City Council Meeting   2/27/2024

Pollard Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

Mayor Reed.

President.

City Manager Banks.

Here.

City Attorney Brown.

Here.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Here.

Council Member Fleming.

Here.

Council Member Jones.

Present.

Council Member Robinson.

Present.

Chief Warner.

Here.

Chief Tobias.

Let us bow our heads.

God of all people, open our hearts to understanding other faith traditions.

I pray the peace of God and the God of peace be with us this evening.

May we respect the space and the work that is done to make Harrisonburg a better place for all.

Tonight, may we be reminded of the Jewish concept of Teagan Olam.

which means to perfect or repair the world and move forward with acts of kindness.

Tonight, may we be guided by the Islamic path to peace and harmony by promoting compassion, forgiveness and respect for human dignity.

Tonight, let us strive for inner peace by promoting social harmony and respect for one another.

Tonight, let this Council stand united in this hard work.

Be kind, be empathetic, be understanding.

May we move forward in peace.

We have three proclamations to give tonight, and I want to start with Youth Art Month.

So do we have Andrew Stravers here?

How are you?

Good.

Good.

And we each have our art exhibits by, mine is by, Adeline Grisco, grade seven, Stila Middle School.

Monica, who is yours?

Leni Moya, Grade 1, Waterman Elementary School.

Thank you, Mayor.

HHS?

I also have Anastasia Katikin.

Did she do too?

Yeah, she did.

Eliza Malcolm.

All right.

Proclamation recognized in March as Youth Art Month, whereas art education contributes powerful educational benefits to all elementary, middle, and secondary students and whereas art education develops students

create creative problem-solving and critical thinking abilities, whereas art education teaches sensitivity to beauty, order, and other expressive qualities, whereas art education gives students a deeper understanding of multicultural values and beliefs, whereas art education interlates students learning in art production, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics,

and whereas our national leaders have acknowledged the necessity of including art experience in all student education.

Now therefore be it resolved that support should be given towards art teachers as they strengthen art education in their schools and communities.

And Deanna R. Reed, Mayor of the City of Harrisonburg, do hear about proclaim March 2024 be observed as Youth Art Month.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the council.

If you haven't had a chance to go down to the mall and see the artwork, please do it.

Here you go.

Thank you.

Our next proclamation is for brain injury awareness month.

Do we have Anna?

There you are.

Come on up.

And who is with you?

Madam Mayor, I have John Norman, who is one of our board members who is joining me today.

How are you?

Good.

Proclamation, Recognizing Brain Injury Awareness Month.

Whereas a traumatic brain injury is a contributing factor to a third of all injury related deaths in the United States.

And it's the leading cause of death and disability

and children and young adults.

And whereas according to the Brain Injury Association of America, each year an estimated 2.8 million children and adults in the United States sustain a traumatic brain injury, and another one million individuals sustain and acquire brain injury from non-traumatic causes.

Whereas because of a lack of awareness about brain injury,

and a difficulty of diagnosing brain injury.

Many persons with brain injuries live for years without recognizing and dealing with their injuries.

And whereas early equal and adequate access to care greatly increases the overall quality of life and will enable individuals to return to home, school, work and community.

And whereas brain injury connections of the Shenandoah Valley of Harrisonburg endorses

Brain Injury Awareness Month, a nationwide campaign created to promote awareness of brain injuries.

Now, therefore, as Mayor Deanna Reed, I ask the citizens of Harrisonburg to support brain injury connections of the Shenandoah Valley and local nonprofits in their efforts to serve brain injured individuals through volunteerism, education, and financial support

I do hereby proclaim March 2024 as Brain Injury Awareness Month.

Thank you, Mary Reed.

I'm going to say last year, I think we did this virtually and it's a little more intimidating to this in person because I look bigger than how I was anticipating.

My name is John Norman.

I have two roles.

One, I was a survivor of a very severe stroke about eight years ago and was a former client at Braindry Connections and now I sit on the board at Braindry Connections.

So I'm kind of here in both capacities.

Eight years ago, I was a third grade teacher at Keeshaw Elementary School when I suffered a severe stroke.

You might write a hemisphere that wiped out 80%.

No, I write a hemisphere.

I could probably go on for like 10 minutes going over all the side effects I had, but if I had to say there was nothing, I didn't have to relearn how to do.

I had to relearn how to walk.

How to talk.

I had to relearn how to read and write again.

To say nothing of like,

The Daily Living Things That We All Take for granted, like dressing and peting ourselves.

Also to say nothing of having to relearn how to be a father to my two children.

I can already tell when to go along with that thought because I'm getting kind of emotional.

Also, one of the side effects of my stroke is I have a hard time controlling the physical reaction to emotions.

You're going to get a real insight into that while I speak here.

I'm rolling out a little better.

Brain injury connections was a huge part of my recovery.

My case manager that I had helped me develop an individualized plan so I could help reach my goals.

They helped connect me to adaptive technology since I had lost the use of my dominant hand due to the stroke.

They also connected me to support groups.

It is no surprise that

Those suffering from brain injuries are more at risk of things like depression, anxiety, and suicide.

I know from personal experience that when you have a brain injury, you feel very isolated from those around you.

You feel like no one really understands what you're going through.

And the support groups that BrainGear Connections connected me with were really helpful and connected in meeting other people who are going through the same thing you're going through.

I know they also connected me with community resources that I didn't even know existed, things like paratransit.

I didn't even know paratransit existed, so I was able to get to and from my appointments.

They were so critical.

Now that I sit on the board, I see that we are helping so many people in our communities reach their goals and their recovery.

We have clients right now that are helping pull out of homeless shelters and get into more stabilized housing.

People suffering from brain injuries are more at risk of being homeless.

We have other clients that we're working with to gain employment again.

We have one specific client I know where we're hoping to develop a business plan so she can start her own small business at following her brain injury.

It's an amazing organization.

I'm really glad that we are spreading awareness of the issues affecting those of brain injuries.

Thank you so much for your time.

Our next proclamation is recognizing governmental purchasing month 2024, Nicole and Shane.

Whereas the purchasing of materials management for profession with an aggregated purchasing power of billions of dollars has a tremendous impact on the economy.

Whereas purchasing and materials management professionals work diligently to establish and maintain ethical standards in buying and selling to increase their knowledge of efficient procurement methods to disseminate useful information to its members and to promote professionalism and public purchasing.

Whereas purchasing professionals make important contributions to ensure the efficient use of taxpayers' dollars.

by providing efficient service while maintaining the highest ethical standards and whereas professional purchasing associates such as the Virginia Association of Governmental Procurement and the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing engage in special efforts during the month of March to inform the public about the importance of the role played by the purchasing profession in business, industry, and government.

and whereas governmental purchasing professionals contribute positively to the city of Harrisonburg and the Commonwealth of Virginia, overall by improving purchasing methods and practices and by utilizing new technologies to increase efficiency and improve processes.

And whereas the Harrisonburg City Council wishes to recognize these professionals in the role they play in fostering efficient, transparent, ethical and accountable government.

now 34 being resolved.

I'm Mayor Deanna Reed, Mayor of the city of Harrisonburg, Virginia do here by proclaim March 2024 as governmental purchasing month.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Reed and members of council for your recognition this evening.

I know you have a wide number of agenda items and eager participants for tonight's meeting.

So I'll keep it short and sweet this year.

But this proclamation is to acknowledge and show appreciation for

The Many Hands and Minds across various city departments that work together to have a positive impact on the public procurement process.

From obtaining vendor quotes to researching cooperative contracts.

From writing widget specifications to serving on RFP evaluation committees.

From administering contracts to handling contractual disputes.

From processing purchase orders to paying invoices in a timely manner.

This is just a small snippet of the amazing work that my teammates do on a daily basis.

to ensure that we are not only being compliant with city policy and Virginia code, but are also being good stewards of the public funds.

So we truly appreciate your recognition for our profession this evening.

We will now go into our consent agenda.

Any items placed on the consent agenda shall be removed and taken up as separate as a separate matter if so requested.

Second.

Any discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Aye.

We're now going to our public hearings.

Item 6A, Tom Hartman.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Council.

Tom Hartman with Public Works.

Let's see.

Click it.

Yep, no worries.

There we go.

Here tonight I talk about our Country Club Road Sidewalk Project.

They have a public hearing to garner any comments or input from the public concerning their likes, dislikes, changes, opportunities to comment as we move forward with the project.

This project was funded through a VDOT Transportation Alternatives Program grant or TAP grant.

That funding source is an 80-20 split, 80% coming from the federal government through VDOT, 20% of city funds.

That's a little over half a million dollars.

for the sidewalk segment that I'll share with you here in a second.

We were awarded the funds two years ago, so since we were awarded the funds, we've been starting down the path of surveying engineering.

We've been doing that survey and engineering in-house with our community development department.

Charlie Wingard and Matthew Huston are the surveyor and engineer that we've been working with, and they are amazing resources that we have here at the city with their work.

We're able to provide those services of much improved value for us.

So we're currently at the 60% design level, which for us is the right-of-way phase level of the plan.

So we know line, grade, and amount of impact as far as right-of-way easements that we need from adjacent property owners.

Tonight, we'll have a public hearing to hear any comments.

After this evening, we'll move into what we call the right-of-way and utility space.

Our right-of-way agents will be out talking to the property owners, negotiating to secure the need of right-of-way easements to build the sidewalk.

We'll relocate one gas line that needs to be moved, and then hopefully this winter, early next year,

will put this project out for bid and will build the sidewalk next summer so that in the beginning of the school year of 2025, the sidewalk will be in place for the students in this area.

So the project that's shown on the screen here, this is the aerial view of the broader area of Country Club Road, Linda Lane, East Market Street.

This sidewalk segment connects the spots with Mobile Home Park to Linda Lane where then you'll be able to cross Country Club Road

and then use the shared use path that's currently along Linda Lane to take you to Skyline Middle and Smithland Elementary and Elon Roads.

Currently that shared use path is there but there's no safe way to get to it.

Country Club Road as we've seen is a busy road and currently with the construction that's happening on Route 33 at the exit 247 interchange, Country Club is even busier nowadays due to people diverting away from East Market Street onto Country Club.

This is just a typical section of our improvements.

Some of the segments need to have curving gutter added, which we will add.

And then we'll have a grass buffer of around two feet.

And it may vary in some places, depending on utility impacts.

And then we'll construct a five foot wide concrete sidewalk adjacent to Country Club Road from Linda Lane to Spotswood Mobile Home Park.

A lot going on and really small print.

So I don't expect you to understand what's going on here.

But this is the plan sheet showing Linda Lane

here on the left with the new crosswalk with audible pedestrian signal.

So basically you hit the button that tells you when you can cross audibly so you're not relying just on the pedestrian head to tell you when to cross.

Sidewalk is then along what I would call the west side of Country Club Road.

Then we continue down Country Club Road and it ends at the entrance to the Spotswood mobile home park with ADA ramps that get

folks on to and off of the sidewalk safely and into the neighborhood there.

So that's our project.

That's our schedule and timeframe.

We've completed our required environmental document.

So there is no adverse effects with the construction of the sidewalk.

With that, we'll ask that you open the public hearing for any comments.

There is no action required tonight from council.

This is just an opportunity for the public to comment.

Once we close the public hearing, we'll then move into our right-of-way phase and hopefully be in the construction next summer.

Okay.

Any questions?

Thank you, Tom.

Yep, thank you.

Alright, I will open this item up for public hearing.

If anyone would wish to speak on this item, please state your name or address.

Good evening City Council.

My name is Jessica Pyle and I am speaking in favor of the Country Club Road Sidewalk Project.

I'm a teacher at Skyline Middle School.

I'm so excited about the artwork.

With our recent discussion about our transit issues and our buses, we clearly need some alternative ways to get to school.

And this is a good beginning.

We are also looking at

Safe Routes to School.

So this would be a safe route to school for a number of our students.

I've also experienced students who walk to Skyline and tell me how much better Red Area is because they get to walk to school.

I have been in communication with TSAC about my concerns about crossing the street.

So I'm very hopeful that we'll get some parent involvement and PTO and maybe even some teachers involved.

I'm volunteering myself to help get our kids across the street, considering that they will be 14 years old

and Younger because we serve three schools from middle school down.

Anyway, I'm really excited about this project and I hope it goes forward without a hitch.

Thank you.

I will close public hearing on this item.

Um, council has before every request from Columbia Gas for an easement for a gas pipeline across public lands of the city of Harrisonburg, mainly the, uh, or namely the

South Main Street Park and Lot, which is a small parking lot located between Jimmy Madison's and Clementine's.

