City Council Meeting   8/26/2025

I call our Tuesday City Council meeting to order August 26, 2025.

Roll call, please, Pam.

Here.

Here.

Here.

here if you would please stand for a moment of silence or private prayer and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

Okay, I feel like I'm in a radio station.

We have new mics, so it's going to take us a minute.

Oh, I sound good, don't I?

All right.

We have no special recognitions this evening, so we'll go straight to our consent agenda.

Any items placed on the consent agenda shall be removed and taken up as a separate matter, if so requested by any member of council.

Otherwise, all items will be voted on with one motion.

I'll second that.

Any discussion?

Roll call, please, Pam.

Aye.

Aye.

Councilmember Dent.

Aye.

Councilmember Robinson.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Aye.

We'll go into our public hearings.

Tom, you're up first.

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

Tom Hartman, Public Works, here tonight with a resolution for your consideration for a grant opportunity through VDOT through the Transportation Alternatives Grant Program.

This is specifically for our Safe Routes to School program.

So a quick history with Safe Routes to School in the city.

Up until 2021, it was a program that was under with a private entity with Sentara funded through VDOT.

However, in 2021, there were some changes to the federal legislation that prohibited non-profits from applying for this TAP grant for Safe Routes to School, so the program went away.

We weren't fast enough to react to keep the program going.

In 2024, we were lucky enough to re-establish the program, receive grant funding.

We did that early in mid-2024.

In October of 2024, we brought our first city Safe Routes to School coordinator on board, Andrea Troyer.

And since then, over the past 11 months, she's done some pretty incredible things, reconnecting and re-establishing that program with all 10 schools.

The other big difference, prior to 21, it was a part-time coordinator because we only had nine eligible schools.

In 2024, we were able to move that to a full-time position because of the addition of Rocktown, and the programs would allow 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade schools to be counted in the program.

So with that, we now have a full-time coordinator in Andrea.

Some of the highlights of what she's done over the past 11 months won't read all of them.

It's pretty good if you think about the time for her to get here on board, connect with the schools, and start building the program.

She's worked really quickly.

We're really excited with the work she's done.

Key things on here, you know, over 300 hours of instructional hours she's provided to the schools.

We purchased 20 new bikes for Rocktown to help establish their biker education program.

partnered with Parks and Rec and if you helped in May with our walk stroll and bike to school day you've got to experience hopefully the maps that you created that are now on the website so families need to find a safe recommended way to walk to school it's online they can click on it find where the sidewalks and the paths are that make walking more accessible to the students within the school system we've also created flyers in multiple languages to distribute to help educate and make walking to school safer

So, as we all have learned, VDOT loves to change rules.

So unfortunately, this one is also on the case of VDOT changing rules.

So previously, previous rounds and the current round we're in, we could apply for 100% of the cost of the program.

VDOT would provide 80% reimbursement for that program and the city would be responsible for 20%.

Because we have an established program in the new rules, which are outlined in the red box there, this next application, if you support the resolution and we submit, will be for four years of funding.

At the end of the four years, we will not be able to seek any additional VDOT funds for the program, meaning that it would need to be a fully funded city staff position if we want to continue the program.

If we are successful, the first two years of the four years, they will not contribute to 100% of the program.

They will only contribute to 60% of the program.

And of that 60%, they'll pay 80% and will be responsible for 20.

The final two years of that four-year window,

They only contribute to 30% of the program, and of that 30%, they're still responsible for 80%.

So quick math, I've broken it down on the side.

Our program costs about $150,000 a year, or that's total for both years.

So $75,000 a year to operate the program.

For the first two years, $90,000 of that is reimbursable.

or is eligible for reimbursement.

72,000 comes from VDOT, 78 from the city.

The next years you can see that it dumps down to 36 from VDOT, 114 from the city.

These will be subsequent requests that we'll make through our annual budget process to hopefully find these funds to keep this program going within the city.

But the first step to even find the matching funds are to support the resolution and submit the application and hope we're competitive enough throughout the state to bring these dollars in.

So next steps, if you support the resolution, public works staff, Jacob is back here, go hit the go button in September for the application.

They'll vet it and then we'll find out at our spring transportation meeting if we were successful.

Then the award will be in July and then we'll start into the program year.

both stars a line of the budget request being funded for the matching funds and we're successful with TAP.

Final thing before I sit down is this is a public hearing because it helps satisfy one of the grant requirements with TAP that we have to have a public hearing before somewhere in the process we take care of it in the front end during the resolution of support phase.

So the first potential funded year would be 26-27

For us, is that correct?

Correct.

Count years and fiscal years get me.

Right.

and then you know for years three and four you know our funding requirement changes a good bit.

You would not believe the amount of tracking Andrea has to do for VDOT.

It's down to the point that we're pushing back a little bit on the amount of

tracking and oversight they want to have over a program they're contributing less and less to.

We're at the point she's tracking hour per hour and submitting calendars and where she was and who she talked to and what she spent.

I mean it's it's becoming a little bit crazy but within that we have a a safe for school program that we've developed that we're that establishes those benchmarks and those goals as far as

Outreach to the schools, to PTOs, to establishing walk-in school buses, to doing safe routes to school audits.

And I was, you know, around when this started at Keister, you know, what, 18 years or so ago initially.

So would there be potentially be a role for then council?

So if you think there's, you know, this type of overbearing on the reporting, so do you think there's potentially a role for council to kind of also do some

We'll see.

We're starting at our level.

We're trying to set up some meetings with the state coordinator and our district staff to better understand the reasoning behind some of the additional requirements and tracking.

Hopefully we won't need to bother you all with that.

Appreciate that.

Also, I wonder, is the Commonwealth Transportation Board involved in this?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, I thought so.

Mr. Hartman, it's a great actual program and we like to have a lot in our city.

I think in certain schools have better infrastructure in place than other schools.

I think a lot of that would be parents' and students' comfort being on sidewalks and in those neighborhood streets leading to the schools.

Probably, you know, things like Keister, Spotswood, Waterman probably have a little bit easier bike infrastructure.

The elementary, they can be on sidewalks.

They can use the side streets, neighborhood streets to get to schools.

When you think about

Also, newer school, I mean, Harrisonburg High School, Bluestone, we've got the Friendly City Trail that are leading through parks and neighborhoods which are very comfortable to get to schools.

We're working hard to find ways for Smithfield and Skyline because they're out there with a shared use path.

We don't have a lot of great connections.

I would say we're getting better at biking.

We're getting a lot better at walking to schools.

I know that's a push that we've, Andrea has worked a lot with schools on establishing the walking zones where we could potentially remove some bus routes to help Gerald when you think about finding bus drivers.

And will the HPD participate?

We need to give a message that kids are safe when they are biking.

Yeah, we work closely with HPD as well as fire.

I know Andrew reaches out to Sergeant Westfall in PD and then Chief Tobia's fire prevention staff, Aaron.

They worked well when they communicated and found those pathways, so I know there's a relationship there.

I love this program.

My concern is that

For students who live in the Northeast neighborhood who attend Spotswood Elementary, you get to Market Street and then you wonder how safe is it to cross.

Directly around the school I can see where there would be more participation.

and then less comfort for parents to allow children who are older, fifth grade, to bike alone to school because needing to cross a big street like Market Street.

And so this is great, so I'm glad that we're continuing to work on making it safer for all students to get to school.

But do you see in your future more work on intersections like that that may be just a little too risky for children to try to

Yeah, of course.

And I think we just made some improvements at that intersection.

We added the PEDS, the PEDS signals, and we moved the crossing to the good side.

So you don't have to make the U anymore to get from the neighborhood over to the side of the sidewalk that leads you to the school.

So we made it now, it's on the, what I would say, downtown side of Sterling and Reservoir Street, which is gonna, we heard a lot of comments about that's positive.

Because now that's, there's one crossing, I'm not crossing that street twice.

Jacob could probably answer this better than me about the hot spot intersections that him and Andrea know about around the city that we need to work on to make that crossing distance smaller.

So we looked at ways to put in median refuge so you're only crossing one direction at a time.

You can stop and queue then check the next direction and then go.

But all those things take planning, time, and money.

So they're definitely on our radar, but by having Andrea on staff, we have that direct connect now between parents, students, and teachers in public works, where before that was somewhat disjointed.

Now having been a participant in the Complete Streets Academy, I feel like working with you and Jacob, I now understand better

the reasons why those medians are in the middle of the street as opposed to oh man I can't turn left anymore you know what's going on here so I think if the community if somehow we can get the community to understand how those infrastructure changes are going to be used to make it safer for

All forms of movement, you know, it would be better.

But yeah, Jacob's a whiz at this and I really appreciate being a part of that program.

That's great.

Because now I'm understanding what you're talking about.

That's awesome.

Andrea is going to be a great addition.

She just started, right?

She's only been on the... Since October.

Yeah.

Not quite a year yet.

She's been great.

Just to address what schools this works for, I think the divide is east-west.

The difference between east of 81 and west of 81 is all the difference in the type of infrastructure, particularly for biking and pedestrian work there.

So potentially an emphasis on the types of plans and things we might be able to do on that side of 81.

and all the schools on that side have a number of obstacles that seem pretty tough to figure out around biking infrastructure and pedestrian infrastructure there.

So I think the more that public works can develop ideas and plans on how we address that, I think the better.

And also you see the shift in the city's planning.

We're not car-centric focused anymore.

We're people-centered focused.

So now when we see the creation of biking lanes, whereas before I'm like, oh, they took up my extra space, because I'm kind of like one of those people that's kind of all over the place.

Yeah, use the whole lane.

Now I'm understanding the markings on the road, why they're there, and how having that in place makes it safer for all of us.

You have a designated space to be in.

We know who's supposed to be there, and now when we're driving, we look for that.

So, great job.

Thank you.

I mentioned this on the radio this morning.

I see parents with their kids riding to school towards Keister, and I thought it's a shame that the parents have to go with them

just for safety.

I would say it's probably up to the parents' decision, but if we can get a group of kids, you know, all the parents would be comfortable that these five can act, you know, proficient bike riders can do things safely, that would probably ease the reins a little bit, at least from me as a parent perspective, knowing I've got some buddies to help control some behavior.

That's what I envision when you talk about the zones.

Andrea, you know, making these walking zones.

I would be much more comfortable allowing a fourth grader to walk with a group of students if they're walking in the designated zone together.

