City Council Meeting   1/28/2025

Mayor Reed, Deputy City Manager Snyder, City Attorney Brown, Vice Mayor Fleming, Council Member Alsaadun, Council Member Dent, Council Member Robinson, Deputy Chief Pollard, and Chief Tobian.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We have an annual high school

Musical, The Towns, Every Year.

We have two students from... Are they both from Harrisonburg High School?

Alright, my name is Bethany Howe and I'm the Vocal Music Director for the Harrisonburg State Public Schools Musical, which is coming out February 12th through 16th.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight to tell you a little bit about our performance of Disney's High School Musical.

The show is very special as it features the combined efforts of Harrisonburg High School and Rocktown High School.

We have over a hundred students involved, either on stage, playing in our pit orchestra, helping with our backstage crew and technical crews, and we even have an on-stage marching band in this show.

The students have been working hard since November and we're so excited to present Disney's High School Musical, February 12th through 15th at 7 p.m.

and February 16th at 2 p.m.

Tickets are available by visiting rockcitymusical.com Council members, we hope that you all can be there.

We would love to see you.

Thank you so much for your support of our program.

I brought with me two actors tonight.

I brought Senior Bill Thompson and Junior Abby Gibson.

They play the roles of Ryan and Sharpey in the high school musical.

Ryan and Sharpey always get the leads in the musical and in this scene they are preparing for their audition.

Feeling like no mother I want you to know I never had someone that knows me like you do The way you do I never had someone as good for me as you No one like you So only before I finally found what I was looking for

I want you to know I've never had someone that knows me like a dude The way you do I've never had someone as good for me as you No one like you So lonely before I finally found what I've been looking for Do do do do do do do do

I love the shirts, but it's Rocktown and Harrisonburg together.

We're in this together, so thank you so much.

And I look forward, we look forward to coming out and seeing you in February.

Yeah, two weeks later?

Yes, thank you so much, it was wonderful.

and we have a presentation of master's degree.

I'm here with Mr. Reed and I have with me one of my deputies, Joseph O. F. S. J. We've got today and I want to take this opportunity to

The Commissioner of Revenue and Association of Virginia has certified that the faculty that he has achieved the title of Master Deputy Commissioner of the Revenue under the Master Designation Program administered by the University of Virginia's Well and Cooper Center for Public Service and the School

The Masters program was developed to enhance the professionalism of local government officials as well as our staff and it is sanctioned by the Virginia General Assembly.

This program takes a minimum of three years and it requires a combination of ongoing education and government experience.

and points for conferred for participation in educational seminars and professional meetings, as well as they are required to take a minimum of three core classes in one elective course, each followed by an examination.

So definitely, Yebsi's courses of study consisted of the roles and responsibilities of the commissioner and the revenue, tax exemptions of Virginia, real company appraisal,

Fundamentals of real estate appraisal and income-approach devaluation.

Jay was hired as a real estate assessor in December of 2019 to during these, I guess, five plus years he's been working on in this career development program.

As an assessor, Jay helps in determining the valuations of our real property each year as we do it,

Reassessment here in the city.

He can be seen out in the community, measuring homes, buildings, talking to the homeowners and property owners, interviewing to make sure that we have everything right on their property cards.

And then any other data that he needs to collect and comes back and puts it in our mass appraisal system.

He also, when in the office, anyone calling in or coming in, he assists

them and understanding real estate assessment process, if they have questions on their particular property, or even some others in the city, if they have questions on property they're potentially looking at for a purchase.

He also assists each year we have appeals in December, and he assists when the residential real estate appeals that we receive.

So it's a pleasure for me to come in with Jay for his professional achievements and let y'all all know that he has been given the designation of Master Deputy Commissioner of the Revenue and this designation is from the University of

Wellman Cooper Center for Public Service and School of Continuing Professional Studies and it's an honor for me to have him in the office and also to thank each of you for your continued support of our training so that we can continue to employ a retained role with professionalism and knowledge, the SJS.

She doesn't have to do it.

I mean, it certainly speaks to her staff.

Okay, so we're new, we've still got a couple people yet, but we're primarily mostly deputies in our office, which I'm proud to be a part of.

Thank you.

Thank you, Karen.

Thank you, Joseph.

This program is a local option, pursuant to the guidelines in the Code of Virginia.