This came about because Centera RMA, who is the owner now of the old free clinic property downtown, needs to replace its gas service line.

And when Columbia was out doing a field investigation to do that work, realized that over probably many decades,

There's one small service line running in that area and instead of serving one property, it kind of shoots off to different meters of different properties in the area.

It's located in an area that's very difficult to work on.

And so what this effect will do is allow Columbia Gas to clean up that situation, run a small gas main line through the parking lot, and then have proper service lines running to the different businesses.

and buildings that have the gas service.

If Council recalls, last year there was a water line put through this parking lot on the other side of the parking lot.

This would be treated much like that in that the work will be done mainly at night.

It will be done in such a way that whatever they've worked on can be covered up in the morning with the metal plates so that it can be used during the day.

And the company will work with Mr. Hartman and Public Works on a public access permit to try to minimize the effect on folks downtown and the businesses and they will certainly take into consideration

J.M.U.

Good, thank you.

I will open this item up for public hearing.

If anyone wishes to speak, please state your name and address.

You'll have five minutes on this item.

Seeing none in person.

Pam, do we have any callers?

Thank you.

I will close public hearing on this item.

Second.

Yes?

Well, as I relate to city manager and city attorney, I'm not in theory a fan of more fossil fuel infrastructure, but that's in theory.

In practice, we need it.

I mean, I turn up the thermostat because that's what we need.

So while we're in this transition zone, this seems necessary, so I'll support it.

Anyone else?

Roll call, please, Pam.

conversations throughout the community on a resolution.

I'm going to speak for myself.

I know council members will speak for themselves.

But I just want to make my statement on this matter.

I'm in this position to use my platform to help those who need me.

and I take that very seriously to elevate voices who need to be heard or feel like they haven't been heard to serve my community and to make an impact.

That's why I'm here.

That's why I decided to run for my hometown.

I stated before that I'm not a fan of resolutions and I've given my reasons why.

However, I do understand that a resolution is necessary for many of you.

It is important to me as your mayor to understand your pain.

So I had to take my personal feelings out of it and listen to both communities.

and that is why I established the discussions, the dialogues that we've been having and encouraged that those dialogues will continue to happen with a facilitator because it's wanted and is needed.

So I do feel encouraged by that.

I was also more concerned that

This would just be an item that is like a one and done.

And I didn't want that either.

Because I know that even whatever happens this evening with a resolution, there's still going to be pain, there's still going to be trauma, there's still going to be people hurting.

And I hope this is not the last time we see a room full of people concerned

about issues.

So we are here at this moment.

City Council members have drafted a resolution.

We drafted our own resolution.

And I want Vice Mayor Laura Dent, who is a technical writer.

She volunteered to take the lead of writing a resolution.

along with support from Councilwoman Robinson to do this task.

So if the resolution is passed tonight, and I hope we're not going to midnight tonight because my plan is to leave for DC this evening.

Thank God for McKinley Armstrong, who is my intern who is driving me tonight.

I would take with me the resolution and give hand delivery to Senator Kane and Senator Warner in the morning.

Well, all right.

As the mayor says, I've spent several decades as a technical writer.

I've worked with some of you here.

So I took Monica through an exercise that I took my students through when I was teaching technical writing at JMU.

Namely, any time I was about to write a document, I would first ask, who is the audience

and second, who is the purpose?

There can also be a primary and secondary audience in purpose and what I walk through is the primary or ostensible purpose of audience and purpose is the federal government to ask that they perform specific actions, namely a ceasefire, humanitarian aid and release of hostages.

Very clear up front.

However,

The secondary audience and purpose was very important to us.

The secondary audience is our community, you.

It's very important to you that we write this to our federal representatives.

And our purpose in writing for the community is for healing of the community.

To whatever degree we can accomplish that, especially appreciating the dialogues that the mayor has launched and that are ongoing.

because the healing is not just one piece of paper, it's what's arising in the community.

So with that in mind, we kept in mind that healing the community was our primary purpose, even if it's not the primary purpose of the document.

And as such, we didn't want to have any language that was blaming

or divisive or even specific as to dates and numbers because those in themselves can be triggering and they're out of date anyway.

So we kept it to, we hope, firm but even handed language such as some of this was borrowed from some of the sample resolutions that city attorney provided in some of the community.

For example, from the car borough community.

It says the targeting of civilians

no matter their faith or ethnicity is a violation of international humanitarian law.

And that's true no matter who's doing the targeting.

So once we got to that more even-handed language when we had discussions with the Jewish community, they withdrew their opposition to doing a resolution.

They couldn't quite get to the point of supporting it, but that in itself says that we had achieved that

Gold, to some degree, of healing the divisiveness that could happen as a result of the resolution.

Some of the sample resolutions we saw were incredibly blaming and divisive, and we didn't want to bring that here.

So anyway, that's how we made some of those choices.

And another example is, we never really said, we condemn Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

Because to me, that in itself is divisive.

Two different kinds of prejudice.

So instead, we said,

We value the harmony that exists in our community.

That's who we are.

Also we adopted some of what we were given as a draft resolution from the community of who we are.

We're a city for all, a refugee resettlement community, and therefore we're deeply affected by this.

So that's just walking through some of how we thought through the relatively compressed short and sweet language that we chose to put forward as our statement on behalf of the community.

Just that it was enlightening to review the resolutions that were already out there and what I did personally was to read a resolution and if I immediately felt that it was one-sided I kind of put myself in the position of the other side and

that brought about trauma and pain.

So we knew instantly, upon walking into the room, some of the first things we decided on was to remove the dates, like Laura said, because the dates themselves seemed to be in the numbers, seemed to be saying, you killed us, it's your fault.

And we didn't want that because we had saw through the public comments, through the dialogue, and also through emails and community comments,

that there had been so much work done started mainly with the community dialogue sessions that was good work and there had been some relationships that are long-standing in the community and we really wanted to focus on what was that like?

What took place in order for people to feel like they could at least share

enough of their values and their wants that they could come together in some form of unity.

And so we wanted to enhance that even further by making a resolution or writing a resolution that we felt spoke to the entire community and not necessarily said one side or the other.

And at first I thought that would be difficult to do

But once we got together and focused on what Vice Mayor Dent used, the strategy that she used when teaching at JMU, and really focusing on the intent is to get this upward.

But the local intent is to foster unity and peace in our community.

So we really focused on both of those things and would question the play on words.

Really saying, well, how would you feel if this was written?

You know, can we change a few things around and make sure that the intent is acceptable to all?

So I really valued this

this project and I really took into consideration the comments that people were bringing forth in council meetings, the emails, I printed out emails and I really read and I really said, you know, what can we do to appease everyone involved?

So don't think that your time was wasted by coming here sharing

Your words were heard and we hope that what we were able to do was to produce a document that you all feel comfortable with is a true picture of what both sides would agree on and most importantly says the same thing, stop killing people.

And don't say stop killing Palestinian people or Israel people that killing is wrong.

And I learned that from Jonathan McCrae who is sitting in the audience.

You don't really need to know the history of the conflict to understand that killing is wrong.

Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel.

Whereas all human life is precious and the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law.

whereas Gaza and Israel have already experienced tremendous loss of life, displacement and violence, and hundreds of thousands of lives are at imminent risk.

And whereas the city of Harrisonburg prides ourselves in being a city for all, as a refugee resettlement city, we are deeply affected by the turmoil in Gaza and Israel.

and, whereas the federal government holds immense diplomatic and appropriations powers to save Palestinian and Israeli lives.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Harrisonburg City Council, on behalf of our community, implores our U.S.

congressional delegation, both in the Senate and House of Representatives,

to join us in urging the Biden administration to one, immediately call for a ceasefire to urgently end the current violence and two, promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and three, negotiate the release of hostages.

And be it further resolved, the city of Harrisonburg values the harmony that exists in our diverse community

and advocates for the dignity and safety of all residents, regardless of religion, race, or nation of origin, and be it further resolved that the Harrisonburg City Council asks the city clerk to quickly forward copies of this resolution to the President of the United States and Harrisonburg's congressional delegation.

Okay.

Madam Mayor.

I make a motion that we approve the resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel.

I'll just say something just briefly.

I am really appreciative of the difficult conversations that people have been willing to step into the listening and learning that has happened through this process and I do think as a refugee resettlement community that is really important for us to do to value that in our community and to provide us with an understanding

We as a council, we have people from conflicts all over the world.

And as a council, we can't understand the depths of all of those conflicts.

But it's important that we make an effort to try to understand our community.

And I think everyone here is willing to understand as we can always, the residence of our city and where they come from.

I know possibly in a resolution that the language may fall short,

of what some folks want to see from either side or how it's presented.

I would suggest that it doesn't lessen the impact of what this is.

The goal is to give this to our congressional and Senate delegation and send this on to the White House.

And those are folks who aren't uninformed about this.

I think the impact will be that the city of Harrisonburg

if we do approve this is sending that forward to them.

I think that's the important part of this.

And for those who have been coming to our council meetings and supporting this, again, it may not have been at the speed that you anticipated this would happen.

But I think, like Mary said, I hope you value the common work that you did working on this.

that you understand if we pass us the achievement that is.

And then again, it's been said that you continue to step forward and this is a building block becoming involved in our city and all sorts of issues that impact us.

I think that would be one of the really valuable benefits of what's happened.

I think this is unique in Harrisonburg.

We are doing something unique for many communities.

I don't dismiss the impact that this can have.

I've thought about it.

For me, the impact of this

and the damage that could happen in our community.

And so that's been very important for me to understand if we're doing something trying to figure out the impact of it, not create more damage in our community.

And I do believe that the effort that I want to hear is made has been really powerful and making this potentially something very positive in our community.

So I also want to thank my colleagues for their patience and willingness

and ability to step into something that is a difficult conversation to have and I'm really grateful for the respect and the understanding that's shown by all the colleagues here.

Sure.

Good evening, everybody.

I'm glad y'all came back.

Very briefly, I'll say,

as I've stated before, and I think as you know, this subject matters way beyond the stratosphere of the Harrisonburg City Council.

So I'm not going to even begin to try to get into that because I would need to just shut up and listen and learn from most of you.

But I do want to say this while I have your attention.

We need to see you participating on the local level

with the same amount of passion and ability to show up and ability to organize and ability to communicate.

If you would like to be a bus driver, I'll let you, you had your time, let me have mine.

I don't, I don't amen on you, don't amen on me.

I'm all right.

So listen, as I was saying, seriously, um, this conversation was beyond me and I was elected as a local elected official.

I am not a senator.

I'm not a congressperson.

And so these types of conversations quite honestly make me uncomfortable because this is not the job I has to do.

I asked you guys to hire me to do a local job, not a job beyond that.

Now we can have conversations about bigger issues, right?

I think we have to have those.

But my job is service delivery.

My job is to make sure that that gentleman right there has all the tools he needs to make sure that you can live, work, and play and love the way you want to and need to in Harrisonburg.

But I can't do that without your participation.

and I understand that large impactful things that happen in our native countries or countries of origin for our religion can some that's gonna be a huge distraction right you're like man I don't have time to be teaching or coaching I got big stuff happening where I'm from but what I'm asking you to do is as you may time to be here for this resolution I'm asking you to be here when we do the budget

Be here when we go to the school board meetings when they're talking about huge issues like time changes and budget and building schools.

Like we spent a hundred million dollars on a school in like none of y'all were here.

And it's cool if you couldn't make it.

I totally get it.

But I need you to participate in both because they're equally important because this is where you can make an impact on the local level as well.

So if your voice can be heard to make such an impact,

that the mayor is delivering a message for you to one of our senators.

Imagine what your voice could do if you showed up on a consistent basis in your local community for your children and for yourselves and for your employer and for your own business.

So I just want you to digest the power that you have and that you're displaying on a more regular basis because then you can start to see the gravity of democracy.

It's actually beyond politics.

You need to use it as a tool to live every day.

It's not about the political gestures or the political movements.

Because they're going to always be where the big money is and where the disruption is, unfortunately.

Because that's an argument that won't stop between people that got a lot more money than us.

I'm just trying to make sure that where we live is the best place we can possibly make it.

And so I need your help and participation in doing that.

So while I got your attention, I want to ask you to please help.

because I think if you can help to make this happen, you can make a lot more things a lot better in Harrisonburg.

We're a city for all.

So I want to hear you participate in all of the process all the time.

Thank you so much.

I hope the best for you.

As Councilman Robinson said, I think I said this before.

I'm never going to be for people killing people.

I can say that.

I don't, again, my religion, my faith, I'm not into, you know, I don't know every detail of this.

I just know that it's heartbreaking and it's been happening.