As opposed to, hey, head on up to the school.

Hope you make it safe.

Yeah, so.

Thank you.

I will now open this item for public hearing.

Anyone who wishes to speak, please state your name and address.

You'll have five minutes.

You are now live with City Council.

Piyothi Senekula, City Resident.

Madam Mayor, you have heard from the Department of Public Works, nominally being concerned about the safety of children in the city.

I would encourage us to think a little more broadly about the bicycle agenda and where it fits in the larger goals of the city and whether we really are serving all of our community.

In particular, if you look on peacefulyard.com, you can find Harsit Patel bullying and terrorizing a gentle Mennonite gardener into destroying one of the iconic yards in the community.

with features that the Wildlife Center of Virginia called an ecological treasure, which was verified by providing a nesting habitat for woodland box turtles, considered by the International Union of Conservation of Nature to be of high risk or of extinction in the wild due to factors like restricted range, population decline, and habitat loss.

This was just the start of a rampage that the city has been on, setting

A very disturbing example for our children.

Most recently, city staff started trapping wildlife on the golf course.

They trapped and killed until they got the fox that played with their cubs in the targeted neighborhood around Thomas Harrison Middle School.

City council heard a mother describing the delight of her children in seeing that fox in the habitat city council voted to destroy.

The fox suffered, terrified in that trap, separated from her kits until a human came, saw she was the fox, and killed her.

And in their justification, the city made clear that they were sending a message.

They didn't make excuses or specious arguments about rabies or safety or say it was an accident.

They stated very deliberately that animals were killed because of multiple instances of animal-caused damage on two greens at Heritage Oak

golf course.

This is not just my opinion because preschoolers in my neighborhood loved that fox.

Here's what we learned from Dr. G. A. Bradshaw when we put out a national call to help us understand what kind of person could inflict such evil.

From Psychology Today posted July 9, 2013, she writes, until we moderns came along, humanity was empathetic, pro-social, cooperative, generous, censuring,

The city of Harrisonburg, I insert, is teaching children unnatural acts.

Terrorizing, mutilating, and killing beings who share the same capacity to feel, think, and experience consciousness is not healthy.

It is plain ugly abuse that ends up with everyone weeping and wailing.

Children also fall prey to collectively approved violence.

50% of schoolyard shooters have histories of animal cruelty.

70% of people charged with cruelty to animals are known by police for other violent behavior, such as homicide.

And 48% of rapists and 30% of child molesters commit animal abuse in childhood or adolescence.

Please, Madam Mayor, think hard about what our city

is doing and the message that we're sending if we're truly committed to the health of our children or if we maybe have another agenda in terms of development and so-called workforce development that I'll get to in subsequent comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Second.

Any more discussion?

Vice Mayor Fleming.

Aye.

Councilmember Alsadun.

Aye.

Councilmember Dent.

Aye.

Councilmember Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I'm Liz Webb, Housing Coordinator and I'm here to seek your approval for the sale of city-owned property on Reservoir Street.

This is the first parcel under the guidelines created for the disposition of surplus real estate for residential use.

Through this process we identified five

We identified five parcels shown here as surplus with potential for residential development.

We listed them in February, received several applications before the application window closed that we evaluated before proceeding to draft contracts.

And we're now working on those contracts and I'm here with the first one for you.

2410 reservoir is just under half an acre, currently zoned R3 medium density residential, assessed at $108,700.

And the application that staff selected was submitted by Frank Gordon, trustee of Valley Housing Trust with an offer of $74,600 with a proposal to build five rental units that will be income restricted

to 80% area median income for 30 years.

And the contract as drafted also includes conditions around receipt of funding and land use approvals.

And staff recommends approval of the property sale.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Thank you, Frank.

Good to see you.

All right, I'll open this item up for public hearing.

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

You'll have five minutes.

Seeing none in person.

You're now live with City Council.

Mayor Panagiotis and the Kudos, city residents, I urge you to deny these sales.

I have consistently argued that the city should not be giving up public land, and especially not under the guise of so-called affordable housing, which we are starting to increasingly see is just a subsidy

to low-wage employers and they trap for employees.

In this case, you are going to be degrading the housing services in these working-class neighborhoods.

One of the lots is already wooded and forested.

The others should be re-wilded and naturalized so that the people who live in this city, the working-class people who live in this city, can have a decent environment in which to raise their children.

based upon the earlier testimony I gave, the city should be protecting and holding all public land at this time, and we should be rewilding the golf course.

We should not be rushing to dispose of this land before there can be a proper public input process.

And we have seen how contested and how flawed our public input processes are in the Lindsay Funeral Home case and in the

in the desecration of the Northeast area small area plan, which is just urban renewal all over again.

This land should not be touched until the public can weigh in during the zoning rewrite process.

With regard to what these larger economic agendas are, if you look at commentary that a number of you have seen on the Northeast small area plan, you see that there's a larger agenda

of catering to a small group of gentrifiers, but also then pushing our working people into being programmed and case managed, put into the criminal legal system, and forced into jobs that they wouldn't otherwise take.

This is happening to the Northeast neighborhood, if you look at the consultant's plan for the small area plan, and destroying our nature, destroying these amenities and

As you saw, exhausting our water until we'll have to build a new water treatment plant and drink our own sewage.

These are not the pathways to giving high quality housing to the people who live and work in our city.

Please deny this request, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Any other callers?

Thank you.

I'll close.

Public hearing on this item.

Well, I appreciate Mr. Gordon putting an application into this.

I'm not sure if there's an individual that has worked harder.

to step into this arena for us in affordable housing, a lifelong resident here trying to step in and give back to his community.

And I also trust that he has done a number of projects already, so he knows what he's doing.

These are five units here that we don't currently have in the city for folks to go and move into.

Oh, I agree.

Okay, Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve the disposition of real estate owned by the City of Harrisonburg at 2410 Reservoir Street to Frank Gordon, trustee of the Valley Housing Trust and update on surplus property disposition for residential development and adopt a resolution authorizing the sale of publicly owned real estate.

All right roll call please Pam.

Aye.

Councilmember Alsadun.

Councilmember Betz.

Councilmember Robinson.

Aye.

Good evening again.

Tom Hartman, Public Works.

As you can tell, it's grant season at Public Works for VDOT.

This is another resolution of support, this time for a revenue sharing application to further support our I-81 Exit 243 improvement project.

As you remember, this was a smart scale application that we received two rounds ago.

This is a quick snapshot of where we are in the design process.

We're at the

Getting ready to go start obtaining right-of-way to do these improvements.

Quick overview.

To the bottom of the page here is Interstate 81.

This is exit 243.

North is this direction.

So with this project we'll be adding an additional left turn light.

This thing is loud, isn't it?

Sorry.

In the southbound direction, we'll be adding a second left turn lane off of Main Street onto the interstate as well as adding a receiving lane on the on-ramp to better align and allow some more decision time before you pick whether you're going north and south.

Southbound, we're going to offset the left turn lane to allow for the dual lefts off of Main Street.

And then as you exit I-81, we're going to add an additional left turn lane to go onto Southbound Main Street.

This is a heavy movement because you know the truck stop is right here.

This is going to allow better flow of traffic off of the interstate into this commercial area as well as into the commercial and industrial area further south on Main Street.

The reason for the revenue sharing replication request is our original smart scale project was just over five and a half million dollars.

However, since we did the estimates in 2021, estimates have grown significantly.

We also in the planning phase, when we were applying for the grants, there were a couple of things that we didn't envision needing to be completed or we were underestimating on that when we hired the engineer, got into the actual design of it, costs started adding up quickly.

So we're currently at a $3.8 million deficit in funding versus estimate.

We've been working with VDOT over the past eight months to find ways to lessen that deficit.

VDOT was able to find an additional $1.8 million of smart scale funds that they could push over to our project.

which then meant we were two million dollars short.

The city said well let us try to apply for a revenue sharing application.

Revenue sharing is a 50-50 matching program where we put up 50% of the funds VDOT matches those funds equally.

So in this case we would apply for a million dollars in revenue sharing.

The city would then match with an additional million dollars of city funds that would then close the gap the funding gap on the project and allow us to proceed on to

the right-of-way phase, utility relocation, and then construction, which is currently scheduled to begin in 2028.

This is just the resolution of support to apply for the application.

If supported, we'll submit the application in mid-September.

Then this year's FY 27, the budget request, Public Works will make a request allocation for the matching million-dollar funds to be put towards the project.

If STARS aligned and the budget request is approved, revenue sharing is approved, in July the project will be fully funded and we'll keep moving.

If one of the two STARS decide not to turn on, we'll be back trying to strategize how we either can

better sharpen the pencil and maintain scope or have some more difficult conversations with VDOT about other creative ways to try to fund the project.

This project is part of a larger network of projects, so we're not just building the improvements at I-81 at 243, we're also doing the access management in the medians, going from Pleasant Valley Road all the way up to and through

Mosby Road to Erickson Avenue.

So there's three additional projects that link into this one to make that whole South Main Street corridor much safer.

Because right now it's a very high crash corridor for us throughout the district.

As well as we're trying to time all this with Interstate 81 construction, which is getting ready to start next summer.

So it's a moving target that we're trying to hit and then to throw the budget mess in there has been a fun couple months for Mr. Banks to help deal with some of these issues.

Well, I was just going to ask Andy, are you okay with this?

No public hearing needed, so this is just up to your consideration.

No, ma'am.

Vice Mayor Fleming.

Aye.

Councilmember Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, taxes.

All right, come on, Jeff.

For one time a year, I wear a time.

Good evening, Mayor Reed, members of the council.

The first item here is

In accordance with 4-1-36 of Harrisonburg City Code and 58-1-39-40 of State Code of Virginia Need to request that the personal property taxes for the year of 2019 Real estate taxes for the year 2004 be removed from our books You can see the amounts there one thousand six forty six fifty four for real estate one hundred and seventy eight thousand four one twenty four which also includes the vehicle license fees that we used to have and

for the 19 personal property taxes.

Do the calculations that comes out to collection rate of 99.99% of the real estate and 99.10% of personal property.

And do keep in mind, too, that we did, for personal property taxes, we do attempt to put judgments on the delinquent accounts.

So there are some accounts out there that are actually included

They're in that amount that won't officially get written off because we haven't extended 10 years from the date of the judgment.

How do we collect?

So personal property taxes, we pretty much use a three-pronged, I guess you could call it, approach.