Since 1973, the City of Harrisonburg has had a real estate

tax relief room for the elderly and disabled.

And in 2007, the city added a personal property exemption for one vehicle owned and used primarily by or for anyone 65 or older or permanently and totally disabled as the term is defined in state code.

And not all localities do have personal property exemptions.

They must also meet the income and network levels that the city of Harrisonburg has.

2 that are in the fiscal year 25, that amounted to $216,712 of real estate taxes that were relieved.

As you can see, our numbers have jumped as far as the number of approved applicants and our relief has continued to increase with real estate.

First of all, property.

We've gone down a little bit from when looking at fiscal year 20, though our amount of relief is $13,929 for fiscal year 20, so we still have had an increase in the amount that we have.

The last change was made in February of 2023 as we get that time.

We said let's look at it again in two years.

At that time, we made a change to the income level, our network level, and changed the percentages that people received and also removed a maximum cap so that people could get 100%.

That went from 35,000 to 50,000 that year and our network went from 75,200.

So just some statistics.

Look at Social Security has 8.7% increase in January 23, of 3.2 in January 24 and 2.5% in January 25.

And our, as you probably all know, our real estate residential assessments in the city have increased on average during those same same years, 4% than 10% and about 9.5%.

and fiscal year 25, as well as our rates have increased during this time period from 93 cents per hundred up to 1.01 per hundred.

Also, when COVID occurred, we saw an increase in the value of our cars.

For one time, everyone couldn't come in and say, my car depreciated driving it off the lot.

They were actually

asking people to come and sell their cars back to the car dealers.

And manufacturers have not gotten back to the production that they had pre-COVID levels.

We don't see the inventory in car dealerships that we saw pre-COVID.

All that impacts the valuation of a car.

And as we all know, food, prescriptions, health care, utilities are all expenses that rising costs

have created struggles for those 65 and older, even those not that 65 and older.

And so these were all the considerations that we looked at.

We have looked at our applications that we've received and you never know who's not submitting an application because they can see maybe they don't meet the income level or the net worth.

But there's been very few we've had to turn away

and Net Worth is usually not anything that anyone is near.

So we feel like there does not need to be any changes there.

But to keep up with everything, we thought it would make a $5,000 increase in the net income would be beneficial.

Again, as we were saying, it's hard to know who's not applying, who's out there that could possibly, but

If we increase it, we would keep the 180, 60, 40, 20 and just increase that $5,000 in each of those increments for real estate and for personal property.

It is one car.

It doesn't matter in that case.

So to try to see maybe a little bit of impact for real estate, I took 102 applicants.

that we had for fiscal year 25 made the assumption that none of them left the program.

There was not deaths or sale of a home in that time period.

And that the only increase in their income they got was the percentage increase that Social Security provided.

And I took their 25 assessments since we already have that and looked at what impact would it have to those 102

by us changing this by $5,000.

As you can, sorry, a little smaller, but as you can see by increasing it, the increments by 5,000, we had no one left in the 20%.

We moved more people into the 100%, not significant, and then just a little bit of movement in the levels in between.

Overall,

if we don't have a rate change.

It was 20,000 roughly difference in what relief is being given.

I did not study the personal property just because it doesn't go into the levels like that.

So the overall financial impact would be about $20,127.

But again, it's hard for us to determine the actual because

We don't know who's not coming into our doors to know if they qualify.

But overall, if it doubled, it still would just be 0.7% of the real estate revenue and 0.4% of the personal property revenue.

So this is a program that is a flexible means for our locality to care for our low income and elderly in the neighborhood.

I think last time I was here, I was asked how do we advertise?

So I wanted to put on the back of every bill that goes out with personal property or real estate.

There is information about that there is a tax relief program.

Contact us.

There is information on our website.

There is a slide that plays on the channel that people are currently watching the city council right now.

as well as we place an ad in the daily news record and use social media.

And we have posters.

We have people come to our counter all the time.

There's a poster in the personal property side.

There's a poster over in our real estate office as well.

So we try to get the word out as well as when Jay is out and our other assessor, if they feel that there's someone that they think would meet those qualifications, they'll say something to them.

So we're trying our best to let everyone know about the program.

Karen, have you thought about advertising

and other spaces.

So when I'm thinking about when Parks and Rec put out there, their booklet, their booklet, right?