From my perspective, for thousands of years, I know some say, you know, everybody's got a different calendar than different days, you guys brought that up.

So, I hope the best for all of us.

We're not doing that.

No, we are not doing that.

Are we discussing correct red mayor Reed?

Yeah, but it's going to have to be redone.

Sorry.

That would be an amendment.

I mean, I'll get my feedback and I hear the voices on this.

And I appreciate and understand what that is.

I think that a lot of work has gone into this.

There have been a lot of discussions since this has been drawn up as is that have been had.

And I would reflect on just the idea that the wording that may or may not be in this resolution and I understand that there are probably many things that would not potentially be in this resolution.

as it came forward.

But the impact of this will be the presentation of this from the city of Harrisonburg and likely the first, if this is passed, city in the state of Virginia to have done this.

The folks who are receiving this do understand the complexity in these issues.

I'm not convinced that

adding additional wording or changing this will reduce that impact.

And I understand the value, and I've heard from folks on this issue, the value of particular additional phrasings and additional sentiments in this.

But I'm not sure we would be able to do that and feel confident that the discussions many of us have had prior to this.

And the feedback we've gotten would be the same.

that they wouldn't require us to do that.

So I understand that may not meet with a lot of favor about not adding this additional wording.

But I do worry that if we do, this will delay it again and we will lose some of what will be built up to this point.

Well, I will go along with what my fellow council members want.

So if

Everyone's good with as written.

I mean, you were part with, you were with her right in this.

And I didn't remember if we, well, I want to make that clear.

You wrote it with her.

It was the two of you.

So if we want this to go to DC in the morning tonight, I don't want to keep pushing it back because it's already urgent.

So it's on the table.

We have, is there any more discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Amy did you make the copies?

So as promised, as promised, Amy is going to make the copies for me.

I will be leaving.

for DC and I will hand deliver it to Senator Kane and Senator Warner in the morning.

Hello, you're stuck with me for two of these.

Back to the back.

Hello, I'm Andrea Dono.

I'm the executive director of Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance.

And I've got two items today.

The first one is a follow up to when I was here last talking about downtown banners.

We're bringing art and branding into the community as soon as I can advance the slide.

I'll just use the keyboard.

So this is what we have now and it is time for an update like we had mentioned.

Just a quick project summary.

We're going to be doing 70-ish banners and I say ish because we're still trying to figure out which ones on Liberty Street we can actually do.

There's a lot of conduit on some of those poles and there's about 12 different poles that are Long Liberty Street.

I like to call it the Wild West of utility poles.

There's a lot of different ones and we don't know what kind of brackets they can handle if they can handle them at all.

So right now we're at 70-ish.

They're 28x60.

I actually brought one with me and I'll hold it up for you so you can see what they're actually going to be like.

We'll have four repeating designs and then we have 15 different duck banners by area students, which is very appropriate given that we're celebrating arts with our youth for the month of March.

And these are going to run along Main Street from Martin Luther King to Noel, down Liberty Street to the Ice House, going east on Market Street to Mason and then to 42 on West Market.

And the reason why we're doing this is to create a sense of place and arrival.

This was something that was mentioned in the downtown master plan.

We heard over and over again that the community wants more art, so we want to reinforce our brand, let people know that they're in some place special, and then as we've talked about with Jennifer Bell in tourism, this is something that people enjoy, they want to see, it gets people out of their cars and walking around downtown, so a lot of reasons for this.

So far, we have engaged the local artists to repurpose our downtown brand assets for the banner designs.

So I'm going to show you a welcome one at the Culinary District 1 Arts and Music and then the Base Camp for Outdoor Recreation.

We also engage area students to design duck theme banners, which you have in your packet.

We're working with HEC trying to figure out those brackets that we need and figure out where exactly we can put them.

And tonight, I hope we have your support in improving the banner designs.

So what you're going to see are banner designs that showcase specific qualities and characteristics that align with our downtown brand.

These are authentic.

It's original art, so these are works of art onto themselves.

It showcases our community nestled in the backdrop of the Masanutton Mountain.

We have green colors which connects us to our natural surroundings and the natural beauty that we have in our area.

We have the oranges and light blues to make some vibrancy out of a very sometimes beige downtown.

And we also try to avoid very specific stuff, so we're not going to have sticky nugs, for example, and things like that, even though everyone loves them.

We don't want anyone to feel like they're being loved out.

This is our first one.

This is our welcome one.

We're using the city's tagline, Friendly by Nature.

There you have the Mastinutton backdrop and a number of different languages that say welcome.

This is

Helping people understand that no matter where you are from, we are glad you're here.

So this will serve as the standard welcome banner, but it won't be that traditional one that you usually see out there in other communities.

This is for outdoor base camp.

We know that a lot of people are coming to Harrisonburg and we want them coming into downtown so they can base camp here, hang out here, maybe stay at Hotel Madison and then go off to their adventures into the mountains.

Maybe they're a fly fishing or hiking or mountain biking.

and we're also showing that you're so close to downtown that there's such an incredible proximity to right here in Court Square that all of this is very accessible and the lights are on so when you come back from your adventure we're here and we're open for business.

You can see that this one has a trail that goes from downtown into the mountains that could be a hiking trail, it could be a biking trail, it could be a river.

It's really up to you to interpret.

Also the

The streetscape of downtown, those buildings are softened with edging that looks like branches of trees, so it just really is that whole outdoor vibe.

This is one of our favorites, the arts that we have here in downtown.

To the left there in the banner, that's a camera.

Photographies are really a big thing here.

We've got a disco ball for

dancing and getting down.

We have a guitar right in the middle which actually turns into a banjo and the faceplate of the banjo.

I was going to bring some music actually.

Now I wish I did.

The faceplate of the banjo is actually an artist's palette with a brush in the middle with the paint colors.

So we're representing different arts there.

and then I think this is the last one, the culinary district, the delicious one.

We are Virginia's first culinary district, possibly only.

I haven't verified that in a while.

We're looking at the rich agricultural roots that we have, so the plate that you have towards the bottom is showing the fields and on the other side of the plate is the grains.

We have it over the farmer's market, the Turner Pavilion where the farmer's market is.

The sun is actually now a skillet so it's got a fried egg in there and then there's the effervescence bubbles in that glass.

It could be sparkling water, it could be champagne, we don't know.

It's up to you to interpret.

So yes, that's our culinary district.

And this is what it would look like on the lamppost.

I'm going to grab one of the banners so you can see how big they are.

If you happen to be walking by the ice house one day a few weeks ago you saw me and my team holding out banners outside of our second story window with a few of us on the ground looking and trying to make sure that everything felt like it was large enough to see from a distance and I can guarantee that you in fact can.

I just wanted you to get a sense for how big they are.

So sometimes when you're looking at them on the screen, you wonder, oh, is that going to translate if you're standing down at the ground level?

I think they will.

So we feel pretty confident that these will function as banners.

and we have more ducks to celebrate downtown.

So we were really excited that we had 31 submissions from local school children.

Some of them also were homeschool children.

We have a nice mix of elementary, almost even mix of elementary, middle and high school students.

This was a blind selection process.

We coded each submission and just said the grade of each child.

So we didn't know who they were.

This is a small town, so we didn't want to cloud our judgment, but we were really happy to have a few business owners and folks in the arts like Mary Yoderf with Dart, Alicia Thomas with the Quilt Museum and J.R.

Snow with any given child who is one of our partners on this project.

And we looked for aesthetics, creativity, looking at the grade level, color and vibrancy, and making sure that the designs could translate to a banner.

That's four people.

You know, we really deliberated over some time over all of them and it all worked out.

Yeah.

We actually had another person who was supposed to be the tiebreaker, but they were six, so they couldn't come.

But we did think about that.

This is just a sample of a few of the designs that we have.

We have them in your packet, so it's a lot to throw into slides, but what you've received, it's been a wide variety, K through 12, which I think makes it a lot of fun.

We have a lot of partners in this project so far, working with HEC.

They're trying to help us figure out the brackets and figure out where we can put them.

They'll put them up as well.

Public Works took a look at the designs and said, yeah, these should translate while we can print them.

They're going to offer labor as an in-kind service, but HCR is going to buy all the materials and supplies.

Any given child help get the word out about this to the area's school art teachers?

And we're also serving as a project manager, and we're going to be finding a local seamstress to sew each one of these 70-something banners by hand.

And they actually want to do it.

And I think that's it for this.

Do we have any questions?

Great work.

Yeah, it looks great.

All right.

I'll second that.

All right, any discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.

Does it come right up?

The next one?

Yes, it does.

This is the one I'm interested in.

Yeah, we're excited about it too.

This is something new since the first time you've heard about it from us.

You can see we have partners, the Arts Council, the Valley and also the city.

So here's one.

Here's a traffic box.

And here's another.

Sometimes we walk right past these and don't even know.

So as far as I'm concerned, there are blank canvases and they're all over downtown.

We are interested in putting some art there.

This idea came out of an idea that perhaps we can put this art using a Bloomberg Foundation grant.

City staff came up with this cool idea and said, hey, do we have some partners that might want to do it?

Let's put in a grant application.

It's an international grant.

A lot of people applied, and unfortunately we didn't get the grant, but HCR wanted to be the funder for this and make it happen.

So we're grateful for the friendly city fortune raffle proceeds.

So our idea is that we want to make those traffic cabinets go from blah to ah.

So we're hoping that we can do 19 traffic boxes throughout downtown.

This is an original art.

We would do this in two phases.

We want to do 10 the first year in between 8 and 9 and 2028.

And we only say that because there's going to be some streetscaping happening and construction on Liberty Street, which means that things might be damaged or moved and all kinds of stuff can happen.

So we're just going to put that on pause and revisit this in a couple of years so we don't have anything damaged and have to replace any of these.

We're going to do a call for artists.

These can be anyone who is local to our community or outside the community as long as they're over 18 years old.

We're really excited to get some submissions for original art.

And like I said, this is a partnership project.

We have a lot of people working on this already.

I want to start with the Arts Council of the Valley because they have had a heavy lift already and coming up with the application, the selection criteria, the call for artists,

They have a web page ready to go with your approval.

They'll be collecting the proposals in City on the selection panel.

The City is going to be design fitting all of those designs that come in.

They're going to make sure they can fit on those boxes because those traffic cabinets, none of them look the same.

They're all different sizes and shapes and so there's a little bit of work that goes into that.

They'll be working with the contractor.

and also helping out Project Logistics.

HDR will be the funder.

We're going to have $400 stipend for the artists, so they will get paid for their work and their talents.

We'll hire the contractor and also support the group with the selection panel.

The reason why we're doing this again, just like those banners, we're trying to reinforce a sense of place.

We want to enhance the identity of downtown Harrisonburg.

A lot of us like to think of the arts as economic development.

We want people coming into downtown that sense of whimsy and walking around and discovery.

Hopefully they're also discovering small businesses and they're swiping their credit cards.

Yep, catching.

Yep.

We want them to have a good time while they're enjoying downtown, while they're enjoying their community and enjoying our small businesses as well.

But that sense of beauty and whimsy is also a great way to bond community members with where they live.

And also it's very engaging for tourists too because

We want things that are Instagrammable because if you're not living on your phone, what are you doing?

So when people are taking photos and they're posting them, they're basically giving us free publicity.

So we want those people taking those photos.

So artists are going to be provided specs.

So when the artists are selected, we choose their design.

We then say this is the traffic box that it's going to go on.

These are the specs.

You have to have it fit.

and they'll work with Public Works to make sure that that works out.

We have a selection panel with the partners.

We have a clear evaluation rubric that the Arts Council has designed.

I think I said some of this stuff already.

And then also Public Works staff is going to shadow the contractor on site.

So we're using someone who has done this before to teach city staff how to do it.

So when we do this again, we can do it all in-house and keep the cost down too.

Here's the locations on here.

You know, it's probably a little bit difficult to see the change in color, but some of the dots are pink and those are the ones mostly on Liberty Street and at some of the gateways.

The others are green and those are the ones we want to do on the first phase of this project.

The idea is that it would be at the intersections where there is a traffic box and then also at the gateway coming into downtown.

Here's our timeline.

We'd like to launch the RFP as soon as tomorrow.

The Arts Council is going to have an information session to tell the artists what they need to know so they can do this.

We'll have proposals due in April, then we'll have a selection process.

You will see us again.

So we can show you those designs that we'd like to put throughout downtown.

And then you can see that as we move through the project, we hope to start installation in August.

I do.

Good job.

Be fun.

Good job.

Yeah, go ahead.

The March 12th information session for artists, can you give more specifics on that?