The first is a DMV stop.

There's a hold that goes on your DMV account.

That occurs within about two months of the due date.

At about the same time, we send a list or a file, if you would, to Virginia Department of Taxation that puts a hold on your income tax account.

So if you were expecting a refund, we'll grab it.

And then the third is to issue a warrant in debt to seek judgment.

The real estate, we aren't as, we really don't have to be as diligent.

Collections kind of take care of themselves for a lot of it.

But we do, which is the next item, we will advertise.

in the newspaper and online, anyone who's delinquent, at least two years.

And then we do tax sales as well once they really, really get delinquent, if we have to.

Payment plans on real estate, yes.

I have about 25 or so right now that are active.

Only real estate?

Only on real estate.

Personal property, we don't do formal plans, we just do.

I mean, I've had a couple where they were just exorbitant, and again, it's kind of an informal thing.

It's not anything that I have a signed document like I do for the real estate.

But the taxpayer can make payments as they can.

But in most instances, if not all instances, we don't remove that.

Like the DMV hole, for example, we don't remove that.

To me, it's consistency.

Well like with the real estate that's the purpose of those payment plans you know we set them up so that they can

I have a few right now that are five or six, seven years delinquent and they're paying several hundred dollars a month to maintain it so we stay active with those and that helps them out, that helps us out.

I really look, more than anything, is for the effort.

If I see somebody just making an effort to get through a hard time and do their duty, then I'll work with them.

I don't know what the average return rate is in most municipalities.

I think it's around 95 percent or something.

Yes, we are definitely on the higher side.

I know, for example, I'll just give this as an example.

My office has been an accredited treasurer's office in the Commonwealth for I think 15 years in a row now.

And part of that accreditation policy is that we maintain at least, I'd have to go back and look, I think it's like 92 or 93% on personal property and 95 on real estate.

kind of tells me that's about an average of about 50% of the treasurer's offices in the state are accredited.

So that kind of gives me an idea.

That's that's roughly where that average is.

Yeah, the real estate for sure.

The personal property.

I mean, I do know a couple offices that are in that 99 596 range, but.

I'm assuming for the on the personal property.

Yeah, and the personal property gets hard to collect when.

Like I said, the three things that we use so much really require the taxpayer to live, if not in the city or county, to live still in Virginia.

Once they leave Virginia, there's very little I can do.

There are ways that we can find them and serve them with a court notice, but

it gets very expensive.

Yeah, I'll look at some of these and you know 18 or 20 dollars and I can imagine you know pursuing that would not be very efficient.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Second.

Any more discussion?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

This is a request under section 4129 of the city code to advertise the link for real estate taxes for the years 2022 and 2023.

So basically anything that's two years or older.

We will publish this in the daily news record and on the city website sometime in September.

So those letters have already gone out so we're

We give them about a month or so.

We send them a letter on red paper to try to get their attention and then give them about a month to pay it and then we go through the process of putting it in the paper.

How long will advertise it for?

And then I'm not sure how long we keep it on the website.

I don't know.

It's a few days, a couple of weeks maybe.

We keep it up there.

If there's a place on the website, I send it up.

IT puts it on there for us.

But I'm not sure how long it stays there.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I move that we approve advertising real estate delinquent taxes for years 2022 and 2023 as presented by staff.

I'll second that.

Any more discussion?

Vice Mayor Fleming?

Councilmember Alsadun?

Aye.

Councilmember Dan?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Oftentimes it's when a business has either gone out of business or been sold

and so they're entitled to a refund of prepaid business personal property tax.

This situation actually back in 2004, 2024 the taxpayer reported vehicles as being in the city of Harrisonburg as of January 1st, 2024 and so they were taxed and they paid their tax on the vehicles and then it turns out

Madam Mayor, I move that we approve a refund

Second.

Any discussion?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, 7e.

Matthew.

Consider adoption of new co-spaces for bond estimates.

I'm well.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of council.

My name is Matthew Houston.

I'm the city engineer in the Department of Community Development.

and this matter relates to updating the cost basis for bond estimates.

We had discussion at the July 22 meeting and that discussion was tabled and we're returning tonight with a report on our findings of our outreach and again to present the bond estimate tool for consideration for adoption.

So these bonds that we're talking about are both infrastructure bonds that support the required infrastructure that developers need to build as part of their projects, as well as erosion and stormwater management practices that they're required to implement.

And so since the July meeting, we've had two pronged outreach.

One was to the development community and the other was to jurisdictions in the nearby area.

So we'll start with the development community.

We sent a memo and we expanded our list of people that we sent to from 41 very narrowly tailored list to 137.

So we went a much broader net this time.

and by the time of our staff report we had seven respondents by email, four respondents by phone, and then since that time we've gotten one more email respondent that isn't in the report.

So I'll distill the comments in a few points.

First of all, the rationale for increasing the unit prices was well understood by the folks that made comments.

And in general, the unit prices that we presented were considered reasonable for today's construction market.

There were concerns though.

One was concern about what happens to existing bonds or bonds that were put in place before a new method is adopted.

And my proposal would be that everything that's in the past is grandfathered and we keep it and only after whatever date we decide to implement if we're going to implement this.

That would be everything moving after that date would be under the new numbers There were some questions that were basically typographical errors that they were asking should this be that should that be that and we corrected those errors There were questions about how bond values are assigned

Basically, once we come up with a bond value, is 100% of that the bond, or is it some portion of that, and it is 100% of that bond.

And that's really the basis in our ordinances, that it covers the entire cost of the project.

Most importantly, there were concerns about increasing the cost of development, particularly how that works against our efforts to improve housing affordability.

And there was an interesting suggestion, which I'm not sure what we can do with, but that the city accepts surety between the developer and a lender as adequate protection for the city's interests.

That would be a legal question that Mr. Brown and I would have to have a conversation about, whether that's something

we could do and whether the city needs to be a named insured or we just accept that.

So I guess if I were going to summarize all that in one sentence is our prices are right and but they may lead to higher development costs and that's the trade-off we're talking about here.

Now, in general, for a bond, what percentage do they actually have to pay?

I don't know the number.

What do they have to pay a bank or an insurance company?

Since I had motioned to table it last time, I appreciate your efforts to go back out and reach out to folks and to both expand the group you went to.

I read through the feedback you got.

I would have expected a lot of the feedback to be objectionable, because that's often what feedback you get is folks are objectionable and less about, looks good to me.

Okay, so the second prong of our outreach was with neighboring jurisdictions.

So we reached out to cities of Winchester, Waynesboro, Stanton, and Charlottesville, as well as Augusta and Rockingham counties.

We didn't hear back from everybody, but we supplemented that with research on their websites, their published ordinances, their published standards, and since we were starting to dig into the written record, we also added Lexington into that mix.

So all jurisdictions require bonding for both infrastructure and for the erosion and stormwater management.

With one exception all jurisdictions tie the infrastructure bonds to final subdivision plat approval and that's what Harrisonburg does.

Also Charlottesville is the outlier.

They tie it to a building permit or a land disturbance permit which is much later in the development process.

I don't think that's interesting.

And with a couple of exceptions, all jurisdictions tie the erosion of stormwater bonding to land disturbance permit, so the start of construction.

And Waynesboro and Charlottesville, their language is any permit, so that could be a building permit, I don't know.

I want to point out a few changes that are occurring.

Rockingham County and Stanton are both pursuing policy changes and updates to their cost basis.

Rockingham County apparently is imminent.

They're going to present to the Board of Supervisors.

Stanton is more in early stages.

Their current guidance is really woefully inadequate.

It's one size fits all and they're just not having a good experience with that.

Charlottesville, Lexington, Winchester, Augusta, they all have unit prices for instruction.

They don't provide unit prices for their instruction, so they don't do a spreadsheet like we've got.

But they have language in their ordinances that say that it's the cost of new construction or current wages, language like that.

Can I ask a question?

So in that case, they wouldn't need to update theirs because it would be what is currently, what the current price is at.

Yeah, that's one of the takeaways that I have from this is that if the advantage of doing the way we do it, which is to have a list of prices that we're using, is that everybody plays by the same rules.

Everybody's bond is

based on the same numbers.

And so everybody's getting treated the same.

And we're not relying on a developer to come in and say, here's the cost of our project.

And we look at it and say, OK, that's reasonable.

Developer B comes in, and they have their cost of the project with different numbers.

And we say, oh, that's reasonable.

Or we have to say, that's not reasonable and justify that when we don't have something we're falling back on that says, here are the prices that we're using.

Everybody uses those prices.

Winchester, Waynesboro, and Augusta all have bond estimate worksheets like we have just for erosion and sediment control.

Waynesboro

They recently updated their form in May 2025.

What they did is they took our form and they increased everything by 30%.

Augusta Counties have unit prices that are 8 to 10 years old and so they're starting to look at, is that aging out?

In Winchester, their prices are dated January 2024.

So I would summarize this.

Everybody does this and everybody does this a little bit differently.

The jurisdictions that have out-of-date numbers are either

about to update them or have recently updated them.

And some jurisdictions based on current costs and they have the developer present a cost estimate and they would have to review and accept that or not accept that based on some criteria.

So I'll say that again the advantage of having that fixed set of unit prices means everybody is

playing by the same rules, and everybody's getting treated the same.

The disadvantage, as Councilmember Robinson brings up, is that we're stuck in one point of time.

And prices will continue to change up and down over the years.

And if we don't do this every year, and it took us 18 months to do this one, we're probably not going to be able to do it every year.

So I'll leave it at that point.

I was kind of amused by Waynesboro used our 2014 and added 30%.

About what percentage are we adding in this update?

We've talked to directors of public works and public utilities and they say this is what we would expect to pay.

Is 130% a 30% increase?

It's substantial.

I presented those numbers last time.

I've got them here if I dig through.

We did some test cases where we looked at specific

I guess I have the slight concern with such a substantial increase how severe is that concern about adding to the cost of development?

because it's not the whole amount.

That's what I was trying to get at.

It's a certain amount like buying insurance, right?

I don't know the percentage.

Well, I did a comparison for the erosion and sediment control.

So our current numbers are less than Winchester's and Augusta County's where we have a direct comparison.

But if we make this change, then ours are going to be substantially higher than theirs.

I do like, you know, the idea of whether it's more dynamic or we set it, you know, static.

I mean, you know, the good news is we haven't had this occur, right?

We haven't had someone who's had to do this.

