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Office of the City Clerk
March 26, 2008


There Was a Work Session at 5:30 p.m.
in the City Council Work Room to Discuss
the Alexandria Community Environmental
Health Assessment.

There Was a Rally at 6:15 p.m. on
Market Square to Honor the T.C. Williams
High School Boys and Girls Basketball
Teams. The Public is Encouraged to Attend.


Regular Meeting
Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - - 7:00 p.m.

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OPENING

1. Calling the Roll.

The meeting was called to order by Mayor Euille, and the City Clerk called the roll; all the members of Council were present, with the exception of Councilman Gaines, who was absent.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

2. Moment of Silence and Pledge of Allegiance.

City Council observed a moment of silence and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

3. Reading and Acting Upon the Minutes of the Following Meeting of City Council:

(a) The Regular Meeting Minutes of March 11, 2008.

City Council approved the regular meeting minutes of March 11, 2008.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

RECOGNITION OF YOUTH BY MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL

4. Recognition of the T.C. Williams Boys and Girls Basketball Teams and Presentation of Proclamations Recognizing the Teams.

City Council endorsed the proclamations.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

PROCLAMATIONS

5. Presentation of a Proclamation Declaring April as Autism Month.

City Council endorsed the proclamation.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________


6. Presentation of a Proclamation Recognizing Six Non-Profit Organizations in Alexandria from the Catalogue for Philanthropy.

City Council endorsed the proclamation.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

7. Presentation of a Proclamation Declaring April 5, 2008 as Homeownership Fair Day.

City Council endorsed the proclamation.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

8. Presentation of a Proclamation Recognizing Heather Reynolds, Mary Craige, Joe Ryan, Steven Chozick, Julie Kanzler and Chandrima Pal as City Employees of the Month for February.

City Council endorsed the proclamation.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CITY MANAGER

CONSENT CALENDAR (9-18)

(Resignations and Uncontested Appointments)

9. Receipt of the Following Resignations From Members of Boards, Commissions and Committees:

10. Uncontested Appointments to Boards, Commissions and Committees:
(Reports and Recommendations of the City Manager)

11. Receipt of the 2007 Alexandria Board of Zoning Appeals Annual Report.

12. Consideration of Application to the Virginia Department of Health for the Office on Women's Sexual Assault Response and Awareness Program.

13. Consideration of Funding Allocation for Rebuilding Together Alexandria.

14. Consideration of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Budget Transfers.

15. Consideration of Authorization of Recommended Capital Project Allocations and Planned Expenditures.

16. Consideration of Monthly Financial Report for the Period Ending February 29, 2008.

17. Consideration of a Grant Application to the United States Department of Agriculture for the Summer Food Service Program for Children.

18. Consideration of Grant Application to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS,) Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) National Assistance to Firefighters (AFG) Grant Program, for the Purchase of a Mobile Incident Command Training Simulation System.

END OF CONSENT CALENDAR

City Council approved the consent calendar, with the exception of docket items #14 and 18, which were considered under separate motions. The City Manager's recommendations were as follows:

9. City Council accepted the following resignations with regret: (a) Antoinette Ross, Alexandria-Gyumri Sister City Committee; (b), Robert F. Woollard, Alexandria Commission on Persons With Disabilities; (c) Deidre Brink Marr, Alexandria Emergency Medical Services Council; and (d) Orisade Awodola, Alexandria Social Services Advisory Board.

10. City Council made the following appointment: (a) appointed Richard Brune as the one member from planning district III to the Alexandria Park and Recreation Commission.

11. City Council received the report and thanked the Board of Zoning Appeals for their efforts on behalf of the City.

12. City Council authorized: 1. the submission of the grant application (due March 31, 2008,) not to exceed $90,000 over a three-year period, and to begin May 1, 2008; 2. the creation of one part-time position for a Bilingual Outreach Prevention Specialist, whose hours will be reduced or the position will be eliminated, if the grant funds are diminished or the program is no longer funded; and 3. the City Manager to execute the necessary documents that may be required.

13. City Council: 1. approved an allocation of $42,000 in Housing Trust Fund (HTF) monies as a grant to Rebuilding Together Alexandria (RTA) to fund its National Rebuilding Day activities for FY 2008 (April 26); and 2. authorized the City Manager to execute all necessary documents and agreements.

14. City Council approved the following FY 2008 transfers of CDBG monies:

From Program: To Program: Amount:
Rental Accessibility Homeownership Assistance $251,022
Modification Program (RAMP) Program (HAP)
Program Administration Homeownership Assistance
Program (HAP) $100,000
Program Total: $351,022

From Program: To Program: Amount:
Transitional Assistance Program (DHS) Eviction Assistance and $13,000
Furniture Storage Program (DHS)
(separate motion)

15. City Council authorized the capital project allocations and planned expenditures for the capital projects as detailed in the Capital Improvement Expenditure Summary.

16. City Council received the monthly financial report for the period ending February 29, 2008.

17. City Council authorized staff to: 1. submit the grant application (due May 9, 2008) to the United States Department of Agriculture for continued funding and an estimated reimbursement amount of $112,000 for program expenses; and 2. execute all necessary documents that may be required.

