Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting, Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Date: Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 5h 53m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1015
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1015

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-16. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] I'm pleased to call to order this regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on this fifth day of June, 1 p.m., in Lane Auditorium. I'd like to note at the dais we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor B. Lapisto-Kirtley of the Ravenna District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jewett District, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, myself, Jim Anfors, representing the Samuel Miller District quorum is present.

[00:00:27] We're also joined by our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our county attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, and our clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgerson. Also, let me please welcome Albemarle County Police Officers present, Master Police Officers Dana Reeves and Paul Quillen.

[00:00:42] We thank you for your service today and every day and the work you do with your colleagues on behalf of the citizens of Albemarle County. I also want to make sure I welcome the, I think it's a kindergarten class from Murray Elementary, if this is great. I don't know if Serena, you have more information on that, but welcome. We're thrilled to have you. Can't start young enough coming to get involved in your local government. You're behaving better than a lot of other folks we've had.

[00:01:14] Very well behaved. Good example. Thank you. So if all present could now stand as you are able and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:01:31] I like it. Thank you.

[00:01:48] And now join us in a moment of silence. Thank you.

[00:02:12] We now can move on to adopt the final agenda, and I've not heard of any suggested amendments changes, so I'm looking for a motion to adopt the final agenda. So moved. Second.

[00:02:28] We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, a second from Supervisor Malek. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Lopisto-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. And board will now move to item number five, brief announcements by board members.

[00:02:50] We'll start in our order speaking today. Supervisor Ann Malik. Thank you very much. I will save some stuff to the end of the meeting, but just wanted to let you all know that Senator Marsden is beginning an energy task force. I will be attending tomorrow as in listening in representing Baco as well as the county and we'll report back. There'll be another meeting next week. I think in response trying to find some middle ground to prevent the debacle that we had in the General Assembly this past year with the general takeover of all local government decision-making. So he hopefully will

[00:03:27] lead something useful. Also on June 27th the High Growth Coalition will be meeting in Culpeper and please let Claudette know if you want to go so she can register people and also announce how many will be there and housing and land use will certainly be hot topics for that meeting as well and I'll save the rest. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupito-Kirtley. Yes I just wanted to state that on Tuesday June 11th the EDA Economic Development Authority will be having a joint city county meeting on that day from four to six at city space and that's all i have for

[00:04:06] right now thank you supervisor galloway i have no announcements thank you supervisor pruitt um i was able to attend my first full size full universe or full school graduation as a supervisor recently over at monticello it was uh really thrilling and i wanted to just extend a congratulations to all the graduates in our community, at the university, at all our high schools, and some of our lower grades as well. Also, I would like to just circle back. I know last time we were all here, we mentioned the concerns about traffic during this period in

[00:04:41] which our town size multiplies briefly, and I made a tongue-in-cheek joke about being careful on the road for my mom, who's not confident on the road. Turns out I invoked that for the wrong person. My father was, in fact, had his car totaled in the dead of night by a reckless driver in the town of Scottsville. So I want to extend a thank you. And really, I was impressed by the diligence and the work and saw the shoe leather investigation by our Scottsville town police. So I wanted to extend a congratulations and a thank you to Chief Jenkins and his team down there for getting all

[00:05:19] that sorting. I also did have the pleasure of joining the Scottsville Branch Library of the JMRL for their 65th anniversary. They're the oldest branch that we have operating in the county.

[00:05:34] It was a lovely event. We had Mayor Smith's little folk band down there. It was a real delight and I want to say my thanks to everyone. And also I just want to acknowledge it's hot as heck out there right now. This is a thing that I think we need to remember is an intrinsically dangerous condition for human beings. So I would encourage everyone in the audience insofar as you're able to practice limiting your exposure to hot weather conditions as much as possible. Don't get, you know, I'm a runner. I also know right now I should not be running during the day most of the time. I should

[00:06:11] be running either in the early morning or during the evening. And, you know, I am marrying into a family that has a lot of farmers, and they will tell you it's important to always wear a hat when you're going to be working outside, because skin cancer is serious. So that is really all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh. Yes, and as the retired nurse sitting at the dais, I just want to add to what Mike just said, hats that cover your ears, because ears are the vulnerable place, especially for men. So hats are good, but hats that cover your ears. Just a couple

[00:06:47] of things we did have our graduation or have had our graduations over the last perhaps 10 days the three high schools in our community graduated somewhere around a thousand students three separate graduations and they were really wonderful and it was exciting to see the the children that were graduating and I shouldn't say children the young people that were graduating and the awards the The many students that were going into the military were recognized, so the graduations were really wonderful in many ways.

[00:07:23] For those of you in the audience that didn't connect or have the ability to connect, the children here today were from Murray Elementary School, and they were presenting to us three ideas. Ideas that they felt would make Albemarle County more fair, more fun, and better for kids.

[00:07:46] And those ideas were, they were suggesting to us they want us to build them a water park. I think that's actually a very interesting idea, especially a splash pool. Anyway, more playgrounds, because all of our playgrounds really are associated for the most part with schools.

[00:08:05] So they're thinking more playgrounds that are more conveniently located for other kids. And a children's garden. So water park, playgrounds, and a children's garden. And we really do appreciate the kindergartners and the young people from Murray Elementary coming to join us today.

[00:08:22] The only other thing that I wanted to mention was, excuse me, the Virginia Department of Transportation held a public information session last night at the Holiday Inn on Emmett Street, or Route 29, 29 North.

[00:08:41] And it was about getting public input on the proposed roundabout at District Avenue and Cedar Hill Road, which is, for those people that might not know, District Avenue.

[00:09:00] It's where the Stonefield Movie Theater is along Hydraulic Road. Their proposal is for a roundabout to go there. And so they were taking public input about that roundabout. You can actually go online and fill out a survey, and they'll be taking public comment.

[00:09:18] And the public comment is to be sent to, you can email it, to john.rose1 at v.virginia.gov. If you have trouble getting it or you want to participate in that survey and you have trouble finding it, you can reach out to us in Elmar County and we can help you with it.

[00:09:37] I imagine there's a link on the VDOT website as well, although I must admit I haven't looked. And the deadline for this input is Friday, June the 14th, so you have a little bit of time. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. I have no particular announcements, though I'll add my congratulations to the graduates.

[00:09:55] And my well wishes for your father. I hope he's okay. He's fine. The car, not so much. As long as he's all right, that's the only thing. Well, I'm going to add one more thing. If somebody gets out too much, particularly farm-type territory, is to cover everything because the jiggers and the ticks are really active right now.

[00:10:15] So, Supervisor. I'm sorry, I forgot two things. Over on the desk to your right is some information from Veteran Services, and I hope that you would consider getting one of those if you know veterans and be able to share this information with them. It's about extra new coverages and qualifications and eligibility for various Veteran Services.

[00:10:34] things. And also regarding the weather, heat checks for our neighbors. We have lots of older neighbors and very young ones all around our area who often have a very difficult time keeping themselves moderated temperature-wise. So please check in on those folks nearby to make sure that they're okay. Think about being in the derecho again, and then that'll help us know exactly what to do for the next little while. Thank you. Thank you. Board, that takes us to item six, which is proclamations and recognitions. And this is particularly special today. We're going to start with a resolution of appreciation. It'll be read by Supervisor Lupisto Kirtley.

[00:11:15] Thank you very much. This is once again a resolution of appreciation for Richard Hewitt. Whereas Richard Hewitt has become a strong supporter of the Albemarle County community over many years and recently retired from many years of formal service on the police Citizens Advisory Committee, including several years as chair. And whereas Richard Hewitt has also been a longtime supporter of the Police Foundation and supports a variety of events

[00:11:50] that support the community and local law enforcement. And whereas Richard Hewitt was instrumental in the development at the former J.C. Penney property of the COVID-19 vaccination center and most recently the public safety operations center which is a state-of-the-art facility that houses the county's fire rescue and police operations and logistics allowing them to maintain the fleet of emergency vehicles managing logistics for personnel and substantially

[00:12:28] increase their ability to streamline operations and enhance the services provided to the community. And whereas Richard Hewitt has provided quality, affordable space for Albemarle County Public Schools High School Center 1 and for administrative departments, which has resulted in cost savings over several years, freeing capital capacity for other county priority investments. And whereas in numerous ways Richard Hewitt has shown his commitment and stewardship

[00:13:08] to our business community by enabling businesses to grow their operations in affordable office space which supports career ladder jobs and allows them to pay a sustainable wage. Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby commend Richard Hewitt for his significant contributions to our community and extend a heartfelt thank you for his years of

[00:13:42] service to the residents of Albemarle County. Be it for the resolved that a copy of this resolution be spread upon the minutes of this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors as a lasting testament to the esteem in which Richard Hewitt is held by this board.

[00:14:04] Signed this fifth day of June 2024, Jim H. Andrews, Chair, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley, a second from Supervisor McKeel. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll.

[00:14:20] Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Mr. Andrews. Yes. Mr. Dalloway. Yes. Ms. Malick. Yes. Ms. McKeel. Yes. Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley. Aye. Thank you. Mr. Hewitt, would you like to come up, at least give us the opportunity to make a few remarks, but you have something prepared, I see.

[00:14:44] Join us. Please come up to the microphones. Thank you. And just adjust the mic so that it works for you. Does that work? Yeah. Thank you very much for the kind words.

[00:14:59] My 10 years as a member of the Police Citizens Committee has meant a great deal to me. I've enjoyed the relationships with other members, supervisors, staff, and the three chiefs during my tenure.

[00:15:18] We as a community are fortunate to have such talent in public policing. I am happy to be able to raise two wonderful children, and now two grandchildren.

[00:15:37] I would not trade it for anything. I am truly a grateful citizen. Thank you. Please remain for a moment if it's okay.

[00:15:53] Each of us have an opportunity to speak. Supervisor Malik. Oh, goody. I get to go first. Thank you. I'm so glad to be able to recognize you today and your family as well, because we've known each other since our kids were little, and what a wonderful generation of commitment that you have made to Amaral County.

[00:16:18] And I'm very glad that now you get to be a grandpa because that's the best, the best of all. In addition to all the items mentioned in the resolution, I'm so grateful for all the efforts you made to provide those build-to-suit spaces at Comdial, now that you call Seminole Place, for all those startups, those research businesses, and the schools to provide those jobs and family-sustaining jobs. I remember taking my campers to visit the artificial wetlands people way back when you first took it over, and the jet engine people, and all those businesses in between, all those different skill levels. And then there's fire and rescue and your decades-long

[00:16:56] support for Seminole Volunteer Fire Company and the Station 8 and the construction of the Wood Slaughter Training Building. Really important for all of the fire companies on our part of the county. And then there's the support for the local health department, already mentioned, and the thousands of people, in addition to myself, who did get vaccinations in that lovely, spacious, secure, comfortable place in a pretty scary time. So I'm grateful for that. And I understand it was the second most widely used vaccination site in the whole commonwealth during that time so thank you for being an articulate advocate for our county and for

[00:17:31] being you and we'll see you more i'm sure thank you supervisor lapiso kirk you are truly a testament to what this community is all about which is service to the community helping people i've just never encountered a business person such as yourself that has been so committed to helping everybody, especially public safety, police, fire, and even during COVID, what you did for us there. You've helped so many people and probably saved a lot of lives also in

[00:18:10] doing that. And you have done things selflessly because that's what someone does for their community. I truly admire, respect. I think we all do admire and respect you because you've done so much. You truly are a pillar of what community service is and what people should be doing for their community to help everybody. And this is just a small resolution of appreciation. You deserve

[00:18:42] so much more. You deserve, you have our undying commitment. Thank you because of what you do for us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Calloway. Richard, it's been truly a pleasure to get to know you over the years that I've gotten involved and you and I first met. We actually first met, I think, doing a cardio back in the day before some of this other stuff was going.

[00:19:08] And just like then, I remember you and appreciate the fact that you are to the point, direct, and, you know, let's have a conversation and get to the point. So I've always appreciated that especially when you can work with somebody that is committed to the community as you are it would be enough the business that you're in and the quality of work that you do and the multiplier that has on those companies that come into your spaces the impact on our local economy would be enough to recognize you for what that means for individuals for our community and our quality of

[00:19:47] life but being the individual you are you didn't stop there and the volunteerism that you have put forward, especially with the public safety and the other things that have been mentioned today, is truly quite remarkable. And I can't help but connect those two dots, that that care for the community and the passion to have a good place to live, not for yourself, but for others, is what drives both your business work and that volunteer work. So I appreciate your energy and your commitment to that and everything you have done for the county, the county schools, and for the citizens of Albemarle. And you have my sincere appreciation. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

[00:20:23] Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much. I've not had the pleasure of getting to know you for as long as my peers up here on the dais, but for the last about a year that we've known each other, I've been always impressed every time I've spoken with you and have deeply valued your counsel and your expertise that you've been able to bring to this board.

[00:20:44] I also do just want to say, I shared this with you in private, now I'm going to embarrass you on the spot. You know you're doing something right when you have people really fighting about who gets to read the proclamation to recognize you. Everyone up here wanted it. And I think that really goes to share just how deeply respected you are in this community.

[00:21:04] And that respect isn't just from folks on the dais, right? It is something that we hear from staff. It is something we hear from the public. What a real cornerstone you've been of our community. And also, like we were just talking, that's not just in your capacity on the advisory board.

[00:21:21] That's not just in your business professional capacity. But all your volunteerism over the course of your time in this community, all the different ways you've tried to be involved, show a real commitment to local government, right, which is increasingly rare these days. It's maybe less sexy than other ways one can get involved.

[00:21:38] But this is, you've really staked a claim here, and you've shown it, and you've lived it through your actions. So thank you so much. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Thank you, Richard. And I'm not going to repeat, I agree with everything my fellow supervisors have said.

[00:21:53] I will try not to repeat too much, but I do think that you connect the dots of, as many of us up here do, the importance of safety in the community and strong education in the community. And those two pillars really create a really strong and vibrant community. And you have made those connections beautifully for us and helped us make those connections. I will just add that I had the

[00:22:27] opportunity this week to attend a meeting in the new space at Seminole Place for the Albemarle County Public Schools facilities. So Center One is there, but now they are using a space over there for their facilities moving from Albemarle to Lambsland Campus, and it is a great space as well. I think they were all thrilled because they have offices now with walls and a place to put their computers. So that is very much appreciated as well. The other thing I just want to point out

[00:23:03] is that I remember a period of time in this community where we were trying to establish separate pay scales for our safety officers, fire and rescue and police and the sheriffs and ECCs.

[00:23:19] And you and the foundation really worked hard to help us get that through and an explanation to the community as to why those pay scales were so important. And I really appreciate that help as well. So for the myriad of things that you have done for us, thank you.

[00:23:35] Thank you. And I'm going to just say ditto to what my colleagues have said. We don't do this very often, so this has been very special. You, I hope, are not done helping. I understand you're stepping down from the Police Citizens Advisory Committee, but other ways in which I'm sure you'll be involved with the community.

[00:23:58] So thank you again for all that you've done, all the service. And Supervisor Lupisto currently has the formal resolution to hand you. So thank you.

[00:24:17] Thank you all very much. Thank you. See you soon. Board, this brings us to a second proclamation today.

[00:24:34] Supervisor Pruitt will read the proclamation recognizing privately. Thank you. The proclamation celebrating LGBTQ Pride Month, whereas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, also known as LGBT Pride Month, is celebrated annually in June to commemorate the catalyst event of the 1969 Stonewall Riots and works to achieve equal justice and equal opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning Americans.

[00:25:03] And, whereas, on April 11, 2020, the Virginia Values Act was signed into law, making Virginia the first state in the South to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their daily lives, including discrimination in housing, public and private employment, public accommodations, and access to credit.

[00:25:21] And, whereas, Albemarle County's stated mission is to enhance the well-being and quality of life for all citizens through the provision of the highest level of public service, consistent with the prudent use of public funds.

[00:25:32] And whereas the Board of Supervisors is committed to supporting, through its actions and its partnerships, the promotion of an equitable and inclusive Albemarle County that allows all members of our community to grow and thrive, and whereas LGBTQ individuals have shaped, advanced, and enriched the fabric of Albemarle County and our nation by making immense contributions to all areas of life, including government, business, arts and sciences, medicine, law enforcement, technology, and the military.

[00:26:02] Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, continue to affirm our commitment to our stated mission to enhance the well-being and quality of life of all the members of our community and recognize with pride the rich cultural diversity and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning residents to the vibrancy of Albemarle County.

[00:26:27] Sign this day, this fifth day of June 2024. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley. Without objection, if the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

[00:26:43] Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Lupisto-Curtley? Aye. Thank you. And I believe we have Mr. Nick Hutchins here to accept this on behalf of the president, as president of the Charlottesville Pride Network. Welcome, Mr. Hutchins. Thank you all so much for having me today. Thank you so much for this honor. My name is Nick Hutchins. I'm the president of Charlottesville Pride. First, I'd like to thank each of you all for recognizing and commemorating Pride, which here in Virginia we get to celebrate not only in June, but in September as well, when a lot of our cities here in the Commonwealth have our annual festivals. Secondly, I'd like to

[00:27:21] extend a heartfelt thank you to the wonderful folks in the Albemarle County Office of Equity and Inclusion, who have been really thoughtful partners both to me and to this community. And thirdly, I'd like to recognize Supervisor Mike Pruitt. And I told him that I would be doing this and embarrassing him.

[00:27:37] So he's approved of this already. But Mike has shown that being open about who you are is not only good for the soul, but it also allows you to view service to others through a wider aperture of human experience. And just thank you all so much for being dedicated to creating a community that we can all be, pun intended, proud of.

[00:27:58] National Pride Month commemorates the anniversary of the uprising at Stonewall in 1969, which was widely credited as the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement. The first pride was a riot, is a common phrase among LGBTQ activists, and while I assure you I'm not going to be calling for a riot today, I would like to recognize their importance.

[00:28:20] In a speech given in 1968 amid a year of unrest that many have likened to the protests and student-led movements that have sprouted up across the country this year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, a riot is the language of the unheard. Pride is a megaphone announcement to demand that people hear us. Pride is a rainbow strobe light aimed at eyes that turn away. And pride from 1969 to today declares that we are here. This spirit, whether at a protest or at a festival, is still deeply ingrained within the context of pride. We've been fortunate enough to celebrate more pride festivals than pride

[00:28:56] protests in recent years but we cannot recognize that future without honoring the past without honoring the brave people who grabbed a megaphone in the streets so the people like me could speak at a microphone in a government building so thank you again for this honor uh and finally i would like to invite each of you all and everyone in attendance uh to attend our very own charlesville pride festival which is going to be september 7th at the ting pavilion thank you so much thank you We will comment, so please stay.

[00:29:27] Supervisor Malik. Thank you, and thank you for all the work that you and your community members do because all voices are needed, all work is needed all across our spectrum to make our community the very best place it can be for everyone. Thanks so much. Supervisor LaPito-Curdly.

[00:29:43] Thank you very much for coming, and it truly is an honor to be able to have this proclamation because it's so important to make sure that we do include everybody, which is what we do. We do include everybody.

[00:29:59] And the fact that you're here, you're accepting this, and Supervisor Pruitt has given and read a wonderful proclamation that really says it all. It's nice. It's really something to be proud of.

[00:30:16] I mean, I know this is a pride thing, But we're very proud of the fact that we do include everybody. And thank you very much. And I was there last year in September, so I'll be there this year again. You have good food there and fun.

[00:30:31] Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Thank you, Mr. Hutchins, for being with us today. And I'd like to make a few comments. I'm not going to read any poetry today. I have made comments in the past, as we all have. I think the supervisors that have been here for a long time know the history of this proclamation.

[00:30:49] and getting its way not just have a vote but to a vote and support that's going to be there. And I've made comments in the past relative to our staff and what it means for the board to stand behind that. Today I'd like to focus on the young people that are in our school division in that community. This is an environment right now both nationally for various reasons that is not the most accepting especially for our trans students and I think that should be called out and those students need to know that we have their back as as well. So, Mr. Brookins, I'd like to make the request that this proclamation be sent to our school division and specifically to our principals to share with both the students

[00:31:28] and parents that are in this community that are in our division, if the other board wouldn't object to that. I'd also like to just call out the wonderful work of the Trevor Project, which I've come to know, and that if there are students out there that are feeling like they need a place to go and don't have a person that they feel comfortable reaching out too, that the trevorproject.org, they can chat, they can text, and they can call, and I would appreciate that information being shared as well when the proclamation goes out.