And so, you know, kind of measuring against that, I think setting a limit now that folks know and we can maintain for some period of time and re-evaluate it.

We can always re-evaluate at some point if we see construction costs have gone significantly higher.

I also see in the spreadsheet you have a few line items that are to be determined by the site.

Can we finish?

All right.

Second.

Any more discussion?

Next is the resolution approving the city's participation in a proposed settlement of opioid related claims against the Sackler family and this is the latest in a long series of settlements against different manufacturers and distributors of opioids over the last several years.

As you may recall there was a tremendous amount of litigation that was initiated

several years ago and to try to bring some sanity to that.

Virginia set up the opioid abatement authority where basically the Attorney General's office works with all different localities in the states if you sign up with them.

and they take care of all the settlement issues.

And so again this is the latest, this is against again the Sackler family who owned Purdue Pharmaceuticals and you've probably heard about them in the news.

They were in bankruptcies and went to the Supreme Court, things like that.

I believe they were the original manufacturers of OxyContin.

But anyway, the settlement is for $6.5 billion nationwide.

And what will happen is when they figure out how many localities are participating, they'll allocate the funds to the different states.

And then Virginia, the Attorney General's Office, will allocate to the various localities in Virginia their share of the settlement.

So we don't know how much it'll be yet, but hopefully we'll find out soon.

Madam Mayor, I move that we adopt the resolution approving the city's participation in the proposed settlement of opioid-related claims against the Sackler family and directing the city manager to execute the documents necessary to effectuate

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, well now we have a presentation of the Northeast Neighborhood Small Area Plan.

Amy Snyder, Deputy City Manager.

I am so excited to be standing here tonight to share with you all and introduce our consultants here in a moment for the Northeast Neighborhood Small Area Plan.

This is a huge milestone in the Community Connectors team's work.

It's the culmination of over two years of effort on the part of our team.

And I want to acknowledge that this is also the city's first ever small area plan for a neighborhood.

So that's also a huge moment we should celebrate.

As a reminder, the Community Connectors Program is a grant-funded effort.

We were one of numerous cities around the country selected to participate in the Community Connectors Program, which focuses on trying to heal from divisive infrastructure.

In our case, it's

North Mason Street, and all of the harm that was caused to our community by urban renewal.

This is funded through Smart Growth America and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the funding for this small area plan was the key part of the funding that we received, so most of our grant funding went towards creation of this plan.

I want to acknowledge the Community Connectors project team that has been part of this effort from the very beginning.

This is a collaboration between city government, the Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, the Northeast Neighborhood Association, and Chenow Valley Black Heritage Project.

We could not have done it without all of us, and that's what makes this plan, I think,

So unique and important for our community.

Some members of our team are here today.

Councilmember Robinson participated on behalf of the Chenin Valley Black Heritage Project.

Ms.

Thomas is here on behalf of the Northeast Neighborhood Association.

We have Jacob Zinfelty, Thanh Dang near Ms.

Safal, and Mike Parks who were city staff who were part of the project.

and not here with us is Tom Hartman who had to slip out, Andrea Dono and Duane Bontranger who's with HRHA.

And I want to acknowledge too that Erin Fisher who used to be with Public Works and was stolen by Loudon.

She was a critical part of pursuing this grant funding and being with us at the very beginning.

And we also had a fantastic intern from JMU, Lauren Noffsinger.

who was a key participant in this process as well.

So thank you to our team members who are here tonight and to all of those who couldn't make it but have been putting in a lot of time.

We've been meeting almost every single Friday for two years working on this.

We of course could not have created the small area plan without our wonderful planning consultant, CH Planning.

who are here.

A couple of them are here with us this evening but there's a broader team that has been working with them as well.

Thank you, Amy.

Thank you, Mayor Reed and Council, for having us this evening.

It's been a fantastic seven months, and it's been wonderful getting to know Harrisonburg and the Northeast neighborhood and so many residents and community members that have come out to help us with this community-led effort.

So I'm Sharnelle Hicks, the president of CH Planning.

Thank you, Sharnelle.

Okay, great.

So, our agenda for this presentation, and thanks, Amy, for introducing all the partners, so I won't go through that, but there is definitely due acknowledgement for just the whole collaborative effort for this along with the community.

So our agenda for the presentation is as follows.

I'll go through the project introduction, how this small area plan or the SAP as we call it came out to be, the community engagement portion and this section discusses how we integrated the community

and their feedback throughout the project development.

Then we'll go through the document development and the organization of the outcome of the document which will be in your hands.

And then again, and that sort of talks about how the community feedback was organized and analyzed to develop this small area plan document.

So I want to open with this quote from Council Member Robinson and it reminds us that urban renewal wasn't just about demolishing houses, it was about dismantling the northeast neighborhood's community.

Throughout this planning process, we've tried to foreground that sense of shared ownership and belonging.

This plan is a lot more than land use.

We really aim to root this within the people of this neighborhood and their community.

So looking at the study area, while the goal was to develop a community-driven and actionable plan for the Northeast neighborhood, this map is just helpful for orientation.

It shows the boundary of the study area for the plan.

Tower Street to the east, North Main Street on the west, East Washington on the north, and East Market on

Early on in the engagement we realized that residents and many people from the neighborhood had different perceptions and ideas of what the neighborhood boundary is.

So we started using this map to really help everyone see and talk about the same sort of planning area for the purposes of planning.

The Northeast neighborhood of Harrisonburg is an original Friedman's town developed after emancipation when black families built homes, churches, schools over here forming one of the cities and Virginia's earliest black communities.

These spaces were meant to be places of safety, opportunity, and cultural identity for formerly enslaved African Americans where they had agency and ownership.

And that is what it was until urban renewal in the 1950s and 60s disrupted it.

So the first part of this plan really begins by foregrounding this urban history and the history of this neighborhood.

The neighborhood origins trace back to 1832, when the Dallard brothers escaped enslavement, settled here and began purchasing land and building homes in the northeast section of Harrisonburg.

In 1892, the city of Harrisonburg annexed Newtown,

While the community lost some sense of agency, it continued to thrive.

Black-owned businesses flourished and more residents moved in.

And by 1922, Newtown's population grew from 997 from 1880 to 1200 around this time.

In 1939, the Effinger Street School closed to make way for the newly built Lucy Simms Center, which became a thriving community hub.

The Harris Pool, as you see it here in this picture, was built by an African American businessman from the locality and collaborating with several historic black churches which still form the fabric of this neighborhood.

Also what's not in this picture but on the cover of the plan are cultural landmarks like the Newtown Cemetery and places like these really reflect the legacy and the permanence as a Freedmen's town even as parts of the neighborhood were later displaced for redevelopment.

The cemetery remains a symbol of continuity and it was important for the small area plan to prioritize its preservation impacted by the present day flooding and storm water challenges, but also really sort of bringing forward the idea of how trauma-informed care and respect for these historical sites can be integrated into this planning process.

In 1950s, the northeast neighborhood was directly impacted by urban renewal projects, R-16 and R-4 shown on the top right.

And I want to note that the orientation of this historic image was kind of disorienting for some residents in the early stages of the planning process.

We couldn't change this image because it's a historic photo, but let me just take a few seconds to explain what this is.

So this image on the top right, you're looking to southwards towards downtown.

And on the study area map, if I could go back, it's really this sort of northwest quarter of the neighborhood.

And so it was important to sort of make sure that the community was oriented to what were the urban renewal areas.

So we hope that this kind of explains that, you know, what were the urban renewal impacted areas.

And these projects essentially destroyed many black owned businesses and homes that were in perfectly good condition as you see it in these photos on the bottom right.

Yet they were condemned as blighted to meet the demands of urban renewal and the residents were severely displaced.

Multiple neighborhoods serving community assets were also lost in that process, such as the Harris Pool.

It was demolished to make way for a regional splash park.

The expansion of Mason Street got through the neighborhood, and what was once a shared community space became car-centric, harder to walk, disconnected from downtown, and isolating the northeast neighborhood from the heart of the city.

Urban Renewal took a community with its own character, thriving institutions, strong local ownership, and replaced it with regional serving amenities, taking away a big sense of neighborhood agency.

This is why the small area plan became so important to address this legacy of displacement and disconnection.

And the neighborhood even today, so the urban renewal in this neighborhood is not just history, it remains a lived reality.

And this was really critical for the plan to address.

The neighborhood is now home to more diverse populations across races, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

There are lingering social and economic effects which continue to impact the residents and their future generations.

Large portions of land remain vacant or underutilized.

Mason Street and other infrastructure built during urban renewal are two car centric and not pedestrian friendly as I mentioned and the neighborhood is still isolated from downtown.

So in September 2023, as Amy mentioned, the national nonprofit Smart Growth America, in partnership with the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, awarded a community connectors program grant to the city of Harrisonburg.

And this created an opportunity to advance this locally driven project designed to reconnect communities that were separated or harmed by transportation infrastructure.

The Community Connectors vision statement is rooted in rebuilding trust between the neighborhood and the city.

The Harrison project team, as Amy mentioned, I won't go into the details, but there as we understand and we saw through the process, they set out with a clear goal to repair past harms and reconnect today's northeast neighborhood.

to creating a community-led small area plan.

The hope is that this plan will guide future investments in the area, including re-envisioning the North Mason Street corridor.

From the beginning, this effort has been grounded in the need to strengthen collaboration between the city and partner organizations and the community.

The far-reaching impacts of urban renewal contributed to deep distrust of government within the neighborhood and this planning effort is one step towards building that relationship.

With long-time residents facing displacement pressure, a growing need for affordable housing, increasing impacts of climate and such, the small area plan is more critical now than ever.

At the same time, the neighborhood is rich in cultural assets that deserve preservation and celebration.

As a designated priority area for the city of Harrisonburg, this small area plan provides a framework to guide future projects and programs, acknowledging past harms while shaping more resilient future.

This document is a community driven small area plan.

As we have seen, due to the demands of urban renewal, many of the neighborhoods assets and amenities were destroyed and replaced by regional serving facilities.

And our plan focuses on building and rebuilding community serving infrastructure.

So engagement was really woven throughout the project and guided by the Northeast Neighborhood Association, NENA, and the Shenandoah Valley Black Heritage Project.

This led many of, and they collectively with the partners, led many of the early efforts and developed the original engagement strategy for this planning process that we built upon.