Because we'll be all away.

So you can call in.

Okay.

How do we... I wanted to forward this to an artist friend today, tomorrow.

Oh, well, that's wonderful.

So anyone who has friends who are artists that you'd want to forward this to as early as tomorrow, the Arts Council of the Valley will have their website live.

And all the information will be on there, including the information about how to register for that webinar.

Yeah.

Well, I'll just say, you know, just thank you and thanks to the Arts Council for this really creative

Dany.

and kind of the health economic value, but it also, art is a voice that gives rise to things people want to bring up in their community.

And so it makes me just think about, are we a city that's maybe needing a public arts commission?

They can think about that across the city, and I'm not throwing that out there or something.

Discuss now, but so we can kind of think of the value of this

across our entire city and communities and the value that that brings to it and just something to throw out there.

Awesome.

I think that's a great idea.

And also, just because I'm the one presenting today, I do want to share that this has been a real team effort.

The idea came from the city when we were looking to reply for the grant and ACV really had a huge heavy lift.

So we work really well together.

It's been a lot of fun.

So my question is for Andy or Tom.

How many boxes do we actually have?

I know you don't know the answer right now.

There it is.

Actually, I think it's 95.

You think it's 95?

Right.

So I say that, well, you know,

So I say that because now I want to do 95 even if we did some of them just with like some type of nature scene right but something to your point we've been talking about art I know I have been talking about art with Andy and Andrea and Jenny the whole time I've been elected so

This is phenomenal.

And I think this is something that we can all get behind and participate in.

I'd love to see what the actual costs are for us to start looking in the other ways to help and support it and facing to it because it is a pun intended wraparound effort.

I'm here all night, folks.

No, you're not here all night.

Someone's got to get to DC.

You can see how the second wave of people just... You are not here all night.

Coming charged for comedy.

No, but seriously, I would like to see how we can explore branching this in the other parts of the city because we want to see that art near the residential areas, near the other commerce areas, near the other gateways, near our EMUs.

You know what I mean?

We have been very intentional and everybody knows I'm a huge downtowner.

But we try to make sure we're also being intentional.

recognizing the economic development, gateways, and entry points in the rest of the city.

In fact, that's kind of what prompted our initial conversations was how can we move north, you know, even many years ago.

I agree with you.

I think it would be neat to see something like this used to highlight different industries.

about the history of what we used or what industries were used to help build up the economy and also tell the history of certain areas of them as well.

I think this is just a wonderful idea, because I agree with Council Member Jones.

In fact, I want to throw one little thing.

I was traumatized twice.

Being in the selection committee.

It's tough.

I see some students in here that are artists.

EMU, I see you.

I remember when we were in the NLC meeting and

Tacoma, Washington, they had these and it was just great.

So did I miss it?

And I imagine others.

Exactly.

We may be the first.

Second.

Any more discussion?

Council Member Jens.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

I am going to move to 7D and we have a presentation from Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

I am fine thank you I was under the weather last week I recovered but my voice hasn't so please forgive the squeaks and cracks in my voice there we are so my purpose in being here today first of all thank you for the opportunity to share with us some information with you Mayor Reed and the members of the council

My purpose in being here today is just to give you a deeper sense and understanding of the Chittable Food Assistance Network that operates for the benefit of our community residents and also what we're beginning to see, what we are seeing in the community in terms of the need for food assistance and the drivers for that need.

I want to start just with a quick example of the people we are supporting together with our community partners, the Pantries Soup Kitchens Shelters and various feeding programs that provide the food directly to people in the neighborhoods and rural areas.

Carmen and Alfred is a couple.

They have two grandchildren for whom they have custody.

We met them at a mobile food pantry we operate up in Timberville.

They rely on the mobile pantry to really acquire fresh produce for their family, one of their grandchildren, their grandson.

has autism and doesn't eat meat.

But they're not coming only for themselves.

They live out in the country and they're collecting food for seven other households and those other neighbors pool their money together to help cover the gas cost that Alfred and Carmen experience.

And folks like these really do represent so many of the neighbors we're serving.

Our mission is to provide food security to improve food security through equitable access to good nutrition and the resources that support good health and well-being.

And our vision is nourishing food

and Good Health for everyone every day.

And you can see that shift, those of you who may be familiar with the food bank, to a focus on health.

And that's really been a progression over many years because food insecurity and health are so entwined.

And even the USDA, which really developed the phrase food security and food insecurity, has moved to this notion of nutrition security.

And that certainly

how we are thinking about the work that we do.

And it's also important to recognize that our interest is in making sure that everyone in the community who may need assistance has access to that assistance.

And this is a community and across our 25 county service area,

We are serving families and children and seniors and people who are working and people who aren't, people who are housed and people who aren't, people who were born here and people who weren't.

It doesn't matter who is here and in need.

We want to make sure they all have equitable access to not just food, but good, nutritious and wholesome food.

As the need has grown over many years and as we've been able to think about how we can have a greater impact in the communities that we've served, we've developed a new strategic direction that's carrying us forward for the next five years.

The priorities are to eliminate disparities in access to food.

Those disparities are created by a number of factors.

Rurality, lack of transportation,

Language Barriers, especially for immigrant communities.

And we see obviously a disproportionate number of people in communities of color who are affected by food insecurity.

So our focus is on eliminating those disparities and removing barriers together with our community partners.

Second, to improve the health of our guests.

Third, to support household financial stability, which of course is the cause of food insecurity, and to do that by maintaining a strong and sustainable organization.

Now the challenges that we talk about when we're focused on eliminating disparities really are the top three, language barriers, lack of transportation,

And also the special dietary needs.

Half of the people we serve, half of the households we serve report that someone in the home has special dietary needs due to a health concern.

And about 54% say their health is only fair or even poor.

So again, it's that connection to

Health that we've got to really focus on given how reliant our neighbors are on the Charitable Food Assistance Network.

Again, food insecurity is really defined traditionally as locking the resources to support a healthy lifestyle and therefore the emphasis on health, the emphasis on nutrition and nutrition security.

It's a pervasive problem.

These numbers are out of date.

They go back a couple of years.

Data collection lags.

One in 12 of our neighbors face food insecurity.

And that number probably is much closer to one in 10 today, just from the growth coming out of the pandemic and in the last six to 10 months.

To give you a sense of the scope and scale of what we're looking at in the communities that we serve, last year in 2023, we served an average of about 127,000 people per month together with our partners.

If you line those folks up shoulder to shoulder, that line would stretch from here, all the way down 81 to downtown Stanton.

That was last year and just in the last several months we've seen a huge uptick.

In October we saw the greatest number we ever did and that was 173,000 people in one month.

And so now that line is looking like it's going from here to Stanton out to Wainsboro.

Imagine shoulder to shoulder all the way to Wainsboro.

Right now, we're averaging 153,000 per month.

And that's double what it was prior to the Great Recession.

It's 20% higher than the very worst of the pandemic.

And it's not abating.

And I'll explain why in just a sec.

The work that we do is entirely dependent on volunteers.

We work with 400 community partners.

They all have dozens and hundreds in some cases of volunteers, each themselves.

So there's an army of thousands of people we're depending on to get food out to our neighbors in need.

And of course, we're supported by financial donations and

a plethora of food donations, a lot of which comes from the federal government in the form of USDA commodities but grocery stores and food manufacturers also supply the food bank.

In last year we distributed 27 million pounds of food across our whole service area and that translates to about 22 or 23 million meals.

So it's a significant enterprise but dependent on a significant amount of

Private Support and Community Involvement.

Another example of the neighbors we're really serving is Natila.

She's a single mom.

She is trying to do everything right.

She's got her associate's degree.

She has advanced computer skills, more advanced than she had prior to that degree, but she doesn't have a car and so she can't get

A job that's consistent and regular, so she is turning to one of our partners for help.

Again, seniors, single moms, these are a lot of the folks that we're serving on a day to day basis.

To do that well, we have to have a strong network of community partners, and we've invested heavily in our food pantry, soup kitchen partners, so that they have the capacity to meet their growing need, about four and a half million dollars that the food bank has put back into our community partners in the last few years.

Sourcing nutrition, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is a national leader in developing evidence-based ways to acquire and distribute food.

We developed a software program together with faculty at JMU that uses science so that our food sourcing manager knows exactly what the nutrient content is and we link it to our inventory management system so we know exactly what the profile looks like and I'm pleased to say that 98% of the inventory we maintain at the food bank

is a green which is a always choice in food or yellow which means mostly and that's a far cry from where we were 20 years ago.

Children and seniors again, vulnerable populations with very significant adverse consequences resulting from food insecurity.

With children, real delays in development that have lifelong implications with seniors

much higher rates of cardiovascular disease, mental illness, especially depression, and the senior population is the fastest growing in terms of food insecurity of any age group in the country.

The Food Bank is also making a priority as part of our strategic direction to get more people enrolled in SNAP.

And that is especially true of the senior population.

Only 38% of eligible seniors in Virginia are actually utilizing the benefit.

and if we can do more to get folks on SNAP and often they don't realize they're eligible they have some stigma associated with accepting public assistance of any kind and that's especially true of our seniors now you really have to have access to a computer

to file the application.

The printed application is incredibly dense and written at a 14 grade level.

There are just a lot of barriers.

Yes.

And this is across our service area, certainly locally.

To give you a sense of what's happening right here in Harrisonburg in Rockingham, we're serving enough people to almost fill the stadium.

in a given year.

3.6 million meals served.

And we do this work through 19 community partners spanning the county as well.

Over 1,500 children served and monthly participation in neighborhood protest markets, which are particularly active in neighborhoods with a substantial number of immigrant neighbors.

That's 1,335 on average in the months of those programs are active.

I'll spotlight quickly.

One of our outstanding programs is a good food school market launched in Harrisonburg High School and we're up to over 61,000 pounds of food with a lot of that being produce.

Broadway came on next.

Very successful.

We're looking at expanding at the city.

and the great thing is that the students at the high school really own the organization of this.

Driving all of our work is our set of core beliefs that hunger is unacceptable, everyone deserves access to enough food.

Food sustains life and importantly nourishes health and we are called to serve without judgment.

There are a lot of normal, typical ways to help a food bank, right?

But I want to just close by asking one thing.

We're seeing record numbers of people and it's only going to climb as technology and other factors disorder the labor market.

and the Nation's Charitable Food Assistance Network, 200 Feeding America food banks, all together serving 40 million Americans, is experiencing more strain than ever in our 50 year history.

Part of that is because of the sheer number of people seeking help.

Part of it is the aging volunteer base that isn't replacing itself in local church pantries and community centers.

And part of it is a decline in the government's role in supporting food security in this nation.

Right now, the food bank has far less in federal commodities than we ever have.

That means we've gone from spending under $2 million a year buying food to over $5 million a year buying food to make up for that gap.

We can't sustain it.

We're looking at million-dollar annual deficits going forward in the years if we continue operating like we are now.

So my ask is not of the council as a body necessarily, but that as individuals you help us convince Congress to increase the food supply to food banks so that we can sustain what we're doing.

But also equally important, we've got to get serious about expanding and strengthening SNAP.

An unpopular topic in many corners of

are government.

But the reality is, SNAP provides 10 times as much food as food banks do.

And if Congress thinks it should cut SNAP by just 10%, that's doubling what's going to be asked of us, and we're all ready close to collapse.

I don't mean to sound like it's a crisis.

It isn't at that point yet.

But going 5, 10 years out, it will be.

Your constituents, your neighbors are depending on this system and we need your help and help of others in this room today to convince Congress that they've got a strength in the Farm Bill and the nation's safety net for food security.

Just to say thank you and your staff for all the incredible work you do.

You know, thank your donors and your volunteers who enable that work to happen.

You know, one of the reasons I had asked the Food Bank to come here is because I know in doing the critical work you do and the need to attend to that, it can become hard to get your message out of what's happening and in the state of this community.

So I would speak to the media who's here today.

We have a big agenda that we've had today and a lot of things we'll get reported on, but make sure to pay attention to this.

And I would like to see this in a small way and it's a small way, but draw attention to this in each of your different news outlets of what's happening and making sure to understand the critical need that you've laid out in front of us.

Did you say your food bank has that $3 million gap?

The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank has an operating budget of about $17 million a year.

If we continue spending $5 million on food, we're going to run a million dollar deficit next year and every year following.

And obviously that's not sustainable.

We can do it for a while, but we need

It's hard for me to imagine that all of those locales and all of those business owners know that this gap is there.

And it's also shocking for me, because I've always promoted for more and more community contribution.

Oh, community?

Yeah.