18. City Council: 1. authorized the submission of the grant application (due April 4, 2008), up to $150,000; and 2. authorized the City Manager to execute the necessary documents that may be required. (separate motion)
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

CONTESTED APPOINTMENTS

19. Alexandria Commission on HIV/AIDS City Council waived the residency requirement and reappointed Tomas Cabrera as the one member from and representing an HIV/AIDS services organization which provides services in the City to the Alexandria Commission on HIV/AIDS.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

20. Alexandria Community Criminal Justice Board
1 Citizen Member

City Council reappointed Donna Brazier as the one citizen member to the Alexandria Community Criminal Justice Board.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

21. Alexandria Landlord-Tenant Relations Board
1 Landlord or Representative of A Landlord

City Council waived the residency requirement and reappointed Cynthia Clare as the one landlord or representative of a landlord to the Alexandria Landlord-Tenant Relations Board.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

22. Alexandria Public Health Advisory Commission
1 Representative of the Inova Alexandria Hospital

City Council waived the residency requirement and appointed Robin Adams as the one representative of the Inova Alexandria Hospital to the Alexandria Public Health Advisory Commission.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

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City Council reconfirmed its wish to have non-residents who are incumbents on boards and commissions on the consent calendar.

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REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CITY MANAGER FOR DISCUSSION

23. Consideration of Installation of a Traffic Signal at the Intersection of Franklin Street and Columbus Street.

City Council authorized the installation of a new traffic signal at the intersection of Franklin Street and Columbus Street pursuant to City Code Section 10-2-7. (Following a public hearing, the Traffic and Parking Board voted unanimously to recommend installation of the signal.)
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

24. Presentation of Report on the Alexandria Fire Department Incident Analysis of the Response to the August 25, 2007, Fire at 6101 Edsall Road (Alexandria Knolls West.)

City Council received the report.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

25. Presentation on the City of Alexandria's Emergency Preparedness 2008.

Emergency Management Coordinator Penn briefed Council on the state of the City's emergency management planning efforts.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM BOARDS, COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES

None

ORAL REPORTS BY MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL

ORAL PRESENTATIONS BY MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL

(a) Vice Mayor Pepper said she and Councilman Smedberg co-chair the committee that is monitoring the activities of the Mirant Plant and for some time, they have been working on the permitting of the operating permit that will govern the activities of the Mirant Plant. She said that on March 20, the State Air Pollution Control Board met and neighbors testified about how detrimental Mirant is to their health. The two permits being considered had to do with the stacks - one was to keep the five stacks as they were, but they had hoped there would be bag houses attached. The second was to merge the five into two stacks, which is what Mirant wanted and which the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality had recommended. What would happen if they combined the two stacks was to allow the air to be forced out and disbursed, the various pollution, including PM2.5, which is the fine particulates - it would disperse them further, which would be helpful to the neighbors who were immediately located by the Mirant facility but didn't do much with the neighbors who were at some distance. Vice Mayor Pepper said they had support from some of the neighboring jurisdictions. She said they were able to get the Board to put limits on the fine particles that could be emitted from the stacks, and the particulates are what are linked to asthma and heart disease. The Board decided to allow them to build a modified two stack permit, with a number of restrictions. There will be limits to the fine particulates. Vice Mayor Pepper said she hoped the revised two stack permit will be before the Board in May and there will be clear directives. One of the issues that continues is how do you measure the amount that is being polluted from Mirant and that has been a point of contention between Mirant and the Alexandria staff. She said they will wait for May and hope that good things will come out of that discussion. She said that now, Mirant is operating under its old permit that was granted to it as an interim permit.

Mayor Euille thanked Vice Mayor Pepper and Councilman Smedberg, the City Attorney, outside counsel and citizens who were present and testified on the City's behalf.

Councilman Smedberg said the City staff and the presentation they put together was exceptional. He said he wished they had those kinds of experts on the state level, as they would be in a lot better shape.

(b) Councilman Wilson said he represents the Council on the Library Board, and the Board has announced that they have made a selection of the new director - Rose Dawson, who was deputy director for a few years. He said she had been named acting director and the Board voted to make her the permanent director.

(c) Councilman Wilson said he sent to his colleagues earlier today a report prepared by the Alexandria Youth Council, who attended a conference in Hampton and made a presentation to the Youth Policy Commission. He said he found out that apparently, Hampton includes youth a lot more extensively in their planning efforts, the logic being that most of the things they are planning today, the folks will not be around to see come to fruition and the youth are typically the ones who will. He said that as they look to form workgroups in the future, they might want to give thought as to efforts like including younger people.