And for this plan, more than 200 people participated and their input directly shaped the strategies and recommendations for this document.

As part of the small area plan, we engaged a wide range of stakeholders, residents, business owners, and community leaders throughout multiple formats and touch points.

As I mentioned, the Harrisonburg Community Connectives team with the CBOs had already initiated early engagement last summer during the months of June, August, and September of 2024.

With this small area plan, then it's sort of built upon that.

And then after that, over a seven month project period, there were about 240 individual participants in five engagement events.

So the first of this was the community luncheon and the neighborhood tour with about 34 community members, the visioning and design workshop with about 49 community members, community survey that received 101 responses, and the draft small area plan community input meeting with about 50 community members.

The community was involved through all project stages.

Phase one focused on really understanding the neighborhood by building relationships and gathering insights into its history.

Alongside this, we analyzed current data and reviewed existing plans to gain a clearer understanding of the present-day neighborhood.

In phase two, the envisioning phase, I really aim to develop a vision for the neighborhood's future through extensive listening and collaboration.

Phase three, the shaping of the small area plan focused on establishing community priorities and identifying goals and strategies, incorporating all the input gathered while grounding it in existing conditions and plans.

And here is how the community engagement unfolded through the three phases of the planning process that I just described, starting with the community connectors events early on, continuing through workshops, surveys, community input meetings, showing how resident feedback was then woven into the small area plan.

And so, once again, the phase one introduced the small area planning effort.

It sparked community interest.

It assessed current conditions and outlined key priorities for the plan.

Phase two was the co-creation of the vision statement for the small area plan.

I'm not going to read the whole statement, but I'll just pause for a bit so we can look at it together.

The vision focuses on resiliency of the Northeast neighborhood community, its heritage, and its caring and diverse spirit.

It imagines a future that honors the past while building a vibrant and welcoming community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive grounded in equity, a safe, supported, and joyful neighborhood where children can flourish, businesses can thrive, and residents feel a deep sense of pride and belonging.

Phase three was about shaping the small area plan with the community, identifying guiding themes or priorities as we talk about more, goals and strategies, and then reviewing the draft document with various residents and stakeholders in the neighborhood.

Out of this process, five key themes emerged that I'll expand on in the next few slides, and they were gathering and belonging, reconnecting to downtown, safety and security, opportunity for all economic mobility, and healthy environments.

Now orienting you all to the outcome of the small area plan document which should be in your hands and hopefully the community will build on this going forward.

The small area plan is organized as a story as you see in this table of contents.

The introduction provides an overview of the grant and the structure of the plan, a lot of what I just talked about.

From there we acknowledge the past and how its impacts are really felt today.

We then highlight the community engagement process, which helped identify five key priorities or themes along with the goals and strategies.

And because this is an actionable plan, we've also developed an implementation matrix to guide next steps.

The goals and strategies in this plan are a result of extensive community engagement, as I mentioned.

Building on the five key themes or principles that were identified early on, we expanded them into nine focus areas and 12 goals that together provide an actionable framework.

This plan emphasizes place-making and place-based solutions, ensuring that strategies were primarily neighborhood serving and recommending more agency to the community.

So this is how the section is organized within the small area plan document.

Each of the five key themes is tied to a focus area in the neighborhood.

Some are broader, some are more specific with interventions and actions, and some have more sort of spatial locations like the roses of the Mason Street corridor are focusing on residential parks.

From these themes, we developed nine goals, which are broad and long-term guides for achieving communities' vision.

To reach these goals, we identified strategies.

These are specific policies, infrastructure improvements, partnerships, or other actions needed to meet objectives or overcome barriers.

We then broke down each strategy into concrete actions, tangible steps recommended to implement strategies.

And finally, for reference, we included case studies or spotlights that highlight relevant examples or similar projects as you all think through and pursue these actions.

I'm going to walk through all of these and give you an overview just so we all know what is in the document.

And starting from the theme of gathering and belonging, we identify two goals, history and culture, gathering and belonging.

The first goal is to celebrate and educate others about the Northeast neighborhood's rich African-American history and cultural heritage.

Under this goal, we recommend strategies that celebrate the neighborhood's heritage, such as identifying reliable financial resources to preserve cultural assets

and exploring different forms of public art and media.

The neighborhood already has a fantastic mural presence and we suggest building on that and adding sculpture, performances, festivals as additional ways to honor the story.

Other strategies focus on attracting visitors and enhancing the neighborhood's architectural heritage.

Goal 2 is about building community connections through placemaking, inclusive gathering spaces, and events for all ethnic groups in Northeast Neighborhood.

The strategies focus on organizing community concerts, food festivals, and art programming at the Lucy F. Sims Center, partnering with schools or after-school programs, creating inclusive spaces that welcome newcomers, and fostering supportive environments for seniors.

Moving on to the goals connected to the priority theme of reconnecting to downtown.

This includes goal three and four of community connections and goal five and six focused on strengthening the connection to downtown.

Goal three is to empower the northeast neighborhoods community and residents to shape the future of the area.

Some of the strategies here focus on maintaining engagement between the city and the CDOs in familiar community settings, educating both public and city staff about the impacts of urban renewal and building capacity for CBOs in grant writing and project management.

Goal four is about addressing harm caused by urban renewal.

These strategies prioritize infrastructure projects in the neighborhood

with focus on stormwater and transportation projects that were identified in the small area plan like addressing the flooding issues at the Newtown Cemetery.

Goal five is to strengthen the link between northeast neighborhood and the downtown.

Strategies here include expanding public art and streetscape improvement, enhancing neighborhood gateways to reinforce placemaking and strengthening community identity.

Goal 6 is to revitalize North Mason Street to make it an inviting street.

Strategies call for making Mason Street more bike and pedestrian friendly, converting it into a neighborhood destination for businesses and community activation, implementing urban design projects to connect the neighborhood to downtown, and advancing complete street interventions to address the legacy of segregation and exclusion.

Moving on to the goals connected to the priority theme of safety and security, this includes Goal 7 on transportation and mobility and Goal 8 on housing and public safety.

Goal 7 focuses on providing transportation, pedestrian, bike and public infrastructure to promote connectivity, accessibility and inclusiveness for all residents in the neighborhood.

These strategies emphasize improving walking routes, adding traffic calming measures for safer local streets, improving lighting across key corridors and such.

They also include expanding public transit options including EV charging stations and enhancing safety at school bus stops.

Goal 8 is about building a safe and strong neighborhood by ensuring healthy and sustainable housing options that meet the diverse needs of all residents including legacy families and those seeking affordable housing.

These strategies call for updating land use regulations and zoning, exploring tax incentives and inclusionary zoning, and preserving existing housing stock.

They also emphasize supporting a new state of the art facility for the OCP, our community place, improving quality of life, safety for homeowners, tenants, landlords, creating a community centered anti displacement strategy, offering pro bono estate planning to resolve tangled titles and property issues.

Next are the goals connected to the priority theme of opportunity for all economic mobility.

This includes Goal 9 on economic mobility and competitiveness.

This is about making the Northeast neighborhood a great place to open, own, and operate a business with a workforce that has opportunities to professionally grow.

The strategies include transforming the ROSES site into a mixed-use hub, creating a centralized community hub for education and workforce training, and hosting educational programs and workshops for all families.

They also support taking advantage of the Opportunity Zone tax incentive, fostering small businesses and entrepreneurship, and expanding access to childcare and preschool.

Finally we turn to the goal connected to the priority theme of healthy environments and this includes goal 10 and 11 on natural systems and sustainability and goal 12 on health.

Goal 10 focuses on building sustainable neighborhood that is resilient to the effects of climate change and strategies here include native plantations, vegetation to reduce heat, manage storm water, addressing critical assets like the cemetery, creating community and pollinator gardens to encourage biodiversity, and adding recycling and base stations.

They also emphasize implementing green infrastructure like rain gardens, bioretention systems, and expanding renewable energy, weatherization, and water-efficient technologies.

Goal 11 is about preserving the Northeast neighborhood's scenic vistas.

These strategies highlight improving awareness and access for the community and visitor enjoyment and adopting land use tools like zoning and easements to preserve and protect these vistas for long term.

Goal 12 centers on enhancing neighborhood health by ensuring access to affordable food services and recreational spaces.

Strategies here include expanding access to fresh food through farmers market and cooperatives, supporting sustainable urban agriculture and continuing to provide behavioral health services to promote wellness.

They also call for maintaining recreational facilities and creating a new swimming pool to encourage physical activity and water safety for all residents.

Finally, the document includes an implementation matrix for each of the community informed strategies proposed here and that I just walked through.

This implementation matrix ensures the plan doesn't just sit on a shelf.

It translates to community informed strategies into clear next steps to start moving.

Who should lead?

Who can partner?

Where funding might come from?

And what can be prioritized now versus later?

It gives the neighborhood and the partners a roadmap to act in the near term while laying the foundation for lasting long-term change.

So we hope the small area tool really ties back to the vision of the Northeast community created together recently in February 2025, which is a safe, supportive, and joyful neighborhood, one that honors its past while building a vibrant, welcoming future where children can flourish, businesses can thrive, and every resident feels a deep sense of pride and belonging.

I'm going to pass it to Sharnelle to close.

Okay, so in summary the Northeast neighborhood is a historically and culturally rich community that was deeply impacted by urban renewal as we just shared and those effects are still very much felt today in the community.

The small area plan was developed to both acknowledge that past harm and to help shape a stronger more resilient future for the neighborhood.

This plan is community driven, grounded in the voices and the feedback of the residents and partners throughout every phase of the process.

And finally, the small area plan, we intend for it to be an actionable document.

It doesn't just tell a story, it presents, it hopes to present a clear goal, strategies, and actions that can be implemented to make change possible.

Well, thank you.

It was a lot to get to.

You did an excellent job with that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for all the work that you have put into this.

It has been probably emotional at times, joyful at times.

Two years.

So, thank you to Councilwoman Robinson.

I see Karen Thomas is out there as well because I know you two really spearheaded this along with Amy and Ton and Andrea and the whole Michael.

I don't know where Michael is.

I think he's back here.

It's been a lot of work, so thank you so much for all that you put into this.

Well yeah, I mean a fantastic amount of work you guys put into it.

I really appreciate all you guys put into it and I know how personally connected so many folks here are but you guys are personally connected with that.

So I appreciate all the work.

