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HomeMy Public PortalAbout2021_tcwsmin0308Council Work Session March 8, 2021 Council Chamber, 25 West Market Street, 7:00 p.m. Mayor Kelly Burk presiding. Council Members Present: Ara Bagdasarian, Zach Cummings, Suzanne Fox, Vice Mayor Martinez, Kari Nacy, Neil Steinberg and Mayor Kelly Burk. Council Members Absent: None. Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Christopher Spera, Deputy Town Manager Keith Markel, Director of Finance and Administrative Services Clark Case, Director of Information Technology Jakub Jedrzejczak, Director of Parks and Recreation Rich Williams, Director Thomas Balch Library Alexandra Gressitt (via WebEx), Director of Public Works and Capital Projects Renee LaFollette, Director of Human Resources Josh Didawick, Director of Utilities Amy Wyks, Airport Director Scott Coffman, Director of Plan Review Bill Ackman, Chief of Police Greg Brown, Deputy Director and Treasurer of Finance and Administrative Services Lisa Haley (via WebEx), Deputy Director of Plan Review Brian Boucher, Emergency Management Coordinator Joe Dame, Public Information Officer Betsy Arnett, Senior Planner of Planning and Zoning Rich Klusek, Management and Budget Officer Jason Cournoyer, Senior Management Analyst Cole Fazenbaker, and Clerk of Council Eileen Boeing. Minutes prepared by Executive Associate Corina Alvarez. AGENDA ITEMS 1. Items for Discussion a. Town Plan Process Review Mayor Burk stated that the Planning Commission was grateful for Council's participation at its last meeting. She also mentioned that the Planning Commission now has a roadmap and is comfortable on how to move forward on the Town Plan Process Review thanks to Council's participation. b. Fiscal Year 2022 Proposed Budget Work Session: General Fund Revenues, Enhancements, Departmental Budget Reviews, and Initial Mark -Up Staff gave a presentation on the Fiscal Year 2022 General Fund Revenues, General Fund Enhancements and Departmental Operating Budgets. Council and staff discussed the item. It was the consensus of the Council to: • remove the $60K allocated for office space from the budget • move the Lawson Road project forward to Fiscal Year 2022 • delay the downtown street lighting project • remove the March 20, 2021 work session from the budget schedule 1'Page Council Work Session March 8, 2021 There was no consensus of Council to: • add $42K expense for the tennis bubble color change c. Collective Bargaining for Local Government Employees Mr. Spera gave an overview on Collective Bargaining for Local Government Employees, how it may affect the Town and staff's recommendations. Council and staff discussed the item. It was the consensus of the Council proceed with option 1 or 2 and to survey Town employees on their opinion of collective bargaining and add this item to a future work session and Council meeting for further discussion and action. d. Updating Council's Ethics Policy Mr. Spera presented staff's recommendations for updating Council's Ethics Policy. Council and staff discussed the item. It was the consensus of the Council to move forward with updating its Ethics Policy as presented, but requested the removal of "appearance "from item 10(b) and the deletion of 10(c) "a strong personal bias." e. Authorizing Letter to Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority It was the consensus of the Council to send a letter to send to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in support of converting its fleets to electric vehicles. 2. Additions to Future Council Meetings Council Member Fox requested an email update on the status of the KKK flyers investigation. It was the consensus of the Council to allow staff to provide an email update. Council Member Steinberg requested a discussion on a zoning ordinance amendment initiation regarding donation boxes in the H2 District. It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session. Council Member Cummings requested a discussion on the history of stormwater management of the Tuscarora Creek and Town Branch. It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session. 2 Page Council Work Session March 8, 2021 Council Member Cummings requested a discussion on strategic property acquisitions for the Town. It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session. Council Member Bagdasarian requested a discussion on potential public -private partnership options for the Liberty Street parking lot. It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session. 3. Adjournment On a motion by Vice Mayor Martinez, seconded by Council Member Cummings, the meeting was adjourned at 9:13 p.m. Clerk of Council 2021_tcwsmin0308 31Page March 8, 2021 — Town Council Work Session (Note: This is a transcript prepared by a Town contractor based on the video of the meeting. It may not be entirely accurate. For greater accuracy, we encourage you to review the video of the meeting that is on the Town's Web site — www.Ieesburgva.gov or refer to the approved Council meeting minutes. Council meeting videos are retained for three calendar years after a meeting per Library of Virginia Records Retention guidelines.) Mayor Kelly Burk: I would like to begin Town Council Work Session for March 8th, 2021. I do want to remind everybody that after we sat down in the audience for the Planning Commission discussion, it really became very apparent that it is very difficult to hear down there with our masks on. Please bring your mics forward and talk into the mic when it's your turn to speak. That would help things a great deal. The first item for-- Well, I guess we don't have to do remote participation. Everybody's here. The first item for discussion is the Town Plan Process Review. That's just a continuation of our discussion or remarks that we made to the Planning Commission last Thursday. Does anybody have anything else they would like to add or any comments that they would like to make in regard to that process? The Planning Commission was very grateful that we participated and that we were there. We gave them a roadmap that made them feel more comfortable. This is just the cleanup of-- is there anything else anybody wants to add as the Planning Commission begins their really diligent work and very detailed work? Is there anything that we would like to add? Is there, Ms. Fox? Council Member Suzanne Fox: Yes, I would. I would like to know if we're going to go as a Council in- depth further on this or are we just going to wait until the Planning Commission comes back with a -- Mayor Burk: I'm sorry. Could you move your mic forward? Council Member Fox: Are we going to let the Planning Commission do the work and then will we debate it amongst ourselves or is it just going to -- Mayor Burk: Yes. Council Member Fox: Okay. Everything that we have and read through, we can just wait on that? Mayor Burk: Correct. Council Member Fox: Okay, thanks. That's all I need. Mayor Burk: I didn't know if we wanted to add anything additional. Mr. Steinberg? Anybody? Mr. Martinez, anybody at this point? All right. I would just, again, reiterate that the Planning Commission was very grateful that we took the time to do that. It gave them an idea of what we're looking for. They felt like they could do a better job. Thank you all very much for attending that. The next item is the Fiscal Year 2022 Proposed Budget Work Session. There is not a presentation on this one either. Kaj Dentler: There is a presentation on this one. Mayor Burk: There is a presentation, okay. Kaj Dentler: Yes, ma'am, pretty quick. Mayor Burk: All right, we like quick. Jason Cournoyer: Madam Mayor, Council members. Jason Cournoyer of the Town's Management and Budget Officer, here to present for our second Budget Work Session. Tonight's topics, which will be-- and I'll wait for technology a little bit, but it will be on our General Fund Revenues review as well as our General Fund Enhancements that are included in the Proposed Budget, and then we move to Page 11 March 8, 2021 the departmental operating budgets for which all the department directors are here to address any questions that Council may have. We're encouraging to move towards a budget markup, which, for the new members, it is a process where we'll have a calculator basically on the screen. You guys take straw votes on motions made and we keep track of the fiscal impact and what impact that will have on the real estate tax rate. That's where the next-- This is the second of four scheduled budget work sessions. The next two is still moving towards what we call markup towards a budget that the Council will formally adopt on March 23rd. With that, I will jump into just a few slides here. All this is in the memo. It's been presented to you by Kaj during his budget presentation, but to reiterate that the assessed values for our real estate in the Town, both residential and commercial, is reassessed every year by the Commissioner of Revenue from Loudoun County. Our assessment portfolio is about 75% residential and 25% commercial, which is part of the Town Plan initiative. It is part of the mixture that we're striving to keep. Residential assess values in 2021 rose pretty well compared to the previous year. Overall, it's about 8% of existing homes and then new development added another 2% of the total portfolio for an overall year-to-year increase of 10%. It is offset however probably due to a lot of the COVID-19 pandemic conditions out there. Our reassess value decreased in the commercial property. That 25% of our portfolio. Existing parcels went down about 8.9%. There was some construction. There still is construction out there. That new development value added about 1 % for a net of 8%. The weighted overall is an increase of 5% year -over -year. COVID-19 also affected a lot of our consumer taxes. This is a lot of where our revenue shortfalls came particularly over the last 12 months. We're categorizing into three scenarios of how we are grouping our consumer taxes. There are some that are decreasing. These things are decreasing, one similar to like our Recreation Center. The consumer behavior has changed a little bit. We're restricted in how many people we can let in. It's had an impact on how many folks that are coming out and holding memberships to the Recreation Center. We are looking into the future to have that progressively increased. Right now, we think it is going to be a 12 to 18 -month kind of rebound. The proposed budget does have a decrease in the Recreation Center fees. Similarly, the investment income, the Federal Reserve interest rates have really drastically decreased our income from our investment. This is not how much money we have invested, but yet the returns that we expect over the next 12 to 18 months as well. Transient occupancy tax, most commonly known as hotel taxes, continues to be down. We're projecting again another 12 to 18 -month progression back to where it was in '19 or hopefully above. We also have what we call a "reset." These are some consumer taxes that seemed to have a very good trend to hopefully get back to what our pre-COVID levels were. Pre-COVID for our purposes is FY19, so back to a year before the fiscal year of the COVID pandemic. Meals and beverage tax is a good example. It was drastically hit with COVID. The numbers from the last quarter in the last month that we have are encouraging that we may be able to get back to our '19 levels during our next upcoming fiscal year. Bank franchise is another one that looks encouraging. There's been a lot of reinvestment with the banks here, a lot of the development. There's more assets being held by the banks locally. That was a surprise in this last bank franchise tax, which was collected once a year in FY 2020. We're encouraged by that. We think we're going to at least get to the pre-COVID levels there. Personal property tax is held pretty flat. That hasn't been, to date, been too overly impacted by COVID. We have some that are small increases. One positive trend during COVID and the General Assembly passed a law about two years ago to collect internet sales tax. It's the origin of the buyer, not the sale. That's been offsetting some of that decrease, the natural decrease of the local vendors and the sales tax. There is a trend that we are going to even exceed FY19 levels this year, so we are projecting a slight increase budget -to -budget in 2022. Here's just a Page 21 March 8, 2021 table. Again, this is one that maybe you can reference during our Q&A session, just showing you some a little bit granular level of some of the notable revenues. This is just to reiterate, again, that we're very fortunate, although it may consider a double-edged sword. We are very diverse in our revenue, but we do rely a lot on our consumer taxes. When things like this come, economic downturns, emergency conditions, pandemic conditions, and things like that, we are very exposed to some of the behavior from both our local consumers and our businesses. That's just one notable thing here, but we only rely on 25% of our General Fund Revenue from real estate taxes. That is a strong portfolio in that regard as well. Moving forward to-- there's three enhancements included in the Town Manager's proposed budget. The first being our recommended emergency, inclement weather. Basically, snow response budget increasing, basically doubling right now. In the 2021 budget, we had about $300K. I think it's like $305K among that. We are looking to double that. That is to set the trend where we've seen, especially in Kaj's tenure as Town Manager, but also to fully fund at least two days of response, two 24 -hour responses at the level that we have under contract. Right now, you'll see on the next slide, we've far exceeded that. Even with our slight storms this year, we are going to spend well over $1.2M in the snow response for this year. This $300K would bring our total to $600K to at least have that budgeted with recurring revenue. Of course, when there are bad storms and things, we will have to dip in a rainy day fund. This is not fully funding necessarily what we would expect in the response but doubling the amount of money we have invested. Here's a trend. We've had a couple of good years where we haven't had much snow. We all know that that have been residents for a while. Even this year, you can see how just a few responses really can add up. It doesn't take one big storm to really blow our budget. It can take a lot of small responses as well. We want to better resourced in order to handle those on a more recurring basis. The next one, at Council's request, is to continue the Downtown Outdoor Dining Program. This takes about five staff and some set-up time, so a lot of this is personnel cost. A lot of these folks are working on top of their normal shift, so it is on an overtime basis. That's just under $178K. That will get you the three days that we currently have, the current program in place, for 10 months a year. Finally, some office space, whether it's for staff, to allow for some shared conference space and office for the Mayor, or it's separate space for the Council. That is coming at $60K. I think Kaj has mentioned that that is simply a placeholder. There's a lot of decisions to be made on what kind of space, size, and things like that. $60K seems to be a good number to allow for the utilities and furniture that goes along with getting a new space. Lastly, this evening, we are going to go through our departmental budgets. We do have two other work sessions, but tonight will be the first time we go through the departmental budget, to address any issues you have. This is just a slide to give context again where our local tax funding is being invested at a departmental level. With that, that would be the end of my presentation. Again, we are encouraging the Council to begin their markup. Although there are two other work sessions, we are prepared with our calculator this evening that we can put on the screen. With that, Kaj or I any questions we may answer. We are at your pleasure here. Mayor Burk: All right. Kari, do you have any questions? Ms. Nacy, I'm sorry. Council Member Kari Nacy: I don't have any additional questions. Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian? Council Member Ara Bagdasarian: Just one question regarding investment income. What is the make-up of that? That's probably something that's in the document. Jason Cournoyer: I'm going to turn to Clark. I know I can respond, but he will definitely give you more detail than I will. Page 31 March 8, 2021 Clark Case: The Town's very restricted in where it can invest tax dollars. There are some other places we have more flexibility, but idle tax dollars have to be invested in essentially risk -free, return -type assets. High -quality money markets. We actually use two, the local government investment pool and the Virginia Municipal League bond pool and investment pools. We also have an arrangement with TD Bank, where we have some money that we place over there so that it earns a higher rate of interest. We can easily just, with an internal transfer, move it to the checking account if we need to. All of those accounts are really driven by the Fed funds rate set by the Federal Reserve for short-term investing. We do have a little bit of intermediate bonds over the local government investment pool for VML's pool, but it's a relatively small amount of money. We're very liquid. We're very safe, but we also have very little flexibility under State statute as to what we can do with that money. There's very little money to be made in Federal bonds right now. Even going further out on the maturity curve won't help us much. We're sort of at the Fed's mercy right now. Right now, they're not having any mercy and they're not projecting to have any until probably 2023 or 2024. We're hoping that if inflation picks up a little, employment gets really better from COVID, things get better, the Fed will feel comfortable raising rates sooner, but they're basically stating, "Don't expect it in the fiscal year 2022." They're basically saying, for the foreseeable future, rates are going to be on the floor. We're at that spot. There's not a whole lot we can do about it other than push some things out a little bit longer on maturity curve. There's no return for that and there's a risk that if rates go up, you're further out. The value of your bonds go down and you actually lose money. It's not really worth it to push it out. The only other thing you can do would be to taking a risk and we have our hands tied with that. There's really not a lot we can do about it until the Fed starts raising rates again, and then we can start moving further out on the curve. Council Member Bagdasarian: You mentioned the liquidity of those funds. How often do we tap into those or do we access those? Clark Case: Well, all of our funds are such that we can get almost all of them back within 30 days, so they're money market funds. They're very, very liquid. We put money in and out based on our flows. It just depends on where we are in the cycle of the taxes coming in and the taxes going out. The answer is we put money in and take money out all the time. When we get real estate taxes in and personal property taxes in, we put quite a bit of money over to the pool. When we have to pay the debt payments, which we mostly try to set our debt payments up, so they come in right after the tax payments. When we get real estate and personal property in, the next month typically is when we pay the debt. We pay the bulk of our debt in July and January and the bulk of our revenues come in in June and December. We schedule our debt payments to work like our tax payments work. The answer is we'll put it in, we take it out. We move it back and forth very quickly with wire transfers. Council Member Bagdasarian: Got it. It's a money market, so that makes sense. Clark Case: Money market is very liquid. The danger of the money market is you get into a big crisis. They can freeze it for up to 30 days. We made it all the way through the 2008 crisis with our two pools and no one ever put restrictions on it. That's why we keep the other money at the TD. If it ever did happen, we have enough to get by for 30 days to 60 days at TD Bank. We try to stay in a position where we have our money spread around, not all in one basket. We also want to make sure we always have enough that if something unforeseen came up, for example, you decide to buy a piece of property and we need $3M or $4M, boom, we can pick that money up right out of TD's bank account, put a check account, write a check. We want to be flexible, but we also want to try and get returns. It's always a balancing act between the flexibility and the returns. Council Member Bagdasarian: All right. Thank you, appreciate it. Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox? Page 41 March 8, 2021 Council Member Fox: Thanks. I had similar questions. Thank you, Council Member Bagdasarian. That was exactly what I was asking. I was listening to you and I was hearing risk -free investment on that, but then I heard a lot of risks. That's a contradiction. I'm a little fuzzy about that. Sorry about that. Clark Case: Well, most of what we're investing in is not like a US Treasury bond. It's a money market. It's not very risky in that the ratings on the things that our investment pool are allowed to invest in are primarily Triple -A. They can invest in some Triple -A corporate bonds. They can invest in US Treasuries. They can invest in some commercial paper, but the bulk of it is in US Treasury bonds and they're all come due within 60 days. They're not really very far out on the curve. The likelihood of them having-- In fact, as far as I know, don't think they've ever had a default on an investment. It's very safe money, but again, the returns right now are between 0% and 25% on Fed fund's rate for a year. Now, I say 25%, 25 basic points, 0.25%, so a quarter of 1% per year and that's a very low interest rate. Council Member Fox: I'm taking a look at the actuals for 2021-- No, I'm sorry. The budget 2021, $700K, as opposed to proposed for $115K. Now, this time last year, we were in this crisis too, so why the big disparity? Clark Case: Pardon me? Council Member Fox: There's a big disparity there between the $700K and the $115K. Clark Case: That's where the Fed cut the rates. Council Member Fox: That's because they capped them there? Clark Case: Yes, the Fed had the rates up around 2.5% and they dropped them to one -quarter of 1%. Virtually, almost overnight. Council Member Fox: Thanks. One more question. Jason, you referenced the 12 to 18 -month to get back to a certain point for the Town to recover. When you say "recover," what does that mean exactly? Jason Cournoyer: It depends on which revenue source. I think I probably said that probably with a decrease. Some of these are like a hotel tax. We're looking in a shorter term to get back to pre-COVID levels. When I say "rebound" over 12 to 18 months, it's not where we would be otherwise. It's going back to pre-COVID levels. The town has been growing in such a boom here in the last five years that we've been banking on a 5% to 8% increase in our consumer tax annually. We are going to basically lose two years of increases, just hopefully trying to get back to the '19 levels if that makes sense. Council Member Fox: Yes, sure. Thanks. I appreciate that. Jason Cournoyer: Absolutely. Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg? Council Member Neil Steinberg: Thank you. Jason? Jason Cournoyer: Yes, sir. Council Member Steinberg: Pardon my ignorance. I'm just trying to understand one line in the chart that you showed us of revenues and, specifically, the hotel tax. Jason Cournoyer: Yes. Page 51 March 8, 2021 Council Member Steinberg: FY 2020 were actuals of a little more than $558K. Now, you're showing a budgeted '21 and '22 at over $800K. Are we actually expecting that kind of recovery in hotel taxes or did we see that kind of recovery? Jason Cournoyer: Hotel tax, similar to probably some of our smaller restaurants in Town, as soon as the Governor's orders came out, nobody was coming through their doors. It was a drastic decrease in the last quarter of 2020. It has progressed slightly over the first two quarters of FY21. The trends are there where we think that it may recover again back to a 2019 level, which we would have expected at, for example, in 2021 if COVID never happened, we would have expected to exceed $860K. We are basically resetting it back to two years ago. We are looking longer term. This is a 15 to 18 - month outlook, but the trends over the last quarter are encouraging enough, or if that kind of trend continues, we are going to start reaching that in this calendar year. Hopefully, sooner than fourth quarter. Cole is going to give you more details. If that holds, we should hit, again, less than our '19, but $814K is on that path to go into pre-COVID. Are you going to add something? Cole Fazenbaker: Yes, I can add a little bit more. When COVID did hit, we saw our hotel tax basically decrease. We saw a decrease by about 83%, so it was a huge decrease. We've been monitoring it each quarter since then and almost monthly as well. 90% of, basically, the revenues come in quarterly, so that's really what we pay attention to. Each quarter, the decrease is getting better by 10%. We're really projecting out that trend of it's increasing by 10% each year. As you can see, each quarter, fiscal year '21 was $860K what we budgeted. It's not quite back there at $814K, but it's getting back to it. Probably, in Fiscal Year '23, we'll be almost reset. It is one of those revenue lines that decreased. It didn't really reset, but it's getting close to getting back to the reset level. Council Member Steinberg: Thank you. Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings? Council Member Zach Cummings: Thank you. I just had two quick questions on revenue projections. I'm going to try to be the half -glass -full guy. If revenue comes in above what's projected in the budget here, what is staffs recommendation to use those funds for? Jason Cournoyer: In my tenure with Kaj as Town Manager, we have generally taken a conservative, optimistic outlook on our revenue. We take our previous -year actuals as where we're projecting. It's almost, I hate to use an analogy in public, like a bird in the hand versus chasing what's the unknown. That's how we approach it. For these years of our boom or the great growth in our business activity in the Town in the last five years, we have exceeded a lot of our projections for consumer taxes. We already rely on over a third of our General Fund revenues on consumer taxes. I talked about the volatility of those. We feel that a conservative outlook is the prudent thing to do. However, if it does exceed and we hope that everywhere else hits their marks, we would have an excess on Assigned Fund Balance for the Council's discretion. We generally as staff recommend that Council use that for one-time purchases. We have and we still remain underfunding our Capital Asset Replacement Program. The Council in the past has put in the investment of that excess revenue, if you will, Unassigned Fund Balance towards some of those unfunded replacements, but it is at Council's discretion how to use that funding. Council Member Cummings: Perfect. Thank you. My last question, the Senate in DC just passed the $1.9T COVID relief bill. It's going back to the House tomorrow to vote on. It's to be probably signed by the President tomorrow or Wednesday. Hopefully, we will get to maybe see some of the 300 and something billion dollars for state and local governments. Again, if there's anything we can do or is there anything that we need to be doing to try to secure our place in line to capture those funds if available. Kaj Dentler: I certainly can address you that we are monitoring that closely. The devil is in the details on this one for sure. We don't know exactly what we're going to qualify for and what strings may be attached to those funds if any. We're hopeful that we'll get a certain amount for our revenue loss, which Page 61 March 8, 2021 is estimated at about $10M to $12M over the three fiscal years with no strings, but we don't know that. We're watching very, very closely and are anxious to see what those details are. Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez? Vice Mayor Fernando "Marty" Martinez: I'm looking at your dollar cutout. You say debt services, Capital Projects are 23¢ on the dollar, which I would assume we could safely say is 23% of 100% of our budgets. The question is, what is our current debt service or the difference between our debt service and our Capital Projects? Jason Cournoyer: The 23¢ here, the majority of it is debt service. There is a fiscal policy of the Town Council that debt service can't exceed 15% of General Fund expenditures. What this is showing you is local tax funding, so 23¢ of local tax funding, which means basically property taxes or locally -collected taxes are going towards debt service primarily but also some of that CAP PayGo funding that we talked about project management. That is the Capital Project side of it. It's a PayGo contribution to the CIP as well as the debt service that supports the CIP. Vice Mayor Martinez: You're going through them all together into the 23¢? Jason Cournoyer: Yes, sir. There's a direct link to both of them that is supporting our capital infrastructure. Vice Mayor Martinez: The reason is I know our debt service for Capital Projects, it can't be more than 15% or that's our policy. That's why when I see 23% and I see debt service tied to it, it doesn't match. I guess what I'm saying is there needs to be a better breakdown of where the whole 23¢ goes to have a better feel that, what is our Capital Project's budget versus our other debt service budget if that makes any sense there. There was another question I had. I'm trying to go through the slides to see where I found them. Oh, I know what it was. It was the money for the outdoor dining program. You say it takes two police officers and one Parks and Rec staff, one Public Works staff to manage those things. What does that cost per night? Do you break it down by night or do you just have a total cost? Kaj Dentler: Probably, an average -- Jason Cournoyer: I will get you the correct answer, but I believe it's about $800 a day. It's about $2,400 a weekend. Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay, and then I look at the signage and wheelchair ramps. Am I assuming that the signage and wheelchair ramps aren't permanent that you have to bring them in where the sidewalks transition from sidewalk to street? Jason Cournoyer: Yes, sir, correct. Vice Mayor Martinez: You have portable signage that you use. Is that the light signs or you just have other signage? Jason Cournoyer: You get the light signs, the light sign on the road? Vice Mayor Martinez: Right. Jason Cournoyer: It could be both. There are barriers as well that they have to set up and put down. That would be another bullet -- Vice Mayor Martinez: Is that what you call signage then, the barriers themselves? Because right here, you have signage and wheelchair ramps. I get the wheelchair ramps, but I've not seen signage, so I'm just wondering what you consider that. Page 71 March 8, 2021 Jason Cournoyer: Okay, Rich's staff -- Richard Williams: Vice Mayor Martinez, the signage is-- typically, they're the roadway signs, the flashing signs that says "event ahead," or it could be the portable A -frame signs that we actually pull out onto the middle of the street. Vice Mayor Martinez: Right. Well, that's what I was asking because that's what I assumed you meant, but I have not seen anything broken down for that. Anyway, that's all I got. I think you guys are doing a great job. Don't take my comments as any criticism of what I think you guys are doing. I think you're doing a fine job. Thank you. Mayor Burk: The one question I had for tonight was about the Federal COVID relief. We were quoted at the Northern Virginia Regional Commission as Leesburg is set to get $10M. I assume that we are looking at what we would do with that even though we don't know what the strings are and where it's going to be at this point. I know that Senator Warner said that he was trying to get no strings on it. It will have to be spent by 2024, but that's all we've heard about it. You guys haven't heard much more, so you don't know where it's-- because that could be a very helpful amount of money if the strings are right. All right. Tonight, you are asking us to take a straw poll? Well, first off, let me see. Does anybody want to add or take anything out of the budget? Let's get to that point, or we get the calculator up if we could. Just a minute. Let them get the calculator going. Jason Cournoyer: Bear with us. Mayor Burk: Not a problem. Jason Cournoyer: Everything's Wi-Fi, but this isn't-- Kaj Dentler: You can go ahead. We'll catch up. You can go ahead. We'll catch up. Mayor Burk: All right. All right, Mr. Steinberg? Council Member Steinberg: All right, so question. We currently have the enhancement of $60K for office space. If we determine, I thought we'd sort of took a straw poll on that already, that we will provide the Mayor with office space within Town Hall and other Council members will do the best they can, we'll suffer through for a while, what then would we expect that figure to be? Kaj Dentler: Let me just take that one. If Council decides not to spend any money on office space and that $60K either falls out of the budget, or you can repurpose it for something else without impacting what's proposed. Council Member Steinberg: Funny you should mention that. Kaj Dentler: It's entirely up to you. There's one caveat. So depending upon the trickle -down effect of what your decision is on office space for Mayor and Council. If the Mayor does have an office and if Council takes offices, I will have to move people out of the building. There's no way I can get around that. Some may be able to telecommute and some may not. That $60K may be needed for office space for other staff. My request for tonight is if you can decide as a majority group how you want to handle the office space for the Mayor and Council, then let me look at my options before you repurpose or just cut the $60K out of the budget. If your direction ultimately is provide office space for Mayor and/or Council but we're not going to add any money, then that's fine. I just want you to be aware that I may have a need for office space and money if I can't accommodate everyone with telecommuting. Whatever you can do as first step will be helpful for me. Council Member Steinberg: Thank you for that. Page 81 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: Mr. Dentler, were you not going to come back with a report of different locations that you have sought? Kaj Dentler: Yes, ma'am. We have been doing that now. We have gone on some site visits. We've received bids or proposals. We have more visits to do. I haven't moved forward with that because I don't want to lead landlords on. If you know you're not going to do this or you are, then I know what to do. If you take no action, then we'll continue on our process. I don't want to mislead our landlords to that we're looking a space when in reality, you already know what the decision is. If there's a majority position now, that will be helpful. If there isn't, that's fine. I'll work with that. Mayor Burk: All right, Ms. Fox? Council Member Steinberg: I'm not done. Mayor Burk: Oh, are you not finished? I'm sorry. Council Member Steinberg: No, I'm not finished. It's all part and parcel of the same conversation. Mayor Burk: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Mr. Steinberg. Council Member Steinberg: That's okay. Assuming Council can reach a consensus on office space and I would advocate that we provide the Mayor with an office space in-house and that, again, we can all manage to survive on our own for another year or two. I would propose we repurpose at least a portion of that money. I learned just this evening, for example, that to provide the second tennis bubble in a color will increase the price of that bubble by some $42K. Not an insurmountable amount, less than 10% of the cost. I would advocate since this appears to be somewhat of a concern of surrounding neighbors and that recognizing that we need to start that process at some point, I believe there's some 12 to 15 years of life left in the first bubble. I would prefer that we don't push this process another 15 years down the road that we start now. Make the bubble that we purchase in color, and admittedly is going to contrast somewhat with the existing one. When the time comes to replace that visually, the whole thing will be in a better place. I think we should start that process now. I would eliminate the $60K for the office space, but I would advocate that we add $42K to the Parks & Rec bubble project, knowing that that's a revenue -producing situation and we will quickly recover the cost of that. Thanks. Mayor Burk: You're asking to find out if there are four people that are interested in removing the $60K for the office space and taking $42K of it and use it to make the tennis bubble another color? Council Member Steinberg: Yes, that's a figure I got this evening. I'm assuming that that figure is accurate. That would be the figure I would use. Mayor Burk: Those are two. The first one is, are there four people that want to do away with the $60K for office space? Council Member Fox: Madam Mayor, I have a clarifying question before we go on that. Mayor Burk: Sure. Council Member Fox: Kaj, have you found any other places within any other properties that the Town owns that would make the office space for the Mayor revenue -neutral? Kaj Dentler: We do have the log cabin that we have been looking at for an office, whether that was for the Mayor or for staff use. We hadn't gone that far. That would be free. However, we would have to break the existing lease with the Loudoun Museum to do that. They are not using that. I know they have plans to use it, but COVID has slowed all that down. We have had discussions with them about it. Page 91 March 8, 2021 Obviously, they don't want to lose the space. That would be an option for us. That would not cost anything for the lease space anyway. Council Member Fox: Okay, okay. Mayor Burk: All right, so I'll go back to-- Mr. Steinberg, perhaps you want to clarify. You're saying that you want to take the $60K out of the budget. Council Member Steinberg: Yes, I'm saying that if we can provide the Mayor with an office within Town property at no cost to us that I would remove that $60K enhancement from the budget, yes. Mayor Burk: Are there four people that would be willing to take the $60K out of the budget with the caveat that space be provided in the building net -neutral cost? Oh, you're saying yes. Council Member Steinberg: Within Town properties, yes, preferably in Town -- Mayor Burk: Are there four votes? There's Ms. Fox, Mr. Steinberg, Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy. You got four votes to move that forward. Your second one is to take $42K of that and use it for the tennis bubble? Council Member Steinberg: Correct. Mayor Burk: Are there four people that are interested in taking $42K and adding it to the budget for the tennis bubble? Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nacy. There's not enough for that. Is there any other additions or subtractions that we would like to add at this point? Mr. Cunningham? Not Cummingham, sorry. Mr. Cummings? Council Member Cummings: I just have a quick question. Is this the time to talk about CIP as well or just the budget? Kaj Dentler: I would suggest that if there are any questions that Council has on the budget, we can address. If you want to make any proposals to add or delete, then now's the time to do it. Most of the directors are here. There are a few that are on WebEx, depending on what your question is. Council Member Cummings: I'd like to see us move up the Lawson Road pedestrian crossing up in the CIP budget. Mayor Burk: Do we have an amount for that? Kaj Dentler: Yes, so Renee is in the audience, but in your packet that you got on Friday from Jason with response to questions, Vice Mayor Martinez asked questions about Lawson Road. The staff identified two options. One was to move it up more towards the middle of the six -year time frame. The second option would be to move it all the way to allow the design to start basically July 1 in the '22 budget. It depends on what you want to do. There are some impacts to the budget plan based on some projects have to move. I would say that there's nothing of-- I don't want to say significant because it's like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are projects that I would consider they are less priority. They would have to be slid to be able to accommodate a change by moving Lawson Road up and that's your decision on what you want to make. You have two options if you look specifically and Renee, if you have any specific, further questions, she can address them. Council Member Cummings: I would say option 2, which was move the project design to begin in 2022 and then construction, 2023. Vice Mayor Martinez: What do you want to delay? Page 101 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: Pardon me, Mr. Martinez? Vice Mayor Martinez: Point of clarification. Option 2 says moving it to FY 2022 and FY 2023 for construction, but it would require removing one of the projects. Which project would you recommend moving to get this in the direction? Kaj Dentler: Sliding some back. Council Member Cummings: Right [unintelligible]. Kaj Dentler: If you want to reference option 2 for Lawson Road, we will know exactly what you mean by that. That helps. Mayor Burk: All right. Are there four people that-- Yes, Mr. Steinberg? Council Member Steinberg: Question, yes. Mayor Burk: Sorry. Council Member Steinberg: Sometimes adverse to it necessarily, I'm just curious as to which project or projects. I can't remember we would be relocating in the CIP. We've had strong requests from the Mosby Drive neighborhood. That's a pretty important project. We might argue that the Lawson Road is a connector for the bike, walking path and maybe that's an important consideration. I just need a little more information first before I could make a decision. Renee LaFollette: The Lawson Road project for design and construction, we will need to move at least one of the projects that is listed in option 2 out to make room just from a staff workload perspective. Financially, it doesn't make any difference which one of those projects we move. Lawson Road is a pedestrian -bicycle connection to the W&OD trail. There is some degradation occurring to one of the properties upstream of that crossing. In staffs opinion and our engineers' opinions, it is not as significant as the erosion that's occurring on Town Branch at Mosby. The reason we put Town Branch at Mosby in fiscal '23 instead of fiscal '22 is due to the funding cycle for the stormwater local assistance funding grant from the state. Our design engineer feels that we have a very good chance to get 50% of that project paid for through the SLAF grant. If that application process works faster and we find out we get the money earlier, we would come to Council for authorization to appropriate that grant funding and move that project forward into fiscal '22 if we get the grant funding. If we don't, we would leave it in '23 and reapply the following year. That's the difference between the two projects. Lawson Road does not have the ability to go after somebody else's funding to help us with it. Town Branch at Mosby does. Council Member Steinberg: You're saying, basically, we can accomplish both within-- We would be moving Lawson Road forward, but the Mosby Drive project stays where it is. It might even be accelerated, depending on the funding that is required. One does not threaten the other in effect. Renee LaFollette: Correct. Council Member Steinberg: Can you just refresh my memory on the projects that one of which, we will need to relocate? Renee LaFollette: With option 2 that Councilman Cummings mentioned, we selected either the downtown street lighting phase 2 project, which would continue the street lighting like we put on the block of Loudoun Street from Mom's Apple Pie to King, and then on King from Market to Royal. That would expand the footprint for those acorn lights from Market Street up to North Street, and then on Market Street from Church to Wirt, and then Loudon Street from Market to Wirt as well. Page 111 March 8, 2021 That project is going to be very detail -oriented. It's going to take staff a lot of times, so that's the one that we put at the top of the list to move. The second one is the Town Hall or Town campus master plan, refurbishment of the east parcel along Loudoun Street. Those were the two projects that are going to take a staff -heavy amount of time. That's why we selected those two. One or both of those needs to move. Council Member Steinberg: Thank you. Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez, can we ask the others if--? Vice Mayor Martinez: Sure. Mayor Burk: [chuckles] Ms. Nacy, do you have anything new? Council Member Nacy: No, I'm good. I actually agree with Council Member Cummings. Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian. Council Member Bagdasarian: No, I do not. Thank you. Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez, back to you. Vice Mayor Martinez: Clark, this note on option two mentions that it creates a precedent [unintelligible] the long-standing goal of Council for predictable and buildable CIP. What do you mean by that? Clark Case: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Vice Mayor Martinez: I couldn't talk. It's the mask. Vice Mayor Martinez: Is that your question? Renee LaFollette: Yes, that's my question. Vice Mayor Martinez: Then do I need to repeat it? Renee LaFollette: No. About 12 years ago, maybe even a little bit longer than that, Council gave staff a very specific direction, to put the CIP together so that it was no longer a "wish list" because when I first started it, 20 years ago, projects would come into the CIP and they would just languish. They would sit there. They would move back, they'd move forward. They'd move back, they'd move forward. There was never a specific point in time for them to be in the CIP. We've got direction from Council that we were to lay the CIP out, so that it was predictable. The schedules could be held, we could build it, and it would meet the financial stability plan of the town. Once the project came in, in the sixth year, everybody knew it would move forward, and it would eventually get built. As I stated, during the CIP presentation, there have only been three projects that Council has specifically moved or not moved into CIP in that period of time. One was the Edwards Ferry Road project last year, and the Royal Street drainage, and the other one was more of a park road that was never moved forward. It held its space and had to move its paces through the system. That's what we mean by keeping the CIP buildable and predictable. Vice Mayor Martinez: I understand that that's a self-imposed restriction by the town Council. Back then, we wanted to make sure that when we put something on the CIP that it happened within at least so many years. I wanted to make sure we did that. Now, looking at this, I understand that it necessarily doesn't create precedents. We've already done it before. In your mind, what precedent does it create? Page 121 March 8, 2021 Renee LaFollette: It creates an issue from staff perspective of, we're always then having to guess where we're putting something in the CIP. When we put it in the last year, we're doing that based on what we have understood Council's policy is, but it is always Council's ability based on what residents come forward with to move things around. The CIP is just strictly staffs recommendation. Vice Mayor Martinez: I really understand the need for having a CIP that's in place. I also believe that as we're doing this, there are exceptions that come up, that we, as on the Town Council, representing. Now, the citizens need to move forward on and I believe that this moving the project up, after seeing it, I actually went out there, too, to look at it and was shocked at how badly it's gotten. I think there is a need to move this forward. I know that we haven't selected which phase we're going to move because you give us two, the downtown street lighting or the town hall campus improvements. If you had a choice, because right now, I'm looking at it, that on the [unintelligible] campus improvement, we can still continue with the town green portion, but we just have to delay another portion. Renee LaFollette: Correct. Vice Mayor Martinez: Which one of those two under option one would you prefer? You can't do them both, you say or. One of these, the choices will allow us to pick one and still handle the loss of road project. Is there a preference? Renee LaFollette: If you're looking at option two to move the project forward into fiscal '22, my recommendation would be moving the downtown street lighting project based on the amount of staff time that project will take in design time and dealing with property owners. Vice Mayor Martinez: On phase one, what did that include? Renee LaFollette: Option one was moving it into '24 and that would be either-- [crosstalk] Vice Mayor Martinez: I'm talking about downtown street lighting, phase one. Renee LaFollette: Phase one is complete. Vice Mayor Martinez: What was that? [crosstalk] Just for info. Renee LaFollette: Phase one was the street lights on Loudoun Street, from Mom's Apple Pie to King Street, and the street lights on King Street from Market to Royal. Vice Mayor Martinez: That was a priority to get done because of the fact that we've already improved the downtown streets, and we needed to move the street lighting to work with that. Correct? Renee LaFollette: We put the street lighting in those two projects, yes. Vice Mayor Martinez: If I might, Madam Mayor, ask Zack, I agree with moving option two, but that we select the downtown street lighting phase two project to be the project that we move back. You're good with that? I'm all done. We need four, right? Mayor Burk: Right, we do need four. I would agree that I went out to Lawson Road, too. Everybody must been visiting. I was shocked at how it's a public safety thing. It's dangerous. I can't imagine kids even attempting to cross that creek. I was very surprised. I'm glad to see that we're doing this. I think that although it's not the usual and we don't want to make it the usual, there are times when public safety comes forward. Are there four people that are willing to move the Lawson Road project to 2022? Vice Mayor Martinez: '21 and '22. Page 131 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: Pardon me? 2022, [chuckles] with delaying the downtown street lighting project. All in favor, indicate by saying, "Aye." That's everybody. Vice Mayor Martinez: Thank you, Renee, I appreciate you taking the questions. Mayor Burk: Is there anything else, Ms. Fox? Council Member Fox: I had a question for Renee as she was up here. Sorry about that. You were talking about the CIP and how we want it to be something we can all count on. Do we ever prioritize according to what might be an immediate need? The downtown street light is something I'm glad we pushed back because I didn't see that as an immediate need but people's property getting damaged is. Somewhat, times when the CIP things come up, do we reprioritize? Do you ever do that or do you just try to keep it steady as we go? Renee LaFollette: We try and keep it steady as we go to the best of our abilities. When we have something that is a safety issue or something that we see a need to put in earlier, when the directors meet to go over the CIP and when we meet with the Town Manager, and the finance department, we make our recommendations as to where we think they should fall in the CIP. Typically, they go in the last year. This one was one that we went in the last year because of the difficulty that we're going to have with design, the DEQ telling us to leave it alone until we have all of our permits and everything taken care of. Now, we have since gotten some clarification on that. They will allow us to go take the pipes out without disturbing anything else to get rid of that danger. We've had it blocked off with signage telling people to stay out of the area. When we finished our study and we met with the residents in November, I believe it was, we let them know that this project would go into the last year following our normal process, and that if they wanted it to move forward, we would encourage them to reach out to their Council members, which they have done. Council Member Fox: Which they had been doing. The reason I asked is we have more than, not just Lawson Road, we have Mosby, as well, reaching out to us now. I don't think it's as bad but similar things. It's land erosion and it is flooding, too. If counsel came back to you and said, "Look, we really need to look at this," how would you deal with that? Renee LaFollette: As I said, Mosby, we put in where we did in '23 because we had the funding opportunity to get half of it paid for upfront. Otherwise, it would have been put in the sixth year, as well. Mosby is a little bit different. The houses are closer to where the erosion is taking place and we do have water that is getting close to, if not into a house. That one did rise a little bit higher than what Lawson Road did because we don't have imminent flooding to houses. We do have some property degradation, but we had the crossing and have the crossing gated and signed to stay out. There's a lot of balancing and juggling act. Council Member Fox: I'll talk to you more offline about it. Thank you very much. Mayor Burk: At this point, is there any more additions or deletions anybody wants to put forward? Miss Nacy? Council Member Nacy: I just have a quick question about-- Sorry, Renee. Just getting your exercise tonight. What would be, and maybe this is a double question for financial, too, but one of the ladies that emailed recently mentioned that she's been reimbursed before by the town for damage to her home. What is the fiscal impact of delaying it versus still paying for all these repairs between now and 2023? Is it less enough money to repair people's homes than move the project forward? Renee LaFollette: I have been the director of public works for five and a half years now. I reached out to staff that has been here for 20 years in public works, I've reached out to two people that have retired from the department. None of them remember a monetary payment to that particular resident. I have Page 141 March 8, 2021 no physical documents that we actually made any type of payment to her, but I don't have a way to refute it either. I know we have gone out and cleared debris from her yard from flooding. I know we've opened the channel a number of times. We're looking at close to a $2 million project for that particular project. We can go out there and do a lot of clearing of that channel with town staff before we hit a $2 million number. Council Member Nacy: You said, 2023, that you would be able to get half the funding? Renee LaFollette: That is our anticipated date. We will be working on an application this spring. If their timeline stays the way it has in the past, and we have an application in in the spring, we should know something in the fall, whether we were successful with our grant. If we were, then we would bring that to Council to appropriate that grant funding, which would allow that project to move forward into the second half of fiscal '22. Council Member Nacy: Thank you. Mayor Burk: Anyone else at this point? We will be talking about the budget the next two meetings, correct? Kaj Dentler: I'm sorry? Mayor Burk: We'll be talking about the budget for the next two meetings? Kaj Dentler: Is your question will we--? Mayor Burk: Are we going to continue to talk about the budget in the next two meetings? Kaj Dentler: Yes. Thank you because you've gone right down the path I wanted you to go down. On the schedule, tomorrow night, we have our public hearing for the budget. Then there's the special meeting on Saturday, the 20th, that at the time, you considered it as tentative. I would like to know if you want to hold that. If you don't want to hold it, then -- Mayor Burk: I don't, [laughs] unless anybody-- [crosstalk] Kaj Dentler: I'm seeing a lot of head nods. Kaj Dentler: -so I will put an item resolution on your agenda for tomorrow night to revise it because we did pass it with it, but we knew that was tentative. We'll show that as being removed. Then, Mayor, your next discussion will be your final markup on Monday the 22nd, in two weeks, with final vote on the 23rd. Did I answer your question correctly? Mayor Burk: Will the Council have an opportunity to bring back anything else they would like to add or delete? [crosstalk] Kaj Dentler: Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. You have multiple opportunities to discuss any changes all the way up to through the 23rd. What you've done tonight just helps us continue down the path. We'll reset the budget and then report accordingly at the next time. You could always change your mind or make other additions or deletions as you wish, until the final vote. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. [crosstalk] Mayor Burk: We have not indicated or given our preference about the street closing, Fridays and Saturdays, and Sundays. Are there four people that would like to make sure that stays in the budget? Council Member Fox: I have a question first. Are we considering all three or would Council consider two? I didn't know why the three. I think I had a question, why three nights instead of two nights during the weekend? Page 151 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: It's [unintelligible]. Kaj Dentler: I could not hear the question. Council Member Fox: [chuckles] Kaj Dentler: I apologize. Council Member Fox: Three nights as opposed to two. I was just wondering why we've chosen Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as opposed to two. Kaj Dentler: For the outdoor dining? Council Member Fox: Yes. Kaj Dentler: Council approve is expanding the program to Sunday back in, I guess over the summer, based on the business's request. Council Member Fox: It did. Kaj Dentler: You approve that. Council Member Fox: That was for COVID, right? Kaj Dentler: Right. Then Council extended the program picking up here in March of this calendar year through June 30th. The proposal that is there is to continue that. If Council wants to reduce the number of days or reduce the hours, or the frequency of the events, that's totally your prerogative. I've only set it up. As you've already seemed to indicate, it's your decision. Mayor Burk: It's Friday night, Friday, from 4:00 to 9:00. [crosstalk] Kaj Dentler: I think it's 4:00 to 10:00, I believe. Mayor Burk: Saturday, 4:00 to 10:00. Kaj Dentler: Saturday, I think is 4:00 to 10:00 and [crosstalk] Sunday is 11:00, 11:30 to four or six o'clock. Something like that. Council Member Fox: It's not too, too late. The reason I ask is-- I forgot my question. Sorry about that. There was a specific reason I was asking this, and so I'll come back and ask it offline. Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg. Council Member Steinberg: I just want to comment. It's certainly possible regarding the outdoor dining program that even with the merchants, as we start to clear this whole COVID thing, more vaccinations and so on, and loosened protocol restrictions, that it's possible even some of the merchants may find it more beneficial not to necessarily do it all three nights. Some of them already have outdoor dining situations anyway. It's a lot of work for them to set up out of doors. They may find Friday and Saturday nights sufficient, in which case, we will have budgeted for three, but we may find that suddenly we have extra funds that we can redirect into another program of some kind. Thanks. Council Member Fox: I thought of my question. Sorry. That will go from now or that will go through the entire to June 30th of 2020--? Kaj Dentler: To '22. Yes, Ma'am. Page 161 March 8, 2021 Council Member Fox: Thank you. Mayor Burk: Neil's question about, if we decide that things are loosening up for the vaccines, and the Downtown businesses may not need or want to have three days of closures, we can come back to it— Kaj Dentler: Absolutely. Mayor Burk: --and change it back to two days or one night, or whatever. Kaj Dentler: Yes, ma'am. We are in constant or regular communications with the Downtown business owners. One thing that we did a workout for this year so far is that if there are nights of inclement weather, very cold or bad weather, previously, we would not close or reopen the street without the owners saying they agreed. The problem was that the owners are not the ones necessarily working at nine o'clock at night. The managers and the staff are, and they're like, "We've been told to do X." I don't know what the answer. "We're busy." Knowing there was a flaw, we didn't want to push that in previous times but I have pushed it a little bit this time. Staff has worked out with the owners that if there are inclement points, then the Town can shut it down and reopen the streets. If, obviously, there's no one there and it's not a good night, there's no need for staff to be out there and the streets to be closed. The point being is we do have some good communications with the owners, and I think we're going to know when adjustments need to be made type of thing. If you have suggestions, we're certainly open to that. The business owners are very appreciative of what we've done, but they're very flexible, as well. Mayor Burk: Are there four people that would like to continue with this closing--? Did you have a question? Council Member Bagdasarian: I did. I just have a comment. 1 think it's best to plan for having it closed for all three days and if we have to adjust, then we can, but for budgeting purposes, let's keep it in there. Mayor Burk: Are there four votes that would like to keep the street opening? I think that's unanimous. That's everything, all your enhancements. Kaj Dentler: That's good for tonight. Mayor Burk: Then we added an enhancement. We can move on to the Collective Bargaining for Local Employees. Christopher Spera: I just moved that so that I don't trip over it. Mayor Burk: It's probably a good idea. Jason Cournoyer: The attorney [inaudible]. Christopher Spera: Welcome to the exciting new world of Collective Bargaining for Government Employees. Virginia was one of three states where that was statutorily prohibited and that changed in the spring of '20 with an amendment to the State code. There we go. The General Assembly made that change to the law in the spring of last year, but the effective date is not until May 1 of this year. We wanted to be sure we brought this to your attention and lay out what your options are. I will say at the outset that, while the ability to organize and collectively bargain was granted, the prohibition against us going on strike remains in the State code. Essentially, the State code gives the local government three options. Before I go into them, I will say that the General Assembly, interestingly enough, did not extend the ability to bargain to State employees, so they only foisted that upon local governments. Page 171 March 8, 2021 State employees are not subject to this. In any event, you have three options. I call the first option, essentially, setting the table. This is what Alexandria has done. They basically have told the world, "Here are what we believe to be the appropriate bargaining units and here's what we'll talk about. These groups of employees are folks we will recognize for collective bargaining purposes and we will discuss this identified subject matter." In advance, you're basically saying, "Here's what we'll negotiate, here's what we want." Or, "Here's with whom we'll negotiate, here's what we want." You can do that in advance or you can do nothing. If you do nothing, then the employees have the right to try and organize, determine what their collective bargaining unit will be, and then come to the Town and say, will you bargain with us collectively as a group for whatever group they choose to assemble as? That's basically a piecemeal approach. Every time an employee group comes in and says, "We'd like to bargain," then you have 120 -day, for lack of a better term, shot clock that starts running within which you have to make a decision with respect to that group only. For example, if the AFL-CIO comes in and proposes to organize the labor and trade workers, mechanics, engineers, those types of employees, and they assemble, they say, 'We want this to be our bargaining unit, here's what we want to bargain about," you have 120 -day shot clock running to say, "Yes," or, "No." Whatever you say. Then if six months later, law enforcement comes in and says, "This is our proposed union. We'd like to collectively bargain," again, it's a unit -by -unit approach, as opposed to the table setting where you're pre -identifying your units and your terms. Here, it's employee -driven and it's basically case by case. Then the third thing you can do is, I guess, a variation of table setting where you table set and say, "We're not going to collectively bargain." You have the option to do that, as well. Collective bargaining is entirely an option. It is not required, so it's your choice and it's a choice you can change. For example, if the Council elected in this year says, "We don't want to collectively bargain," and then number of seats change over time, you can do this again. You're not fixing it for all time. Basically, those are your three options. A couple other things because this is generally pretty new in Virginia and not a lot of folks know we're talking about it, but a couple other things that you should know. Here, in my research and experience, these are the six most common governmental units for collective bargaining purposes. A number of them, you can see, don't apply to the Town. We don't run our own school system, so the teachers' union would not be something that would ever come to us because we don't have that group of employees. Healthcare and social work is handled by the County, not by the Town. We wouldn't have that group of employees, and fire, not handled by the Town, so we wouldn't have that group of employees. There's also a subset of the total workforce that wouldn't be subject to collective bargaining anyway. Not me, not any of my staff, not Mr. Dentler, not any of his staff, certain people who have access to financial information management staff would not be part of the collective bargaining process anyway. We've got something less than 400 employees in the Town, and then some percentage of them are management or financial, that wouldn't be part of any potential bargaining unit. Then finally, the scope of bargaining, it basically goes one to two ways. Either it's wages and benefits or it's all terms and conditions of employment. Where that typically gets you into a discussion is if it's all terms and conditions, then it also includes discipline, termination, those types of things. The question is, as an employer, and to be clear, you're the employer, do you want to surrender the discipline process to collective bargaining or do you want to keep it yourself? If that's where you end up, you would limit it to wages and benefits versus all terms and conditions. My intent tonight was to not really get into the merits of do it, not do it, the other factors which would weigh in, but rather just to lay out the legal framework, as given to us by the General Assembly, answer whatever questions you have, and I know Kaj has some thoughts on some of those factors. Kaj Dentler: Just very briefly, Mr. Spera, I think covered it very well for you. The only thing I would reiterate to you is that we have not, as staff, taken a formal position, as you've noticed. We're still Page 181 March 8, 2021 learning about it, and we wanted to hear what your thoughts and interests are on it. We are, as a group, have met with Mr. Spera, Clark Case our Finance Director, Chief of Police Greg Brown, and our HR Director. We are leaning not in favor of proceeding with it and taking a position of don't do anything and don't proceed. We probably will lean, and that's our safest position, but we've not taken a formal position on it. I don't want to provide you at this point with any financial information to try to persuade you one way or the other. I don't think that would be professionally appropriate because we've not done the analysis. Mr. Spera has indicated that Alexandria has ramped up their resources, but I cannot honestly tell you what we would need, and so I don't want to mislead in any way in order to get you to go to a desired outcome. We thought that tonight, our best approach was for you to make sure you understood the topic, begin to figure out where you want to go. Then from there, we can follow up with any questions and answers that you need in order for you to make your final decision. Clearly, and last point, if we believe, regardless of our position, because this is —you've got to make the decision. If we believe that there are some costs, we're going to identify that for you and we would probably anticipate there will be some cost. I think the last point is part of the main reason we believe the better position is to say, "No," is because we believe the investment, instead of ramping up resources to deal with collective bargaining, that our better position is to put those financial resources into the benefits, pay, compensation and policies that make our employees want to be here, stay here, and then not have to seek collective bargaining. I can assure you, from one perspective, that if we already had collective bargaining in place now, that that group, whatever group that is, they would have been before us and you as Council requesting emergency and hazardous pay, and their pay raises, which as you know, we have done none of that to this point. My only advice, again, it's not our official recommendation, but you have a good idea of where we're going, is just to be aware of what your options are, the law and your options, and make good decisions. Whatever you decide to do, we will make sure we ramp up accordingly to prepare for that. With that, we'll stop. Mayor Burk: Ms. Nacy, you have any questions? Council Member Nacy: Sorry. I sent a few questions to Mr. Spera, which you think you did cover them from the perspective of-- One of my concerns/questions was specifically about, how would this impact the ability to remove an employee who has performance issues? I guess if we decided to do collective bargaining, we would decide whether it was about wages and benefits versus -- Christopher Spera: Correct. Basically, part of your decision would be, if you chose to collectively bargain, you could state that you would limit that only to wages and benefits, retaining the disciplinary process of -- Council Member Nacy: I could just see that going down a path where it would be really hard to let go of a bad apple if you needed to. Not that we have any. Big picture thinking. Christopher Spera: I make this comment without any attempt to politicize anything, but it's interesting that we've seen in the General Assembly, a lot of the police reform legislation being proposed, yet in the same General Assembly, we get this. If you listen, and Chief Brown can speak to this certainly more eloquently than I, but if you do some reading and some research, many of the police chiefs who are frustrated by their inability to get rid of certain officers, point to the fact that they, through a collective bargaining, basically surrendered the right to do the discipline themselves and it's part of the collective bargaining process. Again, I'm not saying one is right or one is wrong. I'm not trying to take a side on it, but it's just interesting that you have almost a tension within the same General Assembly with these competing pieces of legislation or potentially competing pieces of legislation. Page 191 March 8, 2021 Council Member Nacy: Certainly. Just some experiences with Fairfax County in this sort of thing is what gives me pause when it comes to that. I guess I don't have any specific questions more than just my basic concerns are the financial impact on authorizing collective bargaining. How would excessive compensation benefit requests be limited? How would we ensure that the Town doesn't take a huge budget hit, that sort of thing? I know you can't answer these right now. Then, would we be able to set limitations within the resolution or ordinance, or is it just, you bring it to the table and we have to sit there until we work it out? Or can we say there's a percentage of compensation and benefits you can't ask over for? Christopher Spera: I have not seen that level of specificity. Typically, you say who you'll bargain with and what you believe to be an appropriate unit, and what you'll bargain, very generally. Normally, I would not expect to see in a resolution those types of dollar caps or limits. It's part of the individual negotiation. Council Member Nacy: Which gives me a little pause, not for any other reason than just the fiscal impact that it could potentially have if a large group of people are unhappy and come, and want 75% higher raises or compensation than they're currently getting. Then just unintended consequences of this are a little bit of a concern for me. Would this cause a rift between employee versus employer, that sort of thing? Would it cause an issue where there maybe hasn't been one? Then finally, more of a general question, if, for example, a group of law enforcement come forward and want to collectively bargain, and we have this resolution to allow it, does it affect the entirety of the law enforcement staff or just the group that comes forward and asks for the--? Christopher Spera: My understanding is that once you have a bargaining unit, you have a bargaining unit. Is there ability to opt -out? I can look. I don't know. Council Member Nacy: Could somebody who doesn't want it end up being shuffled into--? Christopher Spera: Essentially, can you opt -out, is your question? Council Member Nacy: Right. Christopher Spera: My answer is, I don't know because this has not existed in our State. I'll get you an answer. Council Member Nacy: Like I said, I don't need specific answers. These are just my general concerns about-- [crosstalk] Christopher Spera: I'll get you an answer. Kaj Dentler: I would just jump in there that I think if you follow the ripple effect, that if you-- We basically have 400 full-time employees, rough numbers. Twenty five percent of that is police force. Not all of that hundred so are uniformed. Let's just say 25% is. If you have collective bargaining for police, and that's the only group, you got 300 other employees who are going to be watching. That ripple effect may lead in a positive things for improvements, but they will have an effect on the morale and how you manage that. Council Member Nacy: That's it. Kaj Dentler: Whatever path goes, we go with, we have to be aware of. That's not the legal, it's more than-- [crosstalk] Council Member Nacy: I know this is all new, unchartered territory. That's just my couple of cents. Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian? Page 201 March 8, 2021 Council Member Bagdasarian: Thank you, Mr. Spera. As an employer, I understand the importance of fair conditions and having a workforce that is happy, motivated, and feel that they are being treated fairly. I think it's important to really understand the why, why we should consider collective bargaining. Why would that be the proper approach or why would it not be the proper approach? Really have a good understanding about that. With the talent, specifically, obviously, understand that certain work conditions, it makes absolute sense upfront. We need to, obviously, understand the case for that here in the Town and really have a good understanding. That's it. Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings? Council Member Cummings: Thank you. No questions. Just a quick comment. I am lucky enough to have served on two Councils. My first Council in Ohio, I was the 23 -year -old chair of the Human Resources Committee, which was fun to be 23 years old and have-- My first duty was to represent the Council during collective bargaining negotiations with the police union. I never drove as slow during those negotiations as I did then. Honestly, I can't say it was an incredible opportunity to be a part of those negotiations. In my opinion, it did nothing but strengthen the relationship between the police officers in my hometown and the Council, and the citizenry. I, personally, am supportive of allowing any employees that want to collectively bargain, to do that. I just think it's the right thing to do, and I think it will help move us forward and will help keep folks feeling like they're getting paid what they deserve. I'm supportive of the efforts here to allow, if the employees want, a collective bargain. Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg? Council Member Steinberg: Thank you. First, to comment, obviously, there's a lot of information that we need to gather. We're not making any decisions this evening, I presume. Then some questions, Mr. Spera, for the legislation, the clock actually starts when? Christopher Spera: We have until May 1, if you want to do a setting -the -table type resolution or a we're -not -going -to -negotiate resolution. May 1. We have to make a decision by May 1. Council Member Steinberg: We have to make a decision for that instance by May 1. When could employees actually start organizing? Christopher Spera: May 1. If we did nothing, on May 1st, a group of employees could come in and say, "This is our proposed bargaining unit. Will you bargain with us?" Then our 120 -day clock would start. Council Member Steinberg: For our specific situation, we have two units that could qualify, the Leesburg Police Department and the labor trade group. Is that--? Christopher Spera: There's probably a third, a general professional staff. There are several government employees unions that could be made up of administrative and professional staff. Council Member Steinberg: That's anybody below senior staff? Christopher Spera: Probably, three groups, is what I believe. Council Member Steinberg: That's anybody below senior staff? Christopher Spera: Yes, non -management, non -access to financial data. Council Member Steinberg: Now, let's assume for the minute we decided to do nothing initially and one group or another decided they were going to form a collective bargaining unit. At that point, could we then craft an ordinance that says, "This is how we're going to deal with, not only you, but any other Page 211 March 8, 2021 group that comes forward"? Are we forced, then, to deal with each situation individually or can we create an umbrella for the whole thing? Christopher Spera: My understanding of the State statute is that we would need to do the setting -a - table type resolution before May 1st. Now, from a precedential perspective, what you negotiate with the first group that comes in would obviously have some impact on the second or third group to come in. But no, if by May 1, you have not done your table -setting ordinance, you can't come back and do it later. Council Member Steinberg: You couch that in, it's my understanding. Are we absolutely clear that that is the case? Christopher Spera: That is how I read the language of the State code section. Yes, sir. That's how the other jurisdictions in the State are proceeding. Council Member Steinberg: We could conceivably have three situations in our Town as our situations now exist, is that correct? Christopher Spera: Yes. Council Member Steinberg: We just have the three. Christopher Spera: That is my belief, based upon the research that I've done and what the typical bargaining units for government employees are. I foresee only those three. Council Member Steinberg: Other than time is, would we consider that there might be additional expense? Once we've made a decision on one group, we might decide, "This is probably where we're going to go regardless of who comes forward." Once we craft our first ordinance, the second two might be fairly straightforward, if we decide not to set the table. Christopher Spera: Perhaps. That presumes that each group has the same set of issues, which may or may not be the case. Council Member Steinberg: Do we currently deal with any kind of police union or police organization presently? No. That's other jurisdictions that are dealing with police unions. Did I have another question? Actually, no, I think that's it for now. Thanks. Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox? Council Member Fox: Thank you. I do have just two things. I know we are not going anywhere near the financials tonight, but I did read Mayor Burk's synopsis from the meeting she was at for the County where they gave us a pretty abbreviated budget. In there, the County provided about $1M to set the table for some collective bargaining, not knowing exactly where they're going. A million dollars, and so that's the first financial thing I'm looking at. I know you don't have this information yet, but what would it take? It'd be a little less for us, of course, but what would it take? I'd like to know that figure, of course, before May 1st, before we have to make a decision. The other thing I'm concerned about, of course, the discipline piece, I've always been concerned about, but the ripple effect that Council Member Nacy brought up. In a scenario that we set the table and allow for collective bargaining, say the wages, because of that, wages go up for employees to what they've bargained. If we don't do any sort of, "Hold on, we can't hire anymore," or any sort of cutbacks, which, after we have collective bargaining, we might not even be able to do that, taxes would go up. Our fiduciary responsibility is to our citizens and businesses of this Town, at this point. How do we negotiate that? Would we say to the citizens, "Because we don't have any more control over what benefits and salaries, and things like that, might be taxes are going to go up"? Would that be a ripple effect? Page 221 March 8, 2021 Kaj Dentler: Council and the manager would have to grapple with that because depending upon what type of collective bargaining we're doing, and what the specifics are involved, does Mr. Spera need more assistance. Does he hire full-time staff? Does he hire contracted lawyers? Is HR need more assistance, et cetera? Then what does that impact have on the Town and the correlation to the tax rate? Those would be all discussions that we would have. Council obviously can make a decision too if there are costs that your revenues are not rising fast enough to keep up with that. You may have to raise tax rates. You may also make a decision to cut services or delay services. It's just like everything else. If I propose something new in the budget, then you have to make a decision on do you want to fund it and if so, how do we fund it. Clearly, it will have a direct correlation into the discussion or the equation of what that tax rate it's going to be. I can't sit here and say, it's going to raise the tax rate but I also can't say it's not going to have a financial impact to the Town. Council Member Fox: You're going to come back- Kaj Dentler: Until I know what that is. What I was hoping for tonight is if there's a majority of Council that wants to move forward with one of these options, then we will do our best to try to create what we think is the potential financial impact to us but it will be a little challenging for us. I think as Mr. Spera said we're a relatively small organization of only 400 employees, and then probably another 200 part- time employees. Loudoun is huge compared to us. It's a lot of apples and oranges. I would certainly want you to be aware that I would anticipate there's going to be a financial impact to the Town at some point. I just don't know what that will be. Council Member Fox: Okay, thanks. Kaj Dentler: It's difficult from right now to know, is all I'm saying, Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez? Vice Mayor Martinez: A question, have you or our Town Attorney have any experience in collective bargaining on a government entity? Chris Spera: No. There has been no collective bargaining [crosstalk] Vice Mayor Martinez: No, I know but that doesn't mean you haven't been somewhere that there has been. I just wanted to make sure we understood that. Kaj Dentler: Nothing has occurred yet. Vice Mayor Martinez: I will not go with item three. I could live with item two, that allows the employees to initiate their own. My concern about not doing anything is that come May, there may be outside organizations in different areas of the State, they may come in to try to organize. Once they do that, then it can get really ugly. I want to make sure that we are in a position where we can do it our way. Another question I have is, has any employee, whether it's with the police department, or just regular employees have ever talked about, discussed, been asked, what they thought of collective bargaining? Kaj Dentler: Have they talked about collective bargaining? Vice Mayor Martinez: Yes or have you asked them what their opinion of collective bargaining is? Kaj Dentler: We've not. I've not asked. Are we aware that some employees have discussed that? Yes, sure. Vice Mayor Martinez: Do you think it'd be appropriate to ask our employees and our Police Department what their opinion is? Because I've worked for companies that didn't need a collective bargaining because the companies represented themselves well with their employees. I believe the Town of Leesburg is like that. Before we shut anything off, I'd like to get an idea of what our employees think so Page 231 March 8, 2021 we can move in a direction that protects the Town and employees at the same time, especially from outside influence. Kaj Dentler: If you want us to conduct an employee survey, to get some feedback, we certainly can do that. Vice Mayor Martinez: It would have to be anonymous. Kaj Dentler: If that's helpful for you, we can do that. Vice Mayor Martinez: It'd have to be anonymous because I'm sure some employees do not want it to be known that they are advocating it because of retaliation. Not that our Town would do that but there's always that fear. I would definitely support a survey, find out what our employees would like. Again this is going to happen and I don't want-- I want us to control the environment. Not have some outside source come in and control it for us. That's all I have. Mayor Burk: Well, I have to make sure to put on the record that I was the president of a Teacher's Association for four years, and I am an advocate, absolutely in favor of people having the right to organize. I believe workers know what they need and how they can make their work environment better. As a teacher union-- not union, excuse me, association president, we could not strike. Teachers were not allowed to strike so our negotiations were literally discussions with the superintendent and his staff before any of the budget came out. A lot of times they-- what we were asking for was not attainable with the budget that they had put forward, but we came up with other ideas that made things better. We came up with ideas such as teachers were allowed to select the coursework, that they could-- they could pick their coursework that you have to take every five years, up until then you were told what coursework you had to take whether you want to take it or not. When couldn't get the raises that year, so we negotiated to be able to allow the teachers to have the option to take what they wanted, rather than what they were told they had to take. That made a big difference for many of us, who didn't like taking courses that had no impact on us as teachers in our particular field, so we were able to go into the field that we wanted, in the field that we were working. I can give you a number of other examples of things like that. It's not a matter of losing control, no one lost any control, if you don't have the ability to strike, it's literally a conversation, and it's a serious conversation, but it's a conversation. It's the idea of trying to make things better for the employees who are doing the work, and while we all think that we know what's going on, if you're not there if you're not in in the office, that particular office, perhaps there are things going on that you don't know about. Having the employees have a voice, there's nothing wrong with that, and I believe very strongly that unions have made this country a better place. We have gotten rid of child labor, we have increased wages, we have increased benefits. All of that came from people that worked in the unions. I have no problem setting the table and saying that we would be okay with this group or that group, but I think it would be interesting to hear what the employees say to you in the survey. You may find that there isn't a majority that want to do it or even a large amount they want to do it, but it's an option that I believe in, and I believe that employees should have the right to organize. I most certainly am very interested in this and would pursue it. Tonight, we are not going to do anything on that. You've had some questions that were asked of you, and you will bring it back at another session so that we can-- You can bring the information to us and we can make a decision with some information. Kaj Dentler: Yes. Would you like-- I assume you would want another work session? Mayor Burk: I would, yes. Vice Mayor Martine: We've asked them to do the survey. Mayor Burk: Yes, we've asked them to do the survey. Kaj Dentler: You have two work sessions in between in April the what? The 13th or the 12th and the 26th? Do you have a preference of which one? Page 241 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: I don't know that we have a preference, whatever-- However long it takes you to get the information that we need. Kaj Dentler: Okay. I can schedule that for the 26th of April, that gives me time to get some information, some more data, and then we'll put it on your agenda for the 27th the following night for a vote. Does that work? Mayor Burk: That would be fine. Kaj Dentler: Okay. All right. Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg? Council Member Steinberg: What I was going to ask is do we want to give staff at least a sense of where Council is leaning that we have a consensus for setting the table as the option that would be our preference overall, as we have these discussions or do we want to wait until? Mayor Burk: I think the Town Manager has asked us to wait until he gets the information back to us. Am I incorrect? Kaj Dentler: Well, I certainly get the impression there's a majority of Council that wants to do either one or two, so I will-- We will do what homework we can to give some analysis of financial impacts as best we can predict. Again, this is going to be a very difficult task and so because it's hard to totally predict, we'll do our best to be very upfront, honest assessment, but that assessment, it could be high, it could be low, based on what we learn as we go forward down the road. Ultimately, based on whatever Council's decision is. Okay. Mayor Burk: All right. Council Member Steinberg: All right. I got the marching orders. Council Member Bagdasarian: Madam Mayor? Mayor Burk: Yes, Mr. Bagdasarian. Council Member Bagdasarian: I just wanted to ask Council Member Steinberg, would it be more appropriate to leave it open-ended from where we are as a Council to get the employees input without leading them in a certain direction. Mayor Burk: That's right. That's what we decided to do. He will get that information and bring it back. In the meantime, he'll do that survey without us taking a particular position. That takes us to Authorizing Letter to the Washington Metropolitan-- Kaj Dentler: Code of Ethics. Chris Spera: You skipped d. I won't take it personally. Kaj Dentler: Not yet. Mayor Burk: Oh, I did skip. I already crossed it out. I was wondering what that was about. Christopher Spera: You just didn't want to hear from me again, but you got to. We previously briefed you on prior work session on the Ethics Policy as it is currently constituted. I've made some recommendations to you and after that work session sent you the draft. Basically, what I sent you was a revised Ethics Policy written in a plain language style. I also sent you a Conduct and Decorum Policy and a proposed disciplinary process. I assume you had plenty of time to read it. My thought tonight was to basically just remind you what I sent you. Page 251 March 8, 2021 I tried to add some things that I thought were missing from the prior policy. I feel pretty strongly that the 18 sections that I've given you pretty much cover the waterfront, but if there's any of them that you like, or you don't like, we can change them, take them out. If there's something that you thought I missed, we can certainly add. The process that I undertook was to basically benchmark with other jurisdictions to see what other folks had done relying on some things that I had done when I was with other local government in the role as Chief Ethics Officer there, and try and give you what is essentially the state of the art where most local governments seem to find themselves with respect to proposed ethics policies. The Conduct and Decorum Policy, you did not have one before, but it's basically three areas being covered. The first conduct towards each other in meetings. The second conduct towards the public in meetings. The third conduct with staff. Much the same process benchmarked with other jurisdictions. I tried to give you what I viewed as state-of-the-art best practices as adopted in other jurisdictions that seem to be well run. Then the last piece that you didn't have before, which I'm recommending for inclusion is a disciplinary process so that if either the prior two policies are violated, you've got a process for enforcing them. I've basically given you what in my opinion and experience is a set of best practices with respect to ethics, with respect to conduct and decorum, and then given you a proposed way to enforce those, but it is my recommendation, it is your policy. If you like what I gave you, we can set it to be adopted. It will require a resolution by you adopting it. If you want to look at it longer and recommend or ask for specific changes, I'm happy to talk about anything that you'd like to change, amend, edit, supplement, take out at your pleasure. What I have tried to do is what I thought I was asked when I was hired, is to take advantage of my experience in this area and give you my recommendation for an up-to-date state of the art set of policies and procedures for ethics and conduct and decorum. That's what I've given you and I'm happy to answer any questions. Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you. I will start with Council Member Bagdasarian this time. Keep you guessing who's going to go first. Council Member Bagdasarian: Caught me off guard here. I just have one question. It's specific and I don't know if this is the proper forum, but regarding the independence of boards and commissions, how would you define unduly influence, the deliberations or outcomes of board and commission proceedings? Christopher Spera: You have an appointee obviously. You certainly have the ability to speak to your appointee or any other commission member and ask questions. If you try to influence them by saying, "I won't appoint you next time if you vote this way," or "You better not vote this way, or I'm going to initiate a process to remove you." That would be unduly influence. I think that when you threaten their position on the commission, whether expressively or implied, that is unduly influencing them. You appoint someone to get the benefit of their knowledge, as opposed to being simply a conduit for you. If your conduct steers towards conduit, then I think that's probably unduly influencing. If your conduct simply is asking questions and making sure you're fully apprised of what's going on, that's not unduly influencing at all. Council Member Bagdasarian: All right, thanks for the clarification. Mayor Burk: All right. Mr. Cummings? Council Member Cummings: Thank you. I just had a couple questions in the disciplinary process. The first was that it says that if there's an issue, the Town Manger will add the discussion of the issue to the Council work session. There's going to be a discussion and then it also says there'll be a vote. We don't vote-- We're not technically voting at a work session. Am I reading it incorrectly, that then it goes to the net maybe work session discussion, the vote would go to the next evening's Council meeting? Christopher Spera: Yes. If I left that out, then I apologize. I'm trying to read what you're specifically the section you're asking about, but you're right. Typically at work sessions, you discuss things. You don't vote on things, yes. The formal action of the Council would be taken at a legislative session. Page 261 March 8, 2021 Council Member Cummings: Okay. Thank you. My only, I'm sorry- Kaj Dentler: Is your question a production question? Council Member Cummings: No, I just think that, I have just a quick comment. I mean, that is my only concern about having that discussion at a work session. If we're talking about one of us as an elected official, I believe that if there's going to be a disciplinary action, and there needs to be a discussion on that, that needs to take place at a regular meeting, rather than a work session. Because I think we're all elected by the people and if there's going to be a discussion about removing us from meetings or disciplining one of us, that needs to be done in a meeting where there's an opportunity for the public to also speak and give their opinions during the petitioners section. Christopher Spera: Yes, I probably left a step out there, Mr. Cummings. Because you would talk about it at a work session item whether or not you wanted to put it on for vote at the next legislative session. I left a step out there and that is my error. You are correct in pointing it out. Council Member Cummings: Okay. That's it. Thank you. Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg? 1:50:27 Council Member Steinberg: Yes, thank you, Mr. Spera. I think it's just fine. I think you've done a really good job in putting this whole thing together. I don't think we need to overthink it overly much. The only thing I'd ask is that you, let's see, you need to add an 's' to the word warning in the final sentence on item B on page 15, under the disciplinary. That would be it. Thanks for your work. Christopher Spera: If I could type I'd be alright. Thank you for catching that typographical error. Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox? Council Member Fox: Yes, got more than a few questions. You were the Code of Ethics Officer for Alexandria so you helped write the last Ethics and Conduct Policy, correct? Christopher Spera: That is correct. Council Member Fox: Okay. That's a one -pager here and I don't see any disciplinary things. Why are you offering this to us and not to your old municipality? Ours is seven pages. This is one. Christopher Spera: What they did in the city was they added some ethics provisions to the zoning ordinance. There were disclosure requirements there that were not in their ethics policy. Again, it was the will of the Council. The City Council didn't want to have this in the time since I left there. Doing the research that you asked me to do, in bringing you what I believe to be a state of the art, this is what I believe the state of the art is. That's not what the City Council of the City of Alexandria elected to do and that was their choice. Council Member Fox: In the conflict of interest section, I believe that section 10, I'm taking a look and I see material financial interests, which is basically what, that there has to do with pecuniary interest, financial interest, somehow enriching oneself or increasing a position based on a vote I make, but then you add personal bias and organizational responsibility. An organizational responsibility or personal relationship would give the appearance of a conflict. That's objective and so I would ask that we would take a closer look at that. I can't imagine any one of us on the Town Council not having a lot of personal relationships within the Town, because we have that responsibility to a lot of Town people. That weighs on the borderline for me, but when it comes to strong personal bias, that is really general, what do you mean by strong personal bias? Christopher Spera: I was imagining a scenario where a Council member had essentially articulated a public position on a particular issue or things. For example, what's a good example? I'm an advocate for stream restoration in Virginia. I donate tens of thousands of dollars to stream restoration in Virginia, you become an advocate for a particular issue. You do that beyond your capacity as a Council member, Page 271 March 8, 2021 but you do it in your capacity as an individual person, to the extent that somebody could characterize that as a strong personal bias. Council Member Fox: That would extend to political and ideological biases too? Christopher Spera: Well, I don't know, I don't think that just by saying politically, I support X. I don't know that constitutes a strong personal bias. The situation we're trying to avoid with 10C is a situation where someone comes in and says, "You're biased against everyone from this section of Town, or you're biased against people of this particular persuasion." I hate to echo what the Supreme Court said many years ago, but it was, "You know it, when you see it". That was a very different context. We're not talking about bias, but rather something else, pornography specifically. I don't know, the strong personal bias, you know it when you see it, but if you think it's too vague, I'm happy to take it out. Again, this is your policy, not mine. Council Member Fox: The reason I ask is I've advocated strongly for property rights. I'm a pro -property rights proponent. Would that preclude me or any other Council member from voting on an application where I think property rights are important? Or somebody who has advocated for open space or not tearing down trees, should that Council member abstain from development applications? Where does it stop? Christopher Spera: There's a difference between policy and bias, I guess. If you think that going down, the bias path is a too slippery a slope, we can certainly take it out. Mayor Burk: I most certainly would support taking it out. Council Member Nacy: It was also on my list as well. Council Member Fox: If that the case, and I agree with that. The other thing I'm a little worried about, I would like to look at number two as well, because I think it is subjective with the word appearance. The other thing I've noticed is with conducting a meeting outside. Is this Code of Ethics for us here on the dais or does it extend further out? I don't understand what's covered in this document. If somebody was arrested or was in a fistfight or, in here is there's a lot of words about not disparaging another Council member. What if that was done via social media or something like that? Where is that line because I don't see any wording for outside of the dais consideration? Christopher Spera: If you look at item number two if you violate the law, and that's not limited to sitting on the dais, that would be a violation. Council Member Fox: What about impugning, either directly or through social media or through another medium, newspaper, anything? How would that work? Christopher Spera: Item number three talks about refraining from abusive conduct, personal charges, attacks upon the character and those of other members of Council, boards, commissions, staff, or the public. Council Member Fox: That would extend then to social media and things like that? Christopher Spera: That's correct. Council Member Fox: All right. Those are basically all the questions. I was worried about the personal bias item number 3 under 10, and then a little bit worried about item number two, because I feel like it's a little too subjective. Thanks. Christopher Spera: Madam Mayor, do you want to ask is there a consensus on-- There seems to be a lot of weighing in on 10(c). Do you want to just knock that one out now if there's--? Mayor Burk: 10(c)? Yes. Page 281 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: Thank you. That helps. Mayor Burk: Eileen, do you need to know that straw vote? Eileen Boeing: [unintelligible]. Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez would you put your hands up again, Eileen didn't get the vote? I'm sorry. You got everybody? Alright. Who have I not asked? Mr. Martinez? Vice Mayor Martinez: Mr. Spera, are there anything within this date law, Town Council law that would allow removal of a person from Town Council? Mayor Burk: Allow what? Vice Mayor Martinez: Removal of somebody from Town Council? For example, if I committed a felony, would that be automatic rejection or removal of the Town Council, or would there still have to be a vote? Christopher Spera: I believe there'd still have to be a vote. Vice Mayor Martinez: I didn't see anything that says that if a Town Council member had done anything to violate any law, that he could be considered, or they could be considered for removal. It's not that I ever anticipate anybody to do that, but it's something that's not there. I don't know if it'd be appropriate to even include that. Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez, what if someone got a speeding ticket, would you say then that they would need removal? Vice Mayor Martinez: I'm talking about a felony. A speeding ticket is not a felony. Mayor Burk: [unintelligible]. Christopher Spera: You're still subject to the State law requirements. Vice Mayor Martinez: I'm talking about somebody that commits perjury on a courtroom or it steals money from an organization and other things. Christopher Spera: Your concern, Mr. Vice Mayor is that the remedy of removal is not expressed as part of your discipline process? Vice Mayor Martinez: Right. Christopher Spera: That would be for violation of the ethics policy. You'd still have the authority to vote to remove someone faced with violation of State laws. Vice Mayor Martinez: If somebody is charged with a major crime, but their court date is not for six months. I don't know if I'd want that person on the Council. Mayor Burk: Yes, but he's innocent until proven guilty. Vice Mayor Martinez: I know. We can remove them until the court date? Christopher Spera: You can suspend them. Vice Mayor Martinez: The point is, there has to be some remedy-- [crosstalk] Christopher Spera: You have the remedy of suspension that's built into your disciplinary process. For a violation of the ethics policy, you could vote to suspend. Page 291 March 8, 2021 Vice Mayor Martinez: Then when you talked about correspondence and using Town stationary. If I'm a member of the NTVA and I want to correspond with them, then I can go ahead, as my role as Town Council, use Town stationary to correspond with them? Christopher Spera: That's correct. What that section is intended to avoid is handling personal matters, like a loan application or something like that, where you're applying for something in your personal capacity and you're doing it on letterhead to somehow influence the decision. Vice Mayor Martinez: Say, a senior from the Tuscarora High School calls me up and wants me to write them a referral letter as a Vice Mayor of the Town of Leesburg. That's still allowable. Christopher Spera: I think you'd make it clear, it's your individual position, not the position of the Town, but yes. You can write a letter of recommendation on your professional stationery. I do it all the time but make it clear that this is my own opinion and not the opinion of the Town. Vice Mayor Martinez: I think that's a clarification if we're using it in that manner that we have to understand. The last thing I want to talk about is the Town of Leesburg had a thing going on with Exeter, a subdivision on a dam and water, Chesapeake Bay issues. Even though I was told there was no conflict of interest, I decided to recuse myself from any discussion on that because there's a legal thing going on and all that. Where would that fall on this ethics policy? If I decided to voluntarily recuse myself from a potentially perception of a conflict of interest, even though there may not be one? Christopher Spera: There is nothing in here that removes that personal choice. Vice Mayor Martinez: That does what? Christopher Spera: There is nothing in this proposed code that removes that personal choice. If you make a personal choice, "I choose to recuse myself on this issue." That is your personal choice. Nothing in here removes that personal choice. Vice Mayor Martinez: Well, I appreciate that. I really have no other issues with the ethics policy. I'm glad we removed "c" because that is not objective, it's pretty subjective. I appreciate removing that. I have no other questions. Thank you. Mayor Burk: All right. Everyone has had a chance to speak, are there-- What? Council Member Fox: Madam Mayor, I'd like just another minute, please. Mayor Burk: Yes. Council Member Fox: I did bring it up. I don't think we talked about it, but I would like to change, take "the appearance" out of item B and under number 10. Number 10 letter B "an organizational responsibility or personal relationship which gives a conflict of interest". I think appearance is subjective. I think having been through it before and having things not substantiated, I think there needs to be some substantiation in that. I'd ask Council to consider that. Mayor Burk: Are there four people that would like to take 10(b) out? Council Member Bagdasarian, Council Member Cummings, Council Member Fox, Council Member Nacy. Christopher Spera: [unintelligible]. Mayor Burk: [unintelligible]. The one question I have goes back to Ms. Fox's question, and I'm not sure where it is now, about social media. At what point does free speech interfere with social media? Christopher Spera: If as an elected official you use your social media platform to - Page 301 March 8, 2021 Mayor Burk: By my social media, are you talking about my personal social media or are you talking about my being a Town social media? Christopher Spera: Your personal social. While you are an elected official, while you're not an elected official, you do whatever you want. If you're an elected official, what I'm proposing is that you agree, while you're an elected official, you would not use whether you are standing outside your front porch speaking in your personal capacity, or on your computer using one of your social media platforms, you would refrain from abusive conduct, personal charges, verbal attacks upon the character, or motives of other members of Council, boards, commissions, the staff or the public. Mayor Burk: So -- Christopher Spera: If you wanted to say, on your social media platform, "I believe something that happened in Congress was wrong" or you wanted to use stronger language in there. That's not directed towards people on this list. It's not directed towards staff. It's not directed towards your colleagues, saying that somebody was —"I disagree with some of my colleagues on the Council" that's not being disrespectful. That's simply stating your opinion. If you say "My colleagues who voted differently than me were", choose your profanity, then that's being abusive. Mayor Burk: Ok, so I can't call anybody a jerk. Christopher Spera: If it was one of the George Carlin seven magic words, probably you should avoid it. Mayor Burk: All right. Okay. Does anybody else have any questions at this point? Any other? Do we have four people that want to take this forward? Ms. Fox, Mr. Steinberg, Mr. Cummings, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy. Christopher Spera: This would be with the changes that you've referenced to fix the order of business error that Mr. Cummings pointed out to me, the typographical error that Mr. Steinberg pointed out to me, removal of 10 C and B. Mayor Burk: The word appearance in B. Christopher Spera: Okay. Mayor Burk: All right. Kaj Dentler: That's on your agenda for tomorrow night. Christopher Spera: I will make the changes. We have a resolution that we will put on your agenda for tomorrow evening. Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you. I think Mr. Markel, you are up. Vice Mayor Martinez: So, Mr. Spera. Do we now refer to you as our TAO, Town Attorney Office? Christopher Spera: Exactly. Kaj Dentler: Do you have a report? Keith Markel: No. I do not. We have the item for the zero -emission buses for the Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This is really just an item for you all if you want to pass the resolution directing the Mayor to send forth that letter in support of accelerating the implementation of the zero -emission buses. Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg, I believe you brought this forward? Page 311 March 8, 2021 Council Member Steinberg: Yes, I did. It was brought to me as a concern by one of our residents, and it happens to be a position I strongly support. Other jurisdictions seem to be much further ahead in converting parts of their public transportation fleets to if not zero emissions, certainly fewer emissions in the form of propane, but the electric buses seem to be the way we're going. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority seems to be less concerned or interested. I just think a letter of support for that idea would be fine. I'm certainly willing to help the Mayor craft a letter if she wants, but that would be my position. Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez, your lights on? Does anybody have any questions on this? Are there four votes to craft a letter authorizing a letter to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority on increasing their use of electric buses? Mr. Martinez, Mr. Cummings, Mr. Steinberg, myself, Mr. Bagdasarian. All right, that moves forward. All right. Future Council meetings. Ms. Fox, do you have anything? Council Member Fox: I know a while back that we had some KKK flyers go out and I know that our police were investigating that. I haven't heard anything and I was wondering if we can get an update on that. Kaj Dentler: I'm sorry. I wasn't paying any attention. Not only can I not hear, I wasn't paying any attention. You got me. Council Member Fox: Our last round of KKK flyers. The police were going to do an investigation. I just wanted to get a status update on that investigation. Mayor Burk: From the Chief. Kaj Dentler: Is that by email is acceptable? Council Member Fox: It's up to everybody. It's not just up to me but, yes, that's fine. Kaj Dentler: Is that okay? Mayor Burk: Yes. Okay, Mr. Steinberg? Council Member Steinberg: Yes, I assume, or at least I hope everyone is or was aware of our magic yellow box that mysteriously appeared at the corner of Market and Catoctin Circle last week. It was a collection box for used clothing in schools and it just popped up on the corner there. I noticed that I thought the first time I actually drove by it, the Town Manager assures me that it was maybe there before but I think he's just trying to cause me to doubt myself. Anyway, after getting Mike Watkins involved and a few other members of staff, we discovered that even though it was in the H-2 Overlay Corridor, our current ordinance does not provide us any authority in effect to do anything about it. Now, as it turned out, the box was placed there without the property owner or business owners' permission. That part took care of itself, but I would like a future meeting so we can discuss strengthening ordinance as it defines the H-2 Corridor and gives us options, should we feel someone's in violation of the Overlay District. Thanks. Mayor Burk: Are there four people that want a work session discussion on strengthening the H-2 ordinances dealing with violations? You got that? Mr. Cummings? Council Member Cummings: Yes. I wanted to see if we could get a discussion for work session on stormwater management along the Tuscarora Creek and Tom Branch. We've obviously had a lot of issues coming up with that, with all the development and other activity. It'd be good to hear from staff and have a conversation about what's going on with the creeks and how we can continue to keep an eye on preventing any more erosion and water issue. Mayor Burk: Are there four people willing to have that discussion? I think everybody's on that one. Is that it, Mr. Cummings? Page 321 March 8, 2021 Council Member Cummings: I had just one more. I wanted to see if there's any appetite for discussion to consider strategic land acquisition, maybe coming up with a plan over the next couple of months. Just having a conversation with staff on opportunities that are available and get Council thoughts. Mayor Burk: Opportunities to purchase land, is that what you're saying? Is there four people that would like to have that discussion? That goes forward too. Mr. Martinez? Mr. Bagdasarian? Council Member Bagdasarian: Lots to discuss, so I'm going to add to that list. I'd like to request a work session to discuss the potential redevelopment of the Liberty Street parking lot, including a briefing on the previous. I know there was a soil environmentalist report a few years ago. We can revisit that and look at options that the Town can consider for a public -private partnership in the near future. Let's get that process going and see what the potential is for that property. I know there's been some unsolicited proposals over the years. I think we should formalize that and look at this from a futuristic, looking at the next steps perspective. Mayor Burk: Are there four people that want to have that discussion? Mr. Bagdasarian, myself, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Cummings, Mr. Steinberg. Anything else? Council Member Bagdasarian: No, that's it. Thank you. Mayor Burk: Ms. Nacy? And I have nothing at this point. Is there a motion to adjourn? Vice Mayor Martinez: Moved. Mayor Burk: Second? Council Member Cummings: Second. Mayor Burk: Moved by, I heard Vice Mayor Martinez first, seconded by Council Member Cummings. All in favor? Council Members: Aye. Madam Mayor: Unanimous. All right, we'll see you tomorrow. Page 331 March 8, 2021