across the roof as far as firing off in a line, different things like that. We could go back to our original location. We can return to the original launch location and we would have to self ensure the turf fields. I know that there were a couple of questions from the previous presentation. One was if we had any data about damage to the fields in

We do not have that data And the other challenge with that data of course is that anytime you launch fireworks. It's kind of rolling the dice You don't really know what will happen. I've certainly worked a lot of fireworks shows, and I know that Mitzi has as well And it's it's really just sometimes something happens sometimes a lot of times it does not We would the cost impact of this would be we'd be purchasing a $900 insurance policy through versa and it would have a $250,000 deductible. So if we were to do damage to the turf fields, we could pay up to $250,000. We have inquired with Versa as to whether or not we could pay a higher fee up front and lower our deductible. We have not heard anything back from them.

They really developed this policy on a recommendation from us last year. This is the first time they had even offered to insure turf fields for a firework show. And so I think they're hesitant to make any additional offers at this point just because it's a very new opportunity I think in the future we can investigate the possibility of a drone show. I think right now we are a little too Close even though 4th of July seems a ways away We're too close right now to to find and procure a drone show. It is substantially more expensive as well We're hoping that as that technology improves the cost would come down still very expensive because there are not a lot of them available and when people are looking for them much like fireworks everyone's trying to shoot

them on the same day so the real two options for 2025 would either be the proximity show or returning to our original location and with the proximity show I should mention that our firework vendors insurance would cover the roof and the fallout area for that show because they would cover it as they to purchase any additional insurance all right

Catherine Readall right then questions comments observations feedback on the fireworks councilmember Greenfield

Jeffrey GreenfieldI think that thank you mayor I think the next couple of years are going to continue to be trial and error right I think we launching off the roof still impacts the the side of the stadium because the corner of the roof closest from the field house that fallout zone can potentially drop on the area of the stadium where the fields where the press box is so and still cost us more money I think trying you know what we can do can we put down plywood can we wet the field dramatically you know before we launch the fireworks can we put plywood down where they put the racks to launch you know what are all those different scenarios that we can do to put it back on the field that's now artificial turf and see what that impact is there may be some impact there may not be that much

impact that requires us to make the change the good news is it's during the summer so the field isn't in use by the school and so we're not impact impacting supports at that point in time that we'd be able to fix something if if there damage but perhaps I would say we should try that this year if that doesn't work then we've got to continue to figure out other options until we get a long-term solution that would be my suggestion

Catherine Readokay councilmember Ross

Thomas Rosssure first of all thank you for bringing us back and thank you for the opportunity to have some dialogue and discussion I think it's very helpful and we all know how emotional people can get over the fireworks show because in my own neighborhood and Cutter Club Hills there was a lot of pre-concern about this and there will be regardless of what we do. I'm comfortable at this point saying I think we should go with the option with shooting it off the roof. However I do think it would be helpful to have a little more research on perhaps there's some other communities out there that have dealt with this issue of a turf field. $250,000 deductible is a little scary when you think about that. If we really did that kind of damage to a field, I'm not sure we would do that. And I'm nowhere anywhere near being a fireworks expert. But I would think that if there was some damage done, we would could probably absorb some of that cost. And I'm sort of looking at our CFO

say you know if we set up a contingency fund or some sort of funding where if there was some damage we repaired it you know and see what that would be but I'd be I guess I'm in favor of moving it to the the roof of the high school I think there would be some disappointment from the surrounding neighbors but you know the reality is we were the other option is just to me not not feasible so I I'm

Stacey SommerfieldstaffI do want to clarify the fallout zone for the roof area so the stadium would be fully open and the fault that the press box is not within the fallout zone for the proximity show the area that we would close is what the area that's traditionally been used for food trucks in the past it's kind of a triangular parking area outside the field house there that would remain closed and we would pivot the food court over to the main parking lot in a similar location to where it was this year

Catherine ReadAny thoughts from our resident insurance expert? I'm just keep looking at her. I'm just looking at her going, come on, she's got to have something.

So LimWell, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, if there was a damage to the turf field, it's not going to, I mean, it's not going to cost $250,000, I don't think. If it's a partial repair, I don't know exactly what that would be. so you know even if we even if we had paid a $900 insurance premium we never get to recover that premium right it's just in case that if we burn the entire thing then we would get some kind of coverage but yeah I'm kind of leaning towards having it on the turf field also yeah I think that number one priority for me is to have happy residents Yeah, thank you. Thank you, man.

Billy BatesCouncilmember Bates. Thank you. So, well, first off, a clarification. I believe you said that that $250,000 is more of a worst-case scenario. Is that correct?