[00:31:55] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much. So as I've said before, when celebrating Pride and on Pride Day, I have to fight the urge that when we talk about LGBT issues to kind of be a doomer, to talk about the threats that are manifesting kind of on the horizon against the LGBT community. So I'm going to try not to do that again today. But I do have to start with a thing. My fiancé was watching recently a viral little TikTok that was talking about King of Queens. Everyone remember King of Queens? It was on until very recently. And how

[00:32:33] people are watching this show again, and they're saying, oh dang, that show is so homophobic. It's borderline unwatchable, how just casually homophobic it is. And this being an observation that people are making. This is a show from 10 years ago. I remember growing up in my own school division in rural Appalachian, South Carolina, and being terrified, like day to day, in walking the halls of school, right? It was an acutely unsafe environment in a lot of ways, and it felt that

[00:33:07] way. And we just had a whole room full of kids today who I would wager are not feeling that way for the most part. And that is what I think we should recognize. We should recognize that we have a whole generation of kids who don't feel that terror, who are growing up in a very similar community, but don't feel that. A whole generation of kids who are going to be like watching on Tubi for the first time, King of Queens, because it showed up in their recommended feed. And they're going to say, what in the heck is this? People watch this? And it was in our recent past, but that is how quickly that we have started to evolve away from that. And that is, I think, what I really

[00:33:44] want to share and be joyful about at Pride. You know, we are blazing a new world. God, I'm sure there's a Republican who's going to click that quote, blazing a new world. But it's true, right? I am talking a lot of wedding stuff right now with my fiance. And every part of that, you're creating an entirely new system, an entirely new world. We had to, I'm sure you talked about what you're going to do with last names. We're talking about what we're going to do with last names.

[00:34:14] My fiancé is a priest. He's trying to figure out, oh, how are we going to do the liturgy, right? Because the liturgies had to be created from scratch. It is an entirely new world, new ways of being, a new future that is being crafted by this growing acceptance that we've had.

[00:34:33] And there is, I'm sure, from people who aren't happy about that, there's a tendency to view that as combative. This is a riot. They're trying to burn down the world and institutions, but it's really not. This is a creative process. It is a process that people are leaning into and that people are just so excited to see what does this world look like when we are not driven by hate, when we are driven by love and acceptance, and we have to figure that out.

[00:35:00] And that's all I have. Thank you so much for being here. Supervisor McKeel. Yes. And I want to just go back. Ned, I really appreciate that suggestion, and I know the other board members, I'm sure, do as well. I was going to send a shout out to our school division for their willingness and acceptance of dealing with children in our school division, but that takes my thought to even a higher level, so I really appreciate that.

[00:35:27] As your representative on JABA, Jefferson Board for the Aging, I just wanted to, and I don't want to be Debbie Downer here, but I just want to provide some statistics from the National Resource Center on LGBTQ Aging.

[00:35:42] nationally there are 3 million people identifying as lgbtq over the age of 50 they're two times more likely to be single or to live alone there they are 35 percent or 35 percent of them worry that they will need to hide their identity to access housing that's shocking uh 53 percent feel isolated from others. So I guess what I'm saying is that we need to make sure as we are going

[00:36:22] through all of the ordinances and all of the community events that we do and everything that this board in Elmar County does, that we focus on these issues because certainly seniors are experiencing isolation, living alone, fewer family members to provide services, and those same feelings that the seniors have, our LGBTQ community has as well. But thank you for bringing this forward, and we look forward to September. Thanks. And I'd like to also add my

[00:37:00] gratitude. I certainly do appreciate sharing this with the schools, and I'll look to my right and to make sure that that's certainly acceptable to everyone and also notation about the trevor project.org a very good suggestion 1969 was over 50 years ago and so you know and over 55 but 20 2020 for virginia that took a long time in coming i do hope we're making progress but i i do think that you know while we can celebrate our diversity with proclamations its actions and i do hope that

[00:37:37] we continue to move forward in our actions as well so thank you again for being here representing the community and and again appreciate this uh supervisor pruitt has the proclamation don't go anywhere but thank you all thank you thank you board this brings us to our third final proclamation

[00:38:11] for today, National Gun Violence Awareness Day coming up. This will be read by Supervisor Malik. Thank you. National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Whereas every day, more than 120 Americans are killed by gun violence, alongside more than 200 who are shot and wounded, and on average there are nearly 18,000 gun homicides every year, Americans are 26 times more likely to die by gun homicide than people in other high-income countries. And whereas Virginia has 1,121 gun

[00:38:45] deaths every year, at least, with a rate of 12.8 deaths per 100,000 people, and has the 36th highest rate of gun deaths in the United States, and localities across the nation, including Albemarle County, are working to end the senseless violence with evidence-based solutions. And whereas protecting public safety in the communities they serve is the local government's highest responsibility. And support for the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns away from people with dangerous histories. Local officials and law enforcement officers know their communities best and are the most familiar with local criminal

[00:39:24] activity and how to address it, and are best positioned to understand how to keep their citizens safe. And whereas gun violence prevention is more important than ever, as we see an increase in firearm homicides and non-fatal shootings across the country, increase calls to domestic violence hotlines, and an increase in gun violence.

[00:39:47] And whereas anyone can join this campaign by pledging to wear orange on June 7th, the first Friday in June in 2024, to help raise awareness about gun violence. By wearing orange, Americans will raise awareness about gun violence, honor the lives of gun violence victims and survivors, renew our commitment to reduce gun violence, pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our children safe. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize the first Friday in June as National Gun Violence

[00:40:24] Awareness Day and encourage all residents to support their local community's efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence and to honor and value human lives. signed this fifth day of June 2024. Jim Andrews, Chair. Seconded. Thank you. We have a motion from Supervisor Malik, a second from Supervisor Pruitt, without objection of the clerk call roll.

[00:40:49] Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. LaPista? Aye. And I see orange in our audience, which is very helpful and appreciate. And I believe to Ms. Rachel Kessler-Palm is here to accept the proclamation. Welcome. Hold that down.

[00:41:15] Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here today. I'm Rachel Kessler-Palm. I'm a volunteer with the Charlottesville Albemarle Group of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I want to thank you all so much for taking the time to recognize Wear Orange, which, as was mentioned, takes place this year, June 7th through 9th. And I want to say I'm honored to be in the company that I'm in with today's proclamations. A little bit about Wear Orange. We honor the communities that are shattered by gun violence. As Anne spoke about, more than

[00:41:49] 120 people are shot and killed each year and hundreds more are wounded and traumatized in our country. This is every day. Excuse me, 120 people shot and killed and hundreds more wounded and traumatized every day in our country. We deserve much better than to live in a country where firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens. And I think that's especially poignant, given the group that sat behind us today. But as incidents of gun violence have grown, so too has the energy around this movement to end it, and I'm proud to be part of it. Together,

[00:42:25] we're going to build a future that's free of gun violence. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you. We will go through our order. Supervisor, Mallon. Thank you all, and thank you, Mike, for all of your history of bringing this forward to us and helping us all understand where we can do more to provide safety for our citizens of all ages, but particularly the emotional damage that fear does to everybody, whether it's citizens in this room, many of whom left when they saw someone five years ago come

[00:43:01] in with his weapon, and half of them who had come to speak to us just said goodbye and left the room. They didn't get their chance to participate because of that. So I think that this, I think, is an example of the kind of daily experience which people have, and it increases their anxiety level, which then contributes to a lot of other health issues as well.

[00:43:25] So while I appreciate all of the work that our law enforcement does, I hope that our legislators will continue to do their job as well. But thank you all for doing yours. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto Kirblin. Maybe this is just the beginning of the nation waking up to know that we have too many guns.

[00:43:48] They're too easily accessible, and we have too many victims of violent crimes. Hopefully we can continue, and maybe there will be a future where we don't have as many guns. That would be very nice, and we don't have the killings and the murders, because it can happen so easily.

[00:44:08] And even innocent children killing each other with guns that haven't been secured. So this is just a beginning. I honor, or I speak to the people, the victims that have suffered because of too many guns.

[00:44:29] And I'm just hoping, I really do hope that someday this will all change. And I thank you for being you and your organization and everybody who's supporting that for supporting responsible gun ownership. In fact, I emphasize very, very, very responsible ownership in helping to eliminate this problem.

[00:44:52] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for wearing orange. Supervisor Callum. I will say, full disclosure, complete accident. I cannot tell a lie. I'm sorry, but when I saw you in orange, it's like, oh good, I'm looking good.

[00:45:10] Supervisor Caller. I appreciate in the resolution that it talks about end the senseless violence with evidence-based solutions. The gun debate immediately turns people to dig their heels in and argue and hold a stance.

[00:45:27] And that doesn't, we've seen where that's got us. You know, so at the local level, a lot of times we're not involved with that debate. We can make ordinances for our spaces. But the things that we do at the local level, and our H.E.R.T.S. team is a good example of it, if you have an organization or a department in your organization that is legally allowed to carry a gun and then has the responsibility of how to discharge that weapon when needed, and we have an approach to policing in this county that says we're not going to go there first even if it's justified,

[00:46:04] but all of the training and the things that are behind getting to that mentality and all the work that's required to get there leads me to go, this is hopeful in like our school division where we have a social emotional learning approach. We have ways, so, you know, I don't want to just put this off on people that have mental health issues. You can't. It would be just a gross misunderstanding of the issues. But what is behind when a human being gets into such a moment of crisis that they feel they have to reach for that weapon and inflict harm on others? What broke down

[00:46:40] to get that before they got there. And the things that we can do in our social services department, in our education division, in all of our departments, when we interact with community members, whether it's even just being an ear, could be years ahead of an avoidance of a situation that could turn out in a way that leads to gun violence. So I appreciate, and I'm not saying this to undermine or in any way to devalue the gun debate and where people fall on that. But we have to stay committed to the things that we do to help our community members get through when they

[00:47:16] need it and be there for them so that they have a way to cope so they do not feel like a different outcome is necessary. Thank you for your attendance here today. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much. I want to actually echo some of the sentiments we just heard. There is a very, there's a second time I'm going to reference a TV show today. There's a very powerful moment on an episode of West Wing where a young conservative tells, I think, Sam Seaborn, you don't hate guns. You actually just hate the people who have guns, the kind of people who

[00:47:54] choose to be gun owners. And that is kind of speaks to this element of there is sometimes a sense of a culture war. People dig in their heels around gun ownership. And what I've always appreciated about moms is that you are able to bring moms demand action not moms generally as an organization and the advocates that we we've seen really take hold in this in this space are able to capture both energy and nuance uh that is something i've always been uh deeply impressed and proud of of the advocacy that y'all do you're able to to disentangle these things

[00:48:29] because i do feel like when we talk about gun safety uh often what we actually have are policies that everyone agrees on if we can actually get people to listen. And I want to really commend the work that you all do around getting people to listen because I think it is so deeply obvious that this is a crisis, this is a national epidemic that is under-addressed by policy by the people in the positions that matter who have a responsibility for this.

[00:48:58] I think I've been to some of you all's meetings, I've been to other meetings where it is a common thing that we begin by saying who in this room has been impacted by gun violence or knows someone who has been impacted by gun violence. And we live in a country where every hand goes up or many hands go up. We live in a country where you say that across different age ranges. You say that to school children and hands go up. We live in a country where ministers in our churches, especially our more progressive churches, are regularly taught what they're supposed to do when someone comes in with a gun in the middle of a service.

[00:49:38] So we're obviously confronting a national epidemic. And I would like to thank you for your work. Supervisor McHale. Thank you for being here. Our H.E.R.T.S. team is a really good example of what we're doing in this community to provide a safety net for the residents in our community.

[00:50:04] Seems like to me, and I think most people will recognize, that in the United States we're lacking safety nets for our citizens. And the result is gun violence, mental health issues, challenges around homelessness, the list goes on. And other countries don't have these problems because they provide and they elect representatives that believe in a safety net for the citizens in their communities and the residents of their communities. And I hope we get to that point where we can start to have

[00:50:40] really realistic discussions and not be at opposite ends, but we can have start to have those discussions. What's happening, for example, in our public schools is appalling about how children are trained to deal with the possibility of gun violence in our public schools. And I'm very careful when I say that's happening in our public schools. It's because as we all know in this country not everything is the same and but we have got to figure out how to create safety nets

[00:51:17] whether it's mental health or all of these factors that play into gun violence so thank you very much for being here thank you and I will add my gratitude as well for your being here this is not an easy topic obviously I agree with the comments of my fellow supervisors I would like to see us be making progress on this i recognize that i believe we have more agreement than our progress shows so it's a question of making sure our voices are heard and i appreciate that your being out here today is helping to make sure those voices are heard um yeah and i also agree

[00:51:54] that uh while there's the focus in the numbers i think that there's a lot more study that needs to be done and it should be about something as a as a public health matter um and and of course the the statistics include both self-harm as well as harm to others. And thank you again for raising awareness. May I say one thing? Yes, please. And that is, much of your work is legislative, and legislature is all about building bridges. And I think, as was already said, there is a lot of agreement on certain aspects. And I will just give the example of my 92-year-old retired soldier

[00:52:30] who was continually, and every year he talks to me about this, like for 20 years, there has to be training because of his personal experience with someone who purchased a weapon and didn't even know how to unload it once he had loaded it and my constituent was in the next room of when he was transitioning to another post in the army and the guy had seen him in your form and came to the door and said can you please help me with this and of course the uh the purchaser got a stern lecture about how he needed to put this in the box and go get lessons on how to use it how to protect himself

[00:53:08] because some could have gone through the wall and, you know, hurt somebody on the other side. So I think there is huge gaps in training and management and all those kinds of things, and those are things we could make progress on.

[00:53:23] So thank you very much for that effort, and I will, I think, jump up at this time and give you this. Thank you.

[00:53:44] Thank you. Board, we will now move to item seven. From the public, matters on the agenda have been not listed for public hearing or matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board?

[00:54:00] I believe we have sign-up. We do. We have one person who signed up, and there's no one signed up online. So I will read the guidelines. During the time set aside for matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board other than items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

[00:54:24] Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting during matters from the public. The sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

[00:54:42] The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. A red light indicates your time has expired, and you will be asked to end your comments. To give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests the speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district.

[00:55:01] Address comments directly to the board as a whole. Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker. Back-and-forth debate is not permitted, and please do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

[00:55:21] All comments are live-streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website. And our speaker for today, and I believe this is Adrian Eichner. I may be mispronouncing your. Is it Eichner? Eichner.

[00:55:37] There we go. Sorry. And as you come forward, will you address the microphone to make sure that it's right for your height and we can hear you? Sure. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to thank Paul Quillen for his service, and I'm sorry to hear about your dad.

[00:55:57] All right. I want to apologize for my attitude at the last meeting. It was not clear on the website. or the clerk's office email or my phone call with the chairman as to how these meetings are ran and I was very misplaced in my anger and I want to thank you for all you do because I'm starting to understand that the people that are here actually are doing really good things. I want

[00:56:37] thank you so i want to talk about the affordable housing voucher the voucher has been around for a while and the program is about a 10-year waiting list so why are we continuing to sign up for something that has a 10-year waiting list for people that have already applied and have been

[00:57:03] granted housing when it's there so the rio point that's going up only 15 of the building is actually going to be affordable housing. I've heard that out of the 49 apartments of the 328 are marked at $568 a month and they will be guaranteed that price for five years. It definitely is not enough

[00:57:38] 49 apartments of those apartments to be affordable housing when other affordable housing has been given away like Section 8 on Monticello Road and other spots that were supposed to be affordable housing and weren't replaced by anything else. Also regarding affordable housing, is Albemarle County allowing UVA to buy residential homes? I really do want to know the answer to this. I was

[00:58:10] told, yes, they are. And that's very upsetting to me when I know what chaos they can bring and bringing them into neighborhoods is not a good idea for crime or anything else. Also wanted to talk about the solid waste that's on the agenda as well. That the Rivanna is still not cleaned up.

[00:58:36] The smell is still bad between Charlottesville and Keswick, and that it's recommended to only eat one fish a month out of any waterway around here, unless it's trout. So, very disappointed that the water is still, we've been told that at the Rirtans that the water is being bleached for it to be consumable.

[00:59:00] Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. If you have any comments that you want to leave with the clerk, we'll certainly agree. thank you uh board that brings us to item eight the consent agenda i have not heard of any item to be pulled from the consent agenda so we have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second we have a motion from supervisor mckeel a second from supervisor malik without objection if the clerk will call the roll mr pruitt hi mr andrews yes mr galloway yes ms mallet yes ms

[00:59:34] mckeel yes ms lapista kirtley hi thank you uh this brings us to item nine our first action item This is SE 2024-5 320 Homeport Lane Homestay. This will be led by Ms. Leah Brumfield, Senior Planner 2.

[00:59:52] Welcome, Ms. Brumfield. Good afternoon, members of the board. Get this open and not drop my computer on the floor.

[01:00:21] There we go. There we go. All right. So as noted, my name is Leah Brumfield. I'm a Senior Planner 2 in zoning, and I'm bringing before the board Special Exception 20-24-05. It is an accessory structure at 320 Homeport Lane, requesting to be used for a homestay.

[01:00:43] The parcel is 6.93 acres. It is zoned rural areas. It is located in the Sammy Miller District. The parcel currently contains a single-family dwelling built approximately 1908, and it has multiple outbuildings, including a large shed, a greenhouse, and multiple smaller outbuildings.

[01:01:04] The parcel currently contains three development rights, one of which is being used for the existing single-family dwelling, two of which are currently unused. So by right, the 6.93-acre parcel is permitted to rent up to five guest sleeping spaces within a single-family dwelling or a previously existing accessory structure.

[01:01:29] The applicants are requesting to hold a homestay in an accessory structure that is built after August 7, 2019. So as the owners do reside on the parcel and it will meet setbacks, the use itself is by right, and the only exception required is for the new structure.

[01:01:48] If the special exception is approved, the owners would then apply for a homestay zoning clearance. And during that process, the structure used for the homestay would be inspected for building and fire safety, and the owners would send notice to their neighbors, providing them the contact information of their responsible agent, who could be contacted in case of any disturbances or any emergencies related to the homestay.

[01:02:13] The property is currently in compliance with all zoning and taxation requirements. So due to construction concerns, the applicants did already apply for a building permit for a 1,000 square foot two-bedroom accessory structure. That permit came in in March and construction has commenced following the building permit. The applicants are aware that if the special exception is not approved, the structure cannot be used for the homestay and they have agreed and said they would still use it for their own personal use. They wanted to build it regardless. However they

[01:02:51] did confirm that the structure is being built to meet homestay setbacks. You can kind of see that here. This is a very general view. I think it's a little bit closer to the house than the location actually is but we have a photo later showing the setbacks. So this is a view of the house from the front, looking at the single-family dwelling on the left, and then the location of the homestay structure currently under construction is to the right behind the work truck that is in view.

[01:03:33] At the top of the hill, looking down at the accessory structure proposed for the homestay use, This shows the foundation currently being laid. The photo is taken from near the property boundary looking back towards the single-family dwelling which is kind of located behind all of the trees.

[01:03:55] You can kind of see not the green, that's the shed, it's the white behind the trees which is not very visible. This photo is taken from behind the structure's construction site. And this shows the vegetative screening between the site and the nearest budding parcel.

[01:04:16] The fill that is shown is still construction fill, and that is primarily going to be used to backfill the foundation when it is completed. The vegetation you see here is a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees.

[01:04:34] And also, Code Compliance Officer Matt Chow measured the distance of the foundation at well over the 25-foot required setbacks for homestays. So to summarize this application, the request is for an accessory structure built after August 7, 2019, to be used as a homestay.

[01:05:04] The parcel is 6.93 acres in size, and it retains two unused development rights, which may be used to build additional residences or to subdivide the parcel in future. Since this request is for use of an accessory structure, the development rights are unaffected by this request.

[01:05:24] The accessory structure itself is a by-right construction, which is why they are permitted to build it as of now. And had it been built before August 7, 2019, the structure would have been permitted to be used as a homestay, also by right. So as such, looking at the use of the structure built after August 7, 2019, staff does not believe there would be any inverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood, general public health, safety, or welfare.

[01:05:55] The homestay use itself is a by right accessory use to the primary dwelling on the parcel and is therefore considered consistent with the comprehensive plan. And due to the size of the parcel and the proposed size of the structure with a footprint of about 500 square feet, the structure proposed is consistent with the structures in the homestay neighborhood.

[01:06:16] I'm sorry, in the surrounding neighborhood. Due to the nature of special exceptions, which were the land, we are looking at this use based on the property itself and the greater context of the neighborhood, not the individual landowners. as such staff does recommend the following motion to adopt thank you and this concludes staff's presentation thank you we'll go through our order for questions any comments we could see if we need more uh rounds after that but at least questions and comments if possible so supervisor malik

[01:06:53] thank you only one question i think many benefits here so the there was a discussion many years ago some years ago about if there were other outbuildings that could have been renovated but it was better to build a new one that that was part of the thought process is that still part of the thought process um so that is not in the ordinance um but uh in this case i don't think that the the greenhouse or the storage sheds on the property or the um i think it's i didn't

[01:07:29] examine it or measure it closely, but I believe it's a four foot by five foot milk shed that is stone. I don't think any of those would be good candidates for renovation. Right. I do understand that, but I just wanted to, I keep asking this each time one of these comes up with a newer building because there seemed to be concern about putting up a whole lot of new buildings for this and bringing more residential uses unless it was somehow related to what was on the property before. So anyway, you've answered my question. Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor

[01:08:03] Lupito-Kurti. I don't really have any questions, but there's one I wanted to ask. Could this also be used as a long-term rental if they built this? So the certificate of occupancy would permit residents, but it is generally not considered a dwelling because it would not have a kitchen.

