Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Legislative Forum, Friday, December 6, 2024

Date: Friday, December 6, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 35m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1246
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1246

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 2026-10-15. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] Okay, thank you. Welcome. Recording in progress. We end our formalities because this is a meeting of the Board of Supervisors, but we'll get just there in a second. I'm going to call this meeting to order, recognizing supervisors present: Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, Dianna McKeeler-Jack Jewett District, Vila Pisto-Curtley from the Robana District, and Mike Pruitt from the Scottsville District, And I'm Jim Andrews, of course, from the Samuel Miller District.

[00:00:33] So we have a quorum. We're joined by our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our interim county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, and our title of the director of economic development, sorry, Emily Kilroy. And I also want to recognize our clerk, Ms. Claudette Orgerson, senior deputy clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

[00:00:54] We're here. And our police officers present from the Alwell County Police Department, we have Ms. Angela Jamerson. Thank you. And Officer Trent Cole, thank you for your service here today and every day on behalf of citizens of our county. So, welcome, Dr. Colson, Senator Deeds, it was great to have you here.

[00:01:16] But I'm going to turn the meeting over to our interim county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, for the presentation. Thank you.

[00:01:34] Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board, distinguished delegates, Senator Deeds, county staff. Thank you all for attending today. for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend Albemarle County's legislative forum for the year 2025. I'm Andy Eric, I'm the interim county attorney and it's my pleasure to present the county's legislative program on behalf of the Board of Supervisors.

[00:01:55] This is really a team effort and I'd also want to acknowledge the other county staff that have been invaluable in preparing this. I'd especially like to recognize Emily Kilroy, our newly minted Director of Economic Development, as well as James Douglas from our office, among many others from county staff our president today who have helped with the presentation I'd also like it to recognize David Blunt who's the legislative liaison for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission we've worked in very close collaboration with TJ PDC and David has done great work in the General Assembly representing the interests of the localities of Central Virginia so again thank you all

[00:02:33] for your assistance in preparing this presentation and thank you again for your time in in coming today this presentation is divided into into three parts we're going to start by going over the county's legislative priorities which are really targeted asks that the county has of the General Assembly then we're going to spend some time talking about legislative positions and policy statements this is a much wider range of issues that is likely to come before the Assembly this year and the positions and policy statements that we've drafted assist County staff when questions arise as to what the county's

[00:03:08] positions are in certain areas and then next steps we've organized this forum this year to be more interactive to allow more time for give-and-take so my presentation is going to be shorter than my predecessors presentations have been in prior years we're going to hit on some of the high points so following my presentation I understand that the board will go through its customary speaking order I'll follow me go first to questions and then and then come back okay so so there will be there'll be plenty of time for conversation again so if my presentation seems abbreviated from from what's been presented in past

[00:03:45] years that that's the reason for it so again as between the priorities and the positions the priorities again are the highest priorities that the county has and then legislative positions are our positions that the county would take in response to initiatives that may arrive in Richmond so we'll start with the priorities and we have six oops we have six targeted priorities and we'll go into depth into each one of these the first is to expand the photo speed device authority this is a an authority the county has used somewhat during the past

[00:04:21] year with some success but we're asking for expanded authority on that there's the one cent sales tax option for schools capital this is an item that I'm sure is familiar to the delegation a new one this year is to expand the offenses subject to property forfeiture to include community threats we'll explain that we have a couple of budget requests and miss Kilroy will speak to each of those right hand of futures and the biscuit run park project and then our final priority is to study tools to mitigate rent increases caused by multi-family residential development we'll go into each one of these now the

[00:04:57] first of which is to expand the photo speed device authority the Virginia code currently as I'm sure the delegation is aware has limited authority for localities to have photo speed enforcement under certain circumstances what we're asking the assembly to do is to expand that authority to allow photo speed monitoring devices on designated segments of roads where speeding has been identified as a problem I understand that legislation was introduced last year that it may not have gone as far as that as the county would like but again this is a priority for the county and we're asking

[00:05:32] that similar legislation be introduced in this year's assembly the next one is is one that I understand had more traction in last year's assembly and made it as far as the governor's desk as I understand and that would be to amend the code to designate Albemarle County in addition to the other previously designated localities or to allow a general authority statewide for the one sales tax revenue for school capital projects as I'm sure you all are aware there are a number of individual localities in Virginia already have this authority Albemarle County would like to be another one of them whether that be through statewide blanket authority or whether it being Albemarle County

[00:06:10] specifically designated we understand the obstacles that may arise in getting this to the governor's desk but we nonetheless would appreciate it if the assembly introduced this legislation and passed this legislation the problem wasn't getting the bill of the governor's that problem would probably still exist what i would suggest is probably a better source this time you got 2.2 billion dollars of budget surplus this time around junk of that money can be used for first construction grants school construction grants i think and that would make sense to me and i'm just speaking as one of one one of 140 people

[00:06:50] But I think that's probably a more or realistic source of school construction money this time around and then try this in a later But but I mean, I think this will still go forward Jerry but Pike had it in the scent last time somebody had it in the house I introduced about it several people did Sam Russell carried it and my understanding in the conversation with Things change, but he will try to do it again and if you want me to speak to the farmer I didn't know if we should be speaking while you're so I brought up the speed camera bill last year

[00:07:27] That was a bill, but there's again several delegates that had similar legislation so we rolled it all into one and Mike Jones from Richmond a delegate Jones from Richmond will be carrying it this year and Included like we've worked a lot about this issue and I think I talked to Jeff about this and We can go through those concerns later. I like I don't want to go into all the details, but our our language about Rural roads should be incorporated and delegate Jones as well on the school grant things that is a novel way to approach it, but I will say

[00:08:07] Because there is a school grant construction grant fund right now comes from casinos Almond did not get any they applied and they reapplied and they did not get any Charlottesville was able to get some but whatever metric formula they have would need to be a I get that I'm just suggesting there's enough of the surplus that you can do you can do lots of things with it you have to be smart about it because it's not you know you can't you're not guaranteed a surplus

[00:08:40] every year this is a new proposal that and that is to expand offenses subject to property forfeiture to include community threats currently the Virginia Code has provision that allows property that has been used in terrorist hoax incidents bomb threats or malicious activations of alarms it allows for a certain cost recovery but doesn't allow it is capped at $250 what Albemarle is proposing is that false reports to police be added to the list of offenses for which civil forfeiture is allowed.

[00:09:19] This slide goes into some details as to what would be involved. Again, it would expand the scope of offenses that would be subject to that civil forfeiture beyond just terrorism offenses to include, again, terrorism, hoax, incidences, bomb threats, or malicious activation fire alarms.

[00:09:35] The rationale for that is included on the slide. it allows seizure of property that's connected to that activity which again would be far more than the $250 that is currently capped by statute about how many offenses are you seeing if I might if I might defer to Amanda Farley who's a senior assistant county attorney in our office I don't have a specific number for you what was reported to me from our department is that it is not a common occurrence um even less potentially prosecutable offenses because some of the threats may originate

[00:10:12] outside the commonwealth if not outside of the country um so not not a common occurrence but one that does occur i would understand that the school division sees more some of these than we do so that and with with the school division what they receive they're either kids involved and it's really not collectible if you give them all the civil penalty you want or all make them some make them subject to this but that's not a collectible amount of money right or and if they're out if they're out of state that's not collectible either a large

[00:10:47] extent I mean it's academic well that's one of the benefits potentially of the forfeiture is that it's an action against the property itself not not against an individual if so if a kid's making a call from the cell phone what would be what would if a 16 year old was making the call making a call and making a hoax call what what's what property is subject to forfeiture well potentially anything that is has a nexus to the criminal activity anything that can be substantiated to that degree but it would be against the property and

[00:11:25] then the only claim would be an innocent owner so if the parents owned the phone which they would then they can make a claim under forfeiture that they were an innocent owner and then it would be disposed of differently but unless that that affirmative defense is actually acknowledged judicially then the property would be forfeited. Thank you. So with that I'm going to turn the

[00:11:49] presentation over to Emily to talk about the budget member requests. Good afternoon members of the board members of our local delegation good to see you all again. So this is this is a slide that I hope is very familiar to everyone in the room. The primary focus and the sort of the priority budget amendment from Albemarle County this year would be the state budget support for the Rivanna Futures phase one site readiness plan. This is an item that we brought forward last year for at a larger scale and so it was looking at sort of the full development potential of the property based

[00:12:28] on the feedback from you all and other members of the General Assembly last year. We spent the past couple months doing some conceptual engineering work to really look at what would a first bite that Apple look like. And what we have here is what we're calling phase one. It's the first 50 acres of the property that the county purchased adjacent to Rivanna Station. This would be for the site readiness for the first six development blocks. And you can see it would have a small extension of the existing terminus of Boulder's Road, which is right at this dotted line,

[00:13:03] as well as the sewer and water lines to serve those sites and the grading to make those sites what we would call sort of pad ready. We are in parallel pursuing state and federal grant funding to also support this work.

