Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting, Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 5h 2m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1499
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1499

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 2026-10-14. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to call to order the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for our May 20th, 2026, 2.30 meeting here in Lane Auditorium. The supervisors who are present are Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Fred Missel of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor B.

[00:00:27] Lepisto-Kirtley of the Ravana District, Supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District. We also have with us our county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, and our board clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson. We want to thank and introduce the Albemarle County Police Department officers who are present with us today, Officer Tavon Richardson and Senior Police Officer Ryan Escarol.

[00:00:55] Thank you both for being here. And now, if everyone would please rise as you are able for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance.

[00:01:15] And now, if everyone would please join in a moment of silence. Thank you very much.

[00:01:44] Board, we need to adopt our final agenda, and prior to doing so, the applicant for item number 9, SE 202540, 528 Clark's Tract Building Site Modification, has requested a deferral.

[00:02:02] So we need to take action on that request, and then we will move to adopt the final agenda as amended following that. Oh, my God. I broke it. Did you break your mic?

[00:02:17] I did not break it. Would somebody other than Supervisor Lepisto currently like to make that motion? Are we going to discuss it or what? We can discuss it once the motion is on. I move that we defer the item. I'd like to move for a new mic for Supervisor LePistocco.

[00:02:37] Would you like to use my mic? I have one. Let me see. I move that we defer Item 9 on the agenda to a later date. Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. We'll have some discussion on the matter, and I'll go ask each supervisor if they'd like to make any discussion points.

[00:02:56] Supervisor Duncan? No comments. Supervisor Malek? In the past, there has been a reason given that has to do with planning or legislative process as a reason for a deferral. So if this is a convenience matter for the applicant and they've had two years to resolve their zoning things, I don't know why this is coming up at the last minute.

[00:03:21] Well, one, I should ask if there's any legal response to the points there. I'll speak to the other matter. So if the applicant's representative had alerted us that she's unavailable due to a personal matter. But this is not a public hearing. That's correct. So there wouldn't have to be a presentation.

[00:03:36] And usually staff has done these in the past, correct? That's correct, although quite frequently applicants in special exception applications will take time during the matters from the public and speak to it then. So you're correct. It's not a public hearing, and it's not a matter of the applicant delaying.

[00:03:52] It's simply that the applicant's representative is unavailable due to a personal matter. Even by telephone? That's my understanding. Yes, ma'am. Wow. All right. Supervisor Lapisto currently? Yeah, I have no concerns delaying this issue.

[00:04:09] Supervisor Missal? No comments. Supervisor Pruitt? No comments. All right, I do not have any points to raise, so without further discussion or objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Missal? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan?

[00:04:25] Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. LaPito-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? No. All right, the motion carries five to one. Now that item is removed from the agenda, so we need a motion to adopt the final agenda as amended.

[00:04:42] So moved. Second. All right, the motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. All right, very good.

[00:05:01] We do not have any proclamations or recognitions today, so we will move past number six to number seven. And that is public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than those scheduled for public hearing. Supervisor Missal will read the rules and walk us through the through the guidelines.

[00:05:25] Did I miss? What did I miss? Oh, I missed board announcements. Nope. I walked right past that one. So we'll jump back in. Thank you for that, Supervisor Malik. Supervisor Duncan, any announcements today? No. Supervisor Malek?

[00:05:40] Thank you. Just a couple of things. Remembering Barney Frank, who was an absolutely wonderful moderate congressman from Massachusetts, where I lived for 16 years, who died today at 86. Today, Monday, May 25th, at 10 a.m. at Earliesville Green, is the Memorial Day ceremony hosted by the VFW Post 1244, which is a combined Crozet and Earliesville Post.

[00:06:07] Everyone on the board here has received invitations. We hope you will come. NGIC Commander Colonel Jay McGee will be the keynote speaker. So it's a great chance to visit with him as well. June 1st at 6 p.m. at PVCC's Bollock Center, DEQ will be hosting a public hearing on adding 1,700 more acres to the Albemarle County Bundle, which is over 5,000 acres already, on eight properties in southern Albemarle for adding more acres to spread sludge.

[00:06:38] And this is a time for individuals to learn about the process and to share their concerns. And since it's right here at PVCC, it'll be more easily accessible than when it's way down in the country, either in the northwest corner where I live or in the southeast corner.