Because they have seniors, right?

And there's a 50 and over, there's a 50 and wiser, right?

And so that might be, you know, like putting in something there.

Or you was talking about, I know your posters are probably just

Yeah, we even had talked to some churches.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and I'm sure even

in our local churches, I'm just thinking in their neighborhood, they would announce it, right?

They would do it on, you know, part of their announcements.

I did reach out after the last meeting to

I did not receive any response back about how we could get that information out as well.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

So we're proposing increasing it currently.

And the hundred thousand is the net worth So it's your income and whatever assets

There's a local resource guide that lists all the resources that you can that you may be looking for that might be another place that would be a good advertising point

This is a wonderful program.

Right, that if they owned another property that's not the house that they're trying to get the exempt, that would be because that would be more like it's an investment property if they're not living there.

And they can exempt one car and one home.

Disabled?

We either obtained the information from their doctor that says it or most of them receive social security for being and they provide that documentation to us from social security.

So that we know that

Any considerations of expanding that at all?

We've just expanded it into Spanish because we know that we can

get the answers interpreted in Spanish but we have not so we would feel more comfortable having someone come to us with the need for an interpreter and us using the interpreter and working through it than us not being able to interpret what comes back to us if it's in another language it's a little bit harder but we do have some that

to speak other languages that are in the program and they will tell us that they would like us if we have questions to contact their son or their daughter and we're not talking young little kids of course with elderly that are asking us to use their family member as their point of contact and they will interpret at times and we'll when we get a lot of people inquire about the program when the bills go out and

October, November.

So we start taking a list of their names, their addresses, and their phone numbers.

And we follow up with them before that May 1 deadline.

We sent you an application.

Just wanted to make sure you got it and let you know that that deadline is coming up.

And there have been several that, oh, I forgot, they set it aside.

We tried to get the application

out to them about normally sometime beginning of February with this meeting and we'll have I guess a second reading at your next meeting.

So we'll send them out as soon as we know what our income level has changed and that's generally when they're starting to get their tax papers too so that if they have to complete the application

then they're going to show us that there's a security and the other documents.

So it's kind of easy for them to have that paperwork that they need for the application.

Once you're in the program, you only have to recertify it every three years.

So once you're in the program, we'll send you a letter and say, are you still meeting the conditions of the program?

And they'll certify that as well for us.

Well, you know, just looking at this impact proposed change here, you know, of the folks up to 30,000 in gross income, that's $2,400 per applicant.

That's a really significant amount, you know, I'm about to point out.

So, I think it's just really, really striking that that's, you know, without this program, they would, you know,

And when we had Maximum, it used to be around $1,500.

And then I got, I forgot, I forgot to raise $25.

So, within the changes, adding the $5,000,

You thought about doing a more formulaic increase in this based on either inflation or cost growing at a certain rate.

I believe it does the county just ended up doing something that is major algebraic for them to calculate it, but I'm not sure if it's driven with inflation or what is all in their calculation.

Well, yeah, that might be something to take a look at to see if

Right, right.

You look every two years at the number.

to see if it needs to be adjusted.

Well, I think it was two years ago.

We said, let's look at this again in two years.

Even as you said, even if it were double, that would be $40,000.

And we hear so much about our seniors struggling and wanting to stay in their homes.

Open this on a mug for public hearing.

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

Hi, my name is Jay Yatzi.

I work in the real estate office.

One of the biggest things that we hear in appeals is

I'm on Social Security.

I want to fix the income.

My income is not growing, but my value and my taxes keep going up.

So I think it's a really important thing that we do just to keep up with inflation.

We all know that taxes have gone up, and this is kind of a way that we can give some relief that doesn't hurt us as much.

It's a compassionate thing.

That's my two cents.

Anyone else?

One moment, please.

Thank you.

Okay, Council, we need to take action.

Madam Mayor, I move that we amend and reenact Section 4-2-124, 4-2-23, and 4-2-25 of the city code in regard to personal property and real estate tax relief as presented.

Second.

Thank you, Karen.

testing out, giving a presentation from the other side.

Good evening, Amy Snyder, Deputy City Manager, and I am here tonight on behalf of the Community Connectors Program team to share with City Council an update on what has been happening with the Community Connectors Program, what we have exciting that is happening right now and where this program is going.