[00:13:18] As we continue to refine our estimates, we're able to substantiate more than $11 million worth of effort to bring this to the next level of site readiness. But this is the package that we've put together for the purposes of the General Assembly. And we appreciate the time that you all took this summer to come out and see the property and receive a briefing from us with a little bit more detail.

[00:13:41] We continue to be really excited about this project, but more importantly, so do a lot of other folks. And so we do think that this is a great opportunity, not just for the county, but our region as sort of a national security innovation hub with really commonwealth-wide significance.

[00:13:57] And so we're really excited about the potential there. The next slide is a video, so I'm going to tee it up before I click it because this is where we might hit an IT problem. So earlier this week, on Tuesday, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, it's a professional organization that serves the intelligence and national security professionals in the country across all of the branches of the military and the 18 intelligence agencies that fall under the Director of National Intelligence's purview.

[00:14:30] They focus a lot of their professional development events and learning and conference events in the National Capital Region, the greater D.C. area. They do occasionally have events outside of there in what they sort of recognize as hubs for their partners and their members.

[00:14:52] And so Huntsville, Alabama, they've done conferences in the Boston area. We were incredibly excited that they heard about all the good things that are happening in our community and decided that it was worth an effort to explore what holding an event here would look like.

[00:15:10] So it was Tuesday at the Boar's Head. We started working with them in earnest over the summertime. And I had asked, what's your goal? How many people are you hoping will come to this event here in Charlottesville? I know you're taking a little bit of a risk. And they said, you know, 200 would be a real stretch goal for us.

[00:15:29] And we are so excited to say that there were over 300 people in the room on Tuesday evening. A large percentage of those folks were from the D.C. area coming down to learn more about the project and the opportunity. We had a two-star general in the Army and members of our – some local leadership at Ravana Station sort of talking about all the innovation opportunities, the priorities for the intelligence community moving forward, and how this community can really be a piece of that.

[00:16:00] Not everyone who was invited to the event was able to attend, but Senator Kane, as well as Senator Warner, who've both been very interested in this project, recorded video messages that played during the event, and we wanted to play one of them for you.

[00:16:22] Hey everybody, Senator Tim King. I want to thank the Intelligence and National Security with your invitations. I also like the friendship of Albemarle County. Without these efforts, the establishment of the Intelligence and National Security Innovation and Celebration the campus wouldn't have supported. Finally, let me thank all of you for your contributions to our national security, whether you're actively serving in the intelligence community or supporting the important work being done at Providence Station. As a former governor and current

[00:17:00] senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia, I've had the privilege of helping Virginia's role in our national security ecosystem grow over the years. This campus offers a glimpse of what the future of that role will look like, presenting incredible opportunities for Virginia's world-class academic institutions and industry partners to join government agencies and drive the innovation that supports our intelligence community. These critical partnerships will only deepen in the years ahead and will serve as an example of what Americans can achieve when we collaborate to solve our nation's most complex problems. This same spirit of collaboration is

[00:17:38] what drives my work to implement the Australia-UK-U.S. partnership, also known as AUKUS. Virginia will play a critical role in supporting the partnership and innovation centers like Gravana Station will be crucial to fulfilling commitments we've made to our international partners. I look forward to incorporating our allies into our innovation ecosystem as we continue to strengthen relationships with some of our closest nation partners around the globe.

[00:18:08] As we increase coordination and enable the exchange of information resources and human and capital, I have no doubt that we can contribute to a more secure, prosperous future for the United States and the world. Thanks again for the opportunity to speak to you today.

[00:18:24] We rest easier at night because of the men and women who serve in and support our intelligence and national security communities. I offer you particular thanks as a member of both the Foreign Relations and Senate Armed Services Committees. I look forward to what the future has in store for Ripana Station and the Innovation acceleration campus and I'll continue to support the efforts of our innovation centers and our national security professions. I appreciate all the work you do for our country,

[00:18:51] and I wish you well. Thank you for letting us share that. The second budget amendment request that the county has put forward we hope is a start of a good conversation with the General Assembly moving forward. The Biscuit Run Park you are probably familiar with. You may or may not be familiar with how the county came to be in possession of that park or at least of that park so several years ago biscuit runs 1,200 acres it's right on the edge of the county's development

[00:19:27] area and the rural area on the southern end of the county route 20 and roughly the intersection of route 20 and Avon Street is the future entrance and it was originally slated to be residential development then the great recession happened the state purchased the property and the intent was to turn it into a state park. The state had it for a couple years. They did a master plan for the park to program the park, and then there was no funding available at the state level to actually advance and implement that plan. The county said if you would, you know, if the state would lease the park to the county, the county would be willing to take on development of that

[00:20:06] park, and so the county has done so. We are very excited to be celebrating the opening of the park next Saturday. So December 14th, a park that we've talked about for many years will come online. This is another project that it's locally owned, or locally leased, but we believe has real regional significance. So this park is large enough and has enough amenities and is attractive enough that we really do expect folks to come to the community to access this park. The county has invested $14 million to date to develop the entrance and to do

[00:20:43] a lot of the site work that you have to do when you're opening a new property to the public. And that's just phase 1A, so there's a lot more work to come to bring the full plan for this really gem of a park into reality. This would be a request for the first state funding to help support park development. This is a project that is not currently in the county's adopted CIP, but it is a real amenity and part of the regional significance of this park.

[00:21:14] The full build-out of the park has a circulator trail that would go around roughly the perimeter. This would be a section of that future full perimeter trail that would be ADA accessible, and it would connect Biscuit Run Park to a new park that will open in the next couple of years that's part of the Southwood mobile home redevelopment project that's the Monacan Indian Nation Tribute Park and we think this is a really wonderful project that is worthy of state consideration for partnership and support and so this is a second budget amendment request that we put the county has adopted it's no one two years the county had this property was eight years

[00:21:53] eight years because in two thousand two thousand eight years the state had it right in 2009 the property was acquired at the very end between the election and Tim Kaine's leaving office he acquired the property was acquired and by 2017 nothing had happened the superintendent the supervisor from from Scottsville at that time Rick it was Rick Randolph yeah yeah emailed me and said what can we leased the property. And I leaned over to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and I

[00:22:27] said, what do you think? And we put in, we got that done. That was in like February of 2017. By January of 2018, we had a ceremony with Terry McAuliffe, who was on the way out of office. Yeah, that's right. Basically turned the property over. This is great. I'd love to see a walking trail from downtown Charlottesville through to 5th Street Station out to Biscuit Run. I think, This originally was a regional park, you know, and and get to get more local governments involved

[00:23:03] It and some local governments don't always work together and I don't know why that why that doesn't work that way, but it does But I'd like to see more look more investment from other local governments in this because they are going to benefit This makes perfect sense. I mean 14 million dollars so far And that is, those are my slides, and I'll turn it back to Mr. Herrick.

[00:23:31] Just out of curiosity, so if it's ADA accessible, I know that I was on the Disability Commission two years ago and there was money in the state park budget to, you know, help renovate parks, so I'm wondering if you could maybe tap into what existing funds there are with the state parks because it will be ADA accessible, maybe using that as a way to get the money.

[00:23:57] yeah we'll continue to look for opportunities the parks department and our facility environmental services teams have both been looking for opportunities to bring in different state and federal funds to support different elements of the project there's our stream restoration project that brought in some outside funding so we continue to look for opportunities to draw down through formal grant programs but that's great we'll look at that one specifically and just out of curiosity with the first one we had a lot of conversation about my trip to the Walz Island and I'm just hoping that you're exploring we are the similarities of those two properties that's great yeah

[00:24:34] thank you for that tip this is the first time I'm hearing about this ADA pool of funding and I know both the town of Scottsville for a park they operate and also in the town of Scottsville Doria Park are both looking at improvements to ADA amenities in there.

