Chesapeake Council approves consent agenda, budget amendments and multiple ordinances in unanimous votes

Mayor West and the City Council approved an omnibus consent agenda and a series of budget and ordinance items during their regular meeting, adopting each measure by recorded 8-0 votes.

Council adopted consent-agenda code changes that the clerk described as statutory updates and emergency actions to the Chesapeake City Code, including amendments to traffic and vehicles provisions, an added electronic payment instrument penalty provision in the finance and taxation chapter, expanded red-light monitoring affirmations, limited access to accident reports for safety-towing responders, changes to towing-advisory-board composition, immunity protections for minor victims of trafficking, and a prohibition on hydraulic fracturing and bioslurry injection in the Northwest River Watershed Protection District. The clerk read each ordinance and the council approved the consent package as an emergency action.

City Manager Price presented multiple city-manager items and budget amendments that council then approved. Actions included updating the Land Bank Authority office location and membership rules; authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with the Region 5 Community Service Boards to help establish a regional mental-health framework; and a number of operating- and capital-budget amendments and transfers. Key fiscal actions approved by the council included:

- A $500,000 transfer within the FY26 Public Works operating budget to cover increased energy costs; - An appropriation of $252,438 in state revenue and a $149,212 transfer from the General Fund Reserve to human-services FY26 operating for Children's Services Act costs (approved as an emergency action); - Budget amendments adding $94,007 to the Community Development Block Grant and $2,355 to the HOME Investment Partnership grant; - Appropriations and transfers for Byrne JAG and video conferencing equipment ($9,455 revenue, $3,151 seized-assets transfer); - $292,109 in restricted state mental-health funds to Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare for system transportation improvements; - A $2,000,000 supplemental principal debt payment to the Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank for the Chesapeake Transportation System; - Reallocations to fund an August primary election, predictive-wellness programming for first responders, fine-arts funding, court-appointed-counsel increases, and sheriff inmate-workforce budget and FTE adjustments; - Establishment or reallocation of capital projects including broadband ring funding and VDOT-funded traffic-signal timing improvements.

Several items required short council discussion; City Manager Price and answering staff provided the rationale that some amendments were technical corrections and that further state-related amendments would return later after the state budget was finalized. The motions for each item were moved, seconded and approved by an 8-0 recorded vote.

The council also approved a slate of board and commission appointments presented by City Clerk Madison by an 8-0 vote.

The meeting record shows the council used standard motions and roll-call votes to adopt the measures; no formal amendments to the motions were recorded in the transcript. The closed-meeting certification required at the session’s start and end was also adopted 8-0.