[01:08:31] Got it. Okay. So the building code, that would be a separate question. Okay. Thank you. That answers my question. No other questions. Supervisor Galloway. I have no questions. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. That also actually speaks to something I just wanted to make sure I'm fully understanding.

[01:08:47] So they could also build a single-family home by right if they're choosing to build an accessory dwelling by right. And that's also the fact that it's an accessory dwelling and not a single-family home is the only reason it's before us. Because if it was a single-family home, it would be by right to be used as a homestay. Yes. I asked the applicant if they wanted to just build it as a single-family home instead, and they said they wanted to preserve the development rights for potential future use.

[01:09:12] Got it. And in addition to the kitchen, I don't suppose you know just cold what side of the key distinctions are going to be that are going to keep it from having a single-family home status, what the code difference is? The way that we have interpreted the requirement of a dwelling is to have full sanitation cooking sleeping and living quarters so in that the easiest way to not meet that is to not have full cooking which is a kitchen with an oven or a built-in cooking

[01:09:47] appliance of some kind but the the applicant is planning to have toilets yes hit all right thank you supervisor that's great leah as always thank you for a very clear and concise report we appreciate it i don't have any questions um i appreciate it thanks and i think my questions have been answered so i appreciate that uh look if anybody has any other comments or questions uh as this location is in the samuel miller district i will move that the board adopt

[01:10:21] resolution for SE 2024-05-320 Homeport Lane Homestay attached to the staff report as attachment F. Second. A motion for me is Supervisor Malik I think was in there with a second without objection that the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malik?

[01:10:44] Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Labiso-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. Board, that brings us to item 10, recommendations for the affordable housing investment fund and welcome dr stacy pethia assistant director of housing good afternoon stacy pethia assistant director of housing

[01:11:15] um again this is uh sorry let me untongue tie myself um i am here to bring recommendations for the affordable housing investment fund uh you will notice a change in the name of the housing fund Reserve. We did that to differentiate it further from the Housing Assistance Fund. It did tend to cause some confusion on occasion, so we're trying to make things clear. So this is now the Affordable Housing Investment Fund. AHIF for short. And the request is from Habitat for Humanity of Greater

[01:11:53] Charlottesville. This is related to the Southwood Project Phase 2. There are two portions to this. one is for a septic to sewer project. The other is for matching grant funds, a grant that they're applying for with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Looking again at the spectrum of housing needs that you all should be familiar with or fairly familiar with by now, this covers a huge range of this spectrum, but really focuses in on the 60 to 80 percent AMI

[01:12:26] categories of affordable home ownership and or rental housing. Back in fiscal year 2023 Habitat had submitted an application for the non-profit capital improvement program grant awards in the amount of 1.49 million dollars. The request was to use the funds to remove the remaining 50 septic tanks within Southwood, phase two, and replace them with semi-permanent water and sewer lines.

[01:13:02] At the time, it was not recommended for funding, and the housing fund did not have enough money in it at that time to take care of that request. So that is why staff is here today. Staff is recommending 1.4 million of the request be funded. Again, that's due to the balance of the housing Fund. Staff is also recommending that we expand the use of those funds to include the cost of site remediation and the construction of affordable housing. In terms of the grant matching funds,

[01:13:39] again, Habitat is applying for a grant through HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. They are seeking approximately $47.6 million in grant funding to cover a wide variety of activities in the park. There are really two main funding tracks to that. The Price Grant Preservation Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement. And they cover the preservation or revitalization of mobile home communities. And that covers just about anything you can think of.

[01:14:14] And then there is a replacement pilot grant, which is really working to replace aging manufactured mobile homes with new affordable housing. The total grant request will be $47.6 million. And the price main grant does not require a match, but it is highly recommended.

[01:14:35] It is really the replacement pilot grant track that Habitat is seeking funding for. And that would be, staff is recommending $1.1 million out of their $1.5 million request. Again, that's because the balance of the housing fund. Both requests really align with several county policies and strategic plans. So strategic plan goal, quality of life to encourage the vibrant community with economic and recreational opportunities that serve all community members, along with several of the objectives in housing Albemarle that really speak to the preservation

[01:15:14] and expansion of communities and affordable housing. So again, staff recommends fully funding both requests at the amount that staff has requested. Final disbursement of the funds will really depend on the approval of the appropriations that some staff will be bringing back to you later this evening. And disbursement of the $1.1 million in matching funds will only occur if the grant is awarded to Habitat. Otherwise, those $1.1 million will remain in the housing

[01:15:51] fund for a future use. Are there any questions? Thank you. We'll go through our order. Supervisor Malek. Thank you. I'm holding here because I thought in the email communication or something we had received that it was not going to be contingent upon winning the grant because of using it for, or maybe I'm conflating the two different policies. I think having it, the increased flexibility and be able to keep the work moving was what accelerating the funding was

[01:16:23] for not to have it wait for another year so please help me understand what's yes 1.4 million dollars that staff is recommending to really do the septic and sewer project a site remediation and housing construction that would be awarded no matter what grant or no grant staff is recommending that be awarded today it is the 1.1 million dollars in matching funds for the grant that would only be

[01:16:53] awarded if the grant was given even though there's certainly a lot of need and process to use that money too i mean i know that that's your proposal i guess the board could decide to take away the if the contingency you can always do that which i would certainly be in favor of one other question um in the staff report it said that the county had provided um nine million dollars can you identify where the cash is because i thought the cash was more like that has been delivered so far

[01:17:32] I haven't seen that largesse happening. That is the total amount of funding from a variety of sources. So that includes county funding, the property tax rebates that are underway right now, as well as CDBG and home program and other federal grants that the county has to apply for on behalf of Habitat.

[01:17:53] We count that as county contribution towards the project because without using those funds for Southwood, we are not funding other projects within the county that we would use those funds for. Right. I guess I would ask the board to remember and consider that five years ago or so, this was, we were all, the board was all in and the county was all in for these 400 plus families who have lived here for decades. So I've just asked us to keep that in mind and to try to find ways to accelerate the dollars to keep the heavy equipment moving and the building permits going

[01:18:31] and all these other things so that people don't have to continue to wait for a really long time. That's all for now. Thank you. Supervisor Lupito-Curton. Okay, thank you very much, Dr. Pethia. On this one slide, slide five, you mentioned semi-sewer and water.

[01:18:51] So there will be a mixture of permanent sewer lines and semi-permanent sewer lines. And that's because it's really to service families that are not yet relocating to new housing.

[01:19:08] So they will need to live in those trailers for the next seven to 10 years until new housing is built for them. And they cannot continue living on those failing septic systems. So when those future villages are constructed, those semi-permanent lines will be replaced.

[01:19:28] However, they last for a really long time, so if they don't have to be relocated and replaced, they can remain. Okay, and that's what the $1.1 million is for? Yes, that's for the matching grant, and one of those grants would cover that.

[01:19:48] Okay, and we're already committed to that? We are committed to the $1.4 million, which would actually go into and help with the septic and sewer and other things. So that is what staff is requesting that the board approve $1.4 million definitely today.

[01:20:06] Okay, the $1.4, if you go back, $1.4 is for the septic and the semi. Septic and sewer and slate remediation and a whole bunch of stuff. Okay, so that's what, and so the $1.1.

[01:20:23] The $1.1 has been, Habitat is requesting that as matching funds for a grant application. Okay. So if the grant is not approved, then we're not obligated to the 1.1. Correct. That will remain in the housing fund for a future use.

[01:20:41] That doesn't mean Habitat can't come back and ask, but because the ask was very specific for the grantmanchic funds, that's what we're here for today. Okay. That answers my questions. Thank you very much. Supervisor Galloway. I think Supervisor Malek brought up the $9 million breakout.

[01:21:01] I think we all need reminded of what that you did verbally. I want it in writing. I want to see the breakout of what the $9 million is. And I think that should probably start to be included with all of the packets or anything that comes forward with this particular one, because I think a lot of times our own memories and histories get a little cloudy.

[01:21:25] So I just would like to make that request as a packet addendum moving forward, especially when Habitat comes forward. So the $1.1 million, the contingency, they can come back and request it. The total grant work, regardless if they get the grant or not, is going to the same item as the first $1.4 million?

[01:21:48] Or does it just allow for other types of work that aren't under the category of the first $1.4 million? A little bit of both. But it's likely to be for very similar use that the first $1.4 million? And if the grant isn't achieved, then they could come back and ask for that money?

[01:22:06] Correct. For the same purpose that they're asking for the grant money? Correct, but because the request for the $1.1 million is very specific to matching grant funds, that is what we are coming forward today with. They can come back later to say we would like $1.1 million to do this specific job.

[01:22:26] Understood. You've said that now two or three times. Since it's the matching grant, we're going to, is there a ration, I'm not getting the rationale, just because that's the request and we want to be in line with it? Yes. Aside from this application and this request, where this leaves the housing fund for fiscal year 25, what's the plan when we get other requests for housing funds?

[01:22:53] We would need to review those individually, and if we can contribute something towards those requests, we'll come back to you. So if we get something more than $93,000 or whatever the balance was, assuming we approve this, then if the so I'm pausing because this is probably a conversation that's not relevant to this vote today. But it gives me the opportunity to say, you know, there was there was I'm sure I was there

[01:23:32] was shared disappointment in how much we were able to put into the housing investment fund that we're calling now. Since we're calling it the housing investment fund, there is a tool now that the incentives program is out that could help us with this so that it's not just on housing staff that we all voted on. Well, a lot of us voted on when we voted on housing out. And that's the trust fund and the structure that was going that was designed or theorized to go around that. If we had that, I feel that that puts us more in alignment with how we deal with economic development

[01:24:10] projects and all of the analysis that goes behind it so that when these decisions are in front of we can decide is giving this three million dollars up the best use. Because right now I do feel that we are getting, we all think affordable housing is important. It's a critical need in our community.

[01:24:29] But as these come forward, I've yet to see one where we're like, no, we don't want to do it. But it's more the pressure and the need to address the issue that's in front of us. It's not a long-term plan or solution. And we don't do economic development projects that way.

[01:24:48] So I feel that in order to make this decision, knowing that we're going to deplete the housing fund for a full 12-year fiscal year, is concerning. But we need to start getting at a different process of analysis and understanding.

[01:25:09] And next budget cycle, we'll be having a very, we're going to have to have a conversation about monies that are going into this investment fund. Otherwise, we're going to continue to make these kind of one-off decisions and not have any sort of comparative or data, I don't even know what the word is that I'm saying, the evidence to suggest that the return is going to be proper.

[01:25:35] Now, I'm committed to this project. If there is some legal concern about making it contingent on the matching fund, but with the momentum that I hear Supervisor Malik mentioning with keeping things moving and going, that can be problematic. So I don't know if that's a legal concern or if that's just us trying to be consistent.

[01:25:54] But I certainly understand, I mean, if this is going to go in how it potentially could have in the past, if they turn around and come back and ask for $1.1 million, how much staff time does that take just to get it back on there?

[01:26:11] I mean, is that really what we want to do? Is that a wise approach? So I'm still thinking that through. Thank you for now. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Yeah, I want to just echo what my peers have all said so far.

[01:26:26] First, I appreciate the point you made about, you know, we are the but-for cause of those $9 million funds. But I do think of CDBG monies as different, say, than monies that are coming directly out of the AHIF.

[01:26:44] And I would appreciate that breakdown because I think that does influence how we think about those kinds of disbursements. And I would also just, it is far from the first time I've said this, you heard it when I was stumping on the campaign trail and you've heard it while I've been here on the dais, but I think we would all appreciate a transition toward a more formalized process so we don't feel like we're doing things that are one-off like this.

[01:27:10] And I think that will also, of course, be easier when we have a larger pool of money to deal with so that we don't feel like we're under this stress, and we also are soliciting really compelling projects. And lastly, we know that Habitat's problem is not that they don't have money.

[01:27:32] It's that they don't have money at the time they need it to keep with this very complex process that they're managing. And that is the thing because we are moving people into new homes and we are repairing existing homes. And so these hiccups in the road cause really significant problems to Habitat.

[01:27:52] And I don't know that I have an appetite for making this grant contingent because I think we all have an appetite for dispersing this amount of money. I frankly, when I knew what amount was going to be in that housing fund, I mean, we all know, I was talking about what is the shape and extent of Habitat's expected needs and obligations in the next year.

[01:28:14] Because I expected it would mostly, frankly, be what the housing fund was going toward. And I think we all kind of went in with that expectation. We knew that we had a very specific set of needs that they were coming to us with. And that was realistically probably what it was mostly going to be earmarked for.

[01:28:30] So I don't know that the contingency requirement is necessarily going to serve us in our partnership with this. If you disagree with that, if there's, like, alternate programmed projects that you know would have to be, like, schedules that would have to be changed, I would really invite that comment when I'm done.

[01:28:51] I also would say comparative projects is hard because we don't have a good metric for it. I did, and I looked into this for the board's sake, but let's talk about federal program management and evaluation very briefly.

[01:29:10] When you're learning to get your MPA about how federal program evaluation works, something that really leaps off the page when you read these different programs is that the thing that they're looking at is leverage rate. That is what they think of as this is how many dollars I'm spending and how much dollars I'm getting out of it.

[01:29:29] My research focused mostly on the Appalachian Regional Commission. The Appalachian Regional Commission's grant-making projects normally target a 4-to-1 leverage rate, which is considered good for those federal dollars. Impact, when they come and talk to us about the Housing Trust Fund, they are normally predicting a 10-to-1 leverage rate, which I think is good.

[01:29:49] Maybe actually slightly ambitious. I think we saw with Premier Circle, we saw an 8-to-1 leverage rate, which is still very good. Southwood currently has, I believe it is a 15 to 1 leverage rate, maybe higher. That is almost unachievable in any other project.

[01:30:07] So I would just suggest that while we don't have necessarily the comparative breakout of how we might rate these projects, I do think Southwood is about as good a dollar as we could spend. Because we are getting more return out of this because they have, frankly, a good brand ID, diversified revenue streams, and other grants that they are uniquely eligible for.

[01:30:28] that mean that we are getting a lot back from every dollar that we spend. So I would just suggest that to the board, that this is a good dollar spent compared to other projects. That's all I have. Unless, of course, you wanted to respond to the kind of open-ended question I had about whether or not you're capable and comfortable if there's schedules that need to be changed as far as how the Housing Trust Fund is planned for its disbursements over the next year.

[01:30:58] No, I think it would really come down to how we would write the agreement. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel? My comments and questions may be all over the place, Stacey, but I'll just start. So I do agree that we need to think about this going forward strategically because we only have so much money.

[01:31:23] Just simply saying that, right? And to get the biggest bang for our buck in affordable housing just across all the projects is really important. and having some metrics, as I think Ned was probably talking about, I think is a really good idea, just clarity.

[01:31:39] So we are in June of 24. So when we're talking about what's left in our housing fund, we're talking about for the budget cycle that's coming up that will be starting July 1, okay, just for clarity for the public.

[01:31:58] And in just thinking about this and how little money is going to be left in that fund and recognizing that we're all talking about what we want, our goals for housing for next year, I also want to just remind folks that we are anticipating this next budget cycle to be more challenging than the one that we just went through, just putting that on the table.

[01:32:27] It's not as if our next budget cycle is going to clear the way for lots more extra monies because of the commitments this board has already made that will impact the next budget cycle. So that makes it even more urgent to look at this through the lens of exactly what we're doing and the biggest bang and what we want to be doing strategically.

[01:32:55] So to get at a little bit different look perhaps would be great. I do agree that how much money we've spent on Southwood already is kind of confusing because when these issues come to us, we say, oh, well, how much have we already given them and where does it stand?

[01:33:12] It would be great to have that break out every time we deal with this. And my sense is I'm just going to add this. We have a lot of money we've spent on in-kind services that are not really accounted for, and I'm not asking you to account for that.

[01:33:32] I'm just reminding people that over the years that we've been dealing with this wonderful project at Southwood, there have been an enormous amount of in-kind services from staff that's worthy of recognition. You've said a couple of times, and I understand some folks here probably understand affordable housing better than I do, but I heard you say a couple of times, this is what we have the money to afford.

[01:34:04] That's true. So if we start adding to and taking away the parameters here, where are we going to get that money? But another question I have is, what are we not funding to do this?

[01:34:22] So those are two questions, I guess. And I shouldn't have thrown them at you both at the same time. I apologize for that. I can go with the second one first. Okay. It could be any number of things. We have not done a partnership with AHIP for a bit, so that would have been housing rehabilitation projects that are going unfunded.

[01:34:45] I do know there are some rental housing projects that are on the horizon. One of those is with Piedmont Housing Alliance and their partnership with the University of Virginia and their affordable housing initiative. So those are two of the things that come to the top of my head.

[01:35:05] And could you repeat your first question? I forgot what my first question was. What I was talking about was you had said several times that this is the money we have. And I was going back to that point that you keep making.

[01:35:23] Right. So really looking at the balance of the housing fund, we did not want to leave it completely empty in case something popped up there was an emergency maybe something happened in a building an affordable housing unit or an apartment building that needed to to be fixed on an emergency basis and we could contribute to that and so really looking at what was in the fund the the two two and a half million dollars is what we felt was appropriate to give to this project and we were able to give to this project right and

[01:35:56] still have that very small amount left over yes right okay um and i'm going to going to just turn because i noticed jeff leaning in a couple of times and i just want to ask jeff did you have anything you wanted to make a comment on with this because i saw you leaning in a little bit like you were really thinking hard and listening intently not to put you on the spot no supervisor mckeel you're not at all uh after the board's discussion and your your decisions on what you want to do with this, what I was going to say, and I can say more now or I can wait, is that

[01:36:31] Ms. Demick and her team have indicated to me recently that they believe it's time to spend some time with the board, separate from today, talking about a broader discussion about affordable housing and what our investments have been. Certainly, Habitat is a significant partner with Albemarle County government, and they have been for most of the time, well, all of the time that I've been here without more county government, and that's approaching seven years.

[01:36:56] And so she indicated to me, separating again from today, that let's spend some time with the board, probably later this summer, broadening the discussion about where we've been and what we've been doing and talking more broadly. And that will be as you move into your early fall discussions about your capital programs.

[01:37:16] And as we begin to plan for fiscal year 26, Mr. Sumner has been a part of those discussions as well. And the staff is keenly aware of what the board has talked about in the past about dedicated funding and significant ongoing funding for affordable housing. And so the staff's aware of the board's interest there. And again, Ms. Dimmick did a good job, I think, of bringing this to the broader staff's awareness of, Jeff, I think it's time. I think it's time that we talk, you know because we we do get hit yeah based on timing of grants the final thing is it as it

[01:37:51] relates to the tie back to the um matching grant is that just i will just very respectfully just remind the board in general that several years ago the board challenged the staff and said look to see where your local dollars can leverage money from outside of outmar county and and make make that a a point of emphasis uh of where we can take local money and we can leverage dollars from outside the county across a number of departments, most notably our work with community development and the various infrastructure grants with transit.

[01:38:25] And the board is keenly aware of that, and I know. So this really just meant to be a placeholder discussion for a different discussion later in the summer, probably once we get back after July 17th. I really do appreciate that, and thank you, and I look forward to that discussion.

[01:38:42] I do think it's important because that discussion will help us perhaps not just do, and I hate to use the word, but sort of reactive. We need to be more thoughtful because we don't have a lot of money. I mean, we don't have money that we can just, we're struggling.

[01:38:57] We have six, eight pages of unfunded projects and requests this year. So anyway, with that, thank you very much. Thank you. A lot of the same questions have come up. I'm hearing a consensus that in the future, we need a better understanding of the 9 million.

[01:39:17] We need a better understanding, I believe, also of the status of the various allocations to date and whether they've been paid out and how much is contingent on what. Obviously, you know, we have this funding right now.

[01:39:32] This is highly leveraged. That makes it something that I think is something we should be supporting. But it's also very relevant. Several people have asked what's missing, what's down the pike. we're looking at you know i don't think any of these projects come to us and we act on them within weeks so you know at this point we already should have some sense of six to 12 months what is out there and you've mentioned a couple things that sound very important and will be i think very unhappy if we can't fund additional projects that might come in the same

[01:40:07] area. So I don't have additional questions, but I do think that kind of wraps up where we're at on this. But I did hear several people suggest whether they wanted to keep the contingency in this. My understanding is that the contingency was what was originally requested, but look for comments. Thank you. I definitely would be supportive of doing the award for use and there I think that the application if it's successful for the grant would be great but what

[01:40:44] I see is really important is the cash and I think everyone is very aware that there was a perfect storm over the last several years where things did not proceed as quickly as they could have for sewers and waiting for state and all these other you know things going round and round and round and getting the lots ready to sell and therefore then return more money to the building project is what has really been slowed down.

[01:41:16] So I definitely heard the concerns of the cost, where the money's going, et cetera, but keeping the heavy equipment moving to get the lots ready to sell so that the market rate houses can be sold and therefore increase the pot that's coming in and therefore helping that money to put toward getting these folks out of their trailers and into the apartments that are already designed.

[01:41:43] That is a very high priority for me because the longer you wait or you send home all those earth movers or whatever, when they come back with a new contract, it's going to be more. So that's sort of what's top of my mind is that the more that we can put into this to keep that project moving, I would support that completely.