[00:24:53] So I would love if your staff could connect me with a little bit more information about that. That'd be something we'd be really interested in. You're getting a thumbs up over there. Great, so in addition to the priorities that you've already heard and the budget amendments that we're seeking, the final thing that the county has on its priority list is a study of tools to mitigate rent increases caused by multifamily residential development.

[00:25:22] We're asking not necessarily for legislation at this point, but for a study. And the reason for that is that multifamily residential development is somewhat different than a traditional change in ownership. When the complete redevelopment of housing is treated as new construction, that allows for some sort of rent stabilization to take place.

[00:25:40] But when a property is redeveloped altogether, there's no baseline on which to establish rent stabilization. So what a study would do is it would, first of all, would fill an academic void of the current literature. But it could also explore effective means of protecting tenants following redevelopment while still allowing landlords a reasonable opportunity to recoup project costs.

[00:26:02] So those six items constitute the county's priorities for the year. And what we'll now do is get into legislative positions and policies. Have you talked to anybody about this study? Have you talked to them? Your delegates at them? Are you all heard of them? I'm not sure. The thing is, we have deadlines, internal deadlines.

[00:26:19] So the deadline's already passed for us to put in legislation for requests. And an initiated study requires the introduction of a resolution, a piece of legislation. So this is something that I wish we'd been asked about a month or so ago.

[00:26:36] We probably could have done something. We might not have that ability now. Good to know. Yeah, really good to know. Thank you, Craig. You know, the deadline passed, I think, last Tuesday or something. Can you have that Jason, Mike? We might have put it in. I've chatted with Jason and very briefly with you on the phone, but not in a, I would say, formal way.

[00:26:56] So, yeah, for us, if somebody makes a request, we can put it in and get drafted. But at this point, there probably wouldn't be much value in getting it drafted because I doubt too many people have space to put in. I'm checking with Jason to see if he put in.

[00:27:12] That being said, studies, we're waiting, actually, to have some word from our leadership about what to expect for study bills. know last year they told us put in a lot of studies in the end there were like a hundred something over a hundred study bills they like put two through so I think people want guidance this time so we don't just put in bills that are not gonna this is something you almost you can almost write a letter to the Housing Commission and ask them to take it up and you wouldn't even require resolutions would require requests so that that might be if you can't get it in yeah that

[00:27:47] might be something to do and delegate calls in staff staff are offered that as well as an option to look at for contacting the housing office and asking them to do some study work because most there's a full-time housing commission they've got a full-time staff yeah so Jason is working has been working on this and but he and he had the idea or we talked about doing the resolution but this year I guess referred resolutions count towards a bill limit yeah towards bill limit for sure so a better better asking the housing commission to take it

[00:28:25] up and I'm sure they would I'm sure they put it on the list I mean I don't know what their priorities are I don't know what what their workload looks like but so you can put it in the queue anyway and get somebody to take a look at it that's good thank you um so in addition to the six legislative priorities that we had outlined the county has come up with policy and position statements on counted this morning total 49 different issues that might come before the assembly and again this would address the county's official position in response to any inquiries that might come up many of the position statements are similar to what you may have seen last year however I wanted to highlight

[00:29:04] for the delegation some things that we either knew to the position statements or revised from last year the first seven of these of these seven five of them really are for increased state funding or support of the items so for economic development site readiness for community services boards mental health services affordable housing public schools funding again the county is seeking increase of support as for the other two items on this list the local authority concerning land use matters again the county wishes to avoid sort of any incursion into local land use decisions especially when it comes to regulations of facilities like solar facilities data centers we see a lot of

[00:29:42] of attempts at the state level to to sort of preempt local land use you have you've had one county in Virginia say yes to Davis Center's note or industrial scale solar so that they're increasing their energy demand by lots of wattage but they're not doing anything to create the wattage so I don't nobody's going to come to the Board of Supervisors and ask you if they can put a solar or put a a nuclear plant next door okay so you I want to keep I want to keep localities

[00:30:21] in the game when it comes to solar but you're gonna have to be very careful because we've got goals we have to meet the Clean Economy Act that's when we're gonna remove carbon from energy production by 2050 and we have to get it done it's not gonna get done without nuclear and it's not gonna get done with a lot a lot a lot more solar and wind and we want to keep localities in the game too and what we've seen we've seen a number of bills sure not introduced by any of you, but a number of bills that have tried to chop back on local authority.

[00:30:50] They have been introduced by some of us. I mean, we're right in the middle of that stuff. I am anyway, and I want to stay right in the middle of it. So we just want, again, local land use authority to be preserved. And then skill games, the board continues to oppose skill games and oppose repealing any sort of ban on skill games.

[00:31:09] Actually, I just want to say about the solar, you know, I think two things that are becoming more clear to me as i've gone to every kind of possible conference i could on this one you know we are purchasing 60 to 70 percent of our energy that we're using from out of state because we're not creating enough just for our needs right now and then the data center thing is happening because we also control like 70 of internet traffic in the world so and that's specific to Virginia. So I think just in these ways, we have to start realizing not even just the Clean Economy

[00:31:47] Act, just in general, we're not producing enough electricity. And then also knowing that some of the farmers, this is a way to actually maintain the property in their family, which is really an important aspect as well. So how we can all work together to come to the goals for the Clean Economy but even with you know even just with what we're doing now you know that being aside thinking towards that is a concern going forward so I just wanted to mention that very good thank you so these next two slides are again new

[00:32:25] items and the county's legislative position statements from last year we inserted a line in the digital equity portion and by the way all of these are are in the handout that was presented and prepared and presented to you all in the in the digital equity section we're looking to support statewide efforts to advance digital equity in the environmental section we're looking to include support for sustainable materials management and that would include extended producer responsibility legislation we have a number of items regarding affordable housing affordable housing is a very important priority to

[00:33:01] our board and we're looking to support state funding to increase the supply of affordable housing not just in support of Albemarle's housing Albemarle initiative but affordable housing generally we're also looking for to have the power for locality enforcement of the Landlord Tenant Act right now the Landlord Tenant Act can only be enforced by tenants and not by localities there are certain provisions of the maintenance code that localities can force we would like localities to have the ability to be third-party plaintiffs

[00:33:34] in landlord tenant enforcement actions and then rounding out Delegates see a price has carried one I believe the past two years she carried one last year definitely and I believe in 2023 as well very normally messaged as an anti slum boards and certainly the messaging text and that's one of the things that I hear about the most often in that industry there's a lot of work being done on that front too there's also been work to expand the protections that tenant have tenants have if they're introducing any of those claims like right now they have to put money in escrow if it's an unlivable situation

[00:34:13] they got to continue to pay that rent find rent somewhere else it makes it really impossible to do any meaningful um action against your landlord delegate cousins has bill services but this is another way to go tackle it give someone who has more power the ability to go in and help be wonderful. One thing that's missing from all those money situations, though, is there's no protection for my constituent who's living in a place, the only place she can't afford, where she's lived for years. The property changed generations of owners. Pull on the roof. The new young owner says, you don't like it? Leave. She has nowhere to go. She's terrorized to say anything

[00:34:51] or complain to anybody because she's afraid to be told. So that's where I'm hopeful that if There is more authority for a local agency to have a involvement in that. That would make more people have a chance to stand up for themselves and still be safe.

[00:35:11] What's happened to her legislation in the past? Is it just not gotten out of committee? I believe last year it actually made it to signature and was part of a batch of tenant protection legislation that the governor vetoed contingent on the completion of some kind of analysis on how it would affect broader, it was identical language to what he used on a wide variety of tenant protective legislation that kind of seemed to attempt to drive a wedge between affordability and tenant protection in its language.

[00:35:44] And of course, it's obvious, I guess, to everybody that part of the issue with this or part of the property management companies, not only owners, but property management companies. I'm certainly appreciative of your efforts last year to address similar issues.