(d) Councilman Wilson said they need to look no further than the headlines to see the unfortunate effects of predatory and exploitative lending practices that they are seeing the effects of. The General Assembly action on passage of House Bill 12 attempts to tightly regulate the payday lending industry, and that is a positive move forward. He said Councilman Krupicka has worked to find ways in the City on the land use process to deal with payday lenders. He said Council has twice included in its legislative package to ask the General Assembly to further regulate this industry. Councilman Wilson proposed another way, outside of the land use process, to deal with the issue. As was indicated during a conversation with Mr. Jinks a few meetings ago, they have some flexibility in the business licensor tax on how to impose it on different types of businesses. He said his proposal would be to establish two subcategories within the financial services category-- one would be payday and car title lenders and the other would be all other financial services, they establish a new rate for payday and car title lenders of 58 cents per $100 of gross receipts, which is the maximum rate allowable by State Law and then they ask the Consumer Affairs Commission to bring recommendations to City Council for a partnership with the private sector, the non-profit community and with anyone else they feel necessary to provide financial literacy information, other low-income lending activities, and using that revenue to try to convince people to make available responsible financial decisions. Councilman Wilson said there is an education piece to this, and one argument that the payday lending industry has made that is very compelling is that there isn't a lot of financial lending activities for low-income folks. Councilman Wilson said he is hopeful the Consumer Affairs Commission can come up with some creative outside the box thinking on ways to use the additional revenue to deal with an extremely important issue. He said he trusts there will be a budget memo in response to his memo he sent out earlier and he looked forward to discussing it as part of the budget process.

Mayor Euille asked that staff come back with a budget memo in the work session process.

(e) Mayor Euille said the new trolley is running up and down King Street and next Tuesday, April 1 will be the ribbon cutting ceremony, and the water taxi ribbon cutting will take place later.

(f) Mayor Euille said that over the past few weeks, in budget work sessions and in discussion with Council, they have looked at various options to fund the budget, particularly since the State Supreme Court decision and the VDOT budget cuts that left the City with a $21 million hole in major construction projects. In order to have a wide range of options before Council, they have been given the green light to consider a small add-on to the commercial property tax, some tax relief for retailers and a one percent increase to restaurant meals tax, which would give the City the same rate as Arlington. While they have also talked informally about reinstating the two percent Northern Virginia Transit Authority hotel tax with a City hotel tax of up to two percent, his intent is to see if that is an additional option Council wants to direct staff to bring back for public hearing and formal Council deliberation. Mayor Euille said they need to take a look at the option, and one percent increase in hotel tax raises $1.2 million annually. He asked for a sense of Council on whether they want staff to bring it back as a budget memo to consider raising the tax to two percent.

It was the general feeling of Council to bring this back for consideration.

(g) Councilmember Lovain spoke about the effort underway in Congress to try to amend the climate change bill to increase allocations for transit. They need to do a lot on the transportation front to address the climate change problem. They need more transit and more transit oriented development. He said he circulated a letter for signatures by cities to Congressional leaders urging them to support efforts that increase funding for public transportation and other tools to reduce transportation sector greenhouse gas emissions.

City Council approved the signing of the letter to Congress for climate control.

(h) Councilman Smedberg said the Alexandria Marketing Committee had its first official application review process and awarded their first three grants, and the process went extremely well. The applications that came in were better and were very strategic in nature and he thought they would see a lot of great things coming forward.

(i) Councilman Smedberg said there was a tour bus that for five minutes blocked the entrance to the parking garage and the driver had no concern at all and what he said was he didn't have to move, as the City had no rules. He said they keep dancing around the issue and they had a task force two and a half to three years ago look at the issue, but they need to get their arms around it. He said they will have a much higher level of tour buses coming into the City because of National Harbor, and they have got to do something. Councilman Smedberg said the big issue is enforcement, and if they will go that route, they have to have someone enforcing the rules. He said it is not just tour buses but also the larger sized vans that hotels and tourist companies use.

Mayor Euille said he will put it on the agenda for his meeting with staff next week and will come back to Council with recommendations on how to move it.

(j) Councilman Krupicka said he rode the trolley today, it was great and it was packed. He noted they did a nice job with the logo on the side of the trolley.

(k) Councilman Krupicka complimented Councilman Smedberg with his work on the marketing fund, and he felt like the work is coming to a good place, and he appreciated the progress Councilman Smedberg has made.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

ORAL REPORT FROM THE CITY MANAGER

None.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS

26. Consideration of a Resolution Continuing the Virginia Paving Liaison Committee. [ROLL-CALL VOTE]

City Council adopted the resolution authorizing the Virginia Paving Community Liaison Committee to continue for another year. (RES. NO. 2271)
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

OTHER

27. Consideration of City Council Schedule.

City Council received the revised calendar, which includes: a celebration rally in honor of the T.C. Williams boys and girls varsity basketball teams on Market Square at 6:15 p.m. before Council's legislative meeting on Tuesday, March 25; and noted a change in the start time for the April 8 work session from 5:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. so that the work session can include two topics: 1. infill and 2. Planning and Zoning priorities.
Council Action:_________________________________________________________

The meeting adjourned at 9:52 p.m.

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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.






This docket is subject to change.

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Full-text copies of ordinances, resolutions, and agenda items are available in the Office of the City Clerk and Clerk of the Council. Meeting materials are also available on-line at alexandriava.gov/council
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