Stacey SommerfieldstaffYes. I think for the Parks Department, we don't want to say that there's no world in which we might spend $250,000. And I will say I've shot off many fireworks. I have had one where we had a four-inch shell come down and explode and burn out an entire parking lot median. So there is a world in which we do a large amount of damage to the field, but is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes. So I just want us to be aware of that possibility yeah

Billy Batesyou know it brings to mind what David Meyer said to me recently that you know municipal government the one thing if there's nothing else you got at least invest in good fireworks so yeah I mean growing up we wouldn't always go to the high school to watch fireworks sometimes we go to the top of the um old town plaza the parking garage and you can see all the fireworks around the area and uh you know i know there are probably other places in the city neighborhoods etc you got people uh sitting out in their yard um maybe parked along the street and uh you know i just with the proximity show um i'm just not sure that it's really even worth that $35,000 cost when you just have a smaller show that I mean yeah you know

might be closer to the the audience members here right there at the high school but it's just not gonna be as impressive even to them I would think as you know a big show that it goes way up into the sky and then you you just have A LOT LESS VISIBILITY FROM THE SURROUNDING AREA THROUGHOUT THE CITY SO I'D HAVE TO AGREE WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS GREENFIELD AND LIMB THAT I'D WANT TO GO WITH THE ORIGINAL LOCATION AND I THINK IT'S WORTH THE INVESTMENT. THANK YOU.

Catherine ReadCOUNCIL MEMBER DOYLE FEINGOLD?

Kate Doyle FeingoldI WILL CONCUR. I THINK THE SHOOTING LOCATION ALSO IS NOT ON TURF, RIGHT? IT'S JUST TURF IS IN POSSIBLE FALLOUT. BUT THAT POSSIBLE FALLOUT AREA includes people right so we're no no

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffno

Kate Doyle Feingoldwe said the fallout is not at all in the no the football field it's in the baseball field it's

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffthe baseball and banfield so when I scroll back to this you can see these two newly turf fields so this is this one here the lower one there is being used as a municipal art I'm sorry not municipal multi-sport field but they refer to it as the ban fields because it's largely where the marching band practices and then the baseball field so these are the two turf fields that we're talking about in no situation would we fire off fireworks where there would ever be people within the fallout zone okay

Kate Doyle Feingoldyeah I'm good with going with the original location I think you know based on the lack of data on significant damage to the surrounding area you know it seems like the risk is low

Catherine Readthank you councilmember Staley I

Jon Stehle JrI think you have a consensus mayor so I just

Catherine Readwant okay well this then you know this is good this is gonna make sure everybody gets her

Laszlo Palkostaffby voicejust make one last recommendation so can you go back to the slide that shows the options sorry can we budget in FY 26 at 35,000 even though we're doing the original location to set aside to build a capital fund and we do that beyond that for emergency capital needs and that way we have the cash in hand if there is some damage to the

Catherine ReadOkay, that sounds incredibly. It sounds incredibly incredibly reasonable. All right. Well, it seems like we have a plan and agreement and consensus. So there we go.

Stacey SommerfieldstaffThank you so much.

Catherine ReadThank

Stacey Sommerfieldstaffyou as a staff is just wanting to return to the stadium. So we are very excited for any of these options.

Catherine ReadOkay. That is excellent. Okay, I will now reconvene the regular meeting and we will start with the manager's report out.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceYeah, so tonight I just want to talk a little bit about Hurricane Helene and specifically what our fire department did in response. I want to recognize and thank the service of Battalion Chief John Jenick, Lieutenant Tyler McLaurin, Master Technician Clinton Haynes, and Master Fire Medic Jared Chaffetz. They served the city with distinction on September 26th. That's Thursday. VDEM requested support from the city of Fairfax to respond to Southern Virginia with the flooding needs. The fire chief and I authorized the deployment of our Swift Water team. The employees that I mentioned, they left on Thursday to deploy down south. On Friday they assisted in Chesterfield and Freeze, Virginia, with saving residents from homes that were flooded.

They also did a lot of search and rescue of multiple vehicles that were essentially washed off the road as well to check for, to find survivors or any impacted individuals from that. On Saturday they deployed to Pulaski.

Catherine ReadPulaski.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voicePulaski. I can't, I can never pronounce that correctly. Yeah. They saved two occupants in a trailer that was along the new river that had rapidly rising water as well. Following this, they moved to conduct assessments of 40 to 50 homes that were also underwater to try to help with search and rescue as well. Sunday, they stayed in the county and continued to do damage assessments and searches for over 80 buildings that were previously unreachable because of the water. they returned on Monday September 30th again after serving and representing the City of Fairfax in response to Hurricane Haley and so far no no word about the upcoming hurricane in Florida if there's gonna be any requests for support

nationwide or not but we'll be on standby for that

Catherine Readyes councilmember Ross recognized

Thomas Rossabsolutely

Catherine ReadI think I would agree with that

Thomas Rossthey are making this

Catherine Readyeah we've got a lot of people going from Virginia from all parts of Virginia to surrounding states so councilmember Greenfield but are you doing okay very

Jeffrey Greenfieldquickly mayor I think it is still her birthday I just want to wish Hildy Carney a happy 91st birthday today

Catherine ReadHildy Carney I

Jeffrey Greenfieldhad the pleasure of spending some time with her on the beach in in duck in September and I kind of take she can get up out of a chair and move to the water like Hilde congratulations on your 91st birthday and still having the ability to drive and mobility it's great to see you still out and about and making a difference in the city of Fairfax