[00:06:55] There'll be more information on townhall.virginia.gov for anyone who would like to know more. And General Assembly this year passed the Farmers' Right to Know Act, HB 1433 Lopez and SB 386 Stewart, to require testing at the source and before spreading on the field.

[00:07:15] Farmers are in a bad spot because for 50 years they've been told this is all fine. So I'm concerned about adding more acres, but people need to make their own minds up and get what information they can. And thank you very much. All right, Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley. Yes, I just want to note it that I was able to fix the microphone by myself.

[00:07:35] Thank you. Supervisor Missal. I'll just make one comment. It's less of an announcement, I guess, but more of just an awareness thing. It was last week, Supervisor Malek and I attended a PEC presentation regarding the Dominion line at the Keswick Hunt Club, and it was standing room only, very informative.

[00:07:59] I'm sure the information is available for you to look up and look at. It's very impactful to the rural areas, to view sheds, to the historic districts, et cetera. And I just would encourage you all and the listeners to take a look at that information and to learn more about it.

[00:08:18] There are opportunities coming up in the future for us to have our voices heard, both for and against. And so, again, I just would call that to your attention. That's it. Great. Supervisor Pruitt? I have nothing to add. All that I will add is I know that several of us have been attending different high school commencement ceremonies, which is always, I think, one of the best perks of the job of being an elected is to be able to join families in celebrating their children graduating from their different programs.

[00:08:51] So I know that there is still Westerns coming this year. Things are a little earlier this year because the school calendar is different, and I believe there's another ceremony for the post-high school program this Friday as well.

[00:09:07] So there's still a couple ceremonies coming up, but we wish all the students who have graduated good luck and congratulations to them and their families. All right. Yes? Yes, I'm coming back because I was not able to attend the meeting at the Hunt Club.

[00:09:27] However, I did receive a presentation of the same thing. So this is mainly in the Rivanna District, not totally, but mainly. And if anyone wants to contact PEC, they will be more than happy to give you information regarding these transmission lines and what Dominion or soon-to-be NextEra will be doing.

[00:09:51] Thank you. Oh, and the other thing, attended the Farm Bureau meeting along with Supervisor Malik, and that was very nice to be able to chat with our fellow, well, her fellow farmers. I'm not a farmer.

[00:10:07] But anyway, it was a very nice event. Thank you. Got it. All right. We do now go to item seven, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings, and Supervisor Missal. Happy to read it.

[00:10:22] During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, 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. Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting.

[00:10:42] A sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and a 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 indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments. In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

[00:11:02] When addressing the board, state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district, address comments directly to the board as a whole. Any written statements or other supporting materials may be given to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition.

[00:11:19] Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted. And do not speak, please, from your seat or out of turn. Just as a reminder, all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website. Do I call the first person?

[00:11:37] All right, we have five signed up. The first one is William Christians. Okay. Mr. Christians, William Christians. All right. All right, we'll go to the second.

[00:11:52] It's Jim Webb. My name is Jim Webb, and I'm here representing the Love Thy Neighbor Coalition. I live at 1880 River Inn Lane in Albemarle County.

[00:12:12] I reside in the Rio Magisterial District, and my district supervisor is Ned Galloway. I'm here today to talk about an interfaith coalition that is formed out of concern over immigration enforcement practices.

[00:12:28] Last summer, a working group at Charlottesville Friends Meeting, Quakers, organized a gathering on faith and immigration at Northside Library. A call went out to all faith communities, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Baha'i, in the greater Charlottesville area, and some 130 people from an array of religious congregations and other people of conscience gathered to discuss ways in which we could support our immigrant neighbors.

[00:13:03] Over the past 10 months, Love Thy Neighbor has organized educational sessions and film screenings at churches to raise awareness of the fearful and inhumane conditions that our immigrant neighbors face.

[00:13:20] We have convened an interfaith gathering on the downtown mall attended by hundreds to show support for our immigrant neighbors. Toward this end, the Love Thy Neighbor Working Group promulgated the following statement on immigration enforcement.

[00:13:38] We, as members of faith communities and people of conscience, are guided by moral values to support the family and to show compassion to the stranger. We condemn the enforcement of policies that shatter immigrant families when neither parents nor children have been charged with violent crimes.