You know, I was just looking through this and looking through all the strategies and the one that I was talking earlier today about this, about the anti-displacement strategy is there and there are about 50 strategies in there and to me that actually feels more like a principle for the whole thing.

anti-displacement.

Not a strategy, not one of that many strategies, but this is really kind of a lot of what this entire project is about.

Well, I don't exactly know what to say, but I think I could say for Karen and myself that this

Small area plan represents not just two years, it represents a couple of decades of people hitting the street, not just us all the time, people fighting and scratching and telling the story of urban renewal and trying to express what that displacement has done to the community and how

it has just really put a wall in between conversations that could be occurring between the city and the Northeast neighborhood which needs to occur in order for things to take place.

So when we got together it wasn't all just you know butterflies and

and Sunshine.

It was tackling that wall, brick by brick.

hurting each other's feelings and then coming back and understanding where the other person across the table was coming from.

So as we dismantled that wall that has been there for decades and some of it still remains, we still got some work to do, but as we did that dismantling, we learned a lot about each other and we learned a lot about city government and we were able to finally

Look across the table and say, we didn't do this, but we have to do something about this.

And so this has been very transformative for me.

being a community-based organization, Kendall Valley Black Heritage Project, being a member of the community and now sitting in one of these precious seats here that years ago someone else was sitting in that said it's okay

for me to destroy your community because we need to make a little bit more money and plan for some commercial development.

And so I can see how over the years the city has changed how we're planning and now I know because I am sitting here and I can attest because I am sitting here that we are now working with folks who care

sincerely care about the welfare of all citizens.

And the sense of pride that I feel when Amy told me that when she listened to the video that was made during the Mason Street extravaganza and that it brought tears to her eyes and how she was sharing that

with her family so proud and I could see the glee on her face and I was so touched because she was proud of my history and that she is now a part of my history.

She is now a part of my story.

Whereas before she might have been marked as the enemy.

Things have changed.

We're not going to stop just with the small area plan.

I told Sharnell, I'm sorry that you taught us all this stuff, but we might not need you.

Because now we're here to do the work.

We're dismantling, not neighborhoods, we're dismantling racist infrastructure that was divisive to neighborhoods and to people in government who want to live in a city that's, what do you call it?

Welcome to all folks.

This is just step one.

And you guys put on paper what I felt in my heart.

Okay?

That's how I feel today.

And I thank you so much for the opportunity.

I thank you so much for working with us.

I thank you so much for

Not screaming every time we sent back an email with 10,000 edits to every single thing that you wrote down, that you just didn't walk away.

And I know, because I've talked with Sharnelle outside of this space, I know now she's a part of my story because she cares.

I feel that you feel what I feel when you talk.

Thank you.

Thanks for allowing us this opportunity.

Yeah, thank you.

So, Amy, I know you're sitting over in the corner.

Come on up here.

Get yourself together.

Get yourself together.

Get yourself together, girl.

So, I know there are next steps, right?

The project is not over.

Our grant funding is over, but our presence in the community is going to continue as a team.

We're going to be bringing more city departments in.

We did a high level overview of the small area plan this morning with our executive leadership team and I talked with departments that, hey, we're going to be bringing you in because we can't have a plan gathering dust on a shelf.

There's no action for you all this evening.

It's informational only because it is a small area plan that it needs to be appended to the city's comprehensive plan and that process includes this document going before planning commission and presentation being given.

to Planning Commission, probably by our planning staff and community development and a recommendation coming out of Planning Commission to you all and then you all will vote after that and there will be public hearings at both of those junctures.

So that's what will happen with the plan itself.

Our team is going to go on a little bit of a road show to talk to the neighborhood to let folks know that it has been presented to you all.

So we will be setting up a booth again at the African American Festival.

We set up last year to say we're starting our work and now we'll be back saying look at the plan that has been created by you all, really, by the neighborhood.

And then you all had met Mike Foreman with the Institute for Engagement and Negotiation at UVA last month when he came as part of the historians presentation to you all.

Mike is here tonight as well.

because we are now transitioning to work with his team at UVA on facilitated community dialogues so those will take place in September.

He and I were talking before the meeting about the specifics of dates so we don't have those picked yet.

but IEN will be supporting neighborhood conversations about where do we go next because this is grounded in empowerment of the community and it being community driven so we have a plan and we need participation of the neighborhood and how does this plan turn into action.

And what does the neighborhood want next?

So those that dialogue will be sometime towards the end of September and more more information will come out We have over a hundred people who have signed up to be on a distribution list about information so if you are someone who is hearing this presentation and you're like I want to know more or if you live in the neighborhood and

You didn't get the flyers that we put on your door throughout the process.

Hopefully you did.

You can reach out and we can put you on that distribution list so you can get more information as we continue.

We have other information we have to bring back to you all as Council in the community.

We're still working through how to do that.

It was asked about, hey, what information did you all gather about North Mason Street after you

took those lanes away, and what did the community think?

Community thought a lot.

There were over a thousand survey responses.

I think we hit a new record.

We're working through how to present that information back to the community and back to you all, and then we just have a lot of other good work happening in the neighborhood.

So that was a lot, but we're continuing our efforts.

I guess the two years of a beginning, a new beginning that we're going to be building on.

Well, again, I just, you know, thank you for your work as well.

I was just sitting here thinking after you spoke, Monica, you know, thank you for the respect that you gave.

to the neighborhood and to the people in the neighborhood and to the ancestors.

A lot of people like to use our neighborhood.

They want to come in, they want to get their tenure or they want to write their book or put it on whatever agenda they have and they use us and they use our story.

And I can tell by the way that

You presented by the way you've been for, and not only you, we had the researchers that were here as well.

There's a lot of people that have been attached to this project.

And the Northeast is my neighborhood as well.

And so just thank you for that because we get tired of that.

We get tired of people just using our history and using our story.

And if you can work with these two,

and get that type of compliment, that means a whole lot.

I know that you took care of them and I know you took care of the neighborhood and so thank you Amy as always.

There's a whole team.

I know but thank you, you're standing in front of me.

We appreciate it and we're going to make sure that we continue this work.

I have one comment.

You know what?

I have to say this.

You are amazing, okay?

I don't know how often people have told you this, but you lead a team with your action steps and your red letters and the thousand emails a day or whatever.

You are just meticulous in the way that you work.

And I don't know how many young girls out there

are aspiring to hold a position like this.

But we don't always have that opportunity.

And I don't mean just women of color.

I just mean women.

I have the utmost respect for you.

Because when you work, you work from the heart.

And I saw that in this project.

And so there was a team.

But a team is only as good as a leader, okay?

And so because of you, this happened.

So you should pat yourself on the back because I'm telling you, the city of Harrisonburg has founded GYM in hiring you.

All right, we're going to go ahead if there's no other.

She's going to be all right.

I don't know why he's taking her tissue because he cries.

I'm surprised they broke down already.

All right, we're going to go on and go into other matters and go into comments from the public limited to five minutes on matters not on the regular agenda.

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

You have five minutes.

Thank you so much.

Hello.

I hope everyone's doing well.

My name is Doris Allen Wood and I've come back to visit Harrisonburg.

Saying that, I am concerned about everyone's health and safety.

I have stayed in a number of motels, hotels, and I would like to see policies and procedures change.

Now,

Two of them, namely, and I have contacted Matthew Toba with the fire chief.

Also, Eric Kroll, Environmental Health about unsafe or unsanitary motels, hotels.

I've requested or asked them to inspect them.

I am on Google reviews.

I have posted videos and pictures.

They are not required.

Howard Johnson per se told me they do not have to change mattress pads.

Now, they do change sheets.

Let's just say you have a cut like I do.

I have a dead finger right here.

I cut my fingers on Sunday.

That's another story.

Blood went through the sheets onto the mattress pad.

They don't change the mattress pad.

Just say it's pus.

Bacteria germs.

You don't know what you're laying on.

Also at Howard Johnson's, the housekeeper, I saw her.

She went from room to room with the same rag cleaning someone else's room to my room.

cleaning the bathroom to the sink.

How would you feel?

Now, Motel 6 is filthy, nasty.

I even asked the office manager where their business license was located.

There's none on the wall.

He told me they do not have one.

Does this make any sense?

Now, JMU just opened, correct?

Just think how many JMU students and their parents, and it doesn't, anybody, it could be you, you, you, your children, staying in one of these hotel motels.

They do not sweep the floor.

They mop the floor.

They do not clean the microwave.

The pillars, they do not change.

Just think how much slobber people blow their runny noses.

You know what I'm saying?

This needs to change.

And we need to start somewhere.

Is it right, me as a paying guest, to pay for a filthy room?

How would you feel if it was your son, your daughter?

How about you and your wife?

Think about people having sex on the bed.

Someone peed in that bed.

Don't change the mattress pad.

What are you lying on, laying on?

Just think.

My finger, I lost this during my sleep and started bleeding or oozing.

Am I passing my germs on to someone else?

Am I a bacteria?

Check me out on Google reviews.

I have pictures.

I have videos.

Now Howard Johnson told me that since I posted the video, I had to leave.

You have to leave for posting the truth?

Here, I'm thinking I could be saving someone else's life.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Your five minutes is up.

Thank you.

My five minutes is up.

Did I give you anything to think about?

Oh, absolutely.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Honorable City Council members, my name is Sam.

I am a Harrisonburg resident.

I'm speaking out tonight because what is happening to families in our community is urgent, heartbreaking, and demands your attention.

We want to share with you and our broader community the number of arrests of immigrants in the community, the impacts that these kidnappings have had, and a bit about how the community has responded.

It's important that we all know and have this information if we want to protect and support one another in what has become a less friendly city because of ICE enforcement.

To start, I want you to know that over the last six months in our region, which includes Harrisonburg City and surrounding counties,

up to Woodstock, over to Page, and down to Lexington.

235 people have been arrested by ICE or DHS.

That's an average of more than one person per day.

ICE does not release these numbers to the public or to journalists, nor do they share why people are being arrested.

The information that I have comes from families, neighbors, and workplaces, people who have courageously spoken out.

I also know that there are many cases that we have never heard about.

Based on that, I believe that the real number of those who have been kidnapped or disappeared in our community is more likely 400 to 600 persons since February.

The reality is that many arrests go unseen and unheard.

Each person taken usually represents a whole family, children, spouses, siblings, parents.

This means that thousands of people are already being deeply impacted by the traumatic work of ICE.

