12. Alexandria Industrial Development Authority 2 Citizen Members City Council appointed Clinton Robinson and reappointed Mark Williams as the citizen members to the Alexandria Industrial Development Authority. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ 13. Alexandria Park and Recreation Commission 1 Member From Among the High School Youth Of the City City Council appointed Aaron Wilson as the member from among the high school youth of the City to the Alexandria Park and Recreation Commission. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ 14. Alexandria Urban Design Advisory Committee 1 Qualified Professional Skilled In Urban Design, Architecture or Landscape Architecture City Council reappointed Alan Voorhees as the qualified professional skilled in urban design, architecture or landscape architecture to the Alexandria Urban Design Advisory Committee. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CITY MANAGER FOR DISCUSSION New Item No. 1: The Alexandria Housing Corporation made a presentation of their efforts and actions. 15. Consideration of the Fiscal Year 2006 Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program and Regional Surface Transportation Program Projects. City Council: (a) approved the priority listing of transportation projects discussed below as those CMAQ and RSTP projects for which the City of Alexandria will require grant funding for FY 06; and (b) authorized the City Manager to apply for these grants, and to enter into agreements with the Commonwealth to accept any of these grants which are provided. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ 16. Consideration of the Mayor and Members of Council's 2004-2015 Strategic Plan for the City of Alexandria. City Council approved the 2005-2015 Strategic Plan for Alexandria. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM BOARDS, COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES None ORAL REPORTS BY MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL (a) Councilman Krupicka said the Council of Governments Human Services Committee, in conjunction with a few other COG Committees, is sponsoring a regional gang summit to be held in Arlington, and he saw it as a positive event, focusing on the prevention side and what it can do to engage kids and get them involved in more positive things. (b) Councilman Smedberg said he served on the other COG Committee that is working on the gang summit, and Congressman Moran and people in Alexandria made sure that funding and organizations were taking part. (c) Councilman Gaines said that he and Councilman Krupicka served as co-chairs of the Citizen Corps Council, and several members of Council were at the launch for Be Ready, Alexandria!. He asked Mark Penn to speak about the campaign. Mark Penn, Emergency Management Coordinator, spoke about the Be Ready, Alexandria! campaign. Councilman Gaines said the Citizen Corp Council met through the summer and have scheduled a public hearing/forum on October 19 at 7:00 p.m., in Council Chambers to solicit input from the community on emergency preparedness. (d) Vice Mayor Pepper said she and Councilman Smedberg represent Council on the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, and she noted that it is in the process of doing some reorganization, and part of what they will do is keeping the board to a smaller size and only have elected officials on that board. She said there are a total of 42 Commissioners who sit on the board, and there is literally not enough room at the table. The non-elected participants will be manning many of the sub-committees, but the City will continue to have its two elected officials. (e) Councilman Smedberg said he and Councilman Krupicka have been working with the Department of Mental Health Services on the closing of the Inova Psych Unit, and City staff did a great job representing the interest of patients and families in the debate. He complimented Inova for having good discussions and bringing forward solutions that worked out to be fair. Councilman Smedberg requested that the Inova/Hospital Task Force be re-established so they could sit down with the hospital to discuss things. Mayor Euille said he is committed to doing such and noted that he would be meeting with each member of Council over the next week and a half and will discuss that. Councilman Krupicka noted that residents of Alexandria that need mental health services on an emergency basis can still go to Alexandria hospital and they will be treated and cared for, and then would eventually be referred to another hospital in the region for longer-term care. He said there have been problems with finding beds for those patients. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ ORAL PRESENTATIONS BY MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL (a) Councilman Krupicka said he noticed the bike racks in the parking lot and outside of City Hall were full in the summer, and he asked if other bike racks could be found. Director of Transportation and Environmental Services Baier said they are working with General Services to locate some additional spaces inside the garage or on Market Square itself, and they already have the bike racks. (b) Councilman Krupicka said the City's website has come a long way, and he thanked E-Government Manager Craig Fifer and the IT Department, along with Public Information Officer Barbara Gordon who deserve enormous credit for it. (c) Councilman Krupicka said he would like a request that he get as much as is humanly possible electronically as opposed to paper for the docket and memorandums, as the City spends an enormous amount of money on printing the docket and materials. He said he hoped to make it a year where they start a transition to reducing paper as opposed to increasing paper. (d) Councilman Krupicka said the Arts community, the Business community, the ACVA, the residents of Old Town and around the City, the citizens and City staff all did an amazing job pulling off one of the best Arts Festivals in the region. He said he was impressed with how quickly the staff