[01:42:06] And I think that the accountability of all of the various projects that have been done, not just one. But, I mean, there were millions that went to another project in the last several board meetings. So I think that we need to know what those are as well when we have this, you know, dashboard or whatever is the preferred way to deliver that information.

[01:42:31] And I look forward, too, to the broader discussion, but I hope that we can put the 2.5 into the cash pot to be able to keep these things, get these things caught up, build these houses that get back to the pace of the normal number of units per year, like 50 instead of 15, which is where it's slowed down to.

[01:42:56] Others may have other concerns, but that's where I am. Supervisor Lupisto Curry. When do we know the grant will be funded? Do we have a date or approximate date? If I remember, they keep changing the application deadlines.

[01:43:15] I'm going to say probably around September, October of this year is when they make the awards. Okay, so September, October is when they apply. No, they need to apply now, I believe, the beginning of July.

[01:43:31] And the grant awards will be announced somewhere around September, October. Okay, so then we'll have an answer September, October, whether or not they have the grant. I am, I mean, I love this project.

[01:43:46] I love this project. But I do want to state that I'm concerned because that would, if we do the and, not the or, then that leaves us with, what, $93,910. I don't know what's coming up because by the time all these decisions are made, we're into the fall, we're starting December, starting to look at budget again. And I just don't know what's coming up. And it makes me a little bit nervous, not knowing if something really

[01:44:22] important comes up that we need to fund. I'm in favor of staff's recommendation, because if we don't do the 1.1, we can always come back and do that. I don't think it would be that much as far staff time and be the same presentation you've given. So that shouldn't be hard. But I just hesitate to have that. And I like staff's recommendation. I think that covers us. I think it covers Southwood. I think it covers us in whatever situation. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:45:01] Mr. Galloway? If we vote as staff recommended with the contingency in place, that locks the dollars up. Correct. So we can't use it for anything else if we're committed to the grant match. Correct. So it seems to me that we want to claw back if they don't get the grant, but we have the knowledge that they'll just come forward and ask for that money anyway. Is there a way to keep it contingent on the grant, but if the grant is not awarded when we find that out, that the application received is already the new application for the monies that's not contingent on the grant

[01:45:41] so that we can shave out three to four months so that September, October doesn't mean they're back here in February asking for that money. It would also give us the ability to go, okay, the $1.1 million will know at that time what other things are there. So that would satisfy, I think, some supervisors' concerns, including my own, of, well, what are we putting this forward against other projects?

[01:46:06] But we can't fund anything if we vote on staff's recommendation, period, because we've locked the money away. So this seems to me to be a good way to commit the money to the grant, but if the grant is denied or not awarded, Habitat doesn't have to go through the rigmarole of getting, I mean, it triggers that it comes back to the board for a decision, what that $1.1 million is for, and then we might not be in a void of what other items could or should be there.

[01:46:33] We have that conversation. It could save out the time. So if it's September, October, if they keep pushing the deadline off to some other time, I mean, that's in none of our control, Habitat, our control, whatever. But to me, that seems that that would immediately get it back to the board. I mean, the clerk would obviously have to have a say in some of that.

[01:46:53] But then they don't have to go through some whole other NAPA application process because we already know what they're going to use that $1.1 million for if it wasn't contingent on the grant. So it seems to me it would expedite getting the board to make a decision on the money, but giving you at least the clawback on the grant contingency.

[01:47:13] And frankly, we know if we have a second, third project that it would be competing against in September or October, if we think they're vital, we'll probably at that time have a better understanding of where we could find other dollars if needed to help with all the projects. Supervisor Pruitt?

[01:47:29] I appreciate the point that Supervisor Galloway is trying to make here. I would still very much lean in favor of removing the contingency altogether. It seems like that proposal is coming to us with the collective understanding that this is still a project that we're excited about, and this is money that we'd probably still be willing to allocate.

[01:47:56] And it's also, I think, the point is well taken, that it is so late in the budget cycle that we will already be blocked off this money for almost the entire budget cycle regardless. And I'm not, I guess I'm not clear how much we think the added utility would be.

[01:48:17] We have talked recently about how we want to try and manage our own meeting backlogs. And I'm just not sure I see the utility in having an additional hearing on what this funding could be used when we do know what it could be used on, right?

[01:48:32] Like with price, yes, it is being part of the grant submission, but we know what the grant submission is going to be used for. going to be used for the same sewage mitigation and market rate construction that we're talking about for the rest of the project. So I don't know that I see, I'm interested in making sure that Habitat is able to continue to meet their kind of process milestones. I'm interested in making also sure that we manage both the board and staff's time as effectively as possible.

[01:49:05] And I think that is collectively best served by just avoiding the contingency. And also I would just speak to the possibility we we've entertained like if there is a project that happens to apply during a basically a three-month window in fall is really the only thing that we would be preserving the window for a very good a project that applies in a three-month window in fall as I tried to illustrate there is very little chance that it would be frankly dollars for donuts more compelling than this and frankly if it's if it is at that point where it can

[01:49:43] actually compete with the kind of leverage we're seeing from Southwood and the kind of value per county dollar, I would expect it's the kind of thing that we would be able to figure out an alternative for, right? That would be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity, and I truly do expect that we would be able to identify the points of flexibility in our budget at that stage. I realize that's a big ask, but we would be talking about an unprecedented hypothetical project, the likes of which I don't think we should expect. So I guess to put that all in a bow, I'm not sure that the alternative for which

[01:50:18] we're trying to preserve is compelling or even exists. So I would just like to use our time efficiently and also make Habitat's job a little easier and do the thing that it seems like we all think we're going to do eventually anyway sooner. Supervisor McKeel. I'll just cut to the chase. I appreciate staff's recommendation and I'm supportive of that, but I like Ned's nuances to that.

[01:50:45] I'd like Stacy to speak to how that might be possible. I have been around the barn enough to know that I never know what's going to happen between June and September or October, right? All kinds of things that can happen. An earthquake, a pandemic, you name it, lots of stuff can happen.

[01:51:03] But I really do think this is a worthy project, and I'd like to be able to address it as best possible. But I think Ned's nuances were practical and sounded appropriate. You might want to just address them, though, Stacey, at some point, about how you might think that could play out.

[01:51:20] Thank you. So I'm going to jump in and say that I also agree with staff recommendation and appreciate and would like to see how quickly this could be reacted to. I didn't know whether the attorney Rosenberg, if you had a comment you wanted to make, it was not clear earlier.

[01:51:43] I did have a couple of things. First of all, I don't think we've gotten to it yet, but I think that Dr. Pethia has a motion in her presentation when the time comes.

[01:52:00] Which we need to see, right? And we may need to play with that depending upon... Well, I'm not hearing a consensus to remove the contingency. At this point, we do not have... So I'm going to ask a question that I don't know the answer to.

[01:52:18] and it may be that Dr. Pethia knows, it may be that Dan Rosenzweig knows, is there anything about the removal of the condition or the contingency, as you all have called it, that would disqualify these funds as the match funds for the grant? So does the grant, Is there anything about the grant program itself?

[01:52:47] And I don't know the answer to the question, but it seems to me a question worth asking. If there's anything associated with the grant program that would disqualify the funds if they were the county funds from use as the match, if they were made available outright by the county without any sort of condition or contingency.

[01:53:18] Dr. Petty, I mean, we have the $1.4 million already that's in that sort of category and part of the match, I thought. But please, Justice, if you can. Certainly. So the replacement pilot grant that requires a match, the match funds must be used specifically for that project.

[01:53:38] And staff is drafting a letter for the county executive to sign that specifies those funds would be used specifically for that grant. I think it would make it stronger if it was approved as specifically that and then be able to come back, staff would come back later if they are not awarded that.

[01:53:58] That grant has a really strong possibility of getting funded. It fits very much into what the grant description is all about. So I know Habitat feels pretty good about their chances. Staff also feels good about that.

[01:54:13] So I feel like that $1.1 million would be used for that. And if not, if something happens and they are not awarded that replacement pilot grant, it's very easy. Staff could get on a future board schedule tomorrow.

[01:54:31] And then that way we would just need to come back as soon as we have an answer. Thank you. Do you have a motion for us to look at? We have additional comments. Let's see the motion and then we'll check for questions. There it is.

[01:54:46] Okay, so now I will actually open this up to comments or questions that any board member would like to make before making this, whether the motion is going to be made. Supervisor Galloway, did you have?

[01:55:02] I mean, I'm just, the question is, even if the contingency were removed, the funds are still locked up until the grant award is decided. So removing the contingency, it wasn't expected that we were releasing those funds sooner. I mean, the idea was that even if the contingency was lifted, the funds are basically locked away until the award of the grant is known or not.

[01:55:26] So I just wanted to clear that up to make sure nobody was thinking the funds would release whether the contingency was on there or not. Did I have a misunderstanding of that? Otherwise, then it's not tied to the grant specifically. I guess that was the understanding I had from reading the inclusion in the packet about the letter to CACADEMIC, so that's why I asked those questions to begin with.

[01:55:54] I would just, I think I can count noses, but just to kind of put myself in Mr. Rosenschweck's shoes, the thing I would say is a distinction, though, right, I appreciate your point, right, it won't be dispersed yet. They will be able to talk to other fundraising sources, though, and say that they have a committal for $1.1 million, which I don't think he can reliably do or can do in good faith if we agree to basically rehear the question immediately on denial.

[01:56:28] And I would be concerned that that could limit their access to outside capital. I realize, sure. I will just push back that I don't think you can say that you're going to use it for other things if it's already committed to this grant until we hear what the results of the grant are.

[01:56:46] And at that point, if we can act quickly, it's the same thing, because it cannot be used for other grants in the meantime if it's pledged for this one. Supervisor Lupisto, correct me. Yes, I do have a question. If the grant was not approved and we would move the contingency, then they would have the $1.1 million, correct?

[01:57:10] But in reality, they were expecting, because it's a one-to-one match? The grant requires a match of 50% of non-federal funds for the request. Okay, so they were expecting 2.2, correct?

[01:57:26] Okay, so if we give them that 1.1, how does that affect what they wanted to do? In other words, would they be able to do, they wouldn't be able to do what they wanted to do with a 1.1, correct? Because they need 2.2. I think their total ask is unchanged.

[01:57:45] It just means they're going to have to look for other non-federal funding sources. The one-to-one is their federal, non-federal funding match. We are a small piece of that because, I mean, they're asking for, what, 47 million? 47 million. We're not one-to-one-ing that, right? But I'm just, no, but my point was I don't know how that changes.

[01:58:05] If we were to remove that contingency, how that changes, because they may not get other funding. I mean, they may get other funding. They may not get other funding. We don't know, so. i'm not hearing any uh enough motion to change this so i'm looking for the uh someone to make the proposed motion i'll make a motion one more question sorry uh so would the board consider having a hard deadline so that at a certain point first week in september a decision is made because in the wishy-washy grant land it could easily be sometime in the future and that i think

[01:58:44] makes their financing to be very, very challenging for other sources and that kind of thing. So if we're being told that it's a September decision, then I would hope that the board would react to that rather than saying maybe December, maybe February.

[01:59:03] So I'm trying to get a date in there in the motion that we would have this to free up the money. Daisy, would you like to react to the wishy-washy comment? I mean, the federal government's the one that's going to be wishy-washy, not staff. I'm just saying, I understand that, but I'd like her to respond.

[01:59:20] So Habitat will need to include a commitment letter from the county along with their grant application. And that commitment letter will need to specify that this $1.1 million is matching funds for the price replacement pilot grant request.

[01:59:38] So we need to be, if the board wants to make that commitment, then we need to hang on to those funds until HUD releases the grant awards. After that, once HUD notifies everybody who received a grant and who did not, then staff can come immediately back and say they were not awarded the grant.

[02:00:03] Thank you. I have a motion and I'll make the motion. I move that the Board of Supervisors approve the following uses of funds in the county's affordable housing investment fund as proposed for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville-Southwood Phase II redevelopment project.

[02:00:20] Subject to the conditions detailed in the related executive summary, number one, $1.4 million for the infrastructure, including the sewer septic improvement project proposed by Habitat, site remediation, and the construction of affordable homes. and two, $1.1 million for the prize replacement pilot.

[02:00:40] Second. We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Malek, without objection if the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Lopisto-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you.

[02:00:56] Thank you, Dr. Pethia. Mr. Chair. Yes. Because I don't think it would need it to be in that motion, but if the grant is not awarded, I don't, and Mr. Rosenberg can weigh in, but it seemed like we did have consensus that that would trigger that it comes back to the board. Yes, I don't think it needs to be in the motion, but I do think that there is consensus. We don't need a vote on that. Let it come back quickly. But I want to make sure that's understood. Yeah, and Stacey agreed that that would happen. Thank you for that clarification.

[02:01:27] Board, this brings us to item 11. Next, Fire Rescue Foundation led by Mr. Steve Rosenberg, county attorney uh thank you chair andrews i will be brief um you have materials in your agenda package um both an executive summary and an attachment to it that are responsive to a request made by the board during its february 28th meeting when this subject was last last discussed, providing to the board some detail about the resources that would be required to

[02:02:06] support the county's partnership with a to-be-formed charitable foundation to support the county's fire rescue department. And so I volunteered at that meeting to pull together information from three departments, the Fire Rescue Department, the Department of Finance and Budget, and my office

[02:02:36] concerning, one, the initial investment of time required to negotiate and finalize a memorandum of understanding or a memorandum of agreement, and then the amount of time that would be required on the part of those three departments or offices on an ongoing annual basis, as I describe it, to support the relationship between the county and the foundation.

[02:03:09] And so that is the attachment that you have to the executive summary. You know, just very briefly, it details those time commitments.

[02:03:29] So the fire rescue department estimates time in the initial setup to be minimal. And then on an ongoing annual basis, about eight hours per year, Department of Finance and Budget believes it would devote 10 to 15 hours to the initial startup of the foundation with ongoing efforts requiring five to 10 hours annually.

[02:04:00] my office, largely the effort would be limited to the initial startup requiring about 10 to 15 hours. And I do want to underscore, as I have tried to previously, that this is not a question of whether this board is approving the foundation. That's not within the purview of this board.

[02:04:28] What is before the board is whether the county wishes to engage with a group that desires to form a foundation. You know, to come to the table, if you will, with this group that proposes to organize a foundation to support the county's fire rescue department.

[02:04:52] So that's the information that I have for you. I don't really think that there's any formal action that's required on the part of the board. I think that if we have an understanding from the board that this is an acceptable amount of time to move forward, we would take that and we would engage with the organizers of the foundation and move forward to

[02:05:26] negotiate a memorandum of understanding that would then come back to the board for formal approval at a later date just as was the case for the parks foundation that is now in place between the county and the foundation happy to answer any questions and i see that uh chief eggleston is here also for the same reason yes uh thank you thank you for the clarification as to what it is that we're asked to look at today um at this point i think i'd like to go through the order for questions and comments and sort of a consensus see if we have a consensus so please supervisor mallet

[02:06:04] thank you so i've got two sides of the coin first of all it's not in our purview to decide how to do this that's one thing that i wrote down that i think you said well and then the second part is the MOAs coming back to the board. So am I to ask questions about the first question?

[02:06:25] Because it's not up to the board whether to establish a foundation. I mean, the foundation will be a separate legal entity that can be formed by any group of incorporators in compliance with state law.

[02:06:47] So the county board doesn't have the authority to preclude a group of interested citizens from forming a foundation to support activities of the county.

[02:07:05] So it's the if question is what others are going to do. But the what question, what the MOA would contain, is what would be within our program. Absolutely. Okay, so then I'm going to ask my question because I think it's appropriate and you can tell me if it's not. So I appreciate the information that was achieved, but what is not here is correspondence with, and maybe Chief Eggleston has this information, the other foundations for our volunteer agencies who are raising money and have been for between 50 and 100 years for their facilities, firehouses, et cetera,

[02:07:41] and how they would participate or not and be impacted or not with this fundraising. So there's the question, and people can do with it what they wish. Do you have any contribution you'd like to make?

[02:07:57] Chief Fekelstein, if you'd like to address that now or we can continue, but you'll be here available for other questions if they arrive. Dan, that was the Chief of Fire Rescue. We did. I sensed that there were some questions surrounding how this foundation would coexist along with the other volunteer departments of their 50 and C3 organizations.

[02:08:18] So I talked to a couple of chiefs one-on-one, but also came forward with a presentation at the last FEMS board meeting with the way I viewed it, is that this would not, in my opinion, it's just solely opinion, would not compete necessarily directly with the existing non-profit agencies out there, but would perhaps complement, while the foundation could pay for such things as a banquet for the ACFR career staff, who we don't have ability to do that now because of procurement rules, I would think in general that this foundation could benefit the entire fire rescue system by

[02:08:55] perhaps funding some things that are outside of our preview right now. So during that presentation, even after, I didn't really receive any concerns. Everybody seemed to think that that would work well. So I didn't necessarily get any direct comments or questions after that or before. So I feel pretty comfortable right now. I think we can navigate through that.

[02:09:20] Okay, so I guess I was on the wrong page as far as the sort of size of the effort, because I know each of these volunteer groups is out looking for big foundations for hundreds of thousands of dollars to put toward, you know, multi-million dollar projects. So it sounds like the category for this is not what I was worried about.

[02:09:39] It's more consumables, almost, operational things. It wouldn't supplant, in my opinion, what's going on right now. For instance, Western Albemarle, I know the only one I'm aware of that has a foundation particularly targeted for their building, but I don't think this would supplant or either compete in that situation.

[02:09:56] Yeah, it's the competition mode is what I'm really concerned about when you have many millions. Thank you very much. Certainly. Supervisor Lupisto-Critney. Could you also address the fact that you do receive small donations, and there's a pot of money in there that hasn't been used, and the time, what would you all benefit from having a foundation versus these small donations going to the county and then coming back?

[02:10:24] We do. That's why when I was asked to put together the time required for fire rescue, I was sort of stuck for a while because we receive a number of small to medium donations from residents throughout the year. And then that requires us to compile all those checks and then put together an appropriation.

[02:10:45] You all approved to amend that to our budget. So if we can defer those donations to a foundation, that would save an enormous amount of staff time by touching all those smaller checks. So I think that would be a big benefit to us. We can just tell the resident, if you care, you don't have to, if you care to donate, please donate to the foundation, which supports the fire rescue system.

[02:11:08] And also, right now you have no, the police foundation has the ability to raise monies and then they can have, they can purchase different things that the county doesn't supply.

[02:11:24] So they're actually augmenting what the county doesn't supply. You don't, you have no ability to do that right now. No, we're, we're, we're somewhat limited in terms of, of, of how we can use funds to, to, to benefit, particularly members. And one particular thing that we wanted to do is, for instance, any kind of promotional ceremonies we have for staff, right now we can't do that because of our procurement regulations.

[02:11:49] So that would be one unmet need. But in addition for the system, as overall, we have some specialty training that's much needed, for instance, on electric vehicles and battery storage and some of the solar installations that we would love to fund some training that everyone could benefit for those kind of things.

[02:12:06] are sort of outside of our normal process right now that I believe it could be helpful by supporting from the foundation. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. I don't have any questions. I mean, if there's a group that's interested and willing and wants to support and help and think that we would need to be on the same page with them in terms of an MOA, so I have no issue. Supervisor Good. We attended a business conference together as a board recently, and the keynote speaker of that when given a commemorative prize at the end of the night was asked if she

[02:12:44] wanted to make any free remarks and she leaned into the mic and she said I like getting free things and walked away. That is about how I feel about this. There is free money on the table. It takes 10 to 15 hours to get it. That's basically free. I like free things. Supervisor McKeel. I have no problem with this at all and I would think that then to be honest with you I would think this and our volunteer, this could complement.

[02:13:10] There's no reason why the foundation couldn't be working for something that the volunteers want. I mean, that's not, so, I mean, I just don't see an issue. My only question will come when we get to the governance model and what that looks like, and that sounds like that's not on the table right now, so that's okay.

[02:13:31] Or would it be? Yeah, I mean, that's not on the table right now. That would never be. Nor would it be, but the MOA will be. exactly but not the governance but that will include i mean we'll be finding out what what's going on right and that moa shouldn't be too different from the parks foundation right and it won't be in conflict with any of our guidelines like how many supervisors and or if they're even supervisors and all that's what we get into and that's so i'm just going to add that i'm also supportive of this effort i did you know i saw this i knew this was coming and i took it upon myself to talk to the local volunteer fire department closest to me and heard nothing but

[02:14:09] praise and support as well. So I was not concerned. And is there anything further that's needed, if not a motion? It certainly looks like it's- No, sir. It seems to me that there's a consensus amongst all of the board members to move forward to engage with the organizers of the foundation and to negotiate an MOA or an MOU and bring that back to the board for consideration at a later date.

[02:14:36] And that's what we'll do. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Feiglson. Thank you very much, board. Board, this brings us to a recess. Fifteen minutes. Oh, for the executive, yes. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, I just oftentimes get in my own way.