[00:36:08] We're just key back. So rounding out the new additions to the county's legislative policies and position statements are these three final items. The next two of which also deal with affordable housing or housing availability. The first one would be to support a locality right of first refusal when affordable housing is sold or converted.

[00:36:29] give localities the availability to step in in those situations. The second, another state study, so we appreciate the guidance on state studies, to support a state study of rent stabilization or rent gouging protections. We're not seeking legislation at this point, simply a study of rent stabilization or rent gouging protections. And then finally, demerit points for truck violations. We've had a number of problems with over length or overweight trucks or through trucks or through trucks violating through truck restrictions. And we would look to have those assigned as demerit points not just as moving violations but actually have the drivers be subject to demerit points for those types of violation that's

[00:37:04] interesting because the commercial drivers you know have such federal consequences with respect to every ticket they get the demerit points are because because most drivers don't really control their loads they're they're working for somebody can't control their speed they can control their speed but you're talking about overweight violations one of our former police chief said that and just sporadic stops now 30% of the trucks that they

[00:37:40] were stopping critical violations critical that's just then we look at all the wrecks we have on the highways and byways that are involved trucks are involved oh yeah I mean it's just the direction the roads that they've chosen to use the rural roads that have restrictions that they're doing I get that the only point I was making is with the demerit points you really you're you're you're penalizing the driver for issues that he can't control he or she

[00:38:18] can't control the the owner is the one that that's created the load and created the dimensions of the truck these oversized trucks take even though it's publicized no track over 65 feet is allowed or chart restrictions but they take them anyway because they use their nightmares truck drivers that don't pay

[00:38:53] attention to those signs that say GPS isn't is it recommended you drive over a mountain through a hollow and then get stuck in it to turn around because you're waiting and I didn't mean to muddy the waters with this because this is definitely a problem but another problem is really file critical violations that trucks are running around on our rentals now.

[00:39:28] Yes. So that concludes my presentation. And again, the summary in nice formatting form. And again, I'd like to thank James Douglas and our office for preparing this legislative program bulletin that you see in front of you. So hopefully everything in here summarizes what I just said.

[00:39:45] So the next steps in terms of our forum today is, again, to hear comments from both the board and from our delegation, and then to open it up to the discussion that's already begun. So with that, I'll take a seat and turn it back over to the chair. Thank you. And we didn't really decide on a method here, and I'm thrilled that you've been able to ask questions as we go, and I want you to continue to do that.

[00:40:07] So rather than I can ask if you have any questions pressing before we start, but then I'll go through just letting each of the supervisors add additional comments based on the questions and our presentation so far. That's all. You know what with respect to their abandoned station? I mean the request is a lot more reasonable than fifty million dollars but part of the Problem is going to be that a lot of people are gonna say you're just getting you're trying to put out more county in front of the line Because a lot of localities already have site site requests in and there's there's kind of a way for them to get that money

[00:40:45] there's a there's a big pot of money for site preparation and But but we were gonna try anyway, I think I think I like the idea. I'm excited about the idea But I think that that's what you're what the argument against You'll hear about the statewide significance of course of the project that you think is part of this and I know David Blund is here I can speak to the fact that Thomas Jefferson planning district Commission has also prioritized this which is multi-jurisdictional Thank you Did you have anything you wanted to say you look like you were leaning in a little bit

[00:41:22] No, just to thank the delegation again as Andy said for an Emily said fruit for taking time to come out and taking a look at the site Time didn't allow it, but we also had a video from Senator Mark Warner who was very supportive of the ENSA conference and And this is really regional And even as Emily said this is this is state this has statewide significance in the world of Department of Defense this is the only site in Virginia that is poised to grow so when we take a look at the state's continued support for our military and

[00:42:01] Department of Defense work we believe we've positioned this this property for a really nice level of growth over time in the two-hour proximity to DC and the fact that this property is on a separate electric grid which allows for continuation of operation redundancy out of Washington DC that really sets this side apart from a lot of maybe the other military related work that's going on in the state so so we appreciate your work for us in this endeavor and we're getting a lot of good conversation out of the federal government right now and it's

[00:42:40] very encouraging I guess while I've got you interrupted I also want to say two weeks ago the University of Virginia announced a $55 million five-year grant for the creation of a national security Institute for that'll be tied to data science and it will be aligned with the University of Virginia's mission we were allowed to come and participate in that and that there's an amazing partnership there with the academic community does go beyond the University of Virginia so

[00:43:15] our academic partners or private sector partners federal government this has got some real potential over the next period of time I would just add going to Wallops Island I took that tour most of the infrastructure and Wallops Island as in the roads bridge and even one of their tank facilities that holds much of the fuel was supported by state funds so and you know it's very similar type of of project. In fact, most of the vendors now working on Wallops Island are commercial vendors. So anyway, I just want to put it that I think that's a compelling

[00:43:54] argument. If there's something that you all know that we can do to make the argument stronger, please let us know. I have been totally telling the staff the MEI grants. Anyway, I think it's a compelling argument it's a very similar type of project I want to make sure that all the board members have had a chance to my left so I'm gonna start by working with supervisor Galloway to ask if he has any additional I'm gonna be quiet more

[00:44:33] I just first want to extend an invitation on December 18th the Regional Housing Partnerships meeting at two it's a virtual meeting Isabel McClain who is the director of policy and advocacy for the Virginia Housing Alliance is giving a presentation on their legislative priorities And it just might be something you might be interested in logging in and listening to where they're at.

[00:45:06] But one thing I'd be curious about from the state level, like what some of your thoughts are on some of the housing things that you think the state could do, is affordable housing is not specific to any locality. Every single locality is dealing with affordable housing issues.

[00:45:23] And it's not going to go away. Our economic report that we received from our team at Virginia Tech that advises our finances was talking about how local the local poverty level in our areas actually decreased but that doesn't mean people got richer we didn't help people climb out of poverty we forced them out and I know that happens in a lot of communities so I'm just curious like you know not so much so like well I'm bringing this bill forward or something like that but at the state level what what could the state do that you all would think would be beneficial to that and I hate to put you on the spot affordable housing you know when I remember

[00:45:58] when I was first elected to the Senate, probably for the first 15 years, the only place I heard about housing was Charlottesville. Now I hear about it everywhere from everybody and every corner of the state, every corner of the Commonwealth. It's an issue everywhere. And the largest chunk of state funding for housing is what comes out of the Bayville Health Commission for the long-term supportive housing, about $85 million a year. It's not enough, but it's more money every year but we're going to continue to focus on that from that standpoint what the state can do we created a number of years ago the

[00:46:36] housing trust fund to support the construction of affordable housing we've never really had the courage to fund it properly you know we've never had more than ten million dollars in the housing trust fund ten million dollars for the whole Commonwealth of Virginia yeah it's a drop in the bucket we we need you know we I've suggested never gotten never gotten much support for this idea I've suggested we might want to look at the recording tax for every and transactions as a source for some

[00:47:15] funding to go to the that the hard part is whenever you're talking about raising money you know there there are very few people there people like to talk about those things but there aren't many people like to support them and I you know you either you'd either have to take it from some somewhere it's already being spent you know squeeze squeeze it to the toothpaste you get the money or you'd have to put you have to raise the fee right raise raising the fees is tough tough to get support for and particularly this year when all 100 members of the house delegates all 100 seats will be out and you know Cree we

[00:47:52] talked at one point about the recording tax yeah and the pushback that we heard was well it's not um consistent it is very it is variable but the state's the state's share is consistent okay the state you know that there's the recording tax the grantor's tax has a certain percentage that goes to the state certain percentage goes to the locality so that part is consistent there are other things you tap on top of it but but but we we could raise that or we could we can attach a portion of the existing fund thank you that's very

[00:48:27] helpful like where does that go it goes to different things I mean this the states look there's local tax that goes to every locality but the state share some some of it goes to there's a route 58 fund that pays for construction the further construction for leaning of route 58 there I mean that there may be be other things other specific things well anything that's left goes to the general fund locally we sometimes have advocates say why don't you use the recording tax because that's how some housing trust funds are funded and I'm

[00:49:04] like well we do it pays Claudette and Travis's salary that's what we use our recordation tax for locally and so I can't just move it unless I identify alternative funds so that's where my mind immediately went with the state you know my addition as a freshman I would say is you know everything we pass right now by nature of us having a Republican governor in a Democratic General Assembly is bipartisan.