responded when the restaurants wanted to do outdoor dining. (e) Councilman Smedberg said that looking to the future for the Arts Festival, there is still more the Arts Commission and the City and the Festival can do to get local and regional artists involved. He said there was a desire from the upper King Street businesses for something to happen up there. He said many people liked the outdoor dining. City Manager Sunderland said there is a parallel between the Housing Development Corporation and the Arts Festival, in that it was the second year, and the progress from zero to one and one to two was phenomenal. He said he proposes to have Planning and Zoning and other staff work with the Old Town Business Association and Old Town Civic Association and develop a proposal to continue some outdoor dining. He said he would come back to Council with a proposal for 2004. He said the King Street retail study is wrapping up and one of the issues it is addressing is this, and the longer term idea of outside dining will be addressed as part of that study, and next March/April there will be a long-term resolution and any zoning and other things it needs to do will get in place for summer 2005. Councilman Smedberg said he hoped the City staff could immediately get together and have a de-briefing and decide immediately where they go in terms of vendors and getting more local and regional artists involved. Mayor Euille said there were some inconveniences that neighboring residents experienced and that de-briefing could work those out, and he asked the citizens to put their comments in writing. Mayor Euille thanked Councilmembers Krupicka and Smedberg for their hard work and their efforts to bring together all the arts organizations to work in collaboration and partnership for teamwork to ensure the planning for the festival was all inclusive and that all the issues and concerns raised last year were addressed, and that happened. Councilman Smedberg said Council should acknowledge the fact that Leon Scioscia, Pat Miller, Janet Barnett, Joanne Mitchell and Mark Jinks acted as an executive/steering committee and worked well together. (f) Councilwoman Woodson said that as a member of the Board of Governors of the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Bureau, she said there is a lot of support for opening up King Street to alfresco dining. It has a cosmopolitan feeling to it, and as they are a cosmopolitan City, she encouraged the City to look for ways to make this happen. (g) Councilwoman Woodson suggested that line numbers be added to the side of the docket items and attachments, as it makes it much simpler to go directly to the line they are discussing. It is a formatting change and requires no extra money. Mayor Euille said staff will take that into consideration and get back to Council. (h) Vice Mayor Pepper said the Arts Festival was the party of all parties, and she enjoyed it. She said she hoped to continue allowing outdoor seating, as it gives energy and sends the message they want. She said she felt the art was of higher quality this year and it was very interesting art. She said one of the problems that occurred was the issue of parking, as people did not understand ahead of time that when it blocks off King Street, that means they can't cut across King Street and couldn't get to parking on the other side. She said people were unable to attend because they couldn't find a parking place nearby. She hoped they could figure out a way to solve that. (i) Vice Mayor Pepper said this is the week the City is beginning its surveying, where the City has hired Center for Research and Public Policy and they are going to be surveying about 1,000 City residents. They will ask quality of life questions--quality of City services, facilities and infrastructure, and the City hopes to see how the City is meeting those needs and talk about how they can and will talk about whether they are succeeding in moving forward in making the quality of life a little better. (j) Vice Mayor Pepper said the City has been through Hurricanes Isabel, Charlie and Frances and maybe Ivan, and they were passing out a number of sand bags and had the emergency teams alerted. She said it concerned her that they go through this so regularly and she was not sure what exactly the solution is. She said she was pleased to know they are about to begin a study of how the City can handle the situations so they aren't going through this regularly. They are putting together an RFP to hire a consultant to do this study and they have about $.5 million in the budget to finance it and hope to have a consultant on-board by Spring. (k) Councilman Macdonald said the Arts Festival had a great diversity with the number of artists and the quality, and it was just the right amount of art, and if they expand, it should be in other arenas. He said people would like to see them take the idea of closing off streets and letting dining expand onto the streets occur in different parts of the town. (l) Councilman Macdonald said he was appointed by Governor Warner several years ago to the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, and it deals with water supply and quality issues and he was just appointed chair of the group. He said one of the issues brought up is that Blue Plains is being pressured to reduce their nitrogen emissions from their treatment of sewage from seven milligrams to four. He asked to have a letter written in support to reducing it. (m) Councilman Macdonald said he sent a note to the City Manager expressing concerns about some of the crime in the City recently. He said there has been bad vandalism along the Potomac River, Robinson Terminal Warehouse, the rowing facility and boats at Harborside, along with petty crimes. Deputy Police Chief Corle gave an overview of the crime in the City. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ ORAL REPORT FROM THE CITY MANAGER The City Manager reported on the following: (a) The new screens are in the Council Chambers, and they will be used for all powerpoint presentations and it will get good clarity and resolution. The screen in the back will pick up the powerpoint presentations and also have the closed-captioning as well; (b) There will be laptops in the Chambers in October for all members of Council so Council can have Internet access during the meetings; (c) On webcasting, they are beginning this evening to broadcast the Council meetings over the Internet so people can go back at later times, link to the meeting and watch the meeting on the Internet; (d) A Fall calendar has been put at Council's places that list upcoming events; (e) The Purchasing Department received an award for accreditation; (f) The Alexandria Health Department has issued an urgent plea to anyone who may have been exposed to a rabid baby racoon in the last 3-4 weeks, and the request is to report the exposure to the Health Department, as a person left the racoon on the doorstep of a wildlife rehabilitator, who was bit by the racoon; (g) Personal property taxes are due October 5 and the decal was sent with the bills this year; (h) With the events of Hurricanes Charlie, Gaston, Frances and Ivan, there is a whole lot of work done behind the scenes, he noted the preparations for the upcoming storm, and he noted that they would continue to prepare sandbags and make them available on King Street and on the first few blocks of North and South Union Street and to some of the residents on the lower ends; (i) He noted the reverse 911 System, where they are able to designate areas in the City and make recorded messages to the people in the area, and the City used that when Hurricane Charlie came, and it can be used when there is a missing child; (j) He recognized Don Dodson and Archie Robinson who did a great job in getting the Chambers ready for the new screens and the electronics that went into it. Councilwoman Woodson said that with the use of webcasting, technology and closed-captioning, on several occasions Councilman Cleveland asked for more immediate notice of the votes that had been taken on any given issue. As it stands, the votes are available on the minutes, but with captioning and webcasting, she asked what is the possibility of more immediate means of the public to see the votes of Council. City Manager Sunderland said he would check into it. Councilwoman Woodson said that in the last Council, the National League of Cities recognized Alexandria as having a wonderful website, and she was invited to sit on a panel to share what the City was doing. She said the City is even more on the cutting edge now, and it can only get better. Mayor Euille said on the Arts Festival, Producer Howard Allen mentioned that there are about 10,000 arts festivals annually around the country, and they are ranked. In the first year, Alexandria finished at 47, and with the success this past weekend, it would jump to the top ten. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS 17. Consideration of a Resolution Accepting Regional Surface Transportation Grant Funding to Continue the Operation of the Alexandria Transit Store. [ROLL-CALL VOTE] City Council adopted the resolution. (RES NO. 2115) Council Action:_________________________________________________________ 18. Introduction and First Reading. Consideration. Passage on First and Second Reading of an Ordinance to Adopt Supplement Number 73 to the City Code. [ROLL-CALL VOTE] City Council introduced and passed the Ordinance on First and Second Readings. (ORD. NO. 4359) Council Action:_________________________________________________________ OTHER 19. Consideration of City Council Schedule. City Council adopted the schedule of Council's regular City Council meetings for September 2004 through June 2005, with the following additions and changes: scheduled a work session to discuss the King/Beauregard Intersection Project at 6:00 p.m. before Council's Tuesday, September 28 legislative meeting; scheduled a work session to discuss Economic Development at 6:00 p.m. before Council's Tuesday, October 12 legislative meeting; reserved the week of October 18 (one or more weekday evenings and possibly during the day on Saturday) for Council interviews of City Manager candidates; scheduled a one day Council retreat on Saturday, November 20 at the Lee Center Fire Training Center; scheduled the dedication of the renovated Durant Center (1605 Cameron Street) at 8:30 a.m., before Council's Saturday, November 13 public hearing meeting; and changed the January Saturday public hearing meeting to Saturday, January 22 to avoid a conflict with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. Councilman Krupicka noted the October 19 forum on emergency preparedness that will be held in the Council Chambers. Council Action:_________________________________________________________ EXECUTIVE SESSION 20. Consideration of Convening An Executive Session Closed to the Public For Discussion of Actual and Probable Litigation, pursuant to Section 2.2-3711(A)(7) of the Code of Virginia. At 9:37 p.m., City Council convened in executive session, pursuant to Section 2.2-3711(A)(7) of the Code of Virginia for the purpose of consulting with legal counsel and briefing by staff with respect to probable litigation concerning the environmental contamination caused by the Mirant Potomac River Generating Station, with respect to pending litigation over a construction contract with M. Raina Associates, Inc., and pursuant to Section 2.2-3711(A)(3) for the purpose of discussion of the acquisition of real property for public open space purposes. At 11:10 p.m., City Council reconvened the meeting. City Council moved to authorize the City Attorney to settle the case as discussed. City Council adopted the resolution pertaining to the Executive Session. (RES NO.2116) Council Action:_________________________________________________________ * * * * * * The meeting adjourned at 11:11 p.m. Note: The action docket is a summary of Council's meeting deliberations prepared largely for staff follow-up. Formal minutes of the meeting, when approved by Council, become the official record of the meeting and of Council decisions made at the meeting.