[02:14:52] I'm just looking at the agenda between now and the time you go to closed session. and you have board to board and a presentation right do you want to switch order and i see the school board i guess i guess i would disrespectfully ask the board chair with schools uh elected if we want to consider doing it now do you want to consider doing this now to save time and then the board take the break with not taking a break at this time yeah because i see they are here i recognize that and thank you for pointing that out i did not mean no sir you've got a lot you got a lot of moving parts and so i was just asking for the board but if the board is okay with

[02:15:29] it i'm fine with uh moving ahead would we then if if i'm understanding this is we would jump to item 13. yes sir with the board's permission consent uh we would now go to board to board a quarterly report from the albemarle county school board to the albemarle county board of supervisors yes sir and uh judy lee and kate hiccup and we have good contingency here so thank you welcome a little a little behind. Thank you for your patience so far. I hope this helps.

[02:16:08] I emailed it to you this morning. And Travis. Very visual this time, so we brought a presentation.

[02:16:30] I can do my part without the presentation, if you want me to go ahead and start. But yours needs the presentation, yeah. I'm going to go ahead and start. Good afternoon, Chair Andrews and members of the board. I'm Judy Lee. I'm chair of the Albemarle County School Board. Great to see you here today. I'm here with Vice Chair Kate Acuff, and it was lovely to see many of you during congratulations. Oh, you have a lovely little voice. You know, I always say that to people when they're presenting, so I should have remembered that. And we're here to provide

[02:17:07] our board-to-board presentation today. So first, I would like to talk about our social media class action lawsuit. On March 28th, we unanimously voted to join a class action lawsuit against major social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat. We're deeply concerned about the addictive nature and deceptive practices of these platforms, which have led to severe mental health issues among our students, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal thoughts. This situation has imposed significant costs on our schools in terms of both financial resources and student well-being. When you have the slides,

[02:17:44] you'll be able to read more about the lawsuits. We aim to recover resources spent on mental health care and to hold these companies accountable. Our broader goal is to push for changes that will better protect our children. Our school division attorney, Josiah Black, will oversee our involvement in litigation. We believe this action supports our current initiatives and helps create a safer environment for our students. Another issue we've recently taken up in terms of safety is safe firearm storage. In February, the board took action to promote safe firearm storage, addressing both mental and physical health in our community. By taking this proactive step, we aim to prevent gun-related tragedies in our community. With more than 4 million children

[02:18:23] in America living with loaded, unsecured firearms, we felt compelled to act. At our January 25th meeting, at-large representative Allison Spillman highlighted that gun violence is the leading cause of death among children in the United States. On February 8th, we unanimously approved the resolution directing staff to send a letter to families stressing the importance of secure firearm storage. This resolution aligns with state and federal initiatives promoting firearm safety.

[02:18:50] The full resolution is available on our website, and we can absolutely send it out if you would like. And last, I'd like to tell you about our new reading curriculum, which we have approved for kindergarten through fifth grade students to be implemented in next school year. The selected program, HMH Interreading Virginia, was chosen by an adoption committee of more than 60 members, which included teachers, administrators, parents, and others for its inclusiveness and effectiveness.

[02:19:19] Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, Dr. Chandra Hayes, emphasized the importance of professional learning for successful implementation. We introduced the new curriculum to our educators this spring, and we'll provide ongoing professional development this summer and in the next school year. We have already procured all necessary materials. I know that sometimes that's an issue to ensure readiness for our new school year, and teachers already have online access to it.

[02:19:43] This curriculum, of course, aims to address achievement gaps highlighted in SOL results for many, many years. We've seen this for a long time. We've talked about this for a long time. And I'll also mention that while we were adopting the new curriculum, we also implemented UFLY, University of Florida Literacy Intervention, to help us close those gaps.

[02:20:05] And while this year's current SOL, this current year's SOL scores have not been finalized, the way the data is coming in, it shows that we are making some gains in closing those gaps. So do we have, okay, hopefully we'll have a presentation so that Dr. Acuff can update you on new building projects, but if you have any questions for my part of it, please feel free.

[02:20:27] i will look to the board now if we have we have more to do so i mean more more presentation to come right yeah but you're taking questions on what you just presented sure let me ask a quick question is there and i we're probably jumping in after it's too late but is there any way that the supervisors could help you with a class action suit oh i just don't know but i think that's a I mean, I don't have any idea.

[02:20:59] Josh, am I on to that? Because I know we would all be interested in helping. Good afternoon. I'm Josiah Black, School Division Counsel. Thank you for the question. I, at the moment, don't know of a way in which the Board of Supervisors can help us directly.

[02:21:15] It's the school division that has standing to act as a plaintiff in the class action. But we appreciate your support. We certainly will keep you posted on the litigation. And if there is an area where we need some help or guidance or support, we'll certainly let you know. Just something for you all to think about as things go by.

[02:21:32] Recognizing we don't have standing, but sometimes there's a way. Thank you. I personally think it's really important for us to do something about this. I think that social media and technology and devices have really become an epidemic with our young people. And we're seeing now really troubling mental health issues.

[02:21:50] And so the big challenge in the litigation obviously will be to show causation. We know there's harm. We know there's pervasive use. We know there are deceptive practices. But linking those together and showing causation will be the big challenge. Well, and it's a simple thing, but I like when I go into the schools and I see the sign that says the cell phones have to be put away during academic time.

[02:22:11] I agree with you, and we're working hard. We formed a committee that will be working over the summer to think about ways that we can enforce that policy more effectively. It's a challenge because the kids are always at least one step ahead of us in whatever we might try to do. But it's a high priority for us.

[02:22:29] Thank you. We're still waiting here, I think. Should we take the recess? Is that all right? Oh, great. Thank you so much. Thank you. 15 minutes recess, and we'll be back here.

[02:22:44] hopefully everything will work well thank you welcome back um and i would like to invite you

[02:36:18] to continue your presentation um which i think is going to work now so otherwise we'll just anyway uh good afternoon chair andrews members of the board and other members of the county team i'm sorry it's doing something i can't stop oh sure in this potpourri of school related topics i'm here to talk about two things one are new two

[02:36:54] new schools do i need to bring this cancer just yes our two new schools that's better and also our work toward environmental sustainability and they're interrelated since we have two new gorgeous buildings going to be going up in the next couple of years. Do I know which one to do?

[02:37:18] Oh, there we are. As you know, we have, as you well know, we have two new schools that have been approved by you all, and as well, the design plans have been approved by the board, the school board in last month's meeting. I'm going to give you just a thumbnail. I have packets of, you know, 80 slides showing every floor plan, but I won't do that today. High School Center 2 is designed, this is a view of the front of High School Center 2. High School Center 2 is designed to serve 400

[02:37:52] students a day in 60,000 square feet. It is expandable to 90,000 square feet and 600 students if we get to that point and decide to build more density on that location. But more importantly, it's a very adaptable space, and it can adapt to various student cohorts in our career learning communities that we will be developing across the county.

[02:38:18] The three learning communities that will be housed in this facility are hospitality and tourism, We have a level one culinary arts kitchen in the facility, in the design. It'll be business, entrepreneurship, and innovation, and it'll also be what the new version of MESA, which is math, engineering, and sciences, will all be housed here.

[02:38:45] And in terms of redesigning our house, our high school experience, students from all high schools, juniors and seniors from all high schools can come and attend these core courses in these different careers. Just to give you an idea of where we've located it, the hydraulic is a diagonal line.

[02:39:06] It's going to be immediately adjacent to Albemarle High School on the site currently located by the 70-year-old building services facility. That will be demolished, and we will place the center there on the Lambs Lane campus.

[02:39:23] Here's another view of it. If you're turning in the driveway at hydraulic, Albemarle High School is to your right. Center too is to your left, and the lovely backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains is preserved. That building site itself is a little lower than street level, so it won't be a big intrusive thing.

[02:39:44] You can still get your views as you're standing in traffic getting past Albemarle High School. Here's another view of this building, the front entrance. You see it's primarily two stories of classrooms. There is a subfloor, a lower story where we're going to house our data center that we've been trying to relocate for the past few years.

[02:40:06] So it's a two for the two single story structures, parts of the building in the front. One is primarily for administrative. On the right, it is the culinary, it's meetings rooms and also the culinary arts center.

[02:40:22] And this is when you're coming in, the culinary arts would be to your right. And this is a big common area when you're walking into the building. And again, if you want much more detailed slides, we have slide decks of at least 80 photographs of all of these.

[02:40:38] So I can send them to you if I can get through your firewall. The second school is our Southern Feeder Pattern Elementary School. That is going to go on the site that was originally called Founders Place at this Board of Supervisors deeded to the school division.

[02:40:58] This will be a 72,500 square foot facility, home to up to 500 students, about 30 classrooms or breakout rooms in that facility, and it is going to be designed to be our first upper level elementary school.

[02:41:15] Focus groups with teachers and community really preferred this structure, so that's where we're going. Grades pre-K through second will remain at Mountain View. You can see, here's an overhead.

[02:41:31] You can see that all of our schools are sort of squished between Avon Street Extended and Scottsville Road. The new elementary school is in the center. And just to the top right of the slide is Monticello High School.

[02:41:50] And to the left of the new school is Mountain View Elementary School. and you can see the two properties just almost touch but not quite and so we are trying to find some solutions with neighboring property owners to have a path which would be ideal i'm not sure we can get there but we're going to make the effort to do so here's a front view at the drop off zone um and here's coming into the main lobby it's nice open airy we have students going to be

[02:42:21] working on artwork for that stairwell and this uh school has uh three levels of classrooms uh this is one this is this is a right now it's showing its capacity to be a double classroom but there's double doors to slide to shut it so you can have just one classroom in there in terms of both projects we have approved the plans uh the design development last month construction documents are are being developed now. Bidding and negotiations September through December. We hope to break

[02:43:01] ground or at least start bashing the existing building by the end of the year with a projected opening for the 26-27 school year. So that's pretty exciting. We have not built a new school in 22 years, so a lot has changed in our understanding of educational space as well as environmental impact of our buildings so that here we go to the environmental impact of our buildings we have been doing for many years a lot of things like solar panels led lighting

[02:43:36] and we're purchasing for electric school buses but two years ago the school board established the advisory committee for environmental sustainability or aces and supervisor keel serves as your liaison to that committee and what the overarching purpose is to sort of consolidate all of our work in terms of environmental impact and initiatives but also to align with accounting climate action plan goals and there's four main buckets of that transportation and land use buildings and renewables sustainable materials landscape natural resources and agriculture

[02:44:14] But since we are an educational enterprise, we also have to add in environmental studies, climate awareness, and action into our education of our kids, our curriculum.

[02:44:33] The word escaped me for a moment. Here's a different breakdown of how we are coordinating climate action plan and our goals, focusing on the buildings. We are aiming for net energy-efficient upgrades to all of our buildings, net zero-ready new schools, and solar on all of our school buildings.

[02:44:58] And here's just some of the efforts we're undergoing already. Electric school bus in the top left. On the right, top right, you see the photoelectric cells on top of the Scottsville Elementary School addition that were added in 2022.

[02:45:15] We have implemented conservation mowing on our 750 acres of properties to eliminate mowing, certainly on steep slopes and ditches. We've had to put some signage up to say that we're not just slacking off, that this is important, that it increases the habitat for insects and other wildlife, birds and other wildlife.

[02:45:40] It reduces CO2 emissions, improves erosion and stormwater quality, and noise pollution. It's just having the mowers going all the time. And finally, on the bottom left, and perhaps John Coles can help me out, I know we have a grant from the Department of Energy, federal.

[02:46:00] We have a grant to help support our sustainability efforts. And one of the things that we have done is input sustainability monitors at some of our schools, and they help educate our kids and focus them on environmentally important issues.

[02:46:17] And here's a couple of students learning about the watershed. We've also developed, I say we collectively, I've not done any of it, but John Coles has done. we have dashboards on our website for all of our 24 existing schools and we'll of course have that for the next two schools as well that we can monitor energy and water utilization as well as greenhouse gas emissions and we're looking at solar composting and transportation information

[02:46:50] also to be posted on those sites in terms of looking to sustainability in our existing buildings You may remember that we added 30,000 square feet to Crozet Elementary School that was finished two years ago.

[02:47:09] And this is, as I said, a 30,000 square foot addition. We had a very old boiler in that school, and we were able to convert about half of the building as well as 30,000 square foot addition to geothermal energy, I think, which is great.

[02:47:29] And if you want to see the impact already at our first full year of geothermal energy use, notwithstanding that we increased the size by a third, the energy consumption stayed flat for the school.

[02:47:47] So I think we're going in the right direction. We also, in addition to looking at the county's climate action plan, looked toward the state law, and the state enacted the High Performance Building Act in 2021, which requires all new buildings, public buildings, to be designed, constructed, verified, and operated in compliance with High Performance Building Certification Program.

[02:48:12] If you're not familiar with LEED, it is from the Green Building Council. LEED is leadership in energy and environmental, yeah, environment and energy design. It also requires new structures, public structures to have EV charging infrastructure and some feature that measures the energy consumption and carbon emissions.

[02:48:36] We also, as a school board, modified our building policy to a sustainable construction policy in the fall. Like I think in September we passed it. We incorporated, of course, the Virginia High Performance Building Act.

[02:48:54] And we also set goals for all of our new buildings. They have to be lead, silver, or better, net zero ready, and electric only. No on-site fossil fuel combustion. And here, this is the schematic looking over Center 2 and all the various sustainability features that have been built into the planning.

[02:49:19] It's not limited to Center 2. These are also, in effect, at the elementary school, Southern Feeder Pattern Elementary School. But you can see we have roof overhangs to provide shading. We have LEED Silver Certification, which is the second highest.

[02:49:38] vehicle, electric vehicle charging, but I think also it's important to note that both of our new school facilities will have heating and cooling systems that are geothermal. So, other notable features. This is, both of these are of the elementary school, drawings of the elementary school, lots of natural light, windows that open, low flow plumbing fixtures.

[02:50:03] The top is the cafeteria area with views of Carter Mountain, and then this is the building itself is sort of a U-shape, so this is a center courtyard and also outdoor learning space.

[02:50:21] And with that, questions? Thank you. We'll go through our order. Supervisor Malik? Thank you. I did write down when you were back talking about juniors and seniors and all the new curricula at Center 2.

[02:50:38] So it sounds like you're doing more of the sort of technical stuff in-house there and picking out more certificate programs and things so that students won't have to travel to another campus. And I think that's wonderful, that's all. Well, we're going to have, I mean, as I said, the state has crafted 17 different career learning pathways.

[02:51:01] Pardon? Pathways. Well, they're not called pathways. The workforce calls them pathways. Pathways. We know what we're talking about. 11 of which we've adopted for various schools across the county. So some of you were at the Center One graduation last week, and you can see that that's very focused on information technology, in digital security, game development.

[02:51:25] But there's various ones across the county, and one similar to the health and medical sciences. There's going to be that kind of pathway, but it won't be. The point is that every student will be engaged in one of these pathways. It's not just a few kids at the academies and then everybody else.

[02:51:44] So it's trying to engage students in their education along the way. But thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. Thank you very much for a very informative presentation. I enjoyed that. And I really like the mowing where you're not mowing.

[02:52:02] And I'm just wondering whether or not you're also planting in other areas instead of mowing. Would you put pollinator plants? Eventually, perhaps. I mean, I think that's the plan. We would like to have wildflowers and all kinds of things.

[02:52:20] I think right now we're just sort of, is that about right? Yeah, yeah. And I think we initially started with maybe 15% of our properties non-mowing, and then we're slowly, John, increasing the size of that.

[02:52:36] But the point is, we're going to really cut back on the mowing, promote, you know, natural grasses and plants at some point. Is that right? Okay. Did you want to say anything else? Good afternoon.

[02:52:52] I'm John Coles. I'm the Environmental Program Manager with Building Services. A little louder, please. I'm John Coles. I'm the Environmental Program Manager with Building Services at the school division. As Kate said, with the mowing reduction, we set a goal of 15% of all non-athletic field mowed grass to be brought into this conservation mowing.

[02:53:15] And I think we achieved about 20% last year, and we aim to increase it a little bit more every year. And we have increased it a little bit this year, and hopefully we'll find more opportunities to go forward to do that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I love what you're doing, and I will say that compared to the elementary school when I was a principal, this is so much different because it's light-filled, and it's open, and even the stairwells and everything.

[02:53:46] I mean, I really compliment you. Thank you. I mean, about eight years ago when I was fairly new on the school board, our long-range planning advisory committee identified about 10% of our classrooms had no natural light, about 90 out of our 900 classrooms.

[02:54:05] I mean, so we've tried to put in, knocked out walls when they're on outside wall, of course, but sometimes you have to put those sun shafts, what are they called? Sun shafts and when you're doing some roof repair or you repurpose those rooms. Well, when I first started teaching, there was one electrical plug.

[02:54:25] Yeah, we've got a lot of those. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Thank you, Chair Lee and Vice Chair. Did I get that right? Because the other night it got called into question. I know, it got flipped. I'm Vice. I'm Vice Chair.

[02:54:41] So congratulations on your graduations. I particularly thought the community lab school and the way it was done this year was really well done and just relative to past ceremonies. So I hope they've found a home with where they're at, which sounds like Chad said as much, but that one was particularly nice. I don't, I think maybe I knew, but I didn't really connect that the new Southern feeder pattern school would be an upper elementary, but that actually solves what could have been a strategic issue of putting a second full k5 there so that's that's congrats on that is has conversations happen or

[02:55:20] did a decision been made that the northern would call a suit or would that it just not got there yet on the northern feeder not got there yet I mean it may not work because it's not right next door what we've got to is where it's going to be and that's it yeah we'll be busy juggling these two in the next few months I don't know if this is the best if anybody can answer do you know and an answer may be you can come to the 13th school board meeting do you know where you're at on your budget have you finalized your budget with the state's finalization of their budget yes so you

[02:55:55] came with us with a 13 point some million dollar gap we ended up giving another two to three in local based on our tax adjustment so that left about a 10 point something then the state came through how much of that 10 point did the state fill in for you that's part that i sort of put aside and moved on. I think they came up with about 4.6. So of the remaining monies, I would be interested because I don't expect you to list this off now. Okay. But I would be interested in receiving, I think the board would like to know how you dealt with that gap and what the final

[02:56:32] numbers were based on the recommended requested budget versus the final budget. We can get that to you. I mean, I know one thing we did is we froze in new hires for sure, but we were able to fund those four core programs that we really wanted to continue. I think one of them was cut back a little bit, but we did close the funding gap and the overall budget was a couple million dollars less than we had requested. Yeah, I appreciate that. Every year we receive questions on, and this year was no different. Why do the schools need so much money? And walking through and doing a lot of

[02:57:08] explanations when I've talked to people was trying to explain the 13 million dollar gap and how tenuous it was because at the time we didn't know where we stood with the state. So it would be helpful for us to be able to have that information on our hip. We can certainly get that to you.

[02:57:24] And maybe a bullet point, you know, a pocket. You all have to decide how to close your gap, but I think it's important for us to understand because we have to take that into consideration each year at budget time. Right, right. I mean, as you know, over $8 million of that gap was because of the recalculation of the local composite index.

[02:57:44] delegate colson said there was a partial forgiveness or sunlight so basically there's a lot of questions out there that i'd love to fill in the gaps of information on so i mean at our last school board meeting i know that our um director of budget um said there was like two hundred thousand dollars less so we're still adjusting but we're we're really within a couple hundred thousand i mean it's important for us to know sure sure we'll get that to you i'm always interested between the needs-based request and what the final number is and the decisions made to get there. So that's what I'm, that's why I'm asking for the information. Policy is following

[02:58:21] the numbers, right? And then just a quick heads up earlier today, we, in the proclamation for Pride Month that we voted on today, I made a request of Mr. Brookins to reach out to the school division to share that proclamation with, especially with your students who are in the LGBTQ plus community that they know that this board is supportive of them and some information with about the Trevor project will be coming along with that so I'm just giving you a heads up and Dr. Haas here giving him a heads up as well thank you thank you supervisor approval thank you so much kind of following off

[02:58:59] the making sure I fully understand how the new southern feeder pattern school is going to work I recognize that the new school is going to be an upper level elementary from three to five does that mean that Mountain View is during this also going to be transitioning into being a K through second education system? Correct. Okay. Wonderful. Because that also helps us avoid, you know, there's always strain when you have feeder patterns and you have people geographically disparate, often based on race. It helps us avoid a lot of these issues. So I appreciate the

[02:59:36] forethought with that. Kind of unsurprisingly, I'm curious to hear a bit more about Center 2. I know that we've talked about the focus areas that they're going to have. You've mentioned culinary. Are all the focus areas finalized? That's the only one I've heard bandied about.

[02:59:54] Also, entrepreneurship. There's one of the career pathways is business, entrepreneurship, and innovation. That's one. And then the second one, the culinary, I'm sorry. It is hospitality, which subsumes culinary, and tourism. And then the third one is basically the best of what was Mesa in terms of math, engineering, and science. As far as I know that, well, it's two years until we open the doors. Clearly, tourism and culinary is going to stay there because we're building a

[03:00:31] kitchen but um my understanding is that's the final thank you um but the space is such that it's flexible if we decide years down that it's not working i mean most of the space is very flexible and i don't want to poke too much into how you conduct business on the board but i am curious and this is something i've continued to be a little curious with about center one if there's um any ongoing efforts to make sure that these are being paired you mentioned state-level best practices that you're mirroring.