You gotta watch the line because you don't want to just support nonprofits with tax dollars, right?

But there are certain staples I think we need for the greater good of economic development and to help to maintain the city.

So, and quite honestly, non-profits solve a lot of problems, just like entrepreneurs solve a lot of problems.

So we got to support them.

But I mean, I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people, especially in the state of Virginia.

And I don't think we had a conversation that a third of Harrisonburg needs to food bank.

in addition to there's a possible you know two to three million dollar gap that's you know looming yeah again that gap is by our choosing because we're spending a lot of money buying food my point is it's philanthropic as we can be especially in the region that you name because you happen to be in the most collegiate region and so your numbers are going to be high because of the college students

but ironically it's also because of the amount of service jobs which are low paying jobs in those communities but on the flip side those are usually the most generous communities so I would love to have more conversation with you because I think we are in the right I think you are in the right region where people

I just don't think that they know it.

I talked to people in other locales today.

No one would have convinced me of that stat.

If someone walked up to me and said a third of your residents have used your service, right?

Now, and I know all the other stats.

I've never translated it to just food.

I know all the Alice stats.

I know, you know, I know the homeless shelter, but just food.

This household is

often and probably mostly a food bank household.

The majority of the households we serve have someone in the home who's working.

And that's the difference.

We started 50 years ago, not our organization, but food banking to provide emergency and supplemental food assistance.

And today we've become a shadow food system for America's poor.

and the reason that's happened is of course growing income inequality since the 70s.

It's only going to get worse due to a lot of other trends and changes and in our communities are very supportive of the food bank our giving has doubled in the last four years and we're grateful for that but that's never going to keep pace with the level of need in the community and that's why we really want

I would love to have a conversation with you, a meeting with you, because I think there's opportunity that we may not be aware of or looking at to support you.

Tiff Byron Kand, The Mayor and I both have strong relationships with Charlottesville, for example.

First of all, I'm glad you brought up the Farm Bill in my position on the National League of Cities, Energy and Environment Committee.

We're strongly promoting the Farm Bill and to keep it intact, and especially the SNAP portion of it.

So yes, lobby our Congress people.

Also, an international example.

Italy just passed a law that extra food has to go to charity, not the landfill.

You're going to N.O.C.

You might say Dillon Rule or something.

But at the very least we could encourage it.

Now there's a program that we just heard about from Public Works for, I forget what it's called, Green Certification for Restaurants, Tom Hartman Notting.

And I imagine one of the checkboxes or incentives could be donate your extra food to charity, right?

Yep, okay, we're getting yeps.

So yeah, there's that.

This is why we want nonprofits to come.

I keep telling nonprofits to come, let us know what you're doing, especially the ones that we give to.

And we're so self-conscious about taking your time.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of City Council, Mr. Banks, Mr. Brown, Ms.

Snyder.

Today, I come to you, we're going to go over another legacy donation, so I normally don't do this, but

This one hits home to me a little bit, so I'm going to read a little bit to calm my nerves, and then we're going to talk about what this donation can do.

The reason we're here is a legacy donation from the Swim Versaity Memorial Fund, managed by the Diebel family.

The Diebels are in the first row here.

And it's a donation to the Harrisonburg Parks and Recreation Department.

So the summary to City Council was on October 25th of 2022.

Thought I'd get a little further than this.

Sadie Diebel passed away at the age of 13 years old Sadie was an avid swimmer and spent a lot of time with her childhood at West Everpool for various aquatic activities.

Some of those activities included swimming on the vast year-round swim team, swimming in the valley swim league, which I can't see my paper now so I'm going to try to do the best I can, and recreationally for fun.

Although she swam competitively, the primary reason she loved going to Westover Pool was to be with her friends on the pool deck.

Sadie and her father always wanted to find a way to start a swim by second program in the area, and this donation tonight of $50,000 is a perfect way for her to give back to a community and an amenity that meant so much to her.

And that's Westover Pool.

providing access to free swim lessons for community residents that will teach a potentially life-saving skill is invaluable.

This will be a great program for city residents.

So to give, and I apologize, but to give a little bit of a background on what this donation will do is, that of course is Sadie, and what we're proposing to do tonight is the debils are going to donate $50,000 to buy a couple thousand basically swim lessons.

to start a swim by second program where anyone in Harrisonburg City Public Schools that are in grade kindergarten, first or second will get a free swim lesson.

And a free swim lesson for us is a multi-week program.

It'll be done by our aquatic staff in the back.

And they're all here tonight.

You know how fantastic they are.

They will work with the Debles to put together a program where it will be, if I have my way as simple as somebody calls up, provides proof that they're in Harrisonburg City Public Schools,

and we will get them enrolled for a swim lesson at Westover Pool.

I wrote a couple things down, but I just scrapped it just to talk off the top of my head before I turn it over to Mr. Deber real quick.

A couple of recollections that I have of Sadie and I've started my time doing this with a lot of people saying that when someone passes away, everybody always brings out the positive in people.

Sadie was one of the best socialite firecrackers I've ever met.

My best recollection of Sadie is when Sadie was on the swim team, my daughter was on the swim team, my youngest daughter was on the swim team.

We traveled down to say Virginia Tech, and when you walk into Virginia Tech's pool, you walk in on ground level.

And you have a choice to go to the seats, or you have a choice to go downstairs to swim.

And the first person that always met us, no matter what, with correct information, incorrect information, and everything else that came with Sadie would come and grab my family, tell us where we're going to sit,

Take my daughter down to the deck and tell her all the information that Coach Scott gave her that was sometimes right and sometimes wrong and we sifted through that.

But every time we went to Virginia Tech, Sadie was the first one to not only meet my family, but meet everybody else's family as well in her friends group.

The other thing is, Sadie got along with everybody.

So this was a young lady that was mature socially beyond her years because she could sit with 15, 16, 17 year olds and have a great conversation and talk teen stuff with them.

and she could go all the way down to my little daughter that's sitting over there and guide her through a three-hour swim meet by hanging around with her, and she remembers the mayor for sure, hanging around with her for three hours and get her to the blocks and walk her back while all of her friends were socialized and Sadie was there with my daughter.

And when I say she's a firecracker, the social part of it was hard to lose.

My daughter swims with her every day in the same lane, every day, for two hours a day, hour and a half a day, and she's not here.

and she's missed.

I'm making this too easy, Brian.

So bear with me.

This is the first time that I've ever done this.

First and foremost, I appreciate your attention.

I want to express our sincere gratitude for your time to consider this legacy donation in the memory of our daughter, Sadie Diebel.

The Swim Perceding Memorial Fund was established with the encouragement of the families of Sadie's friends.

Today, we and Brian said the debils, but it's actually everyone behind you and many more wish to make available $50,000 to the City of Harrisonburg Parks and Recreation Department from over 235 individual donations.

We're flexible with the name, but for this evening I'm going to refer to it as the swim by second free swim lesson program because the idea is that you get kids swimming at a very early age, ideally before second grade.

We believe that it can become a signature initiative for the city of Harrisonburg and at the same time bring a lot of kids together to swim in Sadie's name.

So I'm going to wear a couple of hats today in front of city council and

proposing a cool and somewhat innovative program.

So the first thing I want to do is introduce my family.

We've lived in the area for almost 19 years in Rockingham County, but we spend a lot of time in the city of Harrisonburg utilizing its resources.

My name is Paul Diebel, and I'm dad to two great girls, Zoe and Sadie.

I've been teacher and administrator at a small university in Stanton for the past 21 years.

and tonight one of the caps I'm going to put on is as president of a non-profit year-round valley area swim team that many know as VAST and I served in that role for almost three years.

This is my wife Jenny Visker.

She's mom to the same two great girls and she's an OB-GYN in the Harrisonburg community and has been for the last 18 years.

Zoe Diebel, Sadie's sister and best friend is away at college.

She's at VCU right now in her first year as a freshman.

and behind me is Sadie's Swim Family.

So when I say we have a donation to offer, it's us collectively.

I'd like to provide some context as I put on my President of the Vast Board hat for this Swim by Second initiative and hopefully kind of portray for you what it could mean to the city of Harrisonburg and to our family, our swim family.

As part of VAST, I was given the opportunity to work with a lot of Harrisonburg swim community and all of the aquatic staff in the Harrisonburg Parks and Rec Department.

Brian, AJ, Michelle, Doug, Ray, Ryan, and many others and as Brian said, they're all back there.

And I can honestly say, there is no, there is not a group of people that I would have more confidence in handling this donation and implementing this program.

and that group of really good humans back there.

Sadie knew these fine folks and watched me work with them over countless hours to support something that she truly loved.

In 2022, VAST completed a program review and improvement planning process with the assistance of a group of JMU Business School students working with the Board of Directors of VAST.

And on May 1st, 2022, all willing parents that came to the Dream Come True Park that day were surveyed with the goal of gaining a better understanding of the needs of our community.

The survey respondents said the following.

And 75% of the kids' families surveyed were in the age group of ages 1 to 10.

68% more than two-thirds of those kids did not know how to swim.

That was a very surprising and shocking number to me.

79% of those families indicated that they were not interested in their children participating on a team sport.

But 95%

said they would love to participate in a program that taught their child to swim at an early age.

So a program that provides free swim lessons for kids in K-2 targets that high-need group and will provide numerous benefits for city residents.

Obviously improving the health as obesity is on the rise, providing a mechanism to bring kids and families together, increasing usage of city facilities and pools, especially as there's discussion of heating the 50-meter pool.

Sadie loved being at Westover.

She spent countless hours there and truly loved that pool.

and most importantly it will provide a life-saving skill for our city kids.

So the goal of this Swim for Sandy Memorial Fund donation is to offer an accessible, walkable, bikeable, drivable option for kids in the city of Harrisonburg to learn to swim that is open to all families equally regardless of background or ability to pay.

Mayor Reed, you may, remember, you may not, a conversation with a young lady and a vast swimmer named Millie Gorby.

and she was one of Sadie's friends.

She was one of that older group that Sadie just, she just got along with everybody and Millie had an idea.

It was not an original idea of Millie's but she wanted to bring to the city of Harrisonburg a program that incorporated swimming into all of the city elementary schools.

and we've researched this program and that program exists in Richmond and in Northern Virginia in large city school systems.

Ryan and I have had plenty of discussions about this and there was even a small pilot program that was offered at Bluestone Elementary School.

But in researching these school-based programs it's clear that there would be significant challenges for implementation in our city school system as good as it is at offering so many diverse programs.

The transportation, the time, the recruiting and funding for instructors, the logistics through

School Board and principals and PE teachers just to name a few.

So our vision is to compromise and collaborate by providing this private funding to start the free swim lesson initiative with the possibility of future expansion within city programs.

And of course I want more than anything to have Sadie and not be standing in front of you under these circumstances.

and honestly I wonder how anything good can come from Sadie's death but we can't change what's happened.

We can however offer to support and build this program in Sadie's name now and potentially for many years to come.

Brian did a pretty good job of giving you a glimpse of who said he was, but I'd like to offer a little bit more about how this program complements who she was as a person and her continuing memory which lives within so many people and they can probably be shared with so many more.

and unfortunately, as Brian mentioned, this part of the story begins with her tragic loss.

On October 25th, 2022, Sadie Diebel died of sudden cardiac arrest.

She had attended swim practice a few days before.

She loved Friday swim practices because those were race days and it wasn't because she cared so much about racing.

I think she loved those days so much because she knew she would have lots of time in between swimming just two events to socialize and play with her friends.

Just over 48 hours before she died, she ran around with friends enjoying an entire day at a Jammu football game.

And what seemed, she didn't feel well the next day and what seemed like a mostly mild flu-like illness suddenly was not.

So, as part of swimming in Sadie's name, maybe there will also be a greater awareness of the subtle dangers of sudden cardiac arrest.

The American Heart Association released the 2022 update for heart and stroke logistics and SCA for that entire year was as follows 347,322 out of hospital cardiac arrest that's almost a thousand per day and far too many of those thousands were children and there's an overall survival rate of only 9% so knowing Sadie's story could also help save a life outside of the pool too

But now on to the good things that matter so much about our beloved sweet Sadie Lady.

She was small in stature, but she filled a room with her larger-than-life personality.

As you can see from those pictures, it was nearly impossible to find a picture or a video of her where she was not smiling.

And that's her sister with her in two of those pictures.

Sadie brought a contagious love of life to every experience.

She was my primary helper for taking our trash to the dump.

One time we were throwing away old furniture from the girl's second floor porch.

There are no steps down to the yard, so I told Sadie we would have to throw the furniture over the edge to load it on the trailer.

Much to her delight, I demonstrated with the table, and then she did the chairs.

