I got a hot tip from some email correspondence that the scheduled 1/27/2025 vote to raise the meals tax … would be deferred.
That turned out to be a true rumor. Took TC all of four minutes to raise, discuss, and vote to defer.
About half of the four minutes consists of a single long comment by Council Member Brill, regarding the uncertain outlook for the Federal workforce. This was met with a smattering of applause, which the Mayor then immediately quashed, per TC SOP.
Here’s the four minutes of audio, starting just a few seconds before this item came up:
I gave that four minutes of audio to the AI lurking within notebooklm.google.com, to summarize. Here’s how the AI summarized it, primarily based on a lengthy comment by Council Member Brill:
AI summary from notebooklm.google.com
1 source
A town council meeting transcript reveals a discussion regarding a proposed 10-year increase in the meals tax from 3% to 4%. A council member motions to defer the decision until August 25th, 2025, citing uncertainty surrounding potential federal telework policy changes that could impact local residents’ employment and, consequently, tax revenue. The motion passes unanimously. The deferral allows for more time to gather information and consider the implications of the evolving federal situation. This postponement is intended to ensure a well-informed and appropriate decision for the community.
Conclusion
That AI summary is close enough for me, and I listened to the whole four minutes.
If there were any specifics mentioned, about what’s supposed to happen between now and August 25th, both I and the AI missed them. Just some boilerplate about getting more information, being responsible for this big decision, and so on.
Plus the notion that they can always defer a vote again, on August 25th.
The decision to defer a vote was unanimous. Almost as if it had already been decided, outside of the public’s view. Which it almost surely had.
The original recording can be found on Granicus, about 49 minutes into the recording of that Town Council meeting.
https://vienna-va.granicus.com/player/clip/1667?view_id=1&redirect=true
Any notion that Town Council Must Act NOW! has been quietly dropped down the memory hole (Post #2055). So we’ve gone from “now or never” to “mañana”. With zero comment on the change in the story being told to Town Council. And zero repercussions for telling it.
Just another bit of mindless irrationality from the Town of Vienna.