[03:01:04] I'm curious if there's any attempt to make sure that curriculums are linked into either federal DOL curriculums and certificate pipelines or any industry-sponsored certificate pipelines. I want to make sure that these are being realized into the certificates and the credentials that are recognized in industry.

[03:01:23] I have the COO that yes, the answer is yes. Okay. Is there any additional details on that? It is something I've never heard highlighted, and I would be curious, like, if I am going to have a hospitality program, I'd be curious if that's synced to the DOL requirements for a hospitality-based apprenticeship that they would be looking for in their formal education component through the DOL.

[03:01:48] I'm told generally yes, but I can get back to you on that as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Yes, thank you. I really appreciate the update with the presentation. It was great. Just a couple of maybe just comments, but I really appreciate also, in addition to what other folks have said, I appreciate the fact that you're looking at schools going up rather than out.

[03:02:15] It used to be the model was just to build them out with one level, and with the price of land and the amount of defined land, going up is a really good thing. So I appreciate that. The Center 1 and Center 2 model is really impressive, and it is really, I think, succeeding.

[03:02:42] My wildest dreams, when I first heard of it, I went to the Center 1 graduation, and I thought I understood it, but going to the graduation, I understand it even more, and it was really great. It was interesting talking about the businesses What we heard at the Center One graduation was that the strength of the cybersecurity, not to just say, because they're all strong, but the strength of the cybersecurity pathway, and we heard that the businesses were reaching out and asking the students to come in

[03:03:20] and evaluate their security models. It was really fascinating to hear how that, and it's a great connection with the community. It's a win-win for everybody. sort of a journeyman process, which was really exciting. I think that's one example of how they're connecting to the businesses in a really great way.

[03:03:40] And I guess that, I mean, I could go on and on, but in an effort to reduce time, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. And I will add my appreciation for both Chair and Vice Chair, the presentations and the information that we've gained.

[03:03:56] And I particularly appreciate the information on sustainability and environmental awareness. And I applaud these efforts, and I also want to concur with Supervisor Galloway that it would be good to get the sort of final budget information, so I appreciate that.

[03:04:11] Supervisor Malik. I just can't seem to hold things in my brain enough to get through my list each time. I was really excited to hear your comments about the workforce thing and just wanted to share with you, at your level, what has already been underway with someone in the enterprise.

[03:04:28] with Sarah Morton, who's the director of our Virginia Career Works on Glenwood Station, because several of the surrounding jurisdictions are bringing in the workforce folks to help with doing the technical education to free up your staff to do other things. So I just want to make sure you knew about that and could reach out for more information. I've been a workforce person since 2008 when I inherited that role, so it's important. They offer a lot. Workforce and environment, right? That's right. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much.

[03:04:58] are they the culinary school is that open to anyone or just the students students thank you there are some things education can't fix you are cruel she doesn't know how to cook okay that's what we're talking about thank you thank you for your presentation uh board we will move move back to uh item 12 which is a strategic Plan Performance Reporting Program led off by Christy Shiflett, Chief Operating Officer.

[03:05:33] We're looking at 410. We only have one thing for our closed meeting, so I will still suggest that after this, we might turn to matters from the board before we go to our closed meeting. But for now, we'll see how this goes. Thank you. Just need to remove the last presentation.

[03:05:54] Yes. Good afternoon. So another exciting presentation after that one. That was wonderful.

[03:06:31] I'm Christy Shifflett, Chief Operating Officer, and I'm here today to talk to you about an exciting work effort that we have started at the county. Staff have been designing for this for the past year. It's in response to a few things. The first is the board's operating guidelines points out that the strategic priorities will guide our work and set priorities.

[03:06:55] The guidelines also state that staff should provide progress reports on our productivity. And you receive those reports often from different departments. But there's been an effort to try to consolidate our work around the strategic plan. The Performance and Strategic Plan Division of the County Executive Office has been leading an effort to provide the board with that information.

[03:07:20] It's focused some of its resources on building a program for our strategic plan that moves the organization forward to not only plan strategic goals and work, but execute upon those things for our community. so you know you have to know your metrics and the behaviors that they drive everyone should understand which metrics drive the services and what behaviors they encourage we're working internally to build awareness and understanding so that leadership and staff can know how each

[03:07:54] metric fits into the big picture and why and how we're measuring something and how it's relevant to performance so we're looking for improved accountability and we're going to be building that. By tracking progress towards our strategic plan goals, Albemarle County can improve accountability for its actions and decisions. Better decision making. By having access to data on performance and progress, the board and staff can make better decisions about how to allocate resources and prioritize initiatives. Increase transparency. By reporting on its progress towards

[03:08:33] its strategic plan goals, local government can increase transparency and build trust within the community and then lastly to improve community outcomes by tracking progress towards its goals we can identify areas where it need we need to improve and also take action to improve those outcomes so we have developed something that is we have an acronym because local government loves acronyms and we're calling it SPEAR it is the strategic plan execution and reporting program

[03:09:09] This is how we've been moving forward. We are establishing metrics. We work with each local government department to establish metrics that reflect what progress will be made towards their goal and the objectives within that fiscal year. We are really looking at, within the fiscal year, what are the actions that are taking place. Even though it's a five-year plan, we need to be accountable a little bit more specifically to the annual report. We are setting yearly targets for

[03:09:43] each metric and talking about what value the metric has and by that fiscal year. We're tracking the metrics throughout the year on a quarterly basis, and then we're going to be reporting on that, offering a status report as requested. So I just wanted you all to know the work that had been going on and make sure that our community also knows the work that we're the intentionality behind this program we started with the adoption of the strategic plan that you all prepared for

[03:10:18] us in october of 2022 but we've been working together we've within our financial planning and our budget work sessions we started working with departments in april of 2023 and pretty much getting together and saying okay here's our objective now what is the work your department will be doing, what will be taking place in order for us to measure that, what would a measurement look like, and how does that measurement or metric come up with an outcome that the community will care about. So we've developed quarterly reporting, and honestly, Alvemore County has been practicing.

[03:10:57] This takes a lot of work to educate everyone on not only annual planning and work planning and what your staff is doing, but also around metrics and data and how to translate that information.

[03:11:14] So we have now done our third round of reporting, and we have, again, quarter three metrics and a draft report. So I share this today for you because it is in anticipation of all of those reports coming together and that we are going to be providing for our board in August of this year that final report so we intend to have a couple of things we will publish this information on our website and for our community but we're also going to have two different types of reports

[03:11:51] there will be a summary of really major milestones activities that occurred real kind of like top 10 for every goal what our community members most care about and then there will be a much more detailed report with a lot more data that those who are interested, I recall Supervisor Andrews talking about being data curious. Those who are data curious will be picking up that report and digging in, while others really just want to know overall, what is the county doing to improve, what are we doing to find efficiencies, and what are we doing to provide outcomes?

[03:12:30] And so with this FY 24 to 28 strategic plan, we are starting out so that you, the board, can have a little bit more information about the work that's happening. And it goes beyond budget requests and asking for new revenue.

[03:12:47] It's really about what we are doing with the staff and the capacity that we have. So with that, I have nothing else and will take any questions or comments. Thank you. We'll go through our order. Supervisor Malek. My laptop's melting down here.

[03:13:06] Sorry. This is really, I think my brain will actually be able to understand this when the big report comes out. So that's going to be good. And in August, you don't have a list ready of the types of categories that you're looking at.

[03:13:25] So I'll wait until August, unless that's something you were prepared to do anyway, as far as like within a couple of departments, you know, how you measure. Absolutely. I can be more specific. Okay. So, as you look at the strategic plan, we have, as you know, the six major goals.

[03:13:41] And within each six, there are objectives identified. We are meeting with every department to go objective by objective and saying, what work are you implementing this year to further advance this objective? And then they are creating metrics to measure the progress and performance of that task or item.

[03:14:05] Thank you. You're welcome. Supervisor Lupisto Curley. Thank you very much. That was informative. And, you know, any organization has to set goals and then a way to measure that, which is your metrics. And so I commend you all for doing this, and I'm really going to be anxious to hear the report in August.

[03:14:26] But good job. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. Yeah, thank you. This is great. I would imagine some of my questions would be answered once I see the report as well. Are you at the point, if you track, you have a goal, you have the objective.

[03:14:47] So it sounds like they're, are they in the work right now of defining what the measure is? We have defined measures. So you've already defined the measures. Now you're going to track based on the definition of those measures. Yep. Have any departments got to the point where they're able to go, okay, if this is the goal, call it June 30.

[03:15:07] And, well, that's unfair. Let's say June 30 of the following fiscal year. and we're three months in where they're planning their activities based on where they should be on the roadmap to get to the goal. That is the intention. So we're but we're just still trying to learn and figure that out. We're a little bit ahead of that. So no we we set out what are you doing by June 30. That's the expectation. Right. And then what this data should be doing is it's a living, breathing thing, right? And so it is supposed to be informing us of our progress

[03:15:44] and our success or our lack of success. So yes, it should be telling us we haven't made as much progress on that as we had hoped. We have choices. We need to redirect staff. We need to focus differently or there's been something we couldn't control and we're not going to be able to make that deadline. But that'll be the information that will be coming to you. I mean, a lot of This question is more just fascination and curiosity more than probably policy level.

[03:16:13] But in your very objective data places and performance, this will probably fall into place a lot sooner. How have your folks or how have you been dealing with things that would be more subjective oriented in terms of both measure but then planning for that?

[03:16:30] And what I mean is that by November 30, we should be here if we're going to be on track for June 30, and we're not. um so then you have to redirect and go there but for the subjective stuff that can be a little bit different than just going oh we've achieved you know we've answered phone calls at a 98 percent right you know first ring rate or something like that but did that mean that we actually made an impact so one of our strategic is in education and you know the quality of life and education and learning well that can be some subjective stuff in there so how did you guys wrestle with

[03:17:09] that in terms of measuring because if you just turn subjective data into qualitative data into quantitative data you can lose qualitative data right so how are you dealing with that qualitative we are aiming to have to provide both we are aiming to provide qualitative and quantitative there will be things that we just can't there it's too difficult to measure to your point with numbers um it's really going to be about how like does our community feel engaged right i mean that that is answers to that is very different and varied so we're aiming for both but we're also

[03:17:45] this is a start so we hope to improve every year and that's going to also take input from our board are we meeting your expectations do we need to do more or something different so with this first report I'll be expecting to hear this is great work major progress or you know this is still not getting us where we want to be and let's see something a little more more different so and I want to also articulate our departments have been providing reports gathering data has statistics

[03:18:20] and many of them have been doing so for a long time this is not to replace that they'll still be doing all of that but this is to try to get you the county government and also our community a central location for these major efforts. So you might be seeing some of similar data points or similar metrics that you've seen before in our reporting, but again, it will be under the, for example, safety and well-being category. There will be some of our public safety response

[03:18:55] might be in our safety and well-being, but then there will be much more, as you said, subjective or qualitative things that we'll have in the report as well. That'll be in more of the public-facing report, again, about what is our government doing for us versus the data metrics report that we'll add with it.

[03:19:19] Well, this is great. I would imagine that this would be something that would start to be incorporated into budget town halls. I, for one, often explain to folks, well, the budget is driven by the strategic plan, And then the strategic plan talks about, well, here's things that we did.

[03:19:37] Like, I remember the slide with all the different departments and the things and the calls received and all of that. But that's just informational research being pushed out. The rich data that this is probably going to yield is almost performative in saying, well, remember when we talked about how the budget draws the line to the strategic plan?

[03:19:57] Now this draws the line to this is where we're actually at in a given year. So this could be just as important as traffic safety data and things like that that the community find interesting. Great. Look forward to seeing it. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Proop. Thank you.

[03:20:13] I am excited about this, right? It's a major inflection point in any kind of impact-focused organization, whether it's government or nonprofit or even a private sector, that happens to have impact as a core mission element of when you actually attempt to quantify that and get that down into a granular, achievable, recurring goal.

[03:20:36] And I realize that's also a challenging prospect. So I appreciate the work that everyone's been putting into this. And I also, and this is almost maybe more directed at the board, recognize that it's going to be a thing that we have a learning process with, right? I would expect that the first one is going to be challenging and might be something that we have an urge to respond to in different capacities.

[03:20:58] I would hope, and this is something I even shared in one of my very first sit-downs with Mr. Richardson, I would hope that we are able to fight our own urges as a board to kind of manage through fire drill. And I also just say that to you as you continue to determine what this final product would look like, that I would hope that a final product manages to always maintain a level of granularity because I feel like the more generalized an output for something like this can be, the more community engagement as an entire doctrine is at the yellow level.

[03:21:33] Oh no, what do we do to make it green? And that's not the way we should be thinking about these things. We should be thinking about them always with a level of granularity. So I'm excited to hear the progress that's being done, and I hope that we can continue to lean into it. And I would also say, I also love a good acronym.

[03:21:50] And in fact, the office I worked in at the Office of Naval Intelligence was called SABER, and all of our peer offices were also S-weapons, so our neighbors who were aviators were called SPEAR, and they didn't stand for anything for decades, and then they made up acronyms, but it's good stuff. Supervisor McKeel. Oh, my life with acronyms. Half the time now, I can't even remember them because they've gotten longer and longer as I've gotten older and older.

[03:22:20] My husband's group at the Highway Research Council's acronym was SPAM. And every Christmas I bought cans of SPAM and used them for table decorations. Just saying. This is great. I digress.

[03:22:35] But this is great. I really like the idea of separating out to some degree and having something for the public that's easier to digest and then something that's more detailed. And the efficiencies I heard really caught me, because in all of the decades that I've been around, that's what I hear from the community most often, tell us what efficiencies you have created over the last couple of years with our tax dollars.

[03:23:03] And so I'm going to be really interested in that from the viewpoint of the public and being able to inform the public. But thank you very much. This is great work. You're welcome. And that's our intention, to be able to provide that information. Yeah, yeah. And while it's always been there, it's been harder to pull.

[03:23:20] It's been like pulling threads, you know, and trying to tie things together. And when we have so much going on, so this will make it a lot easier. Thank you. You're welcome. I've been associated with organizations that have done strategic plans before, but I commend the leadership of this county that I think that the adherence to and the focus on the strategic plan has been exemplary in terms of not just bringing it up regularly, showing us how it fits, but now this. I'm looking forward to this very, very, very much. I will say I just want to

[03:23:55] quickly ask, does this get incorporated into the community annual report in some way as well, or is that? Great question. So we have many reporting mechanisms, right? So the community and public engagement office and myself and our team, we're going to be working together.

[03:24:17] I won't answer that it will replace, but I know that it will support and that we'll work on that together. Well, and again, I'm a big fan of the sense of organization that this brings and ability to then look at the metrics and understand their relationship to our goals.

[03:24:36] And it really should be another tool that we can use to then also put in a community report as information that we have. Yeah. Thank you. County executive, yes. Mr. Richardson. Sometimes a county or city manager needs to know when a key leader does a good presentation that maybe he or she doesn't need to say anything else.

[03:25:03] In this instance, though, one of the things, I do want to make a couple of comments based on board member comments. Board, if you'll recall, back in the budget process, where during our most recent budget process, we ran out of resources, financial resources, before we ran out of both opportunities and problems and this board with staff help mr sumner and his team we did look at options for generating additional financial resources and you earmarked that into safety

[03:25:38] and well-being and you had really nice performance data that informed your decision hearts team is a good example where you basically doubled that footprint and we had had that team in action for just less than a year. And the data was compelling. Traditionally, and I liked what Christy said regarding departments have been measuring and departments have been providing reports to this board. So this just did not happen tied to this strategic plan. I think that all we're trying to do is get better at it. And I liked what Christy said about, you know, we also want this to be in

[03:26:15] a prominent spot on our website that's in a spot where people can find it. And also we want to try to translate that into this is where your tax dollars go and and it's an it's easy to read it's easy to see and hopefully easy to understand uh the the the the page that ned referenced uh from our budget town halls which was quick hitting 999 smoke alarms installed in the last year 216 million dollars of social services money allocated to our citizens who are in need across the county almost

[03:26:51] two million people visiting our parks and so on and so on. I just want you to know that public safety for a long time has been really good at measuring what they do. There's a risk and liability component to what they do. And so we can really track back into their budgets and see so many performance benchmarks that matter. Social services also because of the connection they have with the state and so much of the reporting requirements that are associated. But for some of our other departments this has been new and that's pulling this work together working through the strategic plan working through christie's office and her team in order to tie this back

[03:27:30] in the way that the board frankly you asked for this several years ago and it's been it has been an evolutionary process with our team and i think we are at a really good spot right now and board i'd be remiss if i didn't tell you that a lot of local government they don't do this because you are shining a light at times on things that either needs additional attention with resources, either needs clarity with management. Local government may not be particularly good at it, but all of that is informing us with not just where our management attention needs to be,

[03:28:10] but also it can help inform our future budgetary discussions. And so I'm proud of Christy and her team. I'm also proud of our departments for moving along this path. This has not been easy. It really hasn't. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And thank you. If I can close with, thank you, Mr. Richardson. Many department staff have sat with my team and worked through how to do this. And so I want to make sure I recognize a major player on this effort. And that is Gabe Giacalone over there. He is our senior performance management analyst,

[03:28:47] and he's a statistician and i use him a lot to help me with data but he's actually the one that came up with spear and so we can give him that credit and i just you'll see him again in august but he's another component of putting resources to this work to make sure that we can help and support our team and our community thank you for your time thank you thank you christy thank you Excellent. Board, it is a little after 4.30. We have four public hearings tonight. I don't know how busy they'll be. If there is a unanimity on this, we could do matters from the board before

[03:29:26] we beg for our closed meeting, in which case I will go through an order. This is matters from the board, the end of the meeting agenda usually. Supervisor Mel. Thank you. I've made it to the end my list here so I can read out a couple things. So one is a question. Actually, I'll send that by email because staff people aren't here to hear it anyway. So just a report on a couple of recent meetings. The local government advisory committee at the EPA met in D.C.

[03:30:01] on May 21st. Lots of updates, but the primary one was about cybersecurity challenges all across the United States. It's particularly focused on, since we're mostly a water group, focused on utility water utility systems and the 70 percent of the systems across the country which were test challenged failed for mostly really dumb things like sharing of passwords and not removing credentials for people who had left the organization etc so it gave me a whole new appreciation for the acit practice things that we just got the email about the other day that we're

[03:30:39] supposed to do our annual checkup because we do get better and better at it every year and i really appreciate the effort that the staff has and the organization has made to really do this. And federal standards are coming. So we will be ahead of the game, as often happens, because of this early planning. So there are just some topics I would like to share with you so that if you have a particular interest in any of these, you can let me know and I will make sure to forward more information to you. So reducing plastic pollution is a upcoming committee. There's also climate

[03:31:16] communications, environmental justice, and those are long-standing committees. There's also federally, they're going to be restructuring how water systems are created and evaluated, and I'm not sure what that means. And Robana doesn't either. I mean, whether this means that there's going to be a push toward regionalization, in which case how we manage that when one community has made a huge investment and others have not so this is all a future can of worms but I think the biggest one coming up now is materials management new standards for how waste from solar

[03:31:52] panels lithium batteries and all plastics is going to be handled coming up so earlier decisions this board has made and others to reduce elements of plasticization in all of our operations is going to be saving us in the long run, and I'll just stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lepisto-Curley? Yeah, I have no comments. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway?

[03:32:20] At the MPO meeting, we did approve and advance the long-range transportation plan, and the MPO did endorse the county's smart scale applications along with advancing the smart scale applications relative to barracks road and all of that yeah so all of that's in motion just to report on that at the mpo they also mentioned i don't think this is going to impact our board at this level but there is an i guess there was some changes at the state level that will go and affect july 1 for the electronic meeting policies which allows more meetings electronically so this may

[03:33:00] be something that we might want to highlight for boards and commissions because obviously they follow what our policies are. But they're basically allowing more meetings to occur electronically than is currently in existence. So I think that's always a good idea for participation. So I'm just saying we might want to make sure we communicate that out to our boards and commissions what the new state roles are with the electronic policies. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:33:29] Supervisor Prude. I don't believe I have any new news from any commissions. I will add, though, because I neglected to mention it during our rounds earlier, early voting is ongoing. Early voting has 10 more days remaining.

[03:33:45] The final day will be on a Saturday. I say this for the people who are listening at home. A Saturday on the 15th. And I will also remind people that in our district, congressional primaries can often be dispositive. And so it's very important that we vote in our primary elections.

[03:34:02] Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Yeah, just a couple of things. I did attend, since we are members of the chamber, just to let you know that I attended the Grove dedication, which is the Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Grove Committee.

[03:34:21] And I had never been to this area in McIntyre Park before. As you know, when the golf course went away, they suddenly had more room. And so if you think about where the skate park is, and there's a little parking area for the skate park, if you park there, and everybody should really go up there and take a look, if you park there and go across the railroad bridge, you know, the bridge that goes over the railroad, and then hang a left, the skate park is here, and then you hang a left, you head up to the Grove, which is a beautiful area.