So as a, that is the wrong way, as a reminder,

In September 2023, Harrisonburg was one of 15 cities nationwide to be selected for the Community Connectors Program.

This is a grant that's through the National Nonprofit Smart Growth America that's funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And our team is comprised of representatives from the Northeast Neighborhood Association,

Shenandoah Valley Black Heritage Project, Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, and then employees from across the city government.

So numerous departments involved.

And we have a picture here of our project team, hard at work in Atlanta.

So part of the grant sent us to Atlanta last fall, fall of, anyway, last September, sometime.

Everything is October 2023.

The very beginning sent us to Atlanta to do some hard work to kick off the grant with the teams across the country.

and Councilwoman Robinson is part of our team and as representative from Shenno Valley Black Heritage Project where she's Executive Director.

So through this grant we received $130,000 and it was aimed to help us reconnect our community from the divisive infrastructure that's a remnant of urban renewal here on the north end of our downtown.

One of the

Key focuses that came out of our Atlanta convening was coming up with what our mission statement is, what was going to ground the work of our team, again, as many of them pictured here.

And this was the statement that we wrote together, which is that rebuilding trust between the Northeast neighborhood residents and the city, repairing past harms and reconnecting today's Northeast neighborhood to the heart of our city are our most important goals.

And that we commit to prioritizing the needs, wants, and desires of the Northeast neighborhood

Community members as we scope out potential future investments in the community.

So that has been the guide as we've gone through this program.

So the program has evolved to include three components.

So the impetus for this was to really look at how can we heal the scar that is urban renewal and specifically the scar that is the Mason Street corridor.

but our focus has really expanded beyond that to be broader.

So we have four components that I'll go through with you tonight.

The first is creating what's called a small area plan.

This is a plan that is community generated.

It will be appended to the comprehensive plan and focuses on how can we address the needs and wants of the community about what the neighborhood should look like, what harms and loss there have been and how should we invest in the community.

The next component is facilitated dialogue to help us broaden our understanding of the harms that were caused and provide a space for people to communicate with us that's in a safe trauma-informed space with a facilitator.

The other component is historical research, bringing on a historical research team to document the impact of urban renewal on this part of our community.

and then finally a community led what's called a demonstration project, a sort of pop-up temporary installation on Mason Street to address how that piece of infrastructure, how that street works and how maybe it can change in the future.

So just a quick background for those for whom this may be a new topic.

The history that we're

Grappling with this work relates to urban renewal, which began in the 1950s.

It was city initiated and also involved the work of the Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority that was created by the city to help carry out urban renewal.

And during this process, the city and HRHA together defined what blight is, identified houses that they thought

qualified as blighted, meaning that they were in in disrepair and then took action to obtain those properties either by purchasing them or condemning them and demolishing them.

So the map on the right, it's hard to see, but all those little tiny dots are just some of the homes that were homes and businesses that were demolished by the city and HRHA to make way for new investments such as parking lots and shopping centers.

and this had a dramatic effect on the families and business owners that resided in this area and who were displaced, some of whom had nowhere else to go in the city and had to leave the community and others who lost major investments that they're still feeling the impact of today.

And here are just some pictures from files that are at JMU archives that were taken

of what this part of downtown and this neighborhood looked like before it was demolished.

As you can see, the community that was there.

And it's a little more history on the left as a picture of what the area impacted by urban renewal looked like in 1937.

and then in 2022.

So you can see how much of this part of the city was completely erased by urban renewal in the 1950s and 60s.

And there's a picture of not much longer after urban renewal occurred.

R4 is an R16.

It was done in two different phases.

So that's what those mean, the red area and the blue area.

and in the middle of this picture you can see Mason Street that just again cut through the center of a neighborhood to build a four-lane road that looked out of place even then I think.

So some of the work that the team has been doing is we started this summer going out into the Northeast neighborhood to start talking with people about what is the history of urban renewal, what is our project, and start meeting people where they were.

We set up at First Baptist Church, we went to National Night Out, we were at the African American Festival and we made some really great contacts and heard some wonderful stories from people in the community.

and then we had our kickoff meeting for the small area plan on November 9th, a virtual meeting December 9th.

And that takes us to where we are now, which is that we have a community survey that is out currently.

It is available on the project website that I'll pull up later to really dive into what does the neighborhood want to see in happen in the neighborhood.

