City staff presented the proposed 2026 state legislative priorities on Oct. 28, including a mix of statutory requests, charter-change proposals and policy statements aimed at addressing local control, housing, public safety and water-system concerns.

Jerry Wilson, presenting the package, said the upcoming General Assembly budget session will be challenging and that several items in the city's package are intended to preserve local flexibility and secure state support. Among the specific requests in the printed package: an authority to hire and train technicians to review traffic-camera video (expanding the applicant pool beyond sworn officers); adding Newport News to a list of localities authorized to use land-value taxation (an option that would tax land separately from improvements); a request to extend Safer Communities grant funding (the city sought $2.5 million per year in the biennium); and policy statements supporting state investment in housing and eviction-reduction programs.

Wilson described two charter-change requests in the package: 1) adding a local recall-election process that would allow voters at the local level to remove elected members (a process that would differ from the Code of Virginia's court-driven procedure), and 2) establishing a citizen compensation committee to benchmark and recommend city-council salaries, with council retaining authority to set salaries up to the committee's recommendation. The package also listed two items for council discussion rather than formal inclusion: allowing partisan labels on local ballots and enabling ranked-choice voting, and the possibility of increasing the number of council or elected school-board members (including use of "super wards").

During council discussion members expressed mixed views. Several councilmembers said they support a citizen compensation benchmark process (noting similar boards exist for constitutional officers), but a number of members opposed pursuing a local recall process, citing the risk of politicizing recalls and the existence of a state-level recall/removal mechanism tied to criminal conduct. Council members also requested more discussion and public education before considering ranked-choice voting because voters and some officials have limited familiarity with it.

Wilson also reviewed other policy priorities, including support for a regional aviation authority concept, an incentive-based approach to increase housing supply (rather than punitive mandates), municipal water-system protections to limit unintended operational impacts from state legislation, an excise tax on vaping products as a public-health and revenue measure, and continued support for a school-construction funding mechanism (a sales-tax referendum option) and transit and public-safety funding requests.

Council did not vote on these items the night of Oct. 28; staff were directed to return with the formal legislative package and to omit the local-recall charter change from the package at this time while proceeding with the other items for the Nov. 11 (two-week) vote window.