Catherine Readabsolutely and she's still very active in various organizations I see her turn up everywhere so we're very fortunate to have Hilde in our community councilmember Ross

Thomas Rossyes I will have a couple items of course first of all we had a retiree from our department Parks and Recreation Department a few weeks ago Mac Ryan who has been literally an institution in this community for many years Mac not only has performed his duties outstandingly as an employee but he is a wonderful human being and he touched so many lives and helped so many people in ways that WE WILL NOT EVER KNOW ABOUT. AND I THINK IT'S JUST A GREAT CREDIT AGAIN TO OUR CITY STAFF THAT WE HAVE THE PEOPLE IN OUR WORKFORCE THAT DO THAT SORT OF THING. HE BEFRIENDED SO MANY PEOPLE AND TOUCHED SO MANY LIVES. HE'S GOING TO BE MISSED, BUT I WISH HIM AND I HOPE WE ALL WISH HIM WELL IN HIS RETIREMENT. HE'S A WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING. I HAD THE HONOR OF I PARTICIPATE AS THE

THE STAFF OR THE COUNCIL REP TO THE VILLAGE IN THE CITY BECAUSE I AM OF THAT AGE. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, I THINK IT'S A WONDERFUL PROGRAM. WE HAD A RETREAT LAST SATURDAY FROM 9 TO 1 IN THIS ROOM, FACILITATED BY CHRISTIE DULY. A PHENOMENAL JOB BY CHRISTIE, PHENOMENAL CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE BOARD, AND WE FOCUSED A LOT ON ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THAT PROGRAM AND HOW THEY MEASURE SUCCESS. I THINK THEY ARE GOING TO DO, THEY HAVE A SOCIAL TOMORROW, RECOGNIZE THE VOLUNTEERS. I HOPE YOU ARE GOING TO BE THEIR MAYOR. BUT IT IS A PROGRAM THAT IS REALLY ADDRESSING A KEY NEED IN OUR COMMUNITY, AND I THINK THEY ARE GOING TO CONTINUE TO SHOW SOME, REALLY DEMONSTRATE SOME SUCCESS. Really honored to be a part of that. Thank you. That's all. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Lim Councilmember Saley.

Jon Stehle JrI think you may read a couple of regional announcements one a big shout out to layer mayor Letty Hardy and the Team at Falls Church. They hosted an excellent walk around Thank you to our city manager for joining us talking about economic development in Falls Church Background approaches was excellent information sharing followed by a great reception by the Virginia Municipal League And thanks to the many senators and delegates who joined us there This upcoming weekend is the VML conference. I have the privilege of serving as the immediate past president, so I will be very busy during the conference, but excited to join our colleagues across the Commonwealth and certainly holding those impacted by the storm up as they come in there.

We'll be hearing what their needs are, because the thing I've learned about storms is you get everyone rescued, but now the rebuild comes in, and it's going to be a long journey for many of them, and making sure we're attuned to how we can support and help them, critical on a quick note of the Council of Governments on October 18th we'll be hosting our annual farm tour this time in DC Councilmember Zachary Parker is is leading that effort I'm incredibly proud of the work that that organization has been doing and I hope we'll continue to do going forward talking about food security and the need in our area which brings you my final note of the Capital Area Food Bank and the great ribbon-cutting that occurred a week or so

ago just thank you to the City of Fairfax we were involved in that and I THE REGIONAL ASPECT OF THINGS LIKE FOOD SECURITY CANNOT BE UNDERSTATED. OUR WALLS DON'T END AT THE CITY OF FAIRFAX. AND CAPILARIO FOOD BANK AND THE NEW FACILITY, WHICH NOW HAS DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF FOOD THAT IS NECESSARY, AND THE RECENT HUNGER REPORT THAT HIGHLIGHTED THOSE THAT WOULD SEE THEMSELVES AS MIDDLE CLASS, MANY TIMES NOT KNOWING WHERE THE NEXT MEAL COMES FROM, MEANS THAT OUR NEIGHBORS ARE LOOKING FOR THAT. AND WITHOUT THE REGIONAL COOPERATION, A SPACE LIKE THAT WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE. And that's why it matters to have great connections across our region And that's just a prime example of how we can help those in most need by working together across the region

I was just so thankful to be there. I was at the groundbreaking Thankful to chair the organization at cog that really helps focus that and and Rod and her team are amazing. So thank you for letting me show

Catherine ReadGreat. Thank you councilmember dole Finkel Councilmember Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. No comments.

Catherine ReadAll right, then And so we are now going to go into a closed meeting for a personnel matter. So all of those who are not involved may leave. Congratulations. So I am now going to, I move that the city council convene a closed meeting under section 2.2-3711.A1 of the Code of Virginia to discuss personnel matters. All council members in favor of the motion, please signify by voting aye. Aye. Oppose the motion? Say nay. The vote is unanimous in favor of the motion. And we are going into this closed meeting at 11.10 p.m.