[00:49:27] So the only way that you're going to see any action is to find that middle ground of a Venn diagram of where a Republican would agree and a Democrat would agree. And for whatever reason in this past session, it felt like all the housing initiatives were coming out of Democrats. But I know the problem is not specific to us. So I don't know what the Republicans are bringing. I do know that the governor was very harsh with all the housing legislation that went to him. It was pretty much all vetoed i got one bill through that was like making a landlord have to provide the copy of the lease um so um that being said i do think that everyone's taking all those vetoes they're looking at the veto statements and they're coming back with fresh legislation this year i

[00:50:05] just don't sense your question was like what is to be done money in the affordable house housing trust um and then electing a different governor um and then like waiting and seeing what bills will come and actually get through because there's nothing got through um for like i'm doing a anti-rent collusion bill because of these big software companies that are setting rents for multifamily homes. I'm trying to do a taxing change that makes it so that publicly owned affordable housing can get an income approach guaranteed when they're getting their taxes. So we're all trying novel little approaches. I don't have all the institutional knowledge. I was surprised. I didn't see a lot of Republicans propose legislation around housing, but I know

[00:50:43] it's affecting their district. So, you know, I ended up talking with a lot of them and went through like some specific bills and you know it's so one bill was about if there was a broken refrigerator or a broken HVAC system and it was I can't remember what the bill exactly was and he said you know my problem is that I don't have enough money to actually fix the you know as the owner of the property some of the folks don't have enough money to actually fix the fridge or the HVAC you know and so he's like if we could talk about you know obviously we don't want to impinge on

[00:51:22] the rights of the tenant but how can we actually have some of the owners don't have enough money to actually fix the property sometimes too so could we have some kind of help for those folks they don't want their tenants to live in a terrible place but they also don't have enough money to fix it up and so it kind of made me start thinking about how can we help folks stay in properties and fix up like the a hip program we have like how can we make that more robust and more available even to renters and you know um and then there was the proposal which i loved and i

[00:51:55] tried to resurrect this year which was if you have um a low income property and you're renting it out make sure the tax reflects that it is low income and the income from the property is less than the the market rate which was opposed by a lot of folks but mainly assessors to be honest with you and so I had a call in about trying to resurrect that as a possibility of making sure that when you're doing a tax assessment of an affordable unit that it's assessed at the affordable unit that's what it

[00:52:31] actually is the assessors right well I mean there's a lot there's a lot of stuff so I won't but the other thing I had been thinking about in terms of public housing and I probably shouldn't say this a lot like this but when you know we could use social bonds to possibly raise funds to actually fix units social bonds as a way to give private interest and private money to actually fix things or support public entities and we use it a lot and

[00:53:09] especially in Oregon they use it a lot more special education chip you know all these things so that you get money from the private sector to actually do some public good and because you save taxpayer money because folks are healthier year they you know they actually get a return on investment and this is a conference that happens every year at UVA and I've gone to it for like four or five years but we've never really expanded it in Virginia so we don't have that ability to do to use we don't have it we're not using it currently for that but it is used in some instances with chip okay it's just it's a funny

[00:53:45] world right now having to do you know and bipartisanship up there but so like There was a bill, Joe McNamara tried to do it last year. He pulled it out before any of us voted on it. It ended up being one of the priorities of Charlottesville. And it's something, I'm not carrying it, so I've not done a deep dive into it.

[00:54:00] But it's something about bifurcating how you tax the land from the actual property. The reason they're doing it, they want it, is because they want to go to the people that haven't developed what is prime property and real estate. It could be lots of housing. They want to be able to go and say, listen, okay, you only have a $50,000 house on there.

[00:54:16] That piece of land is a potential value of $5 million. There's actually a Republican who wants to carry it for an entirely different reason. He, in these rural areas, he wants someone who only has a $20,000 house but is sitting on a bunch of land to be able to say, even though it's really valuable land, you really should only be paying your taxes on your $20,000 thing.

[00:54:36] So it's completely different reasons, but you have to find, like, where is that middle space that is going to help out affordable housing in the city but be okay with, you know, someone in a completely different setting. So if you think about it that way, that's like how you can land on the wins. It's interesting you say that because that was the wackadoodle world of the bill to let us have a referendum for schools.

[00:55:00] For the one cent, it had bipartisan support all over the state of Virginia. And we all, and what? Developers. Developers are where we can lean in now. You just feel like some of this is just wackadoodle. It just doesn't make any sense.

[00:55:16] I do think it's worthwhile though listening to the other side like I'll just make two quick comments because I don't want to monopolize the time but last night mr. Blunt gave us a presentation on the legislative agenda that the TJP DC is going to be carrying and it was brought up and there were a lot of heads nodding around the room with the surplus we I think all of your six local localities would definitely be in support of using those funds for one-time purposes because you get into the habit of thinking it's a reoccurring this And then it goes away and that's more painful than say a school facility you get the building grant the first time

[00:55:53] You'd like to get it again, but you least understand that it's more first time or one time in nature Then the only other thing I'd offer in years past I've just not had a lot of time because my work schedule to go down and help advocate for things I would assume as we continue to talk today We'll be talking about other things that are priorities for you all that you're bringing forward Because usually we just come to you and go hey bring our stuff forward and then we'll go advocate But I'd certainly be interested in hearing the other things that aren't necessarily on our list that you all will be carrying this year And I'm sure it's shared with everyone else that we could help you advocate for that may not just necessarily be on our legislative list So I'm looking forward to hearing some of that as the afternoon

[00:56:32] Thank you Well, it's there or I'll just supervisor Malik and you're going to have a chance to come answer questions Thank you. So I guess last year or the year before the state put a lot of money into a new state park in Culpeper and when I heard that pass and get signed I thought what so is there any thing floating around about improvements on state parks that we should be paying attention to so that if it gets passed we'll be able to have some more let me come our way from this because I know you worked really hard on that 10 years

[00:57:09] ago the park system is really interesting it's a question of where you really catch the the energy has about a 200 million dollar backlog in terms of maintenance reserve so it's a somewhat of a mixed blessing to have State Park in your community there's an awful lot of work to be done at all of them we're gonna be we've got a few on and it usually takes years to once their lands acquired to get it developed we if if biscuit run was the Albemarle County shot

[00:57:45] at that time it was really biscuit run or some property north of town and governor kane acquired biscuit run property and so that's what it became when that wouldn't that one moving fast enough for Rick Randolph we um we came up with the lease proposal I I think that that it makes sense for us to try to get people's attention about biscuit run and put try to get the state funding for it I think I like the idea I'm I'll be be working for that something for us to all keep our eyes aware so we'll know where to pounce because we

[00:58:22] need all the guidance we can get to be able to act most effectively and help you all most effectively. Having participated in the energy series with Dave Marsden this summer and talking about the VCEA and all of them, which is the Economy Act, and some of the pitfalls that we're now having to deal with, we're getting all this backlash to localities because we're being accused of getting in the way of whatever this legislation was, which passed through with, I mean, I never even knew about the inclusion that we had to do whatever California was doing

[00:58:59] in that bill I thought what you know the thing about that was under the you either have to do what the federal government's doing or that are the high standards and the only the only heart nobody knew what the federal government was going to do the only higher standard exists is California well this was particularly about not having the sale of anything but electric vehicles by 2030 and I mean that was just something Virginia is absolutely not possible to do.

[00:59:26] And so I just thought that was a real smack in the head to me, to see that that had gone through the legislature and I had missed it. So I think that they're-- just like the SMRs, small nuclear reactor, those kinds of things, everything has to be on the table for a while.

[00:59:42] Because we're not ready. And the bill of the small nuclear reactor, I voted against it last year. And I voted against it because the only place where it's been tried for a land-based small nuclear reactor was somewhere out west. after that and after it didn't work okay this legislation specifically said the ratepayer has to pay for it okay so what at the deal that Amazon Dominion struck is exactly the way it ought to work admit Amazon's gonna pay for for they're gonna pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the development of a small

[01:00:18] nuclear reactor I mean we ought to figure a way if we're gonna have to So these data centers are going to be part of our landscape. We've got to figure a way to require them to produce their power. I mean, why should our rate payers, why should you and I have to pay for their electric use?