The next to last chair she threw over, it spun a couple of times in mid-air, and instead of breaking into pieces like the others, it landed upright.

She ran around that deck yelling and laughing and high-fiving me Pure joy even when she was taking out the trash Sadie never met a stranger She was a friend tall Sometimes waiting for her event behind the blocks at a swimming meet I would watch her arms flail she talked with her arms As she was having a conversation with someone who seemed to me like they must be an old friend

Afterwards, I would ask her, who was that?

And she would simply say, I don't know.

She had a way of making us all feel loved.

And although Sadie spent a lot of time at West Overpool, she also had a love of riding horses at Kieselnutten Farm.

She begged her instructor, Danielle, to work at the barn.

But she was only 13 and Danielle said, I've never let anyone under the age of 14 work at the barn.

but she said, Sadie, you can stay a little bit after your lesson and you can help.

About two weeks later, we got a phone call from Danielle and she said, Paul, I'm not sure that was the best idea.

The girls who actually work here are leaving about an hour and a half later than they normally do because Sadie just talks to them the whole time and all they do is have fun.

Sadie had such a kind soul.

In a school assignment that we found on her computer after she died, she wrote a reflection journal entry.

Sadie mentioned her cats, her dogs, teachers, and coaches, and many friends with specific words about being grateful for each of them.

Then she told the following story, which I get to tell you now, partly because it's mine, and it sums her up as well as anything I can share with you.

In Sadie's own words,

Today I chose to do acts of kindness for people closest to me.

The acts of kindness that I did were good because I loved to help with more than holding the door.

I felt a sense of joy when I completed these acts.

I loved doing things to make other people's lives easier.

My dad kept thanking me for helping, and when I said I was going to harvest the corn, he came over and gave me a huge hug and kept telling me how much he loves and appreciates me.

I felt amazing because I knew his day was better than before, just because of a few small things that I did.

I love being nice, and more importantly, I will do anything for my family and friends.

Being kind is something to make sure you do, and that is a huge part of your life.

I will end by offering you this perspective from C80's beloved local Red Wing Roots Music Festival.

which is our favorite dad and daughter activity in the years and decades since it began.

The host band The Steel Wheels wrote a song for another 13 year old girl who passed away.

But it was sung for the first time in public at Sadie's Celebration of Life almost a year and a half ago.

The song's lyrics will forever offer some strength to carry the unbearable weight of losing Sadie.

and they might offer an opportunity for everyone here to reflect on life.

Parts of the song go like this.

I don't have a song to sing.

She's gone and she won't be back.

Life is hard and it makes no sense.

Lift your voice when I am gone.

Loves the word I want to say.

If you ever have to sing this song, easy on your way.

I'm grateful for this opportunity to speak with you to tell you a little bit about our amazing little girl Sadie and ask you to support this donation in her name to begin a swim by second free swim lesson initiative for the city of Harrisonburg.

We have a lot of time to fill and I believe it's something that

My wife and I and an entire swim family behind us can get behind so in various ways we can all swim for our sweet Sadie lady while helping others too.

All right, so we're going to try to bring it back in.

Madam Mayor, I want to let you know just of a couple things that make it even better.

The Diebels live in Rockingham County, but they're giving his donation to the city.

I think that's pretty awesome to do.

So I want to make that aware.

It'll be for city residents in our schools.

I think that's an awesome gesture to do.

The second part is in the swim by second program.

We've researched it.

So we've sent our staff down to Richmond to watch how they do different segments of that.

And we've studied the

The program in Richmond goes on at one of the best swim facilities in the state of Virginia.

So we're real familiar with it, and we think we can do this program very well.

And we think by going through our staff in the Parks and Recreation Department that we can do this program pretty simple.

And that's why we're elected to go forward with it the way we're going forward with it tonight.

So as you know, with the donation policy, we don't really need to take a vote.

But what we'd like to have is your blessing to move forward.

And what that would do is it would let our staff get with

The Debal family will start to create the guidelines and way to take the donation properly and put it into use.

And a swim by second program, again, it's the type of swim lessons that's a life-saving skill.

But we've also talked about taking those same kids who maybe couldn't swim and run a little swim meet and make them feel special, different things.

They have a lot of ideas that we can put in place.

And usually when we come, and I have another donation coming after this, and usually it's for an amenity, this one's for a program.

And I think that's awesome because, you know, I can bring you scoreboards and bleachers and whatever, but this is for actually helping kids have access to a life-saving skill and maybe more.

So, you're asking for our blessing, but you're truly a blessing to us.

and so thank you for entrusting us and allowing us to honor Sweet Sadie in this way and for her memory and her life to live on because you're going to be helping so many, so many children.

and I'm grateful that you're doing this and we will definitely take care of your legacy and Sadie Smile will live on.

We will guarantee that.

So thank you so much for doing this and helping other children learn how to swim.

Thank you so much for that.

Brian, thank you, and your staff as well.

I know this is hard, but it's such a beautiful moment, and so I don't want to diminish what's happening here, because I know it's painful, but thank you so much.

So it's a blessing to us.

It's a blessing to us.

The way you're involved in child care and youth programs and stuff, I knew talking with Mr. Diebel that I knew this would be right up your alley and many more council members as well, but I knew that you would really appreciate this.

I just gotta quickly say, I thank you for sharing your Sadie with us.

This is my opinion.

to give from a place of loss is I think as close as we get to being like God.

And I think to start to heal from the loss that all of you are reeling from probably starts in that kind of a place.

And so, and especially to give from a place of loss to people who won't, that you won't know and that won't give back to you.

is an incredibly honorable and noble and rewarding and to me God-like thing and so I have to say thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart.

It has absolutely nothing to do with even the actual gifts but just the thought alone I think is magnificent and so to have you know a few hundred people standing behind you I thought it was very significant

that you made sure you included that number.

And so I appreciate whoever thought to do that and who and all of you for participating because it shows how much this will be magnified and it hasn't even started yet.

And so thank you for being bold enough and strong enough to come here because that's not easy.

So thank you.

I just like to add that one

I appreciate you coming here and know how hard it is to share from a place of pain.

But it seems like to know Sadie was to love her.

But by this outpouring of support, it shows that Sadie was loved.

And I'm just so appreciative of what you're doing, of what Sadie set the ground for.

So thank you for sharing your story.

and we hope to hear from you again about how wonderfully this program is going.

So thank you, Brian, for working with these folks.

And I know you've lost along with them.

And Miss Robinson real quick and mayor in Richmond, they have a wall that

Most of the girls in here have swam there and have seen it where they celebrate the number of schools that they serve in the Richmond area and who comes for this program, swim by second.

We're going to do the same thing at Westover somehow.

And so the donation that gets left for the swim lessons, we're going to donate how many we've served in Harrisonburg.

And we hope that that lives on.

And that's how we'll memorialize her at Westover Pool.

Second.

Roll call, please, Pam.

Council Member Jones?

Vice Mayor Dent?

Aye.

Council Member Robinson?

Aye.

Council Member Fleming?

Aye.

Mayor Reed?

And I'll just, a procedural thing, you don't have, it's not rude to get up and you can go now.

You don't have to watch the rest of City Council.

So you may take it that way, but you're more than welcome to go outside and we can talk to the Debels, but there's some more boring stuff coming.

He's supposed to tell them after they've stayed another hour.

Yeah, exactly.

I can not get up to hug.

Okay, you have to call the next one, I'm sorry.

We have another legacy donation tonight from the Harrisonburg Little League Association.

The summary real quick for this one is the Harrisonburg Little League Association is approached to Parks and Recreation Department with an offer to donate $33,364 for multiple scoreboard installations and a story shed at Purcell Park.

This shed will be placed on approved park property vetted by community development and at Purcell Park Little League Baseball Fields.

Under the city donation policy, this offer must be reported to the city council.

So basically what we have here, Little League is going to donate two solar scoreboards and they're going to match the scoreboards that we have everywhere else in the park system.

Very easy installation and then a utility shed on the property that's raised out of the floodplain.

I don't see any problems for it.

The procurement for the project will come through the Parks and Recreation Department.

So we'll take care of getting the three bids and doing all that stuff and just erect the property.

So staff, our staff recommends it.

I don't see any reason why.

Well, I don't want to say that because there may be a reason why.

It's not my purpose.

I'm sorry.

I'm still shaking up a little bit from the previous.

But anyway, we recommend this will be an easy project to do.

And we have to give our hat a little bit to HLLA because this is the second large donation they've given in like the last year and a half.

And I think it's a pretty good project.

One thing just was I think important to recognize Dean Warleitner and a high school mate of ours and I don't know exactly how many reasons he's been doing Harrisonburg Little League but it's decades that he's been doing this that he has worked tirelessly for that program and I just want to formally recognize kind of his work

here because it's the type of work that often goes unrecognized.

He does it because he loves to do it and he would do it.

Under any circumstances, he isn't looking for thanks, but I do want to offer that thanks.

I don't know if you know how long he's been here, but it's been a long time doing it.

No, it is.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the donation to Parks and Recs Department.

from the Harrisonburg Little League Association, I presented the best thing.

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Thank you all.

Appreciate it.

City Councilors, City Manager, and others.

As a tourism manager for the city, I'm always looking for opportunities, promotional opportunities, ways to highlight Harrisonburg, and grant opportunities.

And so, I'm here tonight to request your adoption of the proposed VA 250 Resolution as presented to support the Virginia America 250 Commission and their efforts to commemorate the semi-quincentennial, or otherwise known as the 250th,

anniversary of Virginia's participation in the American Independence and to form a Harrisonburg VA 250 committee.

Adopting this resolution will make Harrisonburg eligible for promotional opportunities, give us access to resources and eligibility for grant funds.

Already several community partners, the Virginia Quilt Museum has a quote exhibit planned to celebrate 250 years of Virginia's history.

The Mennonite Heritage Center is working on

series of talks, talking about the migration of brethren and men from places like Pennsylvania where they were persecuted because of their pacifist stance during the revolution.

And of course, Daniel will do things to celebrate their namesake, who was an important founder, of course.

Personally, I, believe it or not, have fond memories of the bicentennial, because I was really little, and all that had been involved in the costumes and the pageantry.

learning about our nation's history and it meant an awful lot to me as a child and so many others.

So I think this is a really great opportunity to celebrate our nation's history, the promises and the failures and the successes and for Harrisonburg to be part of that celebration and part of those discussions as we move forward.

And I, of course, could talk at length on this topic, but out of respect for time in the lateness of the evening, I'll just open it.

I have a question.

So I looked up the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission and online and so I wanted to look at the history and I had some concerns with the language.

The statement being that

Let's see here, from the first colonists to the founding fathers to first baptist church, from native lands to the journey to freedom for the enslaved.

And that particular statement just kind of stood out to me because the journey to freedom wouldn't be needed because we were already free.

And so I just had like a problem with that statement as if

is that they're talking about the promise that's not yet been fully realized and that part of the nationwide support of this initiative as well as some of the themes even within the state give us the opportunity to celebrate and talk about and highlight even with grant funds of where the ideals have not been met and the promises that have not been fully met and how our community or other communities have worked towards realizing that goal and failed in cases and you know we certainly could

Talk about any number of things in Harrisonburg and apply for grants that highlight aspects of our history that failed to meet the promise of the founders.

And that's what I think is one of the strengths of the program.

It shows that things were just perfect.

Women weren't equal.

There were people enslaved.

There were people horribly treated.

All the parts of our history can be discussed in this program.

And I think it's important to talk about this conversation.

there's so much where we have so much divisiveness today that talking about civic education and understanding the values and what it takes some things that were mentioned here earlier tonight it takes people coming being a part of the committee is being a part of the change and we have that opportunity in our society that isn't available everywhere and that's part of the promise I think that was never fully realized and many some people may say still not fully realized today and I think that's one of the benefits of

celebrating the principles and talking about what hasn't been realized and what still can be achieved, but that the values themselves are really important ones that we strive to live up to as a nation.

And I think Harrisonburg has such an interesting story.

And I think by forming a committee, which this resolution asks us to form a committee, it gives us the access to talk.

We can hold events that we publicize.

We can highlight walking tours like the Roots Run Deep Walking Tour and others.

Well, I'm glad that you expounded on that.

But the key words that stuck out to me was the acquisition of grant funding.

And I also have a problem with organizations and you mentioned Roots Run Deep.

And I don't know if many people know this, but I'm the executive director for Roots Run Deep.

Organizations of the Shenandoah Valley Black Heritage Project.

And what we do find problem with is people, groups in particular, obtaining grant money off of our story.