[00:14:02] We condemn detention without informing family members of the whereabouts of their loved ones or permitting communication and visitation. And we call upon our elected leaders and fellow citizens to ensure that immigrant families remain together and are treated with fairness and humanity.

[00:14:23] This statement on immigration enforcement has been endorsed by numerous faith communities, including Charlottesville Friends Meeting, Quakers, Sojourners United Church of Christ, Grace Church Red Hill, Tabor Presbyterian Church, Westminster Presbyterian Church.

[00:14:40] It has been signed by hundreds of individuals in the greater Charlottesville area. We call upon you, the members of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, to do everything within your powers to keep immigrant families safe and to assure that all immigrants are treated with fairness and humanity.

[00:15:00] Our moral obligations to each other demand no less. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Next is Vicki Bravo. Good afternoon.

[00:15:20] Good afternoon. I'm Vicki Bravo here representing IMPACT. I'd like to speak about the revised guidelines for the Affordable Housing Investment Fund. We were pleased to see the updated guidelines, and we have comments on two areas.

[00:15:38] The first is proposals for rental housing at 60% AMI receives 10 points, and funding for for-sale residents at 80% gets 10 points.

[00:15:53] We believe that building apartments at 60% should get more points. We understand that it's more expensive to build housing for sale, but the most need is at 60% and below. This range covers working people who serve our community, such as teachers and firefighters, who aren't paid 80%.

[00:16:17] We maintain that the need in Albemarle County warrants favoring building at 60% AMI, which better serves the need of our community. The second thing is we've seen reference to the Community Stakeholders Review Committee.

[00:16:35] We'd like more information on what expertise or experience you're looking for, for the members of that committee, and how it will operate. And lastly, I want to thank, first, the Board of Supervisors for the great amount of time and energy that you've put into the issue of affordable housing to get us where we are today.

[00:16:59] I'd also like to thank County Executive Richardson and your staff for your thoughtful work on affordable housing. And a special thanks to Dr. Stacey Pethia. She has had the hard job of bringing everyone and their varied positions together.

[00:17:18] She has persevered over years. We thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gary Grant.

[00:17:36] Gary Grant, Rio District, an older American, 12 months of the year. Thank you for the signs for the month of May all over the parking lot.

[00:17:53] A variety of questions for you today, not in any particular priority order. First, a question that I asked at your meeting on April 15th that has gone unanswered by the board, by the county executive, or by any member of his staff.

[00:18:10] The question was, and still is, can I sit or stand on the Route 29 pedestrian overpass sidewalk and distract drivers below with the sign attached to the fence? When can I expect a yes or no answer to this question?

[00:18:28] Now for some other questions, which I would also like answers to. Does this board or any county employee examine the IRS 990 tax returns for all non-profit agencies that request or receive funding from Albemarle County?

[00:18:49] Does the county publicize anywhere through any type of media that private donations can be made to the Albemarle Housing Investment Fund? As of April 30th, according to your budget office, zero private dollars have been donated to AHIF and FY26, showing once again, in my opinion, the impact of those who prefer to spend other people's money for affordable housing.

[00:19:22] Are wooden pallets considered yard debris or trimmings and allowed by county ordinance to be included in residential open burns? Why are there no CACs, Community Advisory Committees, for your constituents who live in rural areas of the county's magisterial districts?

[00:19:48] Would this board be willing to consider the creation of six rural area CACs to increase engagement purposes? Finally, a last question to which I do not want an answer if it divulges any information about the county's security plans. The question, how is something made of metal, like my metal water bottle here able to get this close to you at your meetings through security

[00:20:27] thank you neil williamson good afternoon i printed off copies of this to read and left them on my desk my name is neil williamson i serve as the president of the free enterprise forum a public policy organization focused on central virginia's local government in today's meeting you'll receive

[00:21:01] the fiscal 27 Albemarle Housing Investment Fund process recommendations. I found the AHIF matrix to be a little challenging to understand, and I got to believe it's going to be challenging to administer. It got me thinking, what if there was a simple way to achieve the goals of the fund to equitably assist in the creation of affordable housing? What if Albemarle had at least one AHIF recommendation that followed the so-called KISS principle? What if there was a way Albemarle could assist every affordable unit without significant administrative evaluation or bias