[03:34:56] It's situated between a 150-year-old oak tree. It's intended to be a community gathering place, but it is a monument that has been created to recognize community leadership, both in Elmore County and in the city of Charlottesville.

[03:35:18] And it was built by a group of private citizens in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce in the city of Charlottesville. And you can go there and see the list of recipients that have received awards through this endeavor.

[03:35:34] Some of them are still alive. Some of them are deceased. You would recognize many of the names, both Elmora and Charlesville community members. But it is a lovely spot. It was a great event and dedication. Juan Diego Wade, who is one of the recipients, spoke.

[03:35:52] But it was just really special. And I encourage you, whether you take your dog with you or grandchildren with you or you go by yourself, it is a great little spot to know about. I wanted you to know that. I also attended the Go Cook graduation, which is Antoine Brinson's culinary concepts, you all know.

[03:36:18] And what's important about this is he has the program that trains folks to be cooks because we certainly have lots of restaurants. The program, though, focuses on workforce readiness, entrepreneurship, and culinary mastery.

[03:36:38] And it's a really important program in our community to give folks who have never really had a skill set an opportunity. And I will say that occasionally this program also has inmates from ACRJ that are out on home incarceration to give them a life skill, which is really great.

[03:37:01] I went to the graduation. I will say that this year there were no Almar County graduates. I knew that when I went, but I just wanted to support the program, and it was really great to meet the five graduates that were there. But it really is, so it's the Go Cook program, but it's through culinary concepts.

[03:37:21] And the other thing that I want to mention, and I see Ann Wall is behind me. And Ann, you can jump in if you'd like. But I just, we need to get back to you all with a fuller report. But our trip to Champaign-Urbana was outstanding.

[03:37:41] And I don't even know how to give you a quick report in a couple of minutes. But as you know, we went to look at their transit system because they are utilizing hybrid electric as well as hydrogen fuel cells to operate their bus system.

[03:38:00] If you think about their university system, just like we are, double the size of the University of Virginia, I think 59,000 students. They are providing transit for the university, the greater community, and their public schools, middle school and high school.

[03:38:23] And it is a sweet system. They are producing their own hydrogen. They're talking about now possibly shipping some of it in. And they have a track record of around 10 years of doing this. And just to make it short and sweet, we're looking at offering another trip in the fall.

[03:38:44] We're hoping to get the University of Virginia to join us. And I know the city folks are interested in going, and I would encourage you all to think about joining the second group. And Ann, do you want to add anything that I might have missed? I mean, that's sort of a quick rundown, but more to come.

[03:39:03] A great way to create a transit system under the umbrella of our regional transit authority, perhaps that provides transportation in a really clean, efficient way.

[03:39:22] So, thanks. Thank you. I look forward to hearing more about that particular program as well. Board, this brings us back to item 14, which is to go to a closed meeting. Supervisor Pruitt, do you have a motion?

[03:39:40] Of course. I would like to move that the... Mr. Richardson has a... Oh, my apologies. Board, I think we've tried to have an eye this afternoon on efficiencies and saving time where it's appropriate. Again, I'll have a suggestion for the board. Mr. Sumner is here this evening.

[03:39:56] He'll also be here after 6 o'clock, and he's prepared to come up and say a few words. about the tax billing issue this week. If that's suitable to the board, we have made a public release of information out to our community on our tax bill notices. But sir, with your permission, I'd invite our chief finance officer up just to talk for a few minutes and make sure the board doesn't have questions, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. Jacob Sumner, chief financial officer.

[03:40:29] So I appreciate a few moments to talk about our current tax bills, particularly our real estate bills. The real estate bills and the personal property bills were mailed out recently. But we did have an issue with our real estate bills. So I want to be clear, this is not the personal property bills. This is just the real estate bills. We moved to a new vendor for this billing season. And with that, we also moved to a new bill format. And in that complexity, we missed mapped so to speak where some of our information went on that real estate tax bill so at the the

[03:41:06] tear-off portion the the stub portion of the the tax bill it had inadvertently had the full year tax as the amount due when it should have just been the first half so what we and that can create some confusion especially by those that are paying those those statements directly as opposed to perhaps through the escrow and the mortgage company. I will say that this mapping issue only affected those printed bills. The bills that are online and the information that is communicated with our mortgage companies, that was the correct amount. And that information is

[03:41:42] correct. Nonetheless, seeing the confusion that this can cause, we are reissuing the real estate tax bills with the corrected amounts. And so that I'm sharing with you all and also for our community that within the next week, or by the end of this week, we will have mailed out new tax bills for real estate. They'll look slightly different because we wanted to have a visual difference between the one that had the error in the stub versus the correct one. So these will be printed

[03:42:15] on yellow paper. So there will be a clear distinguishment between the incorrect bills and the correct one. We also have included language on there in red that this is the corrected tax statement. And so this is the appropriate one to use. Further, we've also included a flyer in the mailing to explain what happened, why there's a second mailing coming out on the tax bills, and also additional information on how to contact Department of clients and budget, and particularly our Revenue Administration Department.

[03:42:47] We'll be glad to answer any questions that our community members may have on the bill. We encourage folks to reach out if there is confusion. And so, one, we apologize for the confusion that this can cause, but I'm hoping that the effort to reissue the bills and mail them back out to the community, that we'll have the correct paper documents in hand.

[03:43:11] I'd be glad to answer any questions that the board may have. And I will just look to my right and left if anyone has a question. Just a question as to when you say the printed bills, what percentage of bills go out this way? That's a great question. So we do print all the real estate tax bills and send them out to all of our taxpayers. But the folks that have their real estate taxes paid via the mortgage company or through escrow they're not required to send in their own funds that's paid through the mortgage company to feed

[03:43:51] through there but there is documentation and record for record-keeping purposes for our property owners for so that they have that tax statement one in the paper format but also it is available online in a digital format should they they choose that option thank you I actually out of idle curiosity you You mentioned that this is not created a major problem, is mainly a problem for people who are no longer escrowed or who are never escrowed.

[03:44:20] Have we encountered yet anyone who is claiming that their escrow provider or their mortgage servicing company paid the full bill or something like that? I haven't had anything directly. I do know we have different abilities or abilities with our mortgage companies just to send data feeds.

[03:44:37] And so we are sharing the data digitally with the mortgage companies. And so that data is accurate. But if there is any questions or if there are any concerns, by all means, yes, we encourage the community to reach out to find some budget.

[03:44:56] We have our email and our phone number available on tax bills, on our website. That's our revenue administration office that will be able to directly answer those questions. That's very helpful. Well, I appreciate also just knowing a little bit more about what the behind, what the back end of mortgage servicing looks like.

[03:45:14] Thank you. Yes, I know I've received two emails, which I think forwarded to you. And have you received a number of others? I will say the phone calls that we've received in our call queue have really been more about our normal questions that we receive during this time of the year about their tax bills.

[03:45:35] And there's been very few that have been about the stub itself. So, you know, that doesn't mean that there's confusion, that there could be confusion out there. It's just those are the few that have reached out. Yeah, and I've received a handful, which, and I, anyway, I have another question, though.

[03:45:56] I know that our mail delivery has improved in this community somewhat, but there are still challenges with people getting their mail, and these are being delivered by mail. I've already received one email from someone saying, shouldn't I have my tax bill by now?

[03:46:17] The answer is yes. So I'm just suggesting that, and I don't know what we do about it, but do we send out a press release at some point that says, if you haven't gotten your bill in the mail, because what's going to, I fear we're going to have some people that don't get the bills, don't think about it, and then they're going to be very upset with a late charge.

[03:46:42] Just trying to be proactive here. I appreciate that feedback, and I can absolutely work with CAPE on what that kind of communication would look like. I will say that the bills are available online. I understand that, but we're used to getting that bill in the mail, and I'm just anticipating problems, but I understand that.

[03:47:01] But maybe a press release saying if you haven't gotten it, it's online, folks, or something. Just a suggestion. Thank you. If there's nothing further, thank you. Thank you much.

[03:47:16] Appreciate it. And then we will turn now to a closed meeting motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2, TAC 3711A of the Code of Virginia under Subsection 1 to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including, without limitation, Economic Development Authority, Historic Preservation Committee, Jaunt, Board of Directors, Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board, Jefferson Madison Regional Library, Board of Trustees, Police Department, Citizens Advisory Committee, Region 10 Community Services Board, Pantop's Community Advisory Committee, and Bill Gibray-Vanna Community Advisory Committee.

[03:47:48] Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor LaPista-Curtley. Without objections, the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. LaPista-Curtley? Aye. Thank you.

[03:48:04] The board will move.

[04:57:15] It is a day for phones going off, isn't it? Okay. Good evening. We are back, and we will start by coming out of closed session. Do we have a motion? Momentarily. I always forget the second one and the first one sometimes.

[04:57:40] It gives us a minute to all take a deep rest, so that's okay. It works. Thank you. I would like to move that the Board of Supervisors certify by a recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only the public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirement of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered during the closed meeting.

[04:58:08] Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor McKeel, without objection. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. LaPiesto-Kirtley? Aye. And, Board, I believe we have a motion coming out of closed meeting.

[04:58:26] Vice Chair McKeel? We do. We have a motion to approve representatives on boards and commissions. So I'll read them all, and it'll be one motion. I move to appoint to the board, Philip Filipowski.

[04:58:44] I'm sorry, excuse me, Nicholas Filipowski. For the Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board, Kaki Dimmick. Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board, Michael Powers. Pantops Community Advisory Committee, David Norford.

[04:59:02] For the Police Department, Citizens Advisory Committee, Bonnie Brewer. Donna Price, Nicole Hall, and Maureen Dean, Region 10 Community Services Board, Mary Catherine King, and the Village of Ravana Community Advisory Committee, Stephanie Shobe, Howard Huttinger, Teresa Stephens-Rines, and Edward Doug Earle.

[04:59:27] Second. We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, a second from Supervisor Malek, without objection if the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. The next item, is there a report from the county executive? No, sir. Not this evening, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Which takes us to item 18, from the public, matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing or matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? We do not. Thank you. Then, board, we are ready for first of four public

[05:00:06] hearings on the agenda for this evening. The first is fiscal year 2024 budget amendment Appropriations led by Mr. Ryan Davidson, Deputy Chief, Office of Management and Budget. Welcome, Mr. Davidson. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Ryan Davidson, the Deputy Chief of Budget. This item is a public hearing, an action item to amend the FY24 budget. I have a couple of slides to provide

[05:00:43] a brief overview of the contents, at which time I will turn it over to the Chair and the Board for any questions and to hold the public hearing. So the Virginia Code requires that a public hearing before amending the budget when the total amount of funding change exceeds 1% of the currently adopted budget. That's the case that we have tonight. Overall, the budget amendment for discussion for tonight's public hearing is approximately $12.6 million. Of that amount, approximately $2.6 million of that was approved by the board as part of prior appropriations as outlined on the screen above with the dates. And an additional $9.8 million is under consideration

[05:01:19] for approval tonight. Again, of the total $12.6 million proposed amendment, including both the current and the previously approved appropriations, it's broadly made up of the items above here. Attachment A included with tonight's agenda has greater detail, as well as the prior agendas from the dates on the previous slide, has greater details on each of these appropriations. But generally, we're looking at $7.5 million in special revenue funds, including housing fund, health funds, CACVB, grants funds, $2.8 million in capital and debt funds for both the county government and public schools related projects and debt expenses, $2.1 million in general fund

[05:01:58] operating appropriations including facility and environmental services, fire rescue and a general fund transfer to health care, and finally approximately $150,000 in revenue updates for the ECC fund. To wrap up this presentation, staff's recommendation is for after the board hold the public hearing to adopt resolution and attachment B. At this point I will turn it over to the board for any questions and to hold the public hearing. Thank you. And we'll go through our order.

[05:02:26] Supervisor Malik. No questions right now. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto Kirtley. No questions. Thank you. Supervisor Galloway. I have no questions. Supervisor Pruitt. Nothing. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. No questions. And I have no questions. So that means we're ready to open the public hearing. I'd like to remind the public that if you have a desire to speak on this or any other public hearing matters this evening, there are sign-up sheets on my left under the window.

[05:02:53] audience right. Please do so before we start the public hearing. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? We do not. Then I will close the public hearing for this first one. And the matter is back before the board. And I will look to my right and left. If anyone has any additional comments on this, then we are looking for a motion in the form of attachment B.

[05:03:23] happy to make a motion that the board adopt the resolution which is attachment b second okay we have a motion from supervisor mckeel a second from supervisor malik without objection if the clerk will call the roll mr pruitt aye mr andrews yes mr galloway yes ms malik yes ms mckeel yes ms lapista kirtley aye all right thank you that was quick so we'll be on to now our second public hearing public hearing to consider zma 2023-12 holly hills presented by mr rebecca ragsdale

[05:04:01] planning manager welcome thank you just going to get the presentation up and get situated thank you for that introduction it is a rezoning for holly hills and it also includes a special exception that doesn't require a public hearing but will require your action so i have a brief presentation to kind of summarize the highlights of the staff report and orient you to the property

[05:04:32] if you're not already familiar. The property is located on the east side of 29 and it's situated to the north of what is was formerly known as RST but the Archer North development now and is on the eastern northern side surrounded by Hollymead and Forest Lakes. The proposal includes about 30 acres and would rezone the parcel from R1 to plan residential district to allow up to 410 units but we'll get into the details in a second these are the properties again outlined

[05:05:12] they are mostly wooded and there are there is a single family residence on one of them so it's in an area again between the existing neighborhoods that I mentioned and then the future neighborhood to the south this is the current zoning map just you know to indicate again where we have recently approved residential development or established residential neighborhoods like hollymead and forest lakes and shows you that this is a an area of r1 zoning

[05:05:50] currently but the comprehensive plan does recommend that area for urban density residential which would be up to 36 dwelling units an acre and in this case again they proposed 410 units i think of about a gross density of 13 units an acre this is the uh the application plan this is as a planned residential district the application plan is required by ordinance and it shows you the major elements we described in the staff report with the location of building envelopes

[05:06:26] the primary public road access points with the new entrance off of 29 which will essentially be an extension of Archer from Brookhill through future RST, now Archer North, to connect to this neighborhood. So there's a combination of public roads primarily and then some emergency access points, such as over to, I believe it's South Holymead Drive and one of the other cul-de-sacs in Holymead. And then there's also some anticipated future interconnections to the property

[05:07:06] that is still remaining you can see in white that would not that's not part of this rezoning given the environmental features such as the preserved and managed slopes and the streams there is about 40 open space and a system of trails is proposed and amenity areas included in terms of the development the prd and mentioned the 40 because the planned residential district the minimum is 25%. I think that probably covers the highlights of the plan. I know the applicant

[05:07:40] has a presentation as well that may answer some of your questions. There was an illustrative plan, you know, the application plan that I just showed you is the guiding zoning document, but this is an example of how the development could look and in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan neighborhood model principles we didn't have any concerns and then there weren't any

[05:08:09] transportation concerns indicated and then there would be as you can see their anticipation of a combination of different housing types and I mentioned with the step back request that there was also a special exception and I'll just touch on that now the special exception one that you see quite often is to waive or modify the step back requirement. So that requirement's on the screen there for each story that begins above 40 feet or the third story. There's a requirement to step

[05:08:47] back 15 feet. We're finding that you've seen that staff recommends approval of these requests for four-story buildings and we look at sort of the design and layout of the site and then we do it is a special exception so we are looking at it on a case-by-case basis but in this case it is for four-story multi-family buildings that are anticipated to be no taller than 48 feet so we didn't have any concerns with that so we have recommended both approval of the rezoning and the special exception request the planning commission recommended approval of the rezoning they weren't

[05:09:24] you know they're not required to make a motion on the special exception and there were no there There wasn't any public comments at the Planning Commission. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We will go through an order for questions.

[05:09:41] Supervisor Malek? No, thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley? No questions. Supervisor Galloway? Not right now, thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? I have no questions, thank you. Supervisor McKeel? No questions. I guess I will break the string there.

[05:10:03] When you talked about the special exception, and this has come before us many times in the past, is there sort of, what are the circumstances, what are you looking for when you're going to say, well, what is the concern that you're most worried about?

[05:10:19] So we usually go back to the neighborhood model principle of building and spaces, space, I'm trying to say it too fast, buildings and spaces of human scale, meaning we don't want two minimal setbacks to, you know, a canyon effect or buildings out of scale to the pedestrian.

[05:10:39] We're not, you know, looking back and reflecting on this regulation as our planning department does, our planning division. It seems like, you know, four stories might have been too soon to require the step back in terms of the height. But it's really sort of, that's what we go back to in terms of, you know, So we're looking at the height of the building that is proposed and what setbacks are proposed when we look at these requests to see what the spatial enclosure and that neighborhood model principle, whether that would be affected or not adversely.

[05:11:18] Thank you. With that, I believe we can open the public hearing. Do we have anyone sign up? We do not. Then we will turn to the rules for the applicant. the applicants are limited to a 10-minute presentation of their proposal and are allowed a five-minute rebuttal at the close of the public hearing timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium the green light will go on when you begin speaking which begins your allotted time the yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking the red light

[05:11:54] indicates your time has expired and you'll be asked to end your comments all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Almar County website. So, Mr. Blaine, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm Steve Blaine, representing the applicants in this rezoning application. Please speak up a little bit. Yeah, there with the mic is helpful. My presentation is appearing on my screen, but not on your screen. Can you see it? No. Claudette?

[05:12:34] we'll see what's up there I can see it thank you thank you I was about to say that the applicants are a joint venture of the stony point development group and you may be familiar with and Dominion Realty partners the principal Michael Campbell from Dominion Realty is here tonight as well as the rest of

[05:13:12] our team so if there are questions that come up I'm hopefully we can answer those the image that Rebecca showed with the application plan as we know the application plan in this type of rezoning is our governing document which means as the project is more and you know fully engineered and designed any site plans subdivisions coming forward would have to conform to the application plan as Rebecca mentioned also the housing types plan would be four-story

[05:13:48] apartments and townhouses. The area of the light pan is where the apartment buildings, and I have a graphic that shows a scenario later here, but the idea of putting the less dense townhouse units more adjacent to the established neighborhoods was a deliberate design, and it seemed to be well received by the neighborhood. As you might expect, the plan evolved significantly from the initial design phase. Before filing the rezoning, we met with the leadership of both the Hollymead

[05:14:27] Owners Association and Forest Lakes. We had several meetings with that group, and we had a, I think, a well-attended community meeting back in January at the Places 29. The feedback we got early on, it was pretty apparent that there was concern about traffic coming from this project into the adjacent neighborhoods.

[05:14:51] And in response, we pledged to the communities that the access to South Hollymead Drive over what is referred to as Reuben Lane and the access to Derby Lane would be emergency access only.

[05:15:09] The other feedback we got was concern about buffers. So you'll see in the green, the dark green strip around adjacent to the neighborhoods, That's a 20-foot natural buffer, so mostly wooded areas, so we're going to maintain that.

[05:15:26] In addition to the wooded natural buffer, there will also be a 10-foot landscape buffer in those areas. So those were well-received. The main access is off of 29, this future Archer Avenue.

[05:15:43] We're happy to say that the southern portion is just, they just started breaking ground today on the south part. which is on the RST property, what is now referred to as Archer North. This puts us in more of a context.

[05:16:07] The image shows in the large light gray area, that's Brook Hill. Then this is looking north to the RST property, and then the Holly Hills to the north of that.

[05:16:23] It shows existing and proposed multi-use paths. It shows the opportunities for interconnectivity. We already have good pedestrian opportunities with the development of Brook Hill, which will provide sidewalks and a path up to Ashwood Boulevard.

[05:16:47] And then that can continue through the RST property and on into the Holly Hills property. The light blue line indicates a multi-use path in the Forest Lakes and Hollymead communities. We have an opportunity to connect to those as well, and the yellow line I'll describe a little bit more in a minute is a future path to allow, in particular, elementary school students and their parents to walk.

[05:17:18] You can see the proximity of Hollymead Elementary School. We borrowed this from, I think this was from the staff report. It's, again, showing the larger context with the project proximate to the school.

[05:17:37] It shows a scenario of where the buildings would be located, again, emphasizing that the townhouse units will be adjacent to the established communities, the apartment buildings more central, and along 29.

[05:17:55] There's a 100-foot setback from 29, which will be maintained, and that's called for, of course, in the Places 29 master plan. That yellow line I described is an opportunity to develop a trail that can be used by both Forest Lakes, Hollymead, and the new development, and this kind of gives you a concept of what we're prepared to do.

[05:18:25] We also have a special exception. Section 4.19 requires a 15-foot step back for buildings above 3 feet, and we thought these images might support the staff's finding that this is really an appropriate location to allow the full four-story buildings without a step back.

[05:18:53] I mean, I would observe that this ordinance is probably more, they're more exception than there is the rule, but certainly there are locations where it's appropriate, and that's why this is an appropriate action. So this is looking, coming down 29 southbound to the east, and then the entrance is the view 2 below, and then just another perspective, you're looking sort of northbound to the right to the east.