The first time intensive ICE activity was seen locally was on February 27th of this year, when ICE, along with state police, the FBI, the local sheriff's deputies, and others from the Department of Homeland Security began arresting people at apartment complexes, on the streets, at jobs, elsewhere.

Many families describe these arrests as terrifying, and they say their neighborhoods feel under siege.

My name is Betty and I live in Rockingham County.

I want to talk about the impact ICE has had on families in our community.

Families are left without a parent.

Children are left without both parents if the one taken was a single mom or dad.

This leads to disorientation, fear, children missing school, lack of food, terrible loneliness,

increased distrust of law enforcement and constant anxiety over uncertainty.

Will I ever see my dad again?

Will they take my mom too?

Families sometimes lose housing and are forced to depend on others for shelter.

Children are experiencing trauma.

They've seen ICE agents pounding on doors at early hours, disturbing entire apartment complexes.

They've watched parents or neighbors being pulled into cars and being confronted at their own homes.

The mental and emotional toll is overwhelming.

Parents question if it's safe to take children to school or pick them up.

Families avoid grocery stores, laundromats, even medical appointments.

Some have started moving out of the area entirely.

Families who were once thriving and contributing members of our community are now being forced into crisis.

This is not a reflection of their value or character, but the direct result of ICE's actions tearing families apart.

Many churches and individuals have stepped up to help out and provide support to our local immigrants, but there's only so much we can do and we have limited resources.

ICE agents have also misled people to get them to open their doors, saying things like, we just want to talk, or we're not here to arrest you, only to detain them as soon as they open the doors.

Contrary to ICE's claims, these are not dangerous criminals.

People with permanent residency cards have been taken.

People with TPS status have been taken.

US citizens have been racially profiled, stopped, questioned, and even arrested before being released.

Most of those detained are people with minor immigration issues or no legal status, not individuals accused of serious crimes.

Often people are taken simply because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time, like passengers in a car or residents in the same apartment.

The result is massive fear.

People are staying hidden in their apartments.

They're not going out to eat or to community festivals and local businesses are suffering.

Some successful business owners have shut down entirely and moved away rather than risk profiling or detention.

I've heard of at least six such cases.

At least four families have left because they felt they had no choice but to return to their country of origin.

My name is Greta.

I'm from Harrisonburg.

I'm going to go off script because of that.

Fantastic, just spectacular presentation that we just saw.

And I know that you all can connect the dots and know the spirit behind what happened to cut the community apart during urban renewal, the racist intentions, and can connect the dots with what we're experiencing in our whole community.

And the whole community was affected before.

I want to make that clear.

When the Northeast community was

had its sons of community ripped away.

Harrisonburg didn't realize, and the people who did that didn't realize, that they were tearing their own community apart.

And I know that.

I was taught that at EMU, and I am so grateful for that.

So after I attended EMU, I rented from Broad Street, Mennonite Church, which is now the Northeast Neighborhood Association building, and was walking up the street.

one day up Gay Street and a man in the community, a black man who lived there approached me and you know kind of with intention like he was going to threaten me and so I said hi because I knew that he's used to me feeling he's used to white people feeling threatened by him so I said hi and he said are you not afraid of me and I said no should I be

And he said, well, you know, a lot of us are incarcerated.

A lot of us are in jail.

And I said, I know.

And I'm really sorry about that.

So we're seeing incarceration happen to tear our communities apart again.

And we're making so many strides and we have worked, so many of us have worked

All of our lives because we see these issues and we know they're connected and the dots are connecting.

I want to stand here and call for us to have a moratorium on ICE in our community.

We need to call for a review of what their training is, why they are here,

In front of my church today is where ICE showed up and my pastor went out and videoed the woman going with ICE and being detained.

She was released because it appeared that it was a racial profiling and there was no reason for her to be taken.

So these are the words of one of the students who was at school when her father was detained.

And some of you may have seen this because she was brave enough to post what happened to her family.

But the last time, a week and a day ago, that I saw ICE in town, they were accompanied and supported by two city police officers.

My children are attending school with children whose parents are being detained with school resource officers from the city police.

How does a child or a parent who is not Caucasian take their child to school and know that they can show up there if a representative from our city police is there and they're showing up with ICE?

Safety in our community doesn't happen that way.

We don't have a sense of safety when there are not clear lanes of communication and the city are here to serve and protect us.

The city police are here to serve and protect our community.

We do not need, and it is not our job, to have our city police assisting the federal government, or the state for that matter, if the state decides to do something.

So I ask you to keep that in mind.

The daughter whose father was detained never saw him again except behind glass.

And we know that he managed to get a lawyer to give him paperwork so that those children had guardianship.

But had they not found a way to find him in Farmville and get him paperwork for their guardianship, they would have had no guardians with his loss.

Good evening, my name is Lori.

I'm from Rockingham.

The collaboration of local law enforcement, state police, and Rockingham County deputies with ICE has made things much worse.

It causes residents to distrust not only law enforcement, but also firefighters, EMTs, and other first responders.

Recent examples of HPD helping ICE with traffic, crowd control,

or interpreting give the impression that our own police are working with ICE and this is eroding trust across the board.

For example, just today I talked with a man who thought it was HPD's policy to stop people and turn them over to ICE.

People are even afraid to attend court.

Just this week a woman who avoided opening her doors for months was detained by ICE

after she left a court appearance.

This has created a terrible choice.

Attend court under fear of detention

or Skip Court and face new charges for a no-show.

To close, I will return to the numbers.

235 people have been taken since last February.

That means 235 of our neighbors along with families, businesses and contributions are now missing from the region.

And then

The direct impacts are devastating.

Children left behind, families uprooted, businesses shuttered.

The indirect impacts reach all of us.

Less trust, less safety, fewer families in our schools and neighborhoods, and more fear in our community.

And just on a closing,

These children are excellent students that our community has lost.

They're being forced to leave the state with their mother, disrupting their education and their lives.

This is just one story among many.

Families are being torn apart.

Children are living with trauma.

Our neighborhoods are losing people who were once a vital part of the city.

City Council members, we ask you to use your voices and your leadership to help Harrisonburg remain a place where families can live with dignity, where children can feel safe, and where trust in our community can be rebuilt.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Good evening, honorable council members.

My name is Johann Zimmerman.

I live here in the city.

I didn't realize so many other people were already going to speak, but I want to tell my story as well.

I am an immigrant, a child of parents that fled the Nazi regime.

Everyone at this council meeting is either an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants coming here either voluntarily or being dragged here involuntarily.

As an immigrant and a U.S.

citizen for 50 years, I have invested my life here and contribute to the welfare of this city, county and country, like all other immigrants.

When the Nazis came to power, among the first people my parents saw disappeared were the homeless and the hobos.

Soon after, the gypsies were rounded up and disappeared.

Along the way, anyone who showed opposition to the Nazi purification agenda, political and religious, were targeted.

My parents were fortunate to escape, two hours notice.

I, a friendly cop that did not go along with the system.

But many of their friends were imprisoned and killed.

Next was the resulting scapegoating of the Jews for the nation's problems and the genocides of millions.

As we learned from Nazi Germany, lust for power is not easily contained.

Under the Federal Administration, we have already seen the homeless being removed from the nation's capital and disappearing to some out-of-sight places.

Immigrants, even those following what used to be a lawful procedure, are being kidnapped, imprisoned and deported, right here in Harrisonburg, as you have heard.

Immigrants who are the lifeblood of this country's economy, provide richness to our city's culture, and have become our friends and neighbours.

As a result, children are torn from their parents and face a life of uncertainty.

Who will flip the hamburgers for us, for you, for all of us in this room at McDonald's?

Who's going to pick the apple orchards, process the turkeys, build our houses?

I had to wait half an hour in two places' restaurants on Sunday before I could get served.

There was nobody back there to work in the kitchen.

City Council cannot resolve the immigration issues that our nation's politicians have failed to address over the last decades.

Democrat, Republican, or whatever they are.

But what I ask of City Council is that you analyze the current actions of the federal government seriously and consider the consequences for our city.

I asked City Council, along with its residents, to actively cultivate a climate that nurtures the city as a friendly city.

There were some outspoken villagers and individuals in Europe whose courageous light stood up against the darkness of the Nazi regime.

Let history look back on our present time and recount that the citizens of the friendly city stood for the US Constitution, for lawfulness, justice, humanity, and the welfare of all its residents.

Thank you.

I'm Javier Cacheja.

I'm Dr. Cacheja, Eduardo Javier Cacheja.

People call me Javier, that's what I go by.

I live in 257 Fairway Drive, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you, because the only person who spoke to you guys directly, something that you do not agree with, you kept eye contact with her the entire time, Mayor Reed.

So thank you so much.

The rest, look down, look at their clock, look at their watch, not their clock, I'm sorry.

And so I thank you for that, because we need to look at everybody when they speak, even if we agree or we disagree.

So I thank you for that.

I was very cautious of that.

I was planning to speak of something else, but I have to say that I'm an immigrant, obviously.

And I say obviously because I declared that.

I came here 25 years ago, and I found nothing but good.

I heard your comment about reversing a little bit of the racism that happened here.

I am very familiar with U.S.

history, the 1600 forced migration that took place.

My biological dad died when I was nine months old and who I called my dad, he passed away when I was 14 years old.

He was the oldest of 13 childs and my grandmother did not consent to any of the pregnancy.

She was abused and she was a black Uruguayan.

So in Uruguay, I understand what racism is like.

And I learned it because we went to a bar to buy milk and

Strange enough, you go to the bar to buy milk and the guy put a shotgun on the counter and he told my dad to get out of there because he was not going to serve somebody that looked like him.

And that was the first time I understood that my dad and I did not have the same skin color.

I have not found that in Harrisonburg.

I have not found that in the police department.

That guy with the uniform over there, I have never seen somebody that wears that uniform that has treated me like that in Harrisonburg.

So when we talk about ICE, let's make sure that we differentiate the Harrisonburg Police Department, somebody who keeps us safe, who puts a uniform that maybe doesn't get paid enough to make sure that all of us, all of you, especially when you guys get threatened, which should never happen, we condemn all form of violence for you to get safe home.

And I think it's very responsible from all of us to discern what is right and what is wrong.

The police department in Harrisonburg is good.

They're good people.

They're good servants of the community.

When somebody, you know, the saying goes in English, they're bad apples.

Everywhere they are, they make sure that they take care of them right away.