[00:21:39] regarding the builder. There is one simple affordable housing recommendation that has been made many times to this board, yet does not appear in any of the AHIF options. You may be aware there is a major increased housing cost coming to Albemarle County. It has not garnered significant attention. In tomorrow's meeting, Albemarle County Service Authority will be looking at their new budget, which increases connection fees by 15%. If you look at their five-year plan,

[00:22:11] it will increase 15% annually for the next five years. It's a lot of money. What if AHIF paid all the connection fees for all housing developed as affordable under Housing Albemarle? You want to think bigger? What if it paid all the building inspection and permit fees? All of those things are possible. Those are real fees, but you could use this money to make housing affordable on units that have already been deemed affordable. There will be no needs for subjective review.

[00:22:46] For-profit and non-profit developers would be treated equally. It would not preclude the other developer incentives that this board has already discussed, including tax abatement and other strategies. But it's an elegantly simple way to equitably impact and increase affordable housing.

[00:23:04] The Free Enterprise Forum believes Albemarle County needs to embrace the KISS principle and add connection fee payments as one of the recommendations for AHIP funding. Thank you. I'll do a bounce back to William Christians in case he came in the meantime, if it looks like he has not.

[00:23:26] So then that concludes our list. All right. Thank you to everyone who provided public comment today. We will move to our next item on the agenda, number eight, our consent agenda. I'm not aware of any items being pulled. Are there any items that need to be pulled? All right. Is there a motion to adopt or approve the consent agenda?

[00:23:46] So moved. Second. All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Mallick? Yes. All right. The consent agenda is approved. Thank you, board.

[00:24:05] All right. We will move past item number nine. That is the item that was deferred to number 10, which is the fiscal year 2027 of Albemarle Housing Investment Fund process recommendations. Good afternoon, Ms. Dimmick. My presentation.

[00:24:33] Good afternoon, Chair Galloway and members of the Board of Supervisors.

[00:24:53] I'm pleased to be before you today to seek your guidance on the elements of the proposed competitive process for awarding AHIF funds. Kaki, you might have to get right up on that mic. It seems like anybody not speaking into this mic is, I mean, including supervisors. I mean, you need to be right on top of it today.

[00:25:09] Okay. Or talk louder. Or both. Okay. Thank you. I'm pleased to be before you today to seek your guidance on the elements of the proposed competitive process for awarding AHIF funds for fiscal year 27.

[00:25:25] As we discussed in March of this year, our intention is to open this competition up for implications this summer so as to avoid any overlap with the board's budget decision-making process and to ensure sufficient time for applicants seeking additional leverage from other sources. I'll share a brief history of the AHIF and then our proposed process and evaluation criteria for your feedback and questions. We'll present this information in three phases including some background on the AHIF, staff proposal for the 27 process, and an opportunity for board

[00:26:01] direction and questions about the AHIF process and broad evaluative criteria. Before we launch into the AHIF content, I'd like to remind the board of planning future discussion around housing matters, some of which are already on your agendas and others are yet to be calendared.

[00:26:19] These include staff recommendations for the remainder of the 26 fund for AHIF on June 17th, the review and renovation of housing admiral policy on August 5th, and the Southwood performance agreement for phase two, establishing a formal housing advisory committee, an affordable dwelling unit ordinance, and establishing housing development targets, which will be scheduled after we receive the regional housing needs assessment report. The AHIF was created in 2019 with the intention to fund projects that created or preserved housing, affordable housing in several

[00:26:57] forms, including rental units and home ownership. Funding would be one time, not ongoing, until fiscal year 26 applications came in on a rolling basis first come first serve until the funds were exhausted board members area non-profit partners and developers staff all wished for a more predictable method for distributing these funds as a result significant process changes were implemented for the fiscal year 26 process in may of 25 creating a competitive application process with a target split for use of the fund balance review team member expectations and a scoring

[00:27:37] threshold for eligibility. In the months since the completion of the 26 process, staff have received feedback from community partners, county staff, and the board to improve the 27 process. I'll walk through the elements of the process and the application components proposed for 27 now.