[01:00:39] They use about a million gallons of water a day just to keep the buildings cool. Plus, you know, and Dominion says it's going to double their demand within 15 years. We should also be finding new ways to construct them so they don't take up so much resources in Europe.

[01:01:00] They bury them where it's appropriate. And I think we can be a lot more creative in how they're putting them to use. The standards that localities can bring in, with the five applications which were made in Albemarle for a solar installation, all five were approved, but they had conditions to protect what the board and the community felt was important.

[01:01:22] I think that's all that counties want is to have a chance to say, these are the conditions for you to operate on this site. It has to be this amount of erosion control, protection, et cetera, et cetera. And why people rebel and did rebel strongly last year was because of the fellow from Northern Virginia who just said, okay, we're just going to have the SEC decide all these things.

[01:01:43] Well, that wasn't what the bill said. Without any conditions. That wasn't what the bill said. The bill said, and it was my bill. Well, I was talking about Schuyler's bill, but anyway. was scouria from Henrico County but he his was a different bill my bill rip Sullivan from Northern Virginia we're so we had the bill and it basically said that if locality turns it down locality has first bite of the apple the developer can amend that can appeal that the State Corporation Commission now the problem you've got and I got no problem with localities imposing terms and conditions on but the problem you've got you've got some localities in the

[01:02:21] state that are saying yes to data centers and no to industrial scale solar okay that's not albemoral county but but and there are other localities you're just saying no to solar you know we passed a constitutional amendment about 12 years ago that said a fundamental right is personal property ownership you get to decide what you want to do with your property subject to the certain but But unless it's solar, unless you're going to put it in solar, so it's putting one land use versus another, and local governments being the arbiter of that, I'm not sure that

[01:02:59] makes a lot of sense, particularly when you don't get to decide, local government doesn't get to decide whether there's going to be a nuclear power plant. I grew up in Bath County, a large portion of Bath County was basically condemned, and Dominion Power built the largest hydroelectric power plants of its kind in the world but then they built four 150 foot wide easements across Bath County changed the viewscape forever and you know what the Board of Supervisors had to say about that not the Board of Supervisors wasn't requested for their

[01:03:33] permission to make this major change to the viewscape of Bath County you know so I will jump in on that, too, because that bill, Schuyler's bill, did not pass, and I don't believe it's necessarily coming back in that form.

[01:03:53] I think there's some other things that are being broached, like having an appeals board, having a regulatory body outside a board of supervisors that could review it. That being said, Ann, I remember you visiting my office. I went to the local county's get-together that night.

[01:04:08] I heard the data about how permits are always pretty much accepted. is only like a 98 percent there's like a 95 acceptance rate over 70 anyway yeah but with the the caveat that solar companies do a lot of work and figure out where they're most likely to get permitting and they don't apply in places that they're not going to get permitting and it can become this cycle that i think is hindering our ability to reach our clean economy goals and our environmental goals that we need because i'm trying to do i am trying to be responsive though and like i'm working on a bill right now around distributed solar trying to increase our cap from from one megawatt to five megawatt, trying to make it so that we increase the percentage that we require to put solar on already disturbed properties,

[01:04:47] landfills, rooftops, parking lots, trying to be responsive in that way. But then I also hear things that it's just frustrating things, like the fact that we try, right now we have a requirement that 35% of these solar projects come from these third-party providers, our solar companies right here, our economy.

[01:05:10] Somebody tried to do a bill that said, let's make that the floor. That's not a cap. You can go beyond that. More than 35% of our projects could be by these third-party providers. Dominion said, well, we can't do that because they look at all the difficulty they have with permitting, unreliability. We can't give them these projects and then introduce instability into the grid.

[01:05:29] But then when we have the things that say, let's make permitting easier, we get pushed back from the same people. So it's like at some point, it just is like it's a balancing act. So I don't want to hold back that. to we're trying to take it into account and i'm on county cities and towns if we're trying to take into account but at some point it's there's an argument no matter what you do but i know what the angle needs to be which is more solar and you are in the special interest dilemma right now just like the home builders in 2016. they got rid of all the proffers and said it was all you know the fact that housing wasn't available was all the fault of the book of governments and so and all the money that they were having to pay so that took away a huge amount of money for the services

[01:06:08] that sidewalks and bridges and things that localities were using because of the impact of the new areas that were coming. So this is the push and pull and the swing that always happens, and I appreciate all of your effort because it's not easy for sure. Thank you. I'm going to work my way then back again, so I'll start with Supervisor Pooh.

[01:06:28] I want to take some of our priorities that we talked about at the beginning of them and kind of put them in additional context in case that is helpful, both in kind of understanding how they came to you and also as you kind of socialize them to your peers.

[01:06:43] And I want to start with one that I know is kind of the odd duck here. And this came from me originally, so I want to kind of carry the water kind of explaining this odd bill request. That's the community threats bill. So to put this in its context, earlier this year there was a terror threat in my gym, in my district.

[01:07:07] I then responded to this in the public forum, which resulted in county staff having to provide security, provide surveillance for my personal safety because there were death threats involved, and another bomb threat at the same location.

[01:07:24] We have had bomb threats at Sentara Martha Jefferson, also in my district. We have had multiple bomb threats at different places of alerting that we've talked about. We did at some point get a figure that county staff provided to us, and it was, I think, one or two dozen per year was what we were looking at in different distributed threat attacks or different distributed threats that are made against buildings in the county.

[01:07:52] And this is a fairly low boil. What I would point out is I just read a story coming out of our neighbors to the south in North Carolina, Haywood County, where they're recovering from Hurricane Helene, and there There was some misinformation promoted by a YouTube channel where they were claiming that county was standing in the way by not abolishing code provisions of placing FEMA relief services and getting people out of tents, which was incorrect.

[01:08:26] But it did result in dozens of bomb threats to county services and county buildings that effectively halted their ability to conduct business for a week during Hurricane Helene efforts. I bring this all up because I immediately, when this happened, in addition to a public statement, I chatted with our county attorney, I chatted with our Commonwealth attorney, and went a few rounds trying to figure out what can we do.

[01:08:53] And we feel deep – I feel deeply powerless in our ability to respond to this, and we We have not even had the kind of truly disabling concerns, and I'm concerned that the current shape of this environment makes it so that local governments being sufficiently bold is disabling to the local government, because that can get its way into social media and that can result in these truly – these kind of responses that we don't have an ability to handle.

[01:09:25] We looked at different ways to extend the envelope of liability, to increase the fees that would be assessed under the current statute, which is frankly badly drafted, and it's very challenging to use. This is the best solution we were able to identify, and we recognize, I think, as a board, because we had a conversation about this, that it's not a great solution, that it doesn't feel very satisfying to scratch that itch. But I just want to kind of provide that backstory of where this really strange-looking bill request comes from, because I think it's a very important

[01:09:59] issue. We just couldn't skin that cat with what we were able to put together. But I think it's something that really needs to be brought to the General Assembly's attention, because I still feel quite powerless on how I would deal with these kind of issues moving forward.

[01:10:17] If you have immediate thoughts on how to – I do have a few other things I just wanted to head on very quickly. I just want to say thank you for sharing that, because I have to say that I was like, I don't understand where this woman's coming from. And, you know, I don't know the rise of misinformation disinformation and the results of that just continue to increase so it's kind of like i appreciate you sharing um and and you know the pizzagate and all these other

[01:10:48] i mean these are it can be fatal you know um so i actually i'm going to think about this some more and i appreciate what mike's saying too because i think it's only going to get worse yes if we We look at the landscape, it's going to get worse, and we'd rather be prepared.

[01:11:06] Yeah, exactly. You have a couple other questions? Very briefly, these probably won't take as long, but for some additional context on the biscuit run request, this is my neighborhood, and I think an important part that shouldn't be lost is it's not just a recreational element you kind of highlighted this, it's an interconnectedness Because of how sub-developments develop with, you know, the scale and the utility hookups that are required, what you have is a really, really deeply siloizing effect in the 5th and Avon community, where people live a stone's throw across from each other.

[01:11:46] I can literally throw my spoiled vegetables and hit a neighbor behind me through the woods, but to walk there takes 20 minutes, right? Something that this project does is it connects across the 5th and Avon line.

