City Council Meeting

Doug Coxpublic commentOh, good evening. Doug Cox, Perry Drive, Fairfax, Virginia. On the clock. Yeah, I already know people were talking to Willard Sherwood, but I'll just say next time you guys want to do a $55, $56 million project, maybe bring it to the voters for referendum or something like that because you've got two in the pipeline with the fire station and Willard Sherwood. That said, long ago I was looking at bicycling in the city, what the official policy is. And, man, as I start going down that rabbit hole, absolutely bewildered by the number of plans that we have in this city most of these weren't around 15 years ago which is probably why my taxes were a lot lower 15 years ago not sure why we have these

Speaker 14I would say that particularly from the 70s and 80s, there were a number of establishments in Old Town, and that spread through the city. A lot of the motels had lobbies and restaurant bar areas that had this, and there were a number of restaurants along Fairfax Boulevard that also had dancing and entertainment. Off the top of my head right now, I can only think of three. It's PJs, Skadoos, Alcha Bean, and Fire Station, three that have approvals. Yes.

Melanie Zippstaffdate of 2028 at the bottom fire station 3 building is general fund funded and the funding isn't will be in place by fy 29 the goal was completion in the fall of 27 but we are still evaluating with council the idea of a ppea and how to move forward on that project next slide the next three projects are highlighted because of the amount of discussion and the large price tags that they have fire station three there are a couple highlights about this project project funding began in fy 24 and to date half has been appropriated and the next half will come over the next three years this building is actually older than fire station 33 was when we replaced that one however we did not own this building until last year when the volunteers signed it over to

Stacy Halli wanted to go to the public safety slide number 12. so if if i wrote down the notes correctly you had indicated that the fire station was now moved to general fund fiscal year 2029. Is that correct? I'm trying to find my

okay I personally I would think that that would be an expedited conversation so that we could start maybe recognizing some sort of return on that investment in the short term I know we majority of us had a tour of the fire station both number 33 and 3 the other day and then councilmember McQuillan and I met with President Imran Salik to discuss a little bit more detail and a lot of other questions. And one of the things that came up was the sleeping conditions, the sleep hygiene, and some of the things that are going on at Station 33. And I know you and I discussed this the other day. It also came to my attention and others during the meeting that there's a very large bingo space that has previously been used in that area.

So I recognize that we're looking into PPEA options and trying to understand that and see what could be good there. But in conjunction with the conversations about a new fire station, I also strongly would suggest if council is on board with having conversations about how we can, in the short term, solve the more pressing needs that it seems the firefighters are experiencing, which is potentially some sewer backups when it comes to laundry the sleep hygiene and the fact that when the fire alarm goes off it wakes up everybody as opposed to being able to manage that a little bit differently as I said it looked like there was some extra space there that could be considered for maybe moving around their gym area to a taller ceiling to not be on the apparatus

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerand then finally I just want to piggyback on what councilmember Hall was saying specifically about the fire stations but general again zooming out more macro view about we we hear a lot about the CIP projects but I think that there is this is sort of a case of how do we look at interim things across the board and is there some way to engage EDA or other community partners so that well ahead of time because I am concerned about the things that you can put into place as early as possible how we deal with these interim projects or interim uses across the board is there an approach to that that is in the works as we look at how we rethink CIP the interim plan before the plan you know what I'm asking I

so the example that councilmember Hall gave is how could as we're thinking about for example the fire station how could spaces be used differently to address more immediate needs I think that's a great question but I think it's a question that we should to plans across the board and i'm just wondering as we look at how decisions are made um through that graph through the evolution of projects is there a space to insert how we evaluate the interim before a plan a cip project is rolled out

Speaker 26I think we're pretty aware of these interim things. I know with the Barker property on Main Street, as soon as we knew it was available, it's being used for several different temporary uses, like storing a tree nursery or using it for Parks Department storage or things like that. And I know with the building we were talking about next to the fire station, back when Chris Bruno was here, we brought it up to him about you know we weren't sure how long was going to be empty but we brought it up to him that there might be a period of time i know he was a little concerned about finding a lessee for a small amount of time but we were aware of it it wasn't like it just you know we missed it you know i don't think we have a policy but i think staff is pretty good at seeing when

J.C. MartinezstaffI don't think that is one of the structures. A lot of the requests that are listed on here are for the benefit of governmental activities, such as the property yard, public safety. It's a little difficult to associate an economic benefit tied to the fire station, the police station, even schools per se. There are no economic benefit as in we're not building a retail center or anything like that. your question?

Stacy Hallum sorry may i yeah council member thank you i see that we are scheduled to discuss on january 6th fire station number three concept design presentation um with uh council support could we try to include improvements to the current station in that interim phase at that time or is that too soon to be able to come up with some ideas or is that a different conversation that needs to be had before we can have a conversation so

Melanie Zippstaffum january 6 is a placeholder for fire station 3 okay because we had a conversation with a company who could help us with a PPEA process. They were not going to get us information until the end of January. Okay,

Stacy HallYeah, and I can see the merit in that too. I think the other big question is what, kind of like I asked, what will become of the George Mason building if we don't do anything for the next couple of years on the fire station? What will become of the Green Acres building if we aren't using it in another two years? I mean, have there been thoughts on where that would go, what that would look like? because I think decommissioning a building is a big deal without knowing a future plan for it or having an idea of how it will be utilized. And I think that that is a concern for especially the residents who live right there, but also for others in the city who have been closely following this. So I know I'm kind of pivoting and going in different directions here, but