[00:27:55] A reminder that the process that we just completed where we had some, I think, Supervisor Missel described as bumps in the road earlier, related to several of these components. But I'll remind the board that this most recent process included a proposed or target split of the balance for 40% for grants, 40% for loans, and 20% for staff identified emerging needs projects, particularly related to housing out moral, and that applications would be reviewed by non-Office

[00:28:27] of Housing staff. And there was an eligibility scoring threshold of 75% identified. For fiscal year 2027 staff propose opening the application portal for for for a full four weeks in july and reviewing applications during august there are three changes in the process that are reflected in this slide worth some attention first the full 30 days for application submission that the review team would include county staff and outside housing subject matter experts and the

[00:29:03] creation of a standardized agreement which simplifies the post-award process for county staff and award recipients. While the team may expand between now and this summer at the moment, our fiscal year 27 review team includes Amanda Chandler, asset manager for Riverview Residential Management, Liz Webb, housing program coordinator for the city of Harrisonburg, Michelle Rodriguez, Director of Property Management for the Better Housing Coalition, Luke Morgan, Brandy Sullivan, and Thomas Unsworth from our Department of Finance and Budget. Based on feedback we received from

[00:29:43] the 26th process, we plan to provide technical assistance to all applicants prior to submission deadline, including at least one orientation session similar to what we do for the human services funding process, and we'll make housing staff available to reviewers throughout the evaluation process for any questions or clarifications. We believe it's important for the office of housing staff to not be formal reviewers to avoid the potential appearance of bias but also want to make sure that their expertise is available to our outside experts the 27 process we recommend that there remains this

[00:30:19] eligibility threshold for scoring of 75% so eligibility determined is determined whether you can achieve at least 75% of the available score and then they're ranked applications were ranked based on that similar to what we did this year. Given the amount in the fiscal year 2027 AHIF, it makes sense, I think, to increase the amount available for grants and loans to 90%. In the 26 process, we had a proposed target split of half and half, 40% for loans, 40% for grants. It didn't reflect, I think, the way applications

[00:30:56] are going to come to us, and so I don't think it makes sense for us to have targets necessarily for loans or grants, we would like to do both and we'll see what comes in in terms of our requests or proposals with an overall anticipated use of 90% of the funds for grants and loans and 10% reserved for staff-initiated projects. This allows sufficient funds for the staff to move forward with staff-initiated projects that meet community needs and address action items from

[00:31:28] Housing Albemarle. As you're aware, there is $7.033 million in the AHIF for 27, so this means $6,329,700 would be available for distribution as grants and loans as part of the competitive process, and $703,300 would be available for staff-initiated projects. As always, all AHIF awards will be approved by the board regardless of their origin. AHAF continues to be available to developers of affordable rental units and affordable home ownership, as well as to

[00:32:06] organizations that will preserve existing affordable units. Scoring criteria will be specific to each of these three areas. I'll walk through the scoring matrix in a moment. All three types of fundable projects will have a total of 185 points available, with a 75% threshold eligibility score of 138.

[00:32:28] 8.8. This reflects an evolution in staff's work on this process. Among the draft documents you received in your materials for this item was an evaluation matrix with a different available points total for each type of eligible project. Based on feedback from community providers, we worked to align the questions to ensure that each type totaled to the same amount.

[00:32:49] This eliminates any potential, albeit mild, scoring bias inherent in the evaluative process. It's important to note that while the score totals are the same, the expectations and components of the answers will be different and specific to the type of housing being proposed.

[00:33:06] I'll share a more detailed look at the evaluation factors that are scored in the AHIF application next. Important to note on this slide that one of the changes that we are proposing for 27 is a sliding scale answer option for our reviewers. Last year, some of those questions were either you had them or you didn't.

[00:33:26] And now we'd like to allow for more nuance. And so some of those questions will have essentially a Likert scale that allows for 0, 5, 10, or 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, to be able to get some more nuance in the scoring options.

[00:33:46] Applicants to the AHIF are evaluated through four broad categories. Readiness to proceed, capacity and experience of the development team, project budget, and consistency with county priorities. I'll present details for each of the categories now.

[00:34:03] For readiness to proceed, the questions are, does the applicant have site control? Has the project been secured, project entitlements such as zoning compliance and site plans already? Does the applicant have sufficient funding to proceed?