[01:12:01] So it's going to connect into the park from the section that is going to be at the Southwood community. That is going to give a real making so that as the bird flies, people can actually start walking that distance that they can't currently.

[01:12:18] They have to currently go all the way, like a three-mile walk. It will turn it into a few thousand-yard walk or a few hundred foot walk frankly And so that's a huge value just actually bringing these communities that literally touch each other but can't walk to each other And there there there's a broader vision there that does involve the city of Charlottesville as well because you Have a trail from basically from the downtown mall to Fifth Street Station to Biscuit Run and introduce a whole new population, segment of the population, to Biscuit Run and to an outdoor experience.

[01:12:56] I mean, I'm really very excited about it. It is exciting. And to the 400 families itself. Yes, absolutely. Who are currently having their easy access. Lastly, just very quickly, I do want to mention the study to the, not the rent stabilization study, but the study for tools to mitigate rent increases during multifamily redevelopment.

[01:13:18] So this is something that we stumbled across during a redevelopment in my neighborhood that got, frankly, quite a lot of media attention, but is really just symptomatic of a broader issue, especially when you look at our community. Most of our affordable units, a significant portion of them, were built using federal dollars, the low-income housing tax credit, which normally comes with a 30-year period of affordability, after which these units already need to be redeveloped.

[01:13:48] And they are no longer required to be affordable. Most of ours were built during a construction boom in the late 80s and early 90s. I mean, they're hitting their term of affordability soon or just half. These go on the market.

[01:14:04] They then get redeveloped, and they get redeveloped in a way that is going to capture as much money as possible. There is not really a tool we have here. What we could do is, I mean, we could try and compete with these $60 million bids, but frankly, I can't compete with a $60 million bid.

[01:14:20] And even what I would say are very bold rent stabilization measures that other states might use don't address this problem because rent stabilization doesn't attach to new construction normally until 10 to 15 years after it has been on market.

[01:14:36] This would be treated in that same way. So it wouldn't attach. I know of no literature, and I'm someone who reads this literature, that actually tackles what a price control or what a restriction on affordability during the redevelopment process would be, because the literature doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge.

[01:14:59] So that is why we're requesting this, because it is a complete blind spot, and I don't even know how we would go about ranking this. Right. We only have a few minutes left. So I'm going to ask you if you have anything else in help that Senator has to go so far.

[01:15:15] I do. Okay, so I'm just giving, the photo speed cameras are extremely important, especially in my area, and I know in Ann's, and actually everyone's area, regarding the rural roads. There's increasing accidents, deaths, and everything because of this.

[01:15:34] And we work with VDOT trying to get the speed limit reduced, and that doesn't always work. In fact, usually it doesn't work. They do studies and they say, no, everything's fine. But that is a real concern. Residents in my area from Gordonsville Road have gone to the extent of they're now pulling money together to hire off-duty officers to patrol that, to be able to get tickets.

[01:16:00] That's how desperate they are. someone I got an email yesterday regarding in a half-hour period seven over illegal oversized trucks came through in a half-hour period a lot of these small two-lane roads we're all familiar with Gordon's real right so that's a big concern of mine I'm hoping this year with Elliot Jones with his information that works there the other thing one set sales tax we're all in

[01:16:34] favor of that and of course ride benefits being a priority and if you can think of any other way that you can give us the localities permission to raise revenue we would greatly appreciate that and it could all be vis-a-vis a referendum and ask the populace do the people in the community do you want to be able to raise extra revenue.

[01:17:01] That would be a very good tool for us to have. Thank you. I'm going to yield my time to Cree because I'd like to hear from Cree because I know you have to leave. I've got just a 3 o'clock. I know. Well, this is going to be a tough session. We have a budget surplus, but the governor's going to insist a portion of that goes to some sort of tax cut, and he's probably going to want an ongoing tax cut.

[01:17:27] And candidly, there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that are looking at some sort of tax relief in light of the election. Just be realistic. I'm of the view of a $200 check. It doesn't change too many people's lives. But some people, it can be a significant benefit to.

[01:17:46] So we're going to be looking at that. But I think also that the school construction is an idea. I think we had a JLARC report two months ago that said that at least two of our institutions of higher education, two of our older institutions, are in trouble in large part because of crumbling infrastructure, Virginia State and Mary Washington.

[01:18:07] And this one-time money, it seems to me a good place to put it, is capital improvements, one-time funding. So that might be where we go. Other than that, you won't see much different for me from what I'm – I will chair the Commerce and Labor Committee, I'll chair the Health and Human Resources Subcommittee of Senate Finance, so I'll be up to my elbows in commerce-related energy-producing legislation and also health care.

[01:18:38] Let me just play out a warning. We've got an incoming administration that says they're going to cut $2 trillion in spending. I'm not really sure what that means, but you can't do that unless you attach Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare.

[01:18:58] We've got a in 2019. We passed legislation to expand Medicaid in Virginia And that was part of the budget but included in that was that that we wouldn't we would pull that back if the federal government Ever dipped below 90% 90% share the cost of Medicaid expansion many states have there's six states that have that six I thought it was more than that too but I was schooled on that by David Descano and what I'm saying is we can't you know the two

[01:19:38] trillion dollar cut even a trillion dollar cut is going to affect that and there are the health insurance health coverage for hundreds of thousands of Virginians will be at risk we have a six hundred $132 million shortfall right now in Medicaid spending.

[01:19:56] Medicaid funding, in a large part, a lot of this information is more than you want, but 70% of the Medicaid funding in Virginia goes to 25% of the people that receive it. They also receive Medicare.

[01:20:12] So we're getting older. As we get older, we spend more money on health care costs, and the state spends a chunk of that. So everything's at risk. This is a short budget, but a short session, but we have a whole lot to deal with in a very short period of time.

[01:20:33] Your input is critical, but the time, don't sit on information or ideas. Get in touch with us right away. My experience is, and I think these, Amy and Katrina will tell you the same thing, most people down there, whether you agree with them or not, they really genuinely want to do the best.

[01:20:51] They want to do the right thing. And we all operate on the best information available. You shouldn't never assume that we have the best information. You know something Let us hear from you. I gotta go. Thanks. I just want to thank you for being here. Thank all of you for being here because this is extremely important. I know that your time is very valuable and your work has been critical. And as you said, federal government's very uncertain right now, but the state and local governments are going to have to be there. Talk about localities. Think about it this way. 1940 was not that long ago. I realized nobody in this room

[01:21:27] was allowed then but that was that was that was a couple generations ago the two largest counties most populous counties in virginia in 1940 were pittsylvania and wise our economy was different our economy was resource-based manufacturing based and that something happened in 1941 world war ii okay after world war ii our economy has been controlled by the military industrial complex of defense spending and by the growth in Northern Virginia.

[01:21:56] And that's about a third of our economy now is dependent on the feds. We'll take a big hit. Thank you. And I'll take up a lot of your time here, but I really appreciate any additional comments.

[01:22:12] Well, I would love to have, you know, Supervisor Galloway just said that you guys would like to help us. Yeah, please. I would like to hear from you. Thank you. So I do have a bill for guns and – oh, I have it. Sorry. I did print it. Thank you though. So last year I had a bill about leaving unattended firearms in view in cars and vehicles with a civil penalty. And I'm going to bring that up again. And actually one of the police officers actually talked to me at the Crozet Fair saying that this would be a great bill. And I said, ha, I have that bill.

[01:22:48] So if you feel compelled, I would love testimony about the dangers of that. And we know already that 52% of crimes are committed with firearms that have been stolen. So this is just a way to penalize irresponsible gun ownership.

[01:23:10] And I'm also, I have a dam maintenance bill that I'm proposing. I don't know if you guys saw, but green right now is in a situation. there's over 1500 dams just in the 55th district many of them are private owned and some are municipalities but this is a dam maintenance bill that would allow for municipalities and private citizens to actually access funds to either mitigate issues or even research them love help with that I'm gonna carry the bill for the public schools on their procurement they're trying to do

[01:23:45] procurement with more entities to you know maybe get a better price I'm also why I do have a solar bill about agrivoltaics working on that and also an address protection program for anybody that has you know a you know of an intimate partner if you have a case against someone that if you register or your child in the public schools, that their address remain private.