And then on February 15th, we will have another meeting

that we invite the neighborhood to really dive in, have hands-on opportunity to craft the future of the neighborhood.

And then in March, we are going to have another meeting with the neighborhood March 13th that is focused only on Mason Street to find out how would the neighborhood like to see Mason Street changed.

And that meeting on March 13th will turn directly into that pop-up temporary installation that will somehow change Mason Street.

We've gotten great feedback so far from the community.

I think there were, I believe, nearly 50 people, I think, who attended the first meeting, very well attended, and we've heard loud and clear from people that they want to make sure that in this work and in the small area plan that we're celebrating the identity of the neighborhood, preserving the history and culture of the neighborhood, focusing on how can we address the harms that were created by urban renewal and other actions by the city government that have caused harm.

promoting economic opportunity and enhancing the public spaces in the neighborhood.

And you can see some other things that we have heard from them, overwhelmingly a desire for us to focus on transportation safety and connectivity and economic and community development, as well as our public spaces.

So as I already shared, the small area plan, this plan that will be community driven on what the neighborhood should look like and where investments should be made in the future is being developed right now.

The survey that is available online will directly inform that plan.

And then that key public input meeting will be February 15th for people to have the hands-on workshop opportunity to give us project ideas on what they want to see in the neighborhood.

and the Demonstration Project will give the opportunity for the neighborhood to design that temporary change to Mason Street.

Here's another historical map of Mason Street, the teal line going through the neighborhood and that'll be March 13th, so we hope people will come out.

And just to give some examples of what that could be, it could be

Things like temporarily installing a roundabout or temporarily reducing it to a two-lane road instead of a four-lane road.

There's really going to be community-driven what you would like to see and where we have funding through the grant to make it happen.

I mentioned facilitated dialogue and then I will close on the part that is very exciting, which is that we do have a historical research team in place.

So they have already started their work.

They are a group of academics based in New York State who have done this work throughout New York State to document the impacts of urban renewal.

They're very knowledgeable about how to find the historical documents and tell the stories in a way that's sensitive to the trauma that people experience and also brings out those stories of the impacts.

So they have already started that work.

and they will be on site for over 20 days over the next three months coming down here to meet with people, go through historical documents and they're tasked with telling that story for us to make sure that we won inventory and know where all of the documents are, that document urban renewal so they're not in maybe 15 different places and that we can really clearly talk about who was impacted

From all over New York.

Yes.

They've done great work too.

That is all that I have.

It does, and also Nina's work as well.

We've been very interested for a long time in telling that urban renewal story, being very transparent about it, but it's been hard for a lot of people in the city to understand

The struggle because they don't even know about urban renewal and about how it affected African American communities nationwide.

So this has been a great opportunity to educate people and to help them see the groups that were targeted.

A lot of folks think that only African Americans were targeted, but it was low income white neighborhoods.

Sometimes it had to do with religious areas.

So it was displacement, racial,

Yeah, I actually like

The Neighborhood, I work there at Sims, so I have great memories and the way of design and taking care of it, so I really appreciate it.

I wonder if Sims has considered it as a tourist destination, is it part of it?

I would kind of say yes, because when people come to Harrisonburg and they're

when they talk to Harrisonburg Tourism or downtown Renaissance or even Contact Us, they want to know where the African-American history is at and so being able to direct them to the Sims Center, which is open during the day, they can go in and they can look at the Celebrating Sims exhibit and kind of browse through that one floor and Stephanie who works there is from the neighborhood

Yeah, so she can just, you know, add right in.

That is also on the historic registry.

And one thing I like to consider is that intersections, like they are scary, like if you consider having four stops instead of two, because I had accidents over there.

It's very scary.

I mean,

to just to be safe when you are going over there.

And that's one of the things the pop-up will focus on.

Planning at the time of urban renewal was very car-centric in nature.

And so now we're looking at biking, biking, walking, and transit.

So we have a lot of different, a lot of different folks who are trying to maneuver

Sometimes in spaces that are not ADA compliant, which the city is currently working on.

But there's like the bus hub.

There's a lot of activity.

And so we're just trying to say, what can we do to this corridor that makes it one safer for all modes of transportation?

Have y'all looked at the strip?

