Theresa Coates Ellis Interview Transcript

DMV TV: Hello Council Woman Ellis, thank you for sitting down with me. Let’s start with the hardest topic, this fall Manassas saw a shooting at first Friday in September and another one at United rentals off Wellington. how is the community doing and how are you?

Theresa Ellis: Thank you for having me honestly it’s been very heavy. I think about the families of the victims and everyone who wondered if they were safe in their community, and at an event that families enjoyed. I’m grateful to our police and first responders. They did a great job. Every resident deserves to feel safe and I take that personally.

DMV TV: Some people are saying Forst Friday (Manassas) should be shut down. What’s your opinion?

Theresa Ellis: As a small business myself and also a mom, who raised seven children in Manassas, I understand the fear, but I don’t think canceling is the answer. First Friday matters greatly to our small businesses, it’s foot traffic, and for new customers, and it’s often the difference in a very tight financial month. If we let fear shut down our local owners pay the price. I think pausing it for 2026 is a good idea. I want it safer and still thriving as we go into 2027 and that means we should have security coordination, emergency planning, having better lighting and crowd management.

DMV TV: Councilwoman Ellis. Residence asked what city council can actually do about crime, when judges make the decision. Can council do anything?

Theresa Ellis: I wanna be honest with people, judges are independent and council doesn’t decide sentences, but we’re not powerless. We can fully support our police in our prosecutors, and push for better coordination across the justice system and invest in prevention and victim services. We can and we have, spoken up at state level on bail and sentencing. Accountability and public trust must go together.

DMV TV: thank you. Let’s talk growth. data centers are a big topic. Is it good for Manassas or bad?

Theresa Ellis: So in the city of Manassas, we only have a few data centers and they actually were built in buy-right areas so they were allowed to be built there. It was in industrial zones. You’re seeing a lot of data centers being built in excess, in my opinion in Prince William County and Loudoun. We have to understand that, even though they will give us good revenue, they do impact our community, the infrastructure, the water, the power, the sound even possible health complications that we aren’t even aware of like, there’s a lot of studies out there on how they’re going to affect our community. And the fact that they do create relatively few permanent quality jobs, so I personally think that we have enough. We have just a few in places that they are OK to be, but we have to be sure that there’s not excessive growth and to make sure that we’re having a diverse economy not just one type of business that we would rely on.

DMV TV: One thing I keep hearing about is the car tax. If you sell your car mid year, you still have to pay for the whole year. Do you think that should change?

Theresa Ellis: So this is unfair, I don’t know of anyone that likes it. It’s actually unusual to have if you’re looking at our surrounding states. Virginia has this car tax, and when people move here they are really hig hard with it. I would like to see it go away. For owning a car for just a portion of the year and get full taxation is unfair. So that argument is with the revenue that would be lost if we abolish that tax. Where would we find the money with a short fall? Well, we just have to budget accordingly, we have to look at our expenses and figure out a way to meet our budget.

DMV TV: Let’s end on something hopeful, what gives you confidence about Manassas?

Theresa Ellis: We have done a great job with our events, our restaurants, our small businesses.Some of the top events, the Manassas Bee festival, which I actually founded about seven years ago, every June, it draws thousands of people. We have the Fall Jubilee, that is wonderful in the streets of Manassas and we also have the Latino festival we have Lorex Feat. We have all different types of festivals that draw people from all over the region. Like I said, it brings us together. We learn about each other. We share our food together. We enjoy music together and it just makes it so special and I truly am fortunate to have served on City Manassas,and I really hope that I have your vote to continue this work, thank you.

DMV TV: Thank you council. Thank you for letting me talk with you today.