[01:24:16] And I do have two recycling bills, possibly a third. But one is on waste tires. I've become the recycling person. But trying to create an entity where we have a pipeline of folks that are picking up the waste tires and actually take them to the recycling, rather than throw them on someone's property.

[01:24:35] So there's going to be some kind of recordation of that. And then mattress recycling. that's great I think that's a huge bill that'll probably need some time but I'm gonna bring that back so I have some other things too but I think those might be the ones that are most of interest to you guys thank you do you have a way of sort of sending us sort of a quick synopsis of these each of them yeah as I get them so we know that would be great just so we submitted all of those for drafts and then I think I'm going to submit a bill we just got today about

[01:25:12] maternal health care monitoring with telehealth I do have a couple of budget amendments I'm going to carry the man of futures but also some telehealth budget amendment for UVA expanding their telehealth by the end of the session Amy me refers to her damn bill as the damn damn bill.

[01:25:38] Yeah. And I will tell you, Sophie, it was going to go through. This was going to be the bill. And then it was dying a slow death. And then Senator Deeds texted me. He's like, no, come back. Come back. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. So I rush up there, make the argument.

[01:25:55] And then they just killed it in front of me. But I think this year. Yeah, so I have a lot. And actually, Mike, I did put in for drafting your study bill. so some is still in flux I we are past the drafting deadline but I put in extras so there's still some shuffling that's going to happen I have quite a few criminal justice bills because I sit on crim court subcommittee I sit on three committees in the in the crim committee so I have a lot of criminal justice bills I won't get into all the details some of them are big meteor pieces that I'm trying to carry I guess my I'm always happy to meet with any of you all if you'll want

[01:26:34] discuss them the way i uh tell people about them is the way that the average citizen thinks that the criminal justice system works um anywhere where that's not actually reality those are the bills that i'm trying to tackle so like one easy one is access to access to counsel most people think that if you're a defendant you have easy access to your lawyer that's not true most average citizens believe that probably should be true you should be able to meet with your lawyer so like those are the kind of bills and the fixes that I'm trying to make. I have an education bill that I don't, we have former school board members. I have an education bill that is around tracking and trying

[01:27:13] to make sure that we have or pushing our students to do more. So it's going to be using the fifth grade and the eighth grade SOL scores for math. I'm working with UVA on this and the equity center and automatically enrolling them in the most advanced math class that's available. It's opt out versus opt in so if you score professional hire you put in them really good um i'm excited about that one too that's a personal interest that's really good um have some things around peer recovery specialists i have a firearm bill uva firearm bill um i carried it last year it's been carried many years we get it gets vetoed we respond to the veto so the most recent one

[01:27:50] the governor vetoed it and said and just for a quick background guns are not allowed on uva right but it's like an administrative uh thing it's like hot pots are not allowed on uva but if you have a hot pot they don't come yeah they don't arrest you in fact they really can't even do much besides like uh you know tell you not to do it and you can go to like a committee to talk about why you had the hot pot uh guns should probably not fall into that same category and so police yeah so it's actually a bill that's supported by university police chiefs because it allows them to take and have an appropriate remedy when someone notices that someone has a

[01:28:26] a firearm. Which has been a problem. Yes. The governor vetoed it and said we have very unique colleges spread throughout a very diverse state and so one size solution doesn't fit everyone and so my bill to speak to local control is that well let's make it permissive then. That way the locality that the or the college can decide if they want to opt into having it be illegal. So well we'll see if it passes but it's definitely responsive to his veto statement so um we'll see um I have some energy ones so I've mentioned them quickly I was trying to do I'm trying to

[01:29:01] work with distributed solar and expand the use of that and then I'm not gonna I have a lot so what I would offer to y'all I try to meet with everyone um this year my office is open I have I think one more office hours before session starts I have a town hall which if any of y'all come I'd be happy to have you all come sit up there with me and it's usually just like a roundtable I'm having cookies and conversation tomorrow so if you want to get cookies and hot chocolate and go to the library but I'm trying to make myself as available as possible if you do want to talk about anything and Supervisor McKeel I can definitely send you a list and I

[01:29:39] because that way we could do it yeah okay we'd be able to sort of jump on if you don't want I would like to talk a bit about the speed cameras because I just rushed over it but so we have been meeting pretty actively with delegates I will delegate Jones and myself and there was a court case that I brought to you all I don't know if you share with the board or not but there was a court case against the speed cameras because bringing a violation there has to be an officer that had witnessed in and be part of that. So that was active litigation, which I

[01:30:19] don't know where it is right now. But I know that's going to be some of the opposition to the speed camera bill. Because that's kind of the current statute is that there has to be someone that had, you know, witness the violation to come. so i'm not sure where that is i guess i'm just but i'm letting you know that that's going to be part of the discussion for the speed cameras and i do believe that um if they do have the right to go to court and then there's an officer that does come that says yes i checked this i checked that yeah exactly so i think that those will be all the yeah part of the conversation

[01:30:55] wasn't that already taken care of with the red light camera bit i thought it was too Because that worked so successfully, that was 10 years ago, I think. Yeah. Well, you all did a good job by getting the ones in place that you already had the enabling legislation for, because that will help make the argument stronger this year.

[01:31:11] Because I did hear that, you know, we've given people that opportunity. Yeah, I won't say them out loud. It is shocking. Delegate Lauffer asked, as she was walking in the door today, since the implementation, the turn-on date was October 21st, Trevor talked to the police department, and since October 21st, 2,411 citations.

[01:31:36] But I will say, as shocking as that number is, because that's my hood, and I'm on that road all the time, I am seeing a driving behavior change, which is what we wanted, right?

[01:31:52] I am seeing it subtle, but I'm seeing it. You know, actually, it would be interesting if you start seeing this. Yeah, that's what we need to see. If you do, like, please share that. I'm just seeing it. We might be able to compare it to the warnings that were issued.

[01:32:10] There were for a month. And if there's data between the two morning and afternoon, like what's the occasion of speeding that we're recording, but we're not taking anybody from 9:15 to 2:45. That to me would be an argument that should happen all day. Because that's the goal is to change behavior, not to make money.

[01:32:31] We can't do the general assembly restricts us. It's not a full-on fine. They don't get the merit points against their license, which is all Yeah, so I'd love I'd love to know the rationale, but someday that's a state general assembly thing. That's like all right I mean I get it. I know what some people would say Yeah, but speeding through our construction zone or schools You should you should get points against you and I don't care if you were driving under not if you're on the car And there's students crossing the road all day long.

[01:33:01] If you don't want to pay the fine, then just don't drive back. And I love, I went off on a little tangent at a TJPDC meeting, that this is one of my favorite emails to get when people complain about our speed camera system because they got busted speeding in the school zone.

[01:33:18] So by all means, send us those emails. I'd love you to do that. Ned, because I jogged my memory, that meeting on the 18th that you wanted us to attend, I know we both opened our calendar. I didn't see you put it in. I was trying to look. What is the time of it? It's 2 p.m. and it's virtual. Is that the Region 10 meeting?

[01:33:35] It's a regional housing partnership. But it's virtual, so it would likely be recorded, too, and you can access it afterwards. But there'll be some other presentations that day that you don't have to stay there for all the procedural stuff. Kind of coming to our region.

[01:33:53] Sorry, that's okay. I get worked up on this speed camera thing. I know. Don't speak. Don't speak. Just don't speak. If future legislation didn't have to kill somebody first, which I know was part of the one last year.

[01:34:11] I mean, those honors that people have to die. Why do we have to wait? Would it help if I send you some of the photos that were sent to me along, were oversized trucks turned over again and again?

[01:34:26] Yeah, yeah. I know you sent me one. Got it. We've had a great conversation. I do want to, again, look to David Blunt because he's been very quiet over here if he wants anything to… You know, I learned long ago there's nothing wrong with having nothing to say unless you insist on saying it.

[01:34:47] Okay. So I'm going to stick with it. Thank you. And to our interim county attorney or… Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. We will adjourn our official meeting now. So, I will say we are adjourned to December 11th, 2024, 1 p.m., Lane Auditorium.

[01:35:08] Opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors' homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendars. Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received. Thank you all.

[01:35:23] Please go out there and take a photo.

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