The North Mason Strip Because if y'all are going to do something with that, I know when we had Richmond come down to look at the Green Book House, they were interested in the rest of the houses, which, you know, Doc's house was there.

And they were wanting to know if we were interested in making that a historic district.

And so that was going to be part of something we were going to look at since the board is established for.

Greenbeck House.

Talking about Old Mason Street.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've talked about for years, um, having some sort of landmark there that, um, symbolizes that old community or lost thereof.

So I think it'll be, it'll come up in the conversation.

But I mean, I don't know if it's something that, you know,

Well, that one strip didn't get effect.

You know, that, the dating it touched.

Right.

Yeah, last thing, I don't know if you guys have looked at, you know, Virginia Housing has planning grants, like the $25,000 to $50,000 range that you can then bump up after that.

And I'm wondering if that might be an opportunity

Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, try to find more funds and also maybe more resources and then actually maybe even additional funds on top that sometimes these planning grants or seeds or entrees to larger

We weren't thinking about that in particular, so thank you for that information.

But it would be looking more into different funding opportunities to complete.

This is just the beginning.

We've just tipped the rock over just a little bit, but we really haven't got to the meat of the project.

So I would say that that would be our next step is to look for more funding to address other issues that arise as a part of this study.

Fleming's through.

Okay, is this information only?

Thank you.

All right, y'all.

You are now live with City Council.

Madam Mayor Panayoti Sena Kudos, City resident, calling today in my capacity as the Secretary of the Harrisonburg Martin Luther King Junior Way Coalition.

Imagine Madam Mayor if you were under suspicion as a defendant and the prosecutor to show how fair they are invites you to a trial to find justice.

But under the condition that they wanted to hear your voice, not that of a defense attorney, no defense attorneys, and anyone who resorted to defense attorneys or their arguments would be excluded from justice.

Well, that's not what the MLK Coalition is about.

No one is excluded.

And the goal is to learn together and level up.

Our signature event, People's Day, was a success yet again this year.

and in giving an overview of what took place and which communities, which parts of our community came forward.

I would like to start first by saying it was very, very cold if anybody didn't notice.

And at the last minute, we tried to get the word out to first caution people not to over exert themselves in the cold and finally to say we were going entirely online and that people shouldn't come out at all.

Now, if anybody did come out, please get in touch and let them know.

And if you were there and were there alone, know that you were in the spirit of People's Day.

Dr. King's legacy and what was done in our street renaming is yours and nobody can take it away from you.

That is that spirit of People's Day.

What we can do

If you tell the secretary, the secretary will witness it, and the secretary has witnessed a decade of this.

And if you'd like that, that's the case.

And so do come forward.

Especially people who went through extra hardship, that is yours.

And the coalition and the secretary is glad to witness that.

And sorry if we have contributed in any way that things be more arduous than they need to be.

But again, Dr. King's life was struggled to the end.

And it was that integrity and that witness before his spiritual foundation that created the contributions that many of us celebrate today.

Now, we did have a great success, a great event online.

The star of the show by far was the vote to love your neighbor signs from Ridgway Mennonite Church.

and they came out and they went through hardship and people in their congregation, I know, took personal, went forward knowing they would face personal consequences to stand with their neighbors and the face of bullying, truly, truly inspiring.

Some of those signs are still available and you can go to MLKJRway.org to see links to their projects.

Another banner contribution this year.

Major part of the community that needed this space this year was Harrisonburg, Rockingham, NAACP.

Surging forward out of COVID with new renewed energy and great strength brought to bear.

They are linked.

Join.

Membership is open and a lot of things going on.

Again, link on our website.

For a long time, you have known about Nomo May.

Well, the town of Shenandoah, the little town of Shenandoah, made the trek to be in person and then was online with a beautiful statement of harmony with nature and harmony between nature and people that really resonated with both the Rajwamen and the night church in a very special way and with Immanuel Episcopal Church, who was a new pastor

who also went the distance and that's what People's Day always is.

The parts of the community that really needed parts of the community that are willing to go the extra distance, they'll be there.

I would also like to note Council Member Alsaadun.

Council Member Alsaadun has in the short time that he's been on Council demonstrated that it was not just during the campaigns

that he would show up and be available for all, from the highest to the lowest, to the people who you will be shunned for associating with.

Everybody in the community, I have seen councilmember Alsaadun, unlike any other, reach out to and be there for.