[00:34:20] Is the proposed construction schedule reasonable? Is there a strong likelihood of starting within 120 days? This category is consistent with the board's interest in supporting shovel-ready projects with the AHIF, bringing resources to the community as soon as possible.

[00:34:39] The second category is capacity and experience of the applicant, including demonstrated record of success working with localities doing similar work, demonstrated record of completing projects on time and on budget, knowledge and experience with energy-efficient building practices, fiscal and organizational soundness as evidenced by audits, experienced development team, track record of compliance with property management, affordability, and physical condition requirements, which would only apply to rental projects.

[00:35:15] This category is consistent with the county's value and expectation around stewardship, ensuring we are investing in an organization who can deliver on the proposed project. For the project budget, we're interested in whether the finance plan is sound, Whether we have a strong preference for projects in which the county provides less than 25% of the total project cost.

[00:35:43] For a rental housing pro forma, we're interested in whether it demonstrates that property income consistently exceeds expenses and debt service payments. We have strong preference for projects in which the requested funding is less than or equal to $30,000 a unit.

[00:36:01] This category reflects the county's interest in leveraging funding from other sources into our community and meeting the county stewardship expectations by ensuring that the proposed project is financially sound and a good investment of county funds. Finally, the last category is consistency with county priorities. This covers a lot of ground. Questions include whether the project is consistent with existing policies such as housing outmoral, AC44, and small area plans and the like, whether the project addresses at least one strategic priority area, for a strong preference for an

[00:36:39] extended period of affordability, for high level of energy efficiency, for proposed units would meet universal accessibility standards, and that the proposed project would be focused on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community. In this case, vulnerability is defined as extreme housing instability slash risk of homelessness. It includes community members over 65, families with children under six, and people with disabilities. This category reflects the county's interest in serving the most vulnerable members of our community, maintaining affordability

[00:37:18] and supported units as long as possible, ensuring we aren't funding anything that works at cross purposes with existing plans and policies, assisting to meet our energy efficiency and climate change goals, and ensuring that we increase the number of universally accessible units in our community.

[00:37:36] We look forward to your feedback and questions on both process and criteria. I'll present each of these separately. So we'll move to feedback and questions related to process. We're specifically seeking your feedback on items that were part of our discussion back in March, including the proposed timeline, eligible activities, the proposed split for the fund balance, and the minimum threshold score of 75% of available points for funding consideration.

[00:38:08] All right. So we've got this first set of questions, and then other items that fall, I guess, in that same category. Supervisor Duncan? I like the timeline change. That makes sense. And I printed out you were helpful enough to give me last year's list, and just looking at this whole thing, it looks clearer and feels like it makes a lot more sense, kind of all of the changes.

[00:38:37] I guess, I know we have more meetings to talk about housing stuff, so I'm willing to, like, listen to all of it and kind of, like, learn about all of the housing stuff before.

[00:38:54] But I guess sort of big picture, I just wonder if this is the best way to spend all of our affordable housing money. Like, I'm actually super interested in, you know, tap fees or a variety of other ways that just sort of big picture.

[00:39:11] I'm curious but for the specific thing my one I had a question about accessibility so you give five points for if they include affordable units that are accessible isn't that a requirement that they have to be accessible I yes I know I think this there a variety of standard for accessibility so there are standards around accessibility that are allow for anyone to come visit your unit versus anyone to live in your unit and it wouldn't be surprising to learn

[00:39:50] that the accessibility standards for some conditions are either not the same as other conditions or working across purposes sort of in in the way of other conditions and so this is a really about this standard so we're trying to be as broad as possible and refer to the Virginia home standards for accessibility as well as for energy efficiency given the fact that we're not experts in this area we'd like to sort of work on somebody else's defended criteria that makes sense and then the comment that was made about home

[00:40:28] ownership below 80% I do wish that could be 60% as well but that for this that's kind of all my comments supervisor Malik thank you very much and And thank you for the helpful homework to get here today. I think you've answered lots of questions, but I still have a few more.

[00:40:46] So let us go back to the very beginning of what you were saying. Who is doing the housing needs assessment? The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission has been working with the Regional Housing Coalition? Partnership.

