HomeMy Public PortalAbout2023_tcwsmin0627Council Work Session June 26, 2023
Council Chamber, 25 West Market Street, Leesburg, Virginia, 7:00 p.m. Mayor Kelly Burk
presiding.
Council Members Present: Zach Cummings, Kari Nacy, Vice Mayor Neil Steinberg, Patrick
Wilt, and Mayor Kelly Burk.
Council Members Absent: Ara Bagdasarian and Todd Cimino -Johnson.
Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Denier, Town Attomey Christopher Spera, Deputy Town
Manager Keith Markel, Parks and Recreation Director Rich Williams, Lieutenant Chris Vogel,
Sergeant Ed Martin, and Clerk of Council Eileen Boeing.
Minutes prepared by Deputy Clerk of Council Corina Alvarez.
AGENDA ITEMS
a. Item for Discussion
a. Outdoor Performance Venue
Mr. Williams gave a presentation on the Parks and Recreation Commission's
evaluation of potential performance venue locations outside of Ida Lee Park and its
recommendation to conduct a formal needs assessment prior to any further action.
Council and staff discussed the item.
No further action directed by Council at this time.
b. Revising the Proclamation Process
Ms. Boeing gave a presentation on staffs proposal for revising the proclamation
process.
Council and staff discussed the item.
It was the consensus of Council to move this item to the Consent Agenda for the June 27
Council meeting.
b. Additions to Future Council Meetings
Mayor Burk requested a work session discussion to allow alcohol at the JAMS events.
It was the consensus of Council to add this item to a future work session for discussion.
c. Adjournment
On a motion by Vice Mayor Steinberg, seconded by Council Member Nacy, the meeting was
adjourned at 7:13 p.m.
n2e-sit?
Clerk ncil
2023 tcwsmin0626
(Page
June 26, 2023 — Leesburg 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.leesburgva.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: Welcome to tonight's Town Council meeting. It's Town Council Work session
meeting of June 26th, 2023. Our first item for discussion tonight is the Outdoor Performance Venue.
Rich Williams: Okay, good evening, Mayor, Members of Council. My name's Rich Williams. I'm the
Director of Parks and Recreation, and then representing the Parks and Recreation Advisory
Commission tonight we have Vice Chair Laurie Burke with us, should you have any questions for
Laurie. I'll be presenting tonight on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission
regarding the potential locations for an outdoor performance venue here in Town, at a location outside
of Ida Lee Park. Oh, there it is, sorry.
Okay, this past January, at your Council Planning Retreat, an action item was identified specifically for
the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission to evaluate locations for a potential performance
venue to be located somewhere other than Ida Lee Park itself. Over the period of three meetings, the
Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission evaluated the existing park inventory as well as potential
sites that were not owned by Town for a potential location for this venue. For that, they used the
following basis of evaluation. The assumption was it would be a 14K -square -foot facility, which does
not include the parking, and it could accommodate up to 500 spectators.
They also evaluated does the site have appropriate road access as well as the ability to receive
electric and water to the site. As well as, due to current and/or future planned use, is the location of
that site appropriate. As well as, will there be any negative impact to adjacent neighbors of the
property. Through their evaluation, they did not identify any site within an existing Town park.
However, they did identify four locations on properties that are not currently owned by the Town.
The first of those locations is what we refer to as the triangle. It's the 40 -acre O'Connor parcel that's
immediately adjacent to Ida Lee and borders North King Street. Another location is also an O'Connor -
owned property. It's the 184 -acre tract, which is adjacent to Veterans Park, and it borders the
Potomac Crossing neighborhood as well as the Route 15 North Bypass. There is also another
location that was identified. It is part of the Meadowbrook development. It's a 43 -acre parcel, which is
bordered by Evergreen Mill Road as well as South King Street on Route 15 South. Then the final
location they identified is 211 Morven Park Road, which is up for sale currently. It's a 4.5 -acre site.
It should be noted that staff does not endorse this recommendation, mainly to the availability of road
access to the site as well as the proximity of the homes adjacent to the property for this type of usage.
In my personal opinion, it doesn't work for that location. However, the Commission did want to include
this for your consideration.