So this bodes well for us.

Overall, People's Day was a great, great success.

and we will continue to be working in the spirit of Dr. King, witnessed by the secretary or not.

If you'd like to be witnessed by the secretary, we're all means to get in touch.

But always know that it is your people's day, you who are the people and we who build this community on an inclusive hour stand together.

And those who are too important or too good, well, good for them.

They don't need to be with us.

They're welcome to be with us.

But hopefully, everybody can become too good to be with us.

That's our goal, to have everybody be in that shape.

Thank you.

There are no other callers.

Nasser, do you have anything?

No, thank you.

Yeah, I met with the director of HDR, Harrisonburg downtown, Renesys, and we were able to see the work that she did with her staff and the change

A couple of weeks ago was the regular HRMPO meeting.

One of the highlights was an update on the

Port Republic, Peach Grove, Kniff Avenue study.

There's a survey going out that will get more publicity, I suppose, and then a public meeting in March, and I'll update on that after the February meeting.

That has been targeted for a small area study because of the high traffic and the pending developments and how to adapt to that.

Other than that,

not much going on well let's see we are several of us if not all of us are going to Richmond Thursday for the Virginia Municipal League day so stay tuned for updates on that tomorrow night is EPSAC and I've arranged for a presentation from ICLEI I don't even know what it stands for but it's a sort of UN affiliated group for

acting locally for climate action.

So we'll see how that goes and what comes from that discussion.

Yes, I attended the opening meeting for the year for CCJP Community Criminal Justice Board.

And we had our two year changing of the guards, so to speak.

So I'm no longer chair of the County Board of Supervisors, Dewey Ritchie now.

B. Chair for the next two years.

Had an excellent MLK Day of Service project with some JMU students.

Attended a Valley Black Heritage project.

I attended retired Judge Anthony Bailey's portrait hanging on January the 17th.

Very well attended event.

Let's see what else is on here.

Oh yeah.

I am now on NLC's Community and Economic Development Federal Advocacy Committee and Real Race Equity and Leadership Committee.

On March 8th, coming up, just be watching out for the International Women's Day March, annual March, and then on the 15th, we'll have our first annual gala at James Madison University.

Also, February 21st, I'm collaborating with the Lucy Sim Center to put on a Black History Program titled Black History Through the Arts, Multiple Mediums, One Story.

That's going to be at 6pm.

Have some great musical selections, musical performers.

Arts going to be on display.

So, let's mark your calendar for that.

That's it.

That's it.

I'll be joining you on the race equity and leadership group for NLC so that's really grown quite a bit.

So last week with a couple of the NLC committees I went with the University Community Council which I'm now chairing so we had our first meeting there and one of the things that we're looking to develop in that committee is a balance sheet.

for cities and universities to use to look at what your country is in the community there.

So that's something that we're looking to do across the country for the university community.

So I'll be tapping everyone here to help put that together.

I think it'll be a useful tool for university communities around the country.

And then we also had, I'm on the Finance Administration Intergovernmental Relations Committee.

And we had a meeting.

last week.

And one of the things that have come up, which is really of concern to NLC, to VML, to VACA, which is the counties, to NACA, which is the National Association of Counties, to the ICMA, the city managers group, and to the finance groups is the potential of the tax exempt status of municipal bonds going away.

And it may sound like a bit of a dry issue, but it's a really significant potential impact.

And so the folks who are now leading this in Congress, and particularly the Ways and Means Committee, are strong advocates of getting rid of taxes on the status of municipal bonds.

So an idea of what that might mean for a city like Harrisonburg,

If we look at Rocktown High School, I believe it was about $120 million that that bond was for, a tax-exempt municipal bond.

If that went away and it had to be a taxable bond that we went after, just a 1% increase in that cost, which is probably a low estimate, but a 1% increase,

could increase over 20 years the cost of that by $37 million.

And what that means is, if those tax exempt bonds go away, we either have to, and that'd be a tax, and in this case, a tax increase for everybody.

So, for most of us, probably a 3% tax increase, that'd be about over 20 years.

So what it would mean if taxes and status goes away is we either have to figure out where do we generate the revenue for necessary projects or we have to look at our capital improvement plan and we say how do we scale that back?