And so grant money did come up now, first off, when we were talking, when you went to explain this further.

And then you tied that to Rooster and Steep.

So were you trying to

make a connection that we would be using.

So two separate things.

One, one of the benefits of this whole resolution makes us eligible for grant funds.

So that's one of the benefits that we could apply for marketing dollars to leverage the dollars that we currently have.

It would also enable us to get our events and our information on a broader statewide website and access to

larger profile, larger marketing opportunities than we currently have.

I think that your point about people being enslaved and people being forced here, I think that's an important point that this can address.

And that's my point in bringing up a program like Roots Run Deep.

I think that's an opportunity to talk about the broader history and the broader story of Harrisonburg and to share activities and programs on that broader website.

that whose stories are being told.

I'm just finding a problem with the way you're explaining things.

I'm not saying the rest of the council is, but I just can't stand behind it because of those reasons.

No, I appreciate that.

And I didn't mean to apply.

We would be applying for a grant for the Roots Run Deep program.

What I was suggesting is we would have opportunity to apply for a grant to highlight all types of events like the Virginia Quilt Museums

Yeah, because I just feel like the information that's included on the website is still not the truthful story of our people.

Unfortunately, I don't have any control of the states that our history has been like.

You cannot control that.

But it's my duty as an African-American woman to bring it out when I see it blatantly on black and white in front of me.

Just to be clear, this resolution, as the title is, is just about forming the committee so that you can apply for the grant.

What?

has been our willingness to be a part of their website and promote our events and our community on their website as well as forming.

Most of the communities, the cities and the counties in the state have already passed resolutions to do this.

And this is sort of the next threshold is passing this resolution opens up opportunities and connection with the VA 250 commission.

If there's no other questions, then we need to take action.

There's not a deadline.

It's open.

There are grants that open through various cycles.

There's one opening in March that I believe closes at the end of April.

So that was the timing was to see if there was interest.

And then former commission start doing research on what

Well, on that note, since we're skipping the next meeting, because we'll be at the NLC thing, I'll make a motion to move forward if that's what you need to keep moving, and then just we'll see who supports it.

Fair enough.

Madam Mayor, I move that we adopt the resolution to form a local Virginia America 250 committee as presented.

Any more discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

We're here tonight to present about the receipt of some federal funds, discuss the grain opportunity and some potential projects.

So I'm actually going to sit back down and let Luke

I'm here tonight to provide a brief overview of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, or EECBG.

Administered by the Department of Energy, the EECBG is designed to assist states, local governments, and tribes in implementing strategies to reduce energy use, reduce fossil fuel emissions, and improve energy efficiency.

While this funding comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,

is not the first iteration of the EECBG program.

The EECBG was first implemented in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, designed to stimulate the nation's economy following the Great Recession.

The city used the funds for energy efficiency upgrades at city facilities at this time.

As I mentioned, the current amount of funding is the result of the 2021 Infrastructure Bill.

The city will be receiving direct formula grant funding in the amount of $117,870 from this program.

Under the second iteration of the EECBG, there are more eligible uses and activities for the funds, which I'll look at in a moment.

So as I noted, the city will be receiving direct formula grant funding from this program.

While we still have to apply for the funding, it has been set aside for us.

We have to apply to demonstrate to DOE what we're going to be using the funds for.

All 50 states, as well as Indian tribes, are also eligible for this formula funding.

In the cities, eligibility is determined based on its population size.

So you can see here in the middle part of the screen, cities with more than 35,000 residents or in the top 10 most populous cities in their state receive this direct formula funding.

Counties with more than 200,000 residents or in the top 10 most popular counties in the state also receive this formula funding.

I'll mention here that there is a competitive portion of the EECBG.

We are not eligible for this.

Because we received the formula funding, we can't apply for this competitive portion of this program.

So if you hear anything about that, that's not something that we can take advantage of.

On the screen, you'll see a list of eligible activities under the EECBG program.

These numerous activities are designed to encourage local governments to reduce energy consumption, reduce fossil fuel emissions, and improve energy efficiency.

I won't read these all to you, but I'll highlight a few notable ones, including conducting, building energy audits, installing energy efficiency retrofits, reviewing building codes and inspection processes, placing renewable energy technologies on government buildings, and implementing programs for financing, purchasing and installing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and zero emission transportation measures.

The EECVG is structured in a way to give funding recipients the option to have their funding allocated as either a grant or a voucher.

If a locality chooses to have their funding allocated as a grant, they must submit a formula application and receive their funds as a grant, which can then be utilized for eligible activities of the local government's choice.

Grantees can utilize what are called blueprints from the DOE to aid in the implementation of their grant-funded projects.

Blue prints are essentially just DOE's guidelines or models for how to implement a specific type of project, such as a solar project, a building coach review project, etc.

The other option is to have funding allocated as a voucher rather than a grant.

EECBG vouchers can cover purchases of specific products and services, such as technical assistance services, equipment purchases, and installation rebates.

Vouchers for technical assistance could give the city access to experts in energy efficiency or a variety of other topic areas.

Vouchers for equipment purchases and installation could reimbursed the city for the purchase of energy related equipment such as HVAC systems, heat pumps, solar panels, energy efficient windows, and lots of other sorts of things.

So these are just a few examples and there are many more types of equipment purchases and technical assistance services that can be reimbursed through vouchers.

Regardless of whether you choose to pursue a grant or voucher, our award will consist of a two year project and budget period

However, DOE recommends that communities under 250,000 residents choose the voucher route rather than the grant route because it's a lot less administrative work for the city staff.

And additionally, vouchers have a simplified application process, fewer startup steps, and a faster application turnaround time.

So that's all I have for you right now.

Alright, I'm back.

Save all your heart questions for him.

In early 2023, we knew that we'd receive these federal funds.

At the time, DOE still had not published mist of the program guidelines and the application wasn't yet open.

Still, staff presented to EBSAC to gain an understanding of potential projects and priorities to help us narrow in where we might look at.

On the screen are some words that EPSAC used to describe various priorities that they would like to see to spend the funds with, the top three being project visibility, commitment or demonstration to sustainability and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

We provided also a list of about 20 potential projects that spanned across the 13 different project types that were on the screen earlier and we asked EPSAC to rank the projects based on desirability with those priorities that they gave us before as kind of guiding goals as more information came out from DOE to help us in case something became ineligible or just wouldn't be something that we could pursue.

So on the screen are the top five as ranked by EPSEC with the top one being the 50 kilowatt solar system across the full south side of the Turner Pavilion So then I'm run through here the top five Turner Pavilion would be a solar system that we would install it'd be about 50kW The estimated cost for this project would be $250,000

and it aligns with the Environmental Action Plan Focus Area 1 which is Buildings and Energy.

On the screen actually all of them align with that.

Its greenhouse gas reduction value is high as it is towards the larger of the system sizes that we can install through the voucher route which would be a 60kW cap.

The reach value would be, it's mainly dealing with city operations.

However, the larger turn of pavilion solar system, the way that we would design it would return a significant portion of that solar back to the grid.

So we also gave it a low slash medium reach value and that some of the benefits would be returned to our community.

This would be a voucher process.

The second one was solar on Lucy Sims Center.

This is a smaller system.

It would be about 30kW with an estimated cost between $88,000 and $120,000.

I'll also note here to keep it in the voucher pathway, we only looked at the newer addition to keep with the streamlined NEPA requirements that we would have since it's a smaller system.

We had a medium emission reduction value.

If the system installed at Lucy Sims would just get offset power used at Lucy Sims, our reach value was just city operations only.

Again, this is a voucher pathway.

The third project suggested by EPSEC was the municipal building energy audits.

So these are essentially studies of our facilities to look at the mechanical and envelope of the buildings.

to evaluate if there are potential energy efficiency upgrades possible that could help reduce our energy consumption.

We put an estimated cost of 80,000.

That is just the number that we used for approximately six buildings.

Wasn't sure if we could quite get all the way up to a seventh, so we just left it there.

This would have no direct emissions as it is just an audit which would produce a report

about potential upgrades we could take.

The reach would only be city operations again, and this would also be a voucher pathway.

The fourth was to create a programmable thermostat rebate.

The estimated cost would be whatever we would put towards it, up to the grant amount or any additional.

The reach value was considered low to medium, as there was a lot of steps from creating the program to actually having

The thermostat is installed correctly and used to function of reducing consumption.

The reach value was considered medium as the program could be structured in various ways to target lower income if we designed it that way.

This process would have to go through the grant route.

The last one was the Termin Pavilion 9 kilowatts solar system.

This would just cover the electrical use that is at Turner Pavilion.

That has an estimated cost of $22,000 to $32,000.

Its emission reduction value is low.

Again, it's just going to impact city operations and that would be the voucher pathway.

So the top ranked project from EPSAC was to install a solar system along the south facing roof of Turner Pavilion.

This project would be a 50KW system.

It would generate approximately 71,000 kilowatt hours a year of solar power.

Since the facility only uses about 15,000 kilowatts a year, the majority of those kilowatt hours would actually be sent back to the grid.

And we noted as kind of community solar since we would be returning it to the benefit of all of our grid users.

based off of 2022 electricity prices.

This system is anticipated to yield approximately $1,700 in annual electricity savings.

I will note that 2022 electricity prices may not reflect the prices we'll see through the full 30-year lifespan of the system, but it gives an estimate.

The top selected

Project from EPSAC aligns with several city plans, so I just highlighted a few here.

Our recently adopted community goals, the third one was to promote the adoption of clean renewable energy.

Our environmental action plan focus area one, again that's building it's an energy, goal one and two were to identify opportunities to increase carbon free sources and consider generating on-site energy.

And then also

Council's resolution from 2020, Harrisonburg's transition to renewable energy by 2035, supported clean renewable energy.

The next steps are actually next steps for staff, so we have to submit our project application by April 30th.

After that point, we would wait to receive award notice from DOE, and then from there comply with any of the program reporting requirements.

The ask for tonight is that we need Council to direct staff how to use these funds and with the reminder that voting for the 50KW Turner Pavilion solar tonight would also mean that general funds would be needed in the upcoming FY25 budget to cover the cost of the project beyond the 117.870 from the federal grant.

Well, I've been in on this and the solar and the Turner Pavilion is just a dream project has been for years and the high visibility of it, the iconic location of it, as well as it has by far the highest greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

One thing I'm curious about is how you're saying the community solar, how that might work.

Have you worked that out with Brian O'Dell?

Because I remember having some of those discussions with him.

How would it go back to the community, just as net metering on the grid?

Save people's utility bills or just prevent or just create more green energy?

So the short answer, it's creating more green energy.

The mechanism we would use here is that whatever wasn't used by the facility, by Turner Pavilion itself, we would just give back at a rate of 0.00 per kilowatt to the grid, essentially

that solar system would then offset the need to purchase fossil fuel-based energy, HEC would be, they would need to purchase as much as that.

It's about five-ish household use energies, what would be returned back to the grid, which is where we're calling it kind of community solar.

It is not the same as community shared solar programs.

So there would not be anyone subscribing in to see a reduced cost on their bill.

With us returning energy to the grid, there would be the benefit that we're not going to count against the solar cap.

We're not going to impact other customers, HEC customers, by offsetting our infrastructure cost of the rate.

Okay, that explains it because I was wondering because HEC says nobody but them can sell electricity so we're not technically selling it, we're just providing it.

Now we had some ideas that it might serve essentially as a ground mount for either this building or the new or the old

Correct.

And since the initial thought of trying to tie into City Hall, that would involve trenching, which we're working through that solar implementation plan now, and our consultants said just doing that alone would be about a 30% increase in the cost.

Additionally, there are a lot of utilities between Turner Pavilion and here.

Oh, sure.

So we'd have to avoid those or move those, and that would drive up the cost more.

Can you clarify a point for me, either you or Laura?

Correct.

You know, I will say just one thing that's actually intriguing to me is looking at that programmable thermostat rebate because I see that as potentially something that can address other priorities we have in the city about how do we step into financially helping folks who are on the margins can use it and type the support, particularly around energy use.

You know, on the surface, again, of course, it may seem like, yes, that kind of work.

I don't know actually what, you know, what obstacles might be if families could be identified as applying for programmable thermostats, you know, what the benefit would be necessarily.

What issues might arise for folks who need to get those, you know, there.

So I don't know if that would be something we could get more information on before that would

Our initial thoughts we based similar to the weatherization programs that HEC and CHP are doing and they're aiming about 20 to 25 people a year to help with those.

There are a little more challenges with those than a programmable thermostat would be but we just were wondering how quickly in a two-year grant period we could get out enough of those

And I also wonder, with the increase in funding for the Weatherization Community Housing Partners money, so much work has been put into this community in Rockingham County to come back and then offer a programmable thermostat.