Mayor Burk: It has a lot of debris and old vehicles and beat up old house up there also.
Rich Williams: Yes, ma'am. At their April 19th meeting, the Parks and Recreation Advisory
Commission did come up with a recommendation that they did want to forward to Council for your
consideration. Specifically, it said, "Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission does not recommend
any location within an existing Town park for a performance venue. However, four locations outside of
the Town -owned property have been identified as potential locations. In addition, it's recommended
that a formal needs assessment be conducted prior to any further action to determine the scope of
such a facility and its actual need within the community!'
Page 1 lJune 26, 2023
L
L
L
The Commission felt it was important to include the needs assessment component before any forward
movement on such a venture. With that, that concludes my presentation. Myself or Laurie, we're open
to any of your questions.
Mayor Burk: Anyone have questions at this paint? Council Member Wilt?
Council Member Patrick Wilt: Yes, guess maybe this falls under the needs assessment. The intent
for what types of performances would be held at this venue.
Rich Williams: Correct. That would be part of the needs assessment. They would look at locations
within Town. They would look at the demand within Town for such an amenity, and they'd look for the-
- [crosstalk]
Council Member Wilt: Got it. The public -private partnership is also looking in a performing arts
center on the Liberty Street, so we want to make sure those are synergistic, I imagine.
Rich Williams: Absolutely.
Council Member Wilt: Not conflicting. Isn't there a private performing arts proposal farther south on
South King Street?
Rich Williams: Which one would that be, Kaj. I'm not familiar with it.
Kaj Dentler: Are you referring to Liberty Lot?
Council Member Wilt: No, no, no, private.
Kaj Dentler: Oh, yes, it's been a proposal out there for many years. Don't know the exact status.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. So, I guess during the needs assessment to make sure, at this point,
between the Liberty Street that were not really overbuilding-
Kaj Dentler: Correct.
Council Member Wilt: -for performance venues. All right, thanks, Rich.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much. Appreciate the information.
Rich Williams: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Our next item for discussion is Revising the Proclamation Process. Ms. Boeing, that's
yours.
Eileen Boeing: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. I'm not usually on this side of the
dais, so I am going to be very brief. We did have a meeting with the Mayor, myself, and Tara Belote to
go over the existing proclamation process to look for improvements. It's the general consensus that
the current process is bulky, lengthy, and inefficient. So, I won't go through an iteration of what the
current policy is, I think were all very well familiar with that.
What's most important tonight is what were proposing for the new process. The new process is going
to be a web -based request form. It would be required of everyone who would like to have Council
present a proclamation. It would include pertinent information that will assist staff with completing that
task of putting the proclamation together, most specifically because the requester is going to be
providing the five bullet points that will be used by Town staff to put the proclamation together. Again,
it is a web -based form. It'll be on our Town website. It should be, hopefully, very user-friendly, and
Page 2IJune 26, 2023
intuitive, and very interactive to make it simple for the user. We will also include a sample
proclamation for those that are submitting the request so that they know what they're doing.
Again, here are some points. They were included in the staff report. Its just requesting that everybody
does it 30 days in advance. We can accommodate in a shorter timeframe if needed. We did want to
include something about milestones, making sure that when we do present a proclamation, that it
does have some meaning. We were looking at birthdays starting at 60 years and five-year increments
and proclamations for business milestones starting at 10 years and five-year increments. Hopefully,
that will retain the specialness of it when we do present those proclamations.
The key also here is how the proclamations will be processed. We need to throw out the old and just
think about the new. At four o'clock on the day of a work session, staff will download any requests that
have been received to date, and we will present a list to the Mayor to read at the work session and
she will ask for a consensus of all Council Members present to make sure that that is the will of the
Council to move forward with the proclamation for that recipient.
If for some reason Council is not in support of a proclamation, the Mayor will just simply move on to
the next item on the list and staff will contact the requester to let them know that Council is not
proceeding. We're no longer doing motions in advance. We're going to do the motion and the
presentation at the same meeting. We still have to go through the formal process of approving it, but
it'll all occur in one meeting. The whole process should take about two weeks versus the current four
to six weeks, which is the goal.