So I think it's, you know, I think for all the associations that all the government

connectors we have, whether it's city council, whether it's the finance directors, city managers, and the counties are all very concerned about this.

So it's something we need to pay attention to moving forward because it will have significant impact for cities all over the country for that.

I joined Mayor Reed at the Virginia Transit Association and you did an excellent job.

I'll let you talk about that, obviously, but a great job leading that group.

and so I spent Monday at the General Assembly talking about transportation related issues and getting some additional transit funding.

Then I'll be joining folks Thursday at the VML day.

I think some of the things that will be important for us to focus on for Harrisonburg are some of the preemption things that are coming down.

especially about land use, so preemption meaning local authority being taken away by the higher authorities I would say at the state level.

That's something I think cities all over Virginia are concerned about.

I think the other big issue is the JLARC study, the Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee study on school financing.

The school board is also following and pushing this,

The other thing I noticed, the first review of smart scale applications was done.

Yeah, and so two of Harrisonburg's projects were passed by staff.

So I guess the Mount Crawford project and the Port Road project.

So that's close to $30 million, maybe a little more than that for those projects to move forward.

But there will be a meeting in February that the Community Transportation Board will have somewhere locally where we can go and advocate

for these projects in particular.

They won't be decided, I believe, until June.

It will be important that we get support so that the projects that the staff have approved, eventually get approved by the Transportation Board.

You know, these are big pots of money for us, and otherwise we can't fund these projects, do these projects.

A couple of them didn't make it through, like the reservoir street median.

was one that didn't make it through the Bluestone Trail, did not get through point-wise, and also South Main Street did not make it through.

So important projects for us, but our district tends to be lower on the amount of funds that get allocated towards it.

Some of my events kind of overlap with others MLK was a busy day between EMU and then Vice Mayor and I were at JMU for their MLK event and guest speaker and then I went to Judge Bailey's

retirement and portrait dedication as well and then February yesterday I was at Virginia Transit Association we were it was our advocacy day so we were at Richmond on the hill all day and then we had a nice party last night so thank you

That was my last bash as president for VTA.

I said that was a good time.

I got back this morning.

I have a couple speaking events in February, speaking at JMU.

I'm going to be speaking in Luray at their Black History program.

I'm also going, I'm a part of another cohort that will be looking at

Early Childhood Education, so I'll be in Richmond for three days for that, and then go on to Harlem for the second cohort that I've joined.

Dany, I believe I'm a member of your NLC committee now.

You are.

I got an email from NLC, and I was like, oh, that's Dany's University Community Connect.

Yep, council, yeah.

Council.

So sorry, I got to get into the rotation of when the meets are, but thank you for it.

I'm going to be with you on that.

and I think I know Miss Parks and Rec Monday, but they were at Sims and they were touring the splash pad.

So, but I missed that meeting.

And I think that's all that I have.

On the road will be celebrating 10 years, so they're having a gala.

I know, ain't that crazy?

We're having a, let's just say now, sneakers and dressing up with your sneakers, a sneaker ball.

So we're having a sneaker ball for our 10 year anniversary, that'll be February 22nd.

And that's it, that's a lineup.

Yeah.

Just to address the big news today, we woke up this morning and found out that the

President Trump has paused, put a freeze on federal grants.

We're still working through with city staff what those ramifications are for us here in Harrisonburg.

We'll have an update for you once we have a better sense of what that impact is because it's a rapidly changing situation.

I think sometime this afternoon there might have been an injunction issued, but we also are still getting some notices sent by federal agencies saying that things are frozen.

But again, we're working to

Thank you for that.

So our board and commissions is Environmental Performance Standards Advisory Committee.

Dave Cowell has been wonderful.

He's a sort of worldwide consultant on economic matters and a great addition.

James Hensley is a new applicant who's new to the area and has some good beginning experience and I would recommend both.

Now, it seems there are a number of vacancies in EBSAC.

There are three members who opted not to reapply.

So there's plenty of room for another couple, at least, of applicants.

So we'll be hoping to get more or recruit more.

So is there any time, is it the same time that they were served?

So they're both three-year terms?

Yeah.

Okay.

So none of them are expired terms or any such.

So, can I just move for both of them?

Any more discussion?

Thank you.

The Harrisonburg City Council on the closed session is authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A under subsection 8 for consultation with legal counsel on specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel including actual or probable litigation.