[05:19:25] and so we would hope that that would support the special exception. With that we'll pause if there are any questions. We've got our team here and we hope to be able to answer them. Great. Thank you very much. We will go through our order starting with Supervisor Malik. Thank you. I certainly appreciate all the details you've provided. The 20-foot natural buffer, undisturbed I guess is the term you use around the periphery. Is there contemplated if things die as they sometimes do and create through storms or construction challenges or something, open areas,

[05:20:04] do you plan to replenish those for a certain number of years? Yes, there's a note to the application plan that says where it's needed, we would augment that with landscaping and we would conform to the landscaping standards in the site plan. Very good. Thank you.

[05:20:22] Supervisor Lupisto Curdley. Yes, just one question. You're planning on sidewalks along Archer going through throughout the development? Yes, of course. Yes. Thank you. Supervisor Gallagher?

[05:20:40] I just want to clarify on that question. It might be helpful to go to that picture with the whole site concept. The one that's going along Archer on the south of Archer is a multi-use path.

[05:20:56] So you're going to have sidewalks on the other places where there's not multi-use path marked? That's correct. Because that I didn't see in the key. And the multi-use path that runs north on 29, there's a multi-use path that goes up, and then you have a crossover of 29 up closer to the cemetery.

[05:21:19] That's right. So that was what I was wondering. The folks that are living north of Archer or east of Archer, what are they doing to be able to access that multi-use path to 29 north so they'll have sidewalks? Well, they have the multi-use path, so that would be for pedestrian and bicyclists.

[05:21:38] So the multi-use path is the only pedestrian infrastructure on the whole site? No, no, there's a multi-use path along Archer Avenue, but there's sidewalks, and there's those through the rest of the street throughout the site. Okay, that was my question. Yeah, and that's a detail that we typically don't see in an application plan will certainly be required in the site plan.

[05:21:56] So all the public roads or travelways will have sidewalks on them? Yes, sir. Internal, because it's a multi-use path and people wanting to get there to bike and do the multi-use path network, I mean, I don't know what to expect traffic-wise on Archer Avenue. This will be a new street network running from polo grounds all the way up. So we really don't know what is going to occur in that. I'm just thinking if people start using other pathways like that as cut-throughs, will there be like crosswalks or things that are crossing Archer

[05:22:35] inside the site or some sort of something that will help people get to the multi-use path if they wanted it? Yeah, again, that would be something we would address in the site plan, but we want to you know promote safety within the community because vdot might have some say in that that's correct pedestrian crossing the term vdot expanded stormwater management facility so is that there's a facility there now that you all are expanding to meet the needs of the new development and then who owns that then if it's vdots now or do they have easement like can you

[05:23:10] just explain the relationship of that who owns the responsibility of that facility after this development's done. I believe it's within the right-of-way, but I'll ask Scott to address that. Scott Collins or Collins Engineering. Hey, Scott Collins. Yes, it's actually the same exact scenario that would happen to the property below this Brook Hill. There was an existing stormwater management facility that was owned by VDOT. Brook Hill Development came in and took it over.

[05:23:38] They enhanced it. They put the landscaping around it that you see now. It's much different from all the other ones along 29 and Berkmar they put better fencing and they actually did take it over VDOT released it and gave it to the community it becomes part of the HOA so it's been owned and maintained by the HOA which is great because sometimes relying on VDOT to maintain those is not the not the not the best so that's the same scenario that we're envisioning for this one as well and we've already been talking with VDOT about that and the second is a new stormwater management facility you'll need to put in or is that existing as well uh yes all the facilities

[05:24:16] you see are proposed at this point so that would be a new one down there yes that would be a new one got it thank you um and if the step backs if i understand are only on the buildings that are internal to the site did i read something did i misread something and i thought i said something in explaining the rationale for the setback but all these buildings are kind of or maybe it was referring to the 100 foot setback so it's not that some building they're all going to be four stories

[05:24:54] there's not going to be some three some four um yeah most all of them most departments will actually be three stories or three stories of the basement but they do it they do exceed the 30 foot height so then that's why they would all have the step back requirement the relief from the step back requirement gotcha and then some of the other units uh some of the townhouse units as well it might may be higher than the 30 feet as well thank you and then i noticed in some of the public feedback that it said something about concerns about construction using the emergency access points have you guys responded to that or reacted to that or is there plans for i can't imagine over

[05:25:32] on derby that construction vehicles would need to go in that way that's not the plan i can't imagine south hollymead are they all going to be entering off of 29 specifically yes that is the plan for all of them to enter and exit 29 and 29 which is set up for it great thank you awesome thank you thank you supervisor pruitt i don't believe i have any questions thank you supervisor mckim i'll take a pass thank you uh just to clarify uh you mentioned that of course derby and uh

[05:26:08] reuben lane are emergency only but they are also fully pedestrian bike accessible is that correct Absolutely. Yes, sir. They're public streets. That's right. It's just to make a connection over. I appreciate that. But then you showed that yellow, which I was intrigued by, that leads to the school.

[05:26:29] And is this, what property is this and what is the development right there? It's over both property owned by the Forest Lakes and the Hollymead HOA. So we need to get their permission and intend to work with them on that.

[05:26:47] They seemed receptive to it. In fact, it came about because folks observed that, well, it's great to have, you know, a sidewalk and a walkway up to Derby Lane, but there's no sidewalks on Derby Lane. So the children are just going to be walking in the street if they're going to use it.

[05:27:06] So this seemed like a sensible alternative to take them off the street and provide a pathway. I just want to make sure. So we hope you're successful at this. This is, I think, is a great... We intend to be a great asset to that community, but, yeah, it sounds like it needs to be negotiated.

[05:27:25] But in the meantime, they can use Derby, then walk along South Hollywood Drive, so that's... As long as they hold their parents' hands, that's fine. The sidewalk, I don't... It's on, I think on what side... Sidewalk's on the other side?

[05:27:41] On the north side. And I agree with Supervisor Galloway that there may be a need eventually for crosswalks within once that archer is opened up and you start to get more traffic that way. Those are my only questions at this point.

[05:27:59] Thank you. You have an opportunity for rebuttal. I have a comment whenever that's appropriate. Okay. Then are there any additional questions of staff? For comment for them.

[05:28:15] For them. Okay. So keep in the public hearing. Go ahead. Very good. So I will just, and Scott, wherever you went, will be very well aware of the, oh, there you are, foothills crossing, very big pedestrian dangers because of the rolling nature and the fact that the crosswalks are just under the tops of the crests.

[05:28:36] So anything you can do in advance while it's still on paper to prevent that kind of situation will really help these new residents a lot because it's been 10 years and we're still struggling with, I mean, 40 mile an hour traffic is really terrible when you can't see the person pushing the pram over the hill.

[05:28:53] So anyway, I'll pass that along. Thank you. Good point. Yeah, definitely. Appreciate that. I will just briefly add, if you all come away with any tips or best practices on how to get two HOAs to convince you to let you build a trail, I'd be happy to hear it.

[05:29:09] Yeah, that is a concern. Supervisor Galloway? I guess it's a question more for staff. So if there were internal along archer, I mean, I know what the process would be to get a crosswalk if the street network's already in place. That's different. But this is a newly developed one, which probably a good idea to try to do from the get-go. Does that conversation get explored with VDOT before the development goes through or at site planning? So that, like Mr.

[05:29:42] Blaine said, will be something that VDOT and our transportation staff and the reviewers are looking for and reviewing at the time of road plans and site plans? Before it's all done. I mean, I what what I'm leading towards is I'd hate to see this get put in and then it's it's up and it's running and a year later we're like we need some crosswalks when okay we should have did that from the get-go yeah we we keep a close eye on that thank you thank you yes I would just say that the this the developers really worked well with the community and listening to what they wanted and

[05:30:19] putting in the trails and everything so for that I'm happy because not everybody is amenable to changes and suggestions from the community but they were there are no other questions or concerns with the applicant i will close the public hearing uh the matter is back before the board um i will look to my right and left to see if anyone has any additional comments or concerns uh if not we could actually i think go to a motion from supervisor of the district

[05:30:51] we have two motions okay so we'll start with the uh okay i um i move that um we approve the proposed zoning mac zoning map amendment zma 2023 00012 uh to adopt the ordinance attached to the staff report as attachment d second we have a motion from supervisor lapisto currently a second from Supervisor McKeel. Without objection, clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr.

[05:31:26] Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. And now the step-back waiver. This is to approve the proposed special exception SC-2023-00044 to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment E. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley, second from Supervisor Malik without objection to call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malik? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms.

[05:32:02] Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. Thank you all. That concludes that item. Board, our next item is two additional public hearings that we will treat presentations together, look for questions together, but then we have two separate public hearings with two separate motions, and these are related to our amendments to Water Protection Ordinance and Associated Fee Schedule, presented

[05:32:31] by Mr. Frank Pohl, our county engineer. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Andrews and members of the board. My name is Frank Pohl, the county engineer and Water Protection Ordinance Program Administrator. Tonight, I'll be presenting the proposed amendments for the WPO, Water Protection ordinance and associated fee schedule for your consideration. I would make you one, as you mentioned, one presentation. However, I will have two separate motions for you to vote on,

[05:33:09] one for each ordinance, and if approved, they will have, both have a delayed effective date of July 1, 2004. A brief background of the current county ordinance upon which was modeled are the, It was adopted in 2014 to adopt the Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control Program regulations and the Virginia Stormwater Management Program regulations.

[05:33:43] In 2016, the General Assembly enacted the Virginia Erosion, this is a lot of words here, the wordsmith, but Virginia Erosion and Stormwater Management Program, which is the combined regulation of those two other regulations.

[05:33:59] However, a date was not established at that time to implement the regulations, but in December this past year, they did pass the regulation or adopt, rather, the regulation with a delayed effective date of July 1, 2024, which was chosen to give us local jurisdictions time to adopt those changes themselves, which is why we are here this evening.

[05:34:27] So the consolidation of the regulations resulted in changes that I've sorted into two categories. The first is non-regulatory or what I call clerical, and the second being regulatory changes, clarifications, and procedural changes.

[05:34:50] On this slide are examples of the non-regulatory or clerical changes, including updating, deleting, and adding definitions, Updating section titles, updating the fee schedule, eliminating references to the old programs, and I'm not going to say them again, combining sections of the code and modifying associated language with the code to reflect the consolidation of the programs, and modernizing the language within the code.

[05:35:24] For instance, changing he to administrator and replacing shall with will, must, or may. I'll note that those were not done for all sections. They were only done for the sections that changed or required amendments.

[05:35:43] The next category of changes includes regulatory changes, clarifications, and procedures. On the screen are changes that I've identified in this category. Starting at the top, under current state law, land disturbances greater than one acre associated with a single-family home must meet water quality and quantity requirements.

[05:36:05] Water quality addresses nutrient reductions, and water quantity addresses channel erosion and flood protection. Under the new law, however, the threshold for water quantity was lowered to 10,000 square feet.

[05:36:22] However, the water quality threshold is still at an acre. This change will affect applicants. However, an agreement in lieu of a plan is allowed for stormwater, which is the water quality and water quantity requirement for any activity associated with this construction of a single family home.

[05:36:47] But it's also at the discretion of the administrator. There's also an agreement in lieu for erosion and sediment control up to one acre in the county ordinance. The second item is regarding streamside management zones, which apply to forestry activities.

[05:37:07] Forestry activities are exempt from the regulations if SMZs are provided, consistent with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. For those who may not know what a streamside management zone is, it is a 50-foot buffer along a stream with limitations on the amount of clearing that can be performed within that buffer.

[05:37:25] The current ordinance does require SMZs, however, the wording could be interpreted to require SMZs also for agricultural activities, which is not authorized by the state. So we are correcting the code to eliminate or to make it clear that SMZs are only required for activities that wish to remain exempt as a forestry activity.

[05:37:53] The third item is to eliminate the ability to obtain default approval of an application plan or some type of application without an administrative review. So currently we have that in there that if after the time is expired that the plan is automatically approved, this provision is not best practice nor is it enabled under state law.

[05:38:19] The fourth item is to clearly require that a county land disturbance permit is required. You would think this is clear in our ordinance, but it's not. So we just wanted to make it clear it is a policy, however, and we do issue permits today. So it's not a change in how we perform our work.

[05:38:40] Lastly, item five includes other administrative procedural changes and clarifications. And a few examples of these are to require swift revisions at the job site. That's required currently under policies and guidance by the state, by DEQ, and adding a provision to address repeat erosion and sediment control failures or violations on a particular project.

[05:39:13] Before we move on to questions, for the record, I wanted to state that there is an update provided to you today. It should have been given to you on a blue piece of paper. This update applies to Section 17811 , inspections by the Administrator under the VESMP.

[05:39:34] This update is shown on the slide and it corrects the inspection frequency for regular erosion and sediment control inspections from monthly to bi-weekly. This is in alignment with the current ordinance and the new regulations and was an oversight during the editing of the ordinance.

[05:39:55] With that, I will turn it over to you for questions and to answer any questions or discuss anything in more detail. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go through our order. Supervisor Malek.

[05:40:10] Thank you very much. And thank you for the presentation and for answering many of my questions before now. So that saves everybody time. But there are a couple of things I would love you to clarify and tell me whether they are within the authority of us to change or whether it's things that the state has precluded us from changing.

[05:40:29] we know when to stop. I received citizen comments about the kinds of proposed exemptions for wash water and the AAAF firefighting foam used at the airport and lots of other places, and particularly comments about oil spills at gas stations and things like that that are just supposedly allowed to be washed down into the river. So do we have any authority to improve those? Currently they are exempt under whatever is on our exempt list is a state the state's list for exemptions so if we

[05:41:05] wanted to tighten those standards we'd have to get approval from DEQ okay so a separate than tonight would be a process that the board could do if they chose correct DEQ future second one and last one is under agricultural roads I did receive comments from residents about the person putting in a farm road which has no proper drainage and crosses streams and basically behaves differently than one would have in an approved subdivision, and then wants to come back shortly, two years even, afterwards and say, okay, now we have this existing road and we want to have a subdivision.

[05:41:45] So is that something that we have authority to strengthen, change the length of time, or is that something we would need to do as a separate action? Again, we would have to do that at a different time, but it could be proposed, yes. The board could request that we propose it to DEQ, and we would do that at a different time.

[05:42:06] At a different time. Got it. Okay, that's all my questions. Thank you very much, and thank you for helping me ahead of time. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Kirtley. I have a question on the sheet that we received. It's on page two, number five, and I'm sure that all my colleagues get it, but I don't.

[05:42:30] So it was exclusion of erosion and sediment control measures from stream buffers where feasible and where not feasible. Removal and restoration prior to project completion. You're speaking about, I think, erosion and sediment control measures.

[05:42:49] And this is within the 17600 section 604. Yes, 604. So that's a carryover from that's currently in our ordinance. It's not there's no change proposed. we did that in 2021. We moved that from 603 to 604. 603 did not require mitigation and 604 does require mitigation. So I'm not sure if I answered your question. Could you rephrase your question?

[05:43:19] Well, that, so that sentence makes sense to you. I think it just wants to help understanding what it means. Let me read it again. I read that. I'm going, what? I don't see that we've changed that section of the ordinance maybe well it was it's under the executive summary yeah that's why i was reading it yeah i went i went to 604 and it's of course not listed because it's not changed

[05:43:59] right but can you pass can you pass that i'm asking you pass the executive summary to me do you have that okay i'm sorry i'm causing such a kerfuffle we just want to make sure you get the answer yes it's the confusing part where feasible and we're not feasible what's more a question of it's it's saying the discussion says that this is a more stringent county specific regulations whatever uh but then it lists this specifically

[05:44:38] but 604 actually isn't changing so it's not clear why this is in this list of of six items in the summary. Good question. I mean, it reads weird because it says we're feasible and we're not feasible. So it's like, what the hell are you talking about? Right. It reads weird to begin with, but it also is in a section that we don't have.

[05:44:53] Put a period in where feasible, start the second one as a second sentence, and then it's too different. At least that's the way I read it. Well, this is a good question, and this is a lesson learned for me to not include things that are not changing in the executive summary.

[05:45:09] So these are the higher standards in our ordinance, and I wanted to point out that are not changing which may have been a mistake on my part but that's what this section is it's this is just a summary of what that requirement is so it's not the actual regulation but it's no that part i understand you're right no and that part i understand i understand you're not changing and you put it in there i'm just saying it was confusing for me and um ned or excuse me supervisor galloway brought it up between the where feasible and not feasible and then it just

[05:45:48] was a little it's an awkward sentence yeah she was trying to understand the meaning of the sentence yeah it makes sense that if you have a project that uh must impact this is in the outer 50 feet of a buffer if they must impact that area so if you have a the one that you just saw right now we would say you have plenty of room the previous item that you saw uh oak hill you have plenty of to put your erosion and sediment control measures outside of the buffer there may be a project where they cannot do that so there's an allowance to allow the first 50 foot to be impacted for that

[05:46:24] measure but it has to be removed and then restored after construction is completed okay all right thank you no other questions i think i'm just going to go under the table and sorry about that No, it's an awkward grid.

[05:46:40] It's lawyery is what it is. Well, it's because where feasible and where not feasible are right next to it. So if you get hung up on that, you're like, well, but it's talking about two different. But no offense to the lawyers or the attorneys at the table, but it's kind of attorney language. Oh, no, all offense directed your way.

[05:46:57] Don't put where feasible and not feasible, right? Engineers and lawyers. I'll add engineers to it. And it's getting late. Supervisor Calloway. I'm up. What are we doing? right. I thought I just did my part. Oh, we're feasible and not feasible. I have no questions.

[05:47:16] All right. Supervisor Chris. I have no questions. Thank you. Thank you. And Supervisor McKeel. And you're going to be happy. I have no questions. Thank you. And just a second. This is a fair question. When you say land distribution permits are required, I'm just trying to make sure I understand where that's what's what impact does that have on the on the activities that are not included, like agriculture based activities?

[05:47:54] I guess I, you know, I see under the SMZs, you said doesn't apply to agriculture. That does apply to forestal activities. So that was for streamside management zones. But then when you mentioned about land disturbance permit will be required, I wonder what exceptions, if any, are there for that?

[05:48:21] No, there are no exceptions to the stream site management zone, nor to the permit requirement. With respect to agriculture or otherwise? Agriculture is exempt already, so that's a state exemption. So for forestry, I missed the first part of your question. I'm sorry.

[05:48:40] I'm sorry. You're getting at it right now. So forestry is exempt under state law, and we adopted a higher standard in Albemarle County to require streamside management zones and also the best management practices for erosion and sediment control measures in the county if they want to remain exempt under forestry.

[05:49:01] So we're just clarifying that the streamside management zone does not apply because Virginia law does not apply that to agriculture or past, you know, converting to a pasture. So we, we rearranged the wording to make that clear that it does not also apply or could not also apply to converting to a pasture, which is an agricultural activity.

[05:49:28] Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Supervisor Malek. One follow-up. In your experience, have you had temporary conversion to pasture and run to subdivision, or is it pretty straightforward as far as the way things go along?

[05:49:47] You know, the conversion to pasture is based on what they tell you they're doing, okay? There's no two-year limit. There's no other thresholds in the state law for confirming that activity.

[05:50:05] so if you get an affidavit from the owner then we have to recognize that affidavit but you can you you can get it but we're not allowed to demand an affidavit we just take what they give us right correct thank you thank you um at this point i think we can open the public hearing are there any there are no signups then we will close the public hearing um and the matter is uh back before

[05:50:38] the board. We have two public hearings. So this is the public hearing related to WTA 2024-01. Do we do the second public hearing now? I look for the county attorney. We want to go forward and act on this. So we're looking for a motion. If there's no discussion, we're looking for a motion as shown on the screen. Supervisor? This motion already incorporates the amendment that's before us. That's that second clause. Oh, it does. Good. Okay. Great. I move to adopt chapter 17

[05:51:17] ordinance attached to the staff report as attachment A as amended by the revised section 17-811 dated May 31, 2024 with an effective date of July 1, 2024. Seconded. We have a motion from Supervisor Malek, second from Supervisor Pruitt. Without objection, the clerk will call the roll.

[05:51:33] Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Malek? Yes. Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. And now, board, I think we technically have a second public hearing for the OTA. And I will open the public hearing, and are there any sign-ups?

[05:51:51] There are not. Then I will close the public hearing. And the matter is back before the board. If there is no discussion, then we will look for the motion on the screen. Someone? I would like to move to adopt Chapter 1, Ordinance Attached.

[05:52:07] The staff report is Attachment B with the effective date of July 1st, 2024. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Pruitt, a second from Supervisor McKeel. Without objection, the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Andrews? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Mallett? Yes.

[05:52:23] Ms. McKeel? Yes. Ms. LaPister-Kirtley? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Paul. That concludes that. I will now look to the county executive and ask if there's anything further this evening he would like to add.

[05:52:40] No, sir. Board, we have previously discussed matters from the board. if anyone has anything further otherwise then uh we will adjourn to june 12th one week from today 1 p.m in lane auditorium uh the uh opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the albemarle county website on the board of supervisors home page and on the albemarle county calendar participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received thank you

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