Removed from the process is we don't need Council sponsorship anymore because you're all going to
be giving us consensus when the Mayor reads the list. We don't need to do anything under Additions
to Future Meetings. We are going to eliminate the annual proclamation list. We found that there was a
bunch of proclamations on there that nobody was asking for. We were almost approaching 50
proclamations that were on that list, and probably a good third or more were ones that no one was
asking for. That'll help cut down on time at meetings as well as staff time.
L
L
Then removal of a Council Member's name if they don't want to support a proclamation. We've
decided in the new process, with Council's concurrence, is just to have everyone's name appear. If
you don't want to sign it, don't sign it, but it helps alleviate some of the administrative runaround of
trying to figure out who wants to sign and who doesn't want to sign. If you don't want to sign, you
simply just don't sign it.
Staff will no longer sign for a Council Member, although we're quite good at it. It's easier, if a member,
if you're not present, not to sign. If there's accommodations that can be made, if you're going to miss
a meeting and we know that in advance, we'll certainly make every effort to get your signature before
we present it to the requester.
Retained in the new process, were going to be rescinding some of the previous legislation, so we
want to make sure we don't throw the baby out with the bath water, that we do retain a few of the
items that were in the current process. One of them is Council Members may only sign for
themselves. If you're not going to be present, you can't sign for each other. Only signatures allowed
on the signature lines and the motions to approve the presentation of the proclamations will still
appear where they're currently appearing on the Council agenda. That was added in the last process,
so we certainly don't want to lose that to make sure it's happening at the beginning of the agenda.
Again, I spoke briefly. We do have to rescind some legislation. Those are the two resolutions that we
have to rescind. The first one is the current process. The second one is the annual proclamation list
that we adopted in January for calendar years' 23 and 24. Then we need to adopt the new resolution
that rescinds those two resolutions and then outlines the new process retaining those key items that
we just talked about. I talked as fast as I possibly could.
Mayor Burk: You did. Good job. Didn't take a breath.
Page 3IJune 26, 2023
L
Eileen Boeing: Here's the motion for tomorrow night if you wish to consider adopting the new
process and rescinding the previous legislation. Here for any questions?
Mayor Burk: Anyone have any questions on this? Mr. Steinberg?
Vice Mayor Neil Steinberg: How soon after we get all this done will we be able to have the web page
up?
Eileen Boeing: We included the proposed request form in the packet, so the request form is ready to
go. Unless there's any changes by Council, once we adopt it tomorrow night, we can implement it on
Wednesday and put it up on the website.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: When will we have the opportunity to actually sign them? It will be the
evening of the meeting when the proclamation's being given or --
Eileen Boeing: I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand the question.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: When will we have the opportunity to actually sign the proclamations?
Eileen Boeing: Same as were doing now. We would still bring them to the work sessions for you to
sign the night before. If there was anything that was glaring that we needed to address, we could
certainly discuss it under Additions to Future Meetings.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Thanks.
Eileen Boeing: Sure.
Mayor Burk: Any other questions? Would there be four people that would be willing to put this on a
consent agenda for tomorrow? Everybody.
Eileen Boeing: Very good. Thank you, all.
Mayor Burk: That takes us to Future Council Meetings and Agenda Topics. Mr. Wit, do you have
anything?
Council Member Wilt: None here.
Mayor Burk: Ms, Nacy?
Mayor Burk: Mr, Steinberg?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I have nothing.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Council Member Zach Cummings: No.
Mayor Burk: The only thing I would like to add to our future work session is to discuss the possibility
of allowing wine and beer at the JAM function, music. A resident has asked if we would consider that.
Are there four people that would be interested in doing that? Okay.
Kaj Dentler: Madam Mayor, as we had discussed, would that be a BYOB or is that going to be the
Town or a third party serving, or is that for discussion?
Mayor Burk: That's what I'd like to talk about.
Page 4IJune 26, 2023
L
L
Kaj Dentler: Okay.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: So, moved.
Mayor Burk: Second?
Council Member Kari Nacy: Second.
Mayor Burk: All in favor?
Council Members: Aye.
Mayor Burk: Opposed? Okay. I do think that's a record.
Council Member Cummings: Is this a record?
Mayor Burk: I think so. I think so.
Page 5 June 26, 2023