So I want to make sure of that because I have lived here for 25 years in this city.

I have traveled abroad to complete my education.

I have always reside here.

I keep my my homes here.

And I can tell you that from the police in Harrisonburg, I have never been profiled.

I was profiled in D.C.

You know, they asked me for my Social Security and I said, I don't I don't apply for a home loan, so I'm not going to give you my Social Security.

I give you my driver's license through the window.

Here it is.

But that has not happened here.

So I want to make sure that the public who is going to hear all of this, they understand that.

And it is very imperative, I think it's imperative from leaders of the community that we send the right message so people do not go out to the streets scared.

That will be one.

And for the city attorney, I want to make sure I'm not running for anything right now.

Right?

And I want to make sure that my opinions are on my own and they do not reflect the values of my employer.

And it's strange that I have to clarify this.

I clarify it because I do have enough resources to stand behind my word.

And when I ran in the last election, right?

Not right now.

When I ran last election, I'm not running right now.

You know, my family and I have resources enough to stand behind ourselves.

But for the city attorney,

I think it will be imperative to teach people how do we address the public when they come over here and they use the podium to express the freedom of speech.

Because if we want to have a solid foundation for the city and reverse things that happened in the past, we need to allow everyone, including this guy right here, Javier, to speak his mind when he comes to the podium.

and we do not need to address anybody one-on-one outside of the door because you held a public office.

And if you guys notice, I don't name anybody when I come to the podium.

Today, and I know I'm running out of time, today I wanted to talk about affordable housing because we have a bunch of single mothers out there and single fathers who can afford housing.

And I remember speaking with one of you on election day

about $300,000 home that they're not affordable by teachers and you say well teachers you know they're not looking to buy homes you know and I'm not gonna give your name because I'm not campaigning and campaign maybe if I decide to run I will give your name I just want you to be aware and I became increasingly worried about this you know because if we have newly graduate teachers that are making fifty fifty five thousand dollars on day on year one of their salary and they cannot afford a three hundred thousand dollars home what are we doing in the city

So I still want to push for affordable housing in the city.

And I'm sorry, I wanted to talk a lot more about affordable housing, but because the whole police happen, I want to make sure that when we see that gentleman on the street, we thank him for wearing the uniform and putting his life at risk.

That's it for today.

Thank you so much for allowing me to speak.

Thank you.

Okay, CNN in person.

You are now live with City Council.

Hi, Yoti Sianakouros, City Resident.

Madam Mayor, I was not able to listen to Council's deliberation on the previous item on the Northeast Neighborhood Small Area Plan because I was in a meeting on

trying to craft anti-fascist platforms.

I did get to hear Mr. Zimmerman talk about his experience with fascism, Nazism specifically, and I too had that experience in my childhood.

So when I raise these subtle issues, and I'll have to also

to confirm what Dr. Correa has also brought forward.

When I raise these issues, these subtle issues, I'm raising issues that when you dismiss them as city council, come back as what you heard today.

I have before city council played for you the kind of people who call in aesthetic nuisance complaints.

and you got to hear people who were saying things that were plainly false.

You didn't even have to look them up to destabilize people in their home.

I also brought forward and raised for the previous acting police chief whether he would, if called, defend the victim or the perpetrator.

Fundamental issue of trust.

and counsel maybe looked at me as the bad guy.

Now that person, Todd Miller, has been demoted since then, but we should not have to worry about our appearance when we call the police.

We should not have to worry about whether our kitchen is clean before we can report an attack.

This body has seen people lose their home because they trusted the police during a burglary and the police looked in their

and their refrigerator and they lost their home.

I can't tell you in detail the things that have been brought to me in order to protect the victims which at least a couple of you know include preschoolers.

But this lack of trust that people have in the city is something very real and as Professor Kalea brought forward, something very dangerous.

The thing that

The comment that I made on trust and urban renewal was, it's very hard to trust the city when you won't lay down your arbitrary, powerful weapons.

If you cannot back off from enforcing aesthetic nuisance ordinances, it's very hard to trust that we are all safe, that our life will not be destabilized, that we will not find ourselves

eventually not being able to say, oh, we've had no contact with law enforcement.

25,000 people cannot say we've had no contact with law enforcement due to the trivialization of the concerns that have been brought to city council by people who are dismissed.

Well, when you're dismissing me, when you're dismissing other people who have called too frequently

At what point does that slope stop?

At what point do people start to matter?

I raised a concern about the city manager being responsible for the killing of an animal that people would have taken as a companion animal.

That should merit a response.

I have raised a concern about the city appearing to side with a small group of bullies who threaten people in their homes.

and the city, Mr. Parks puts up a shield, the Department of Community Development puts up a shield of anonymity to those people and the city gives no response.

And then we start to be concerned when people are being snatched off the street, 600 people.

We should have done something long before then and I invite all the people who spoke and Sam Nichols to connect with the Harrisonburg Martin Luther King Jr.

Way Coalition

and help us address these people, these issues before we're looking at fascism that everybody can recognize.

Thank you.

Do we have any other callers?

Thank you.

I'll close public comment.

Yes, ma'am.

I had two events meeting with HDR, Board of Directors meeting.

It was nice to listen to them and their projects.

That was August 20th, and August 21st had a committee with HRMPO, Policy Board meeting.

and I listened to your presentation for the IAG-1 and the good thing it's moving forward, thankfully without any delay.

Okay, well, I had the CSPDC.

The highlight there was a Lifetime Achievement Award for Senator Emmett Hanger, who is serving in the district that roughly is around Stanton, Augusta, Waynesboro, given by the head of the Virginia Association of Planning District Commissions.

Okay, and also the HRMPO that you mentioned.

where we get the usual updates from VDOT, the 81 widening projects and so on.

And of course there was a big block party in the burg that sort of hand that off to the mayor who gave the welcoming words.

I love to hear you say

To the JMU students, welcome home.

To the freshmen, welcome to your new home.

That was just wonderful.

And now for me, personally or tangentially, this Elected Officials to Protect America program that I'm in,

Today we had another meeting of the group that I'm with which is of course clean energy.

Big discussion about data centers and how to mitigate their harms and the resources and so on.

There's a very interesting new concept that I'm going to need to learn about the question of whether AI should be a public utility.

I don't have a lot to report, but I've been busy the last couple of weeks preparing for a retirement party for the founder of Sandal Valley Black Heritage Project, Robin Lytle, who was instrumental not only in creating that project, but in initially purchasing the Dallard Newman house to make sure it wasn't lost and was also instrumental in the Celebrating Sims exhibit.

Our last council meeting we

I made a motion and passed it about staff facilitating a facilitation process right around the link and so I've gotten lots of questions from folks about what's happening I think and folks are kind of curious I thought actually if Mr. Banks if you'd be able to kind of at least

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We, after that direction from City Council, the City Attorney, Mr. Brown, and I coordinated a meeting.

We actually had five different community facilitators reach out to us, some from our local universities, some private providers of facilitation skills, and

coordinated a meeting among them.

It was very constructive and the developer.

And what came out of that was an update on Friday that the two principal facilitators had been coordinating and communicating and that they were developing a proposal for the developer and for the city principally for the developer and between the developer and the facilitators moving forward.

I appreciate that because I know it's a tight time frame that we put out there, and it means interrupting people's schedules.

We don't always know what people's schedules are, so I appreciate you guys moving that forward and looking forward to see what proposal comes out and next steps.

I got the opportunity to speak to 112 DMACC students.

Dukes make a difference, most of them freshmen.

When they came in, it's always a good opportunity because they want to, their work is making a difference in the community.

So that was good.

Amy and I were together.

We had a

Pretty good-sized group of elected officials and department heads from the New River Valley, so Blacksburg, Radford, Christiansburg.

They wanted to see the Navigation Center.

So we, along with Nate, gave them a tour, had lunch, talked about the process.

So the Navigation Center is getting more and more tours or asks to come see the center.

Then Saturday was a Saturday.

Moved in on Saturday, had on the blue shirt.

Then I got my car, switch shirts to purple block party and I went home.

changed everything and went to a gala anniversary for COSPO.

So that was my Saturday.

And then I had my final meeting with the Hunts Institute Fellowship, which I graduated from, which was in Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago.

So that was a great

I think it was a three month institute all about education, so pre-K through higher ed.

It was all school board members, 15 of us have school board members and have elected officials.

What we need to talk about is, council, colleagues, October 14th, the majority of us will be out of town between VML and I'll be in DC.

I'm speaking for an NLC event that's surrounding after school programs and summer learning.

Now I know VML is over early that afternoon and y'all are going to be in Roanoke, I'm going to be in D.C.

I need to make sure everybody's coming back so that we can have this council meeting on the 14th because on the next, the 26th, 28th,

Everybody's going to be gone from the staff except for this man right here.

We're going to need to make a decision.

Amy, Brian, and our fearless city manager will be out of town at their conference.

We need to make sure we have a meeting in December, I mean October, and October 14th seems to be the meeting that we need to have that everybody will be back.

Well, as I recall, looking at the VML schedule in Roanoke, it ends in the morning, like 9.30 or 10.

All right, so we'll have our meeting on the 14th.

Okay, if Council wanted to consider going ahead and canceling the 28th since Ms.

I mean, well, I guess.

Or did we want to just wait?

What do we need to necessarily cancel?

Cancel it?

Well, I mean, we talked about the other option is to have Chris be the only person.

I'm not sure that we don't know what's coming our way on on that particular date.

And if it's something significant, we would want the team to be here, not just I mean, we love you and you're great.

We may need the expertise of everyone.

No, no, no, but I'm not going to share all of it, because I ... But you're going to share the main thing?

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was going to do it, too.

I was going to do it, too, because we got to ... We do this.

Considering we could all use a little good news, a member of our leadership team celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary today by proposing to his wife of 30 years and committed to re-engaging their vows and she accepted.

So that was awesome.

I'll say it.

I'm just glad she said yes.

That was a win.

Congratulations.

I'm sorry.

I thought we could use that.

Anything Amy, Brian?

Good.

Michael, you good?

Okay, all right, we got a closed session.

Oh gosh, I'm skipping over it.

All right, let's go back boards and commissions.

and one vacancy.

Any discussion?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Aye.

Congratulations Benjamin.

Okay, I did prepare a motion, Madam Mayor.

So moved.

Councilmember Dent.

Aye.

Councilmember Robinson.

Aye.

Aye.