I wonder if there would be a way that we could be proactive in trying to work with them somehow so that

Brand new thermostats that have been put in by the weatherization program.

People wouldn't be coming back asking for a programmable thermostat through this.

Okay, it's more of me done.

Madam Mayor, I would like to go ahead and move for the Turner Pavilion, and I can imagine just to follow up on that, to tie in the programmable thermostat with the CHP program that's already existing.

I see what you're getting at there.

And just to go ahead and mention it, the Lucy Sims, at first I had the idea or thought that at Lucy Sims we could have a true community solar, but it turns out all it is is about

39% right of the building itself usage so I think that would more likely be covered in the energy audits that are already underway for city buildings so it really is strictly for the city and it's only what 30 kilowatts so because as you said I wondered it's only for the new part of the building so on that basis I will go ahead and move to

Any more discussion?

Council Member Jones.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

Seven aye.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

The Southern State Police Benevolence Association on behalf of certain HPD members was discussed and we went over in some detail the legal requirements council must deal with and we also informed council that we would bring back a staff recommendation of some additional research.

We have provided that recommendation and research to council in the form of a memorandum from me and the city manager.

It's attached to the agenda.

It's somewhat long and detailed, so I won't dwell on it for too long, but I will hit a few of the highlights.

First, we did set forth the reasons that the city manager and staff are not in favor of an ordinance allowing collective bargaining.

Number one is that we believe that

The City Manager and more importantly, City Council has demonstrated their determination to make sure all employees of the city enjoy a very competitive pay and excellent benefits.

And again, that's for all employees, including HPE officers.

Most recently, Council passed a budget which included recommendations that came out of the comprehensive classification and

Compensation Study.

The result of that was, as of July 1st, the average city employee received a 14% increase in pay.

And the average member of the proposed collective bargaining unit here, which will be HPD officers with the rank of sergeant below, received, again, on the average, 17.25% increase.

And of course,

as council knows this comes on the heels of several years of additional raises.

Also, now the city pays 75% of the health care premiums for our employees, which is very good.

And right now there is a formal benefit study underway

that council approved, the city manager is implemented, it's being conducted by our Department of Human Resources and they have gone out and met with probably by now the majority of city employees and the majority of HPD staff.

I get to try to figure out from meeting with the staff what additional or increased benefits would be most helpful to them and their families.

And when the results of that come back, the city manager's indicated he certainly intends to consider that

and do what he can in recommending improved benefits to Council as part of the budget for those employees.

So again, with all that, staff feels that N-City Council has demonstrated, including very recently, its dedication to all the city employees.

Also,

The retention and recruitment of police officers within the city has improved significantly over the last couple of years.

As council knows, back in 2021 and 22, there were some tough years for both the retention of police officers and hiring of new police officers due to the COVID pandemic and some of the cultural unrest that came out of the murder of George Floyd.

There was a time when a lot of police officers were resigning and that was nationwide, not just in Harrisonburg, nationwide and Virginia.

Harrisonburg was not immune from that from that.

And if you look at some of the information we provided there were a couple of years ago there are significant resignations.

And again, that was true statewide.

At this point,

Resignation statewide still appeared to be a problem.

It's certainly gotten better in Harrisonburg.

But very significantly, the recruitment has significantly improved.

Again, it could be that the atmosphere now for recruiting police officers generally across the country has improved.

But also Chief Warner and her staff and working with our Department of Human Resources

along with the very significant compensation increases from council but together have resulted in a real increase in recruitment.

I know that Chief Warner and her staff really looked at the system to see how it can be improved as far as recruiting.

In February they had a one-day kind of streamlined recruitment testing day for potential recruits instead of stack grant over several days and the result was

at the end of that day, they were able to make six written offers, conditional offers, subject to background checks and that sort of thing.

But that kind of change has really paid off.

And again, Kudos to Chief Warner, her staff, and our Human Resources Department.

And speaking with some of the HPD recruitment staff, and looking at some of the numbers, they're very hopeful that in the very near future,

A year from now, unless something radical happens, HPD will be very close to being full staff.

So again, we don't think that collective bargaining is necessary for the recruitment and retention of officers.

And frankly, when you look at where officers have gone after they left HPD, we certainly have not lost officers to departments with collective bargaining.

Collective Bargaining, we believe, has been and will continue to be somewhat divisive within the Harrisonburg Police Department between officers who want collective bargaining and those who don't, between the this foreign officer, Sergeant Below, and the administration, the command staff, and frankly between HPD and other departments.

if there is collective bargaining and it turns out HPD is the only unit that we think frankly would be naive to believe that if council approved a collective bargaining ordinance that HPD would remain the only bargaining unit we think others would follow.

And then finally I want to talk a little bit about the cost involved and we did go into some detail

about other jurisdictions and most of those are far larger than Harrisonburg, those of the Northern Virginia and the Tidewater areas.

And what's really clear is no one really knows how much this is going to cost.

And that was clear when we were finally able to have a conference with some of the folks from Charlottesville.

Charlottesville we thought

is probably the most comparable to Harrisonburg, certainly as far as size and number of employees, much closer than some of the other larger jurisdictions we looked at.

And we were able to talk to a couple of folks in their finance department and their labor relations manager.

And initially, just to correct one thing, I think my memo, I did cite to a newspaper article

that indicated the city contracted with the law firm DC for 685,000.

And that is what was reported in the article.

They did correct me that it was not just for that one law firm.

It was sort of the initial budget for that first year of cost.

So we cover other things too.

But since that time, and again, Charlottesville, they've approved three units and there are three more coming one per year over the next three years.

Out of the gate, Charlottesville has approved and hired 2.5 additional full-time employees that was a labor relations manager and an HR analyst devoted to collective bargaining analysis.

And those are two very sophisticated positions.

They're difficult to find in Virginia.

I think both of the folks they hired were from out of state and they had some experience.

And those are not cheap hires.

Those are pretty expensive.

half-time employee or employee who would devote half their time to collective bargaining.

They tell us they need more and would like to have more and will be seeking budgeting for more.

But because of budget constraints, it's tough to get them right now, but they'll certainly need more employees in the payroll department, the city attorney's office, and human resources.

And I think their plan right now is to try to get one, maybe two per year for the foreseeable future, again, just to deal with the collective bargaining.

They also have outside contractors.

They have actually two law firms that they're paying to assist.

And I think that's because they were having to go through three negotiations at one time.

And one law firm, they need two law firms.

And they also have a consulting firm that helps with analysis on payroll, budgeting, and a lot of the data analysis that's necessary as they're preparing for negotiations.

and they are relying on outside contracts in law firms and consultants to do a lot of the negotiation.

I think the labor relations manager leads the way, but relies on some of these outside folks.

And then when they get to what they call the fact finding, which is really an unfair labor charge hearing, again, the consultants are very active in that.

And of course,

Since they have so many units, they'll be in a position that they're just consistently, you know, constantly bargaining and, you know, we would anticipate at some point that what happened here.

They indicated that they, again, no one knows how much it's really going to cost, but they believe $500,000 per year pretty easily for the ongoing annual administrative costs or just having the system operating.

And they're also, they talked a lot about the tremendous number of hours that staff has expended on this issue.

Staff from the city manager to deputy city managers, members of the city attorney's department, HR, finance.

Again, they said the meetings in preparing for negotiations and implementing things

hundreds of hours of navigation.

That's a cost that can be hard to put a number to.

And right now they're trying to figure out how to train all of their other department managers and lower level managers and just sort of the day to day how to deal with collective bargaining organizations.

What can they do with unions on a day to day basis?

How is it different from how they operate now?

It's, again, it's hard to tell, but we think between the $400,000 to $500,000 per year, just as an annual cost, when you look at the employees that have to be hired and the contractors, again, for instance, a labor relations administrator under all the ordinances that have to be hired.

And that's usually a lawyer, a professional who knows and has a lot of background in labor relations.

who will help implement the system act as an effective judge when there are issues to be determined will help draft regulations.

They have someone on retainer outside law firms.

One thing that's clear when you look at all the different jurisdictions, I looked at some information in Fairfax County's new budget information.

I think all the localities who have approved collective bargaining are in the position of

how many raised taxes or cut services or both to meet the collective bargaining cost and the cost that I've been discussing is just sort of the ongoing year-to-year cost of operating the collective bargaining system that doesn't include the cost that come out of the contract which is negotiated and again Charlottesville and some of the localities

are at the point where they're starting to see those costs.

Fairfax, I think close to $148 million increase in their compensation related cost that mostly is driven by the collective bargaining.

Charlottesville, I don't think, I know those agreements are not public yet, but the increased labor costs from those are going to be more than six figures, seven figure range.

All that to say with the immense cost staff's opinion is it would not be good for the city to spend $500,000 a year each year just to operate the system.

Really to create a bureaucracy that frankly I think and see manager believes that based on city council's actions his recommendations is not necessary.

So again, that's a summary of what was in our report supplement with some information from Charlottesville.

I'll be happy to try to answer any questions if anyone has any.

Council does have to make a decision no later than the first meeting in April.

Included in the report was a recommendation that we think that a lot of the benefits of collective bargaining be achieved without the form of collective bargaining such as a committee system.

There's been at least one other city that in lieu of collective bargaining instructed the city manager to set up an employee committee communication system

where the city manager would meet several times a year with different groups of employees.

For instance, the PD and then the fire to receive unfiltered feedback and recommendations and try to come up with solutions to any issue that they're having to deal with.

And of course, right now we all know that Mr. Banks has a pretty much an open door policy.

The employee in the city who's having a problem can make an appointment and come talk to him.

The department head will do their best to work through those issues and with collective bargaining for your courses, that goes away.

But hopefully, again, something like an employee communication committee system would achieve a lot of the same results that's being sought.

So I'll stop talking and get three questions.

Well, since you mentioned that as an alternative,

Well, I think you can do them both at the same time.

If that's the... or you can do it in two steps.

No to collect a bargaining, but instruct the city manager to bring back at the next meeting a proposal for the committee system.

Well, just one, thank you for all that research.

But I think, you know, when this came in front of us, I think what we asked was, you know, we need some more information.

And we want to see what's happening elsewhere in this.

And this is really important for us to see.

I know

You know, when it was presented, the law presented this to us and their memo mentioned a couple of ideas that they thought pertain to Harrisonburg.

One was about retention of officers, one was about recruiting officers.

I think it also kind of gave a sense of the impact on the community, I guess potentially the crime impact on the community of

Laura Retent and Laura Recruitment of not passing this.

My initial sense of that letter was it was actually less about Harrisonburg.

It was something that they viewed stamping across the state, which could be.

I think it's really important to frame this in our community.

And so I think that's why it was important, at least to me,

as they brought up retention and recruitment problems to know what those were.

Where we stand in retention and recruitment here and what's happening with that.

And it does seem that we have, as most departments across the country saw retention and recruitment drop that we've seen and go the other way here.

Initially enough, and I tried to pull up some crime data to look at what's happened.

and that's always a tricky thing to put in context.

And then wanting to compare with comparable cities.

You could look at Harrisonburg and say, how does our crime data compare across the state?

Well, if you're comparing us with smaller communities, rural communities, that isn't our profile.

If you're comparing to like communities, then you might find it more comparable.

So what I can find, it looks like that we've had a considerable

where we're considerably lower in both property crime and violent crime for comparable cities, even when it looked like we had a lower number of officers.

And now we're increasing our officers there, and I'd be interested to see what impact that's had.

Because I don't know what the reasons are for those statistics.

Could be any number of reasons.

I can throw them out there, but I can't really comment, you know, assuredly to why

that those statistics are.

I know since this was introduced that some of the responses I've heard, actually the only direct response I've heard from anyone in the police department directly have been when thanks for the salary increase.

that the relationship with the city manager is a good one.

That moving to collective bargaining isn't because a relationship isn't good.

And I haven't heard anything counter to that from the folks who put this together or any other I'll show that I've talked to.

and so it seems that in some ways if we were to, of course they don't know the end result of what the benefit study is going to be.

What will be on the table for all employees, I think at this point officers don't know what all that would be if that's correct.

So it seems in some ways that if we were to support the collective bargaining we would cut off

And once they're knowing what this could be through another process that's currently going on and that we could still, you know, embolden a little bit more, if we voted to support the collective bargaining, then that would stop and we might not know, you know, what the effects of that benefit package that they put together, you know, how favorably that would be received.

But it also wouldn't restrict the collective bargaining from coming back in the future if, after looking at this benefit package, they said that this isn't what we want.