[00:41:01] Partnership on the creation of a housing needs assessment for the region. No, it's not mostly developers. I thought they ran a THP. I'm not the developer. I'm on there. right okay good um yeah rhp okay there's that one good now um you mentioned some names on the review panel was that this past year or the one to come that's the proposed for 27 it was a demonstration that we're working with others outside of our jurisdiction and outside of the county to bring expertise there was commentary in march that while we had county staff reviewing the

[00:41:39] applications that we were sidelining our housing experts and so we took that feedback to say our reviewers this year should include county staff and also outside housing experts. And so these are not people who would be, I remember lawyers are not allowed to represent somebody who then would be an applicant in front of the board. There'd be no conflict of interest. So this is that kind of separation is what we're talking about. Okay, that's excellent. And the 90-10 percentage for the active things as opposed to the small staff initiated things which i still

[00:42:15] don't quite understand what those are yet um but i think that's better i'd like that and you've been very clear about the process for that which i find very helpful the um so in many of the other investments which the county has made in cip land it's been for the last dollar and it struck me when we were going over an applicant and that the first million dollars for a project is went to land purchase and then nothing has really that money's been spent but there isn't the next step

[00:42:53] so i guess this is a dramatic change from the sort of last dollar investment that we have done in other things so i would like you to think about that and make sure that this is that we're we're getting the projects to advance that we're certain they're going to advance i you have a lot of descriptors in here that i think imply that it's important but um performance on prior projects data, time limits, continual postponements, and tenant satisfaction in current managed projects is very important to me because I have so many in my district that are problematic. And so I think

[00:43:29] that before more money is given to some, they need to be showing that they can do a better job than they're doing now. And I mentioned the last thing. The consistency with the county plans, I think your vulnerable description certainly is ideal, but it leaves out a whole section of working for. If we're focusing on the very young, with young children and the seniors, then there's still a whole lot of people in the middle. And I don't know what to do about that, but I just, it struck me that that was a big, big gap. And just of interest, having a separate experimental

[00:44:08] column where it could evaluate something such as Mr. Williamson's suggestion to see how the dollars would compare and how much bang for the buck could be achieved i mean people have been talking about that for a long long time and it'd be great to have some sort of chart that one could look at and see how they would compare i don't know how to do it but that's just an idea thank you supervisor lapisto currently thank you for the presentation um wanted to know do we know how many

[00:44:43] do we have data on how many rentals that we've helped through our program and how many ownership programs ownership that we've programs that we've helped we do data on that we do have that data it's normally provided to the board at sometime in the end of may as part of the office of housing annual report and so we can we're in in process of developing that report right now for the last year and we can certainly resend the ones from previous years what i'm wondering is

[00:45:16] Is it about a one-to-one relationship or two-to-one or five-to-one, something like that? We have significantly higher investments across the board in rental housing to date over homeownership for some of the reasons that were already identified that it's significantly more expensive to generate.

[00:45:35] Right. And it was explained to me by Dr. Pethia that we might approve someone for homeownership, But then they have the burden of going to the bank, their credit score, et cetera, et cetera, whether or not they're actually, whether or not they actually get approved.

[00:45:51] So on paper, we look, you know, we've approved these, but in the final end, or at the end, they may not be able to qualify through the banks in the process, correct? True, for traditional loans. There are other ways of getting to the equity involved in purchasing a home.

[00:46:09] Certainly, Habitat for Humanity has a model in which they contribute, intentionally draw down the overall cost of the home to make sure that any potential buyer who is in that community, particularly in Southwood, but in other communities as well, that have a mortgage that matches the HUD requirement of 30%, no more than 30% of your monthly income.

[00:46:33] and so that essentially serves as the first mortgage on that home and that over time they earn the capacity to pay more on that mortgage and own a bigger stake of that home. It's an unusual sort of financial model, but it's one that's used by Habitat for Humanity across the country and one that is reflective in the idea that homeownership is a wealth builder for community, for individual households.

[00:47:00] Right. And that's something I certainly support, and I've stated it before, that I would like to see a program where if there's some way of homeownership being offered to our first responders, because I think those are the people that you want in the community, living in the community, when there's a disaster that happens.

[00:47:23] And who knows what's going to happen in the future. But when there's a disaster that happens, I think it's important for them to live in the county and not one or two counties away. And I brought this up about rentals and home ownership because I was wondering if, and I don't know if the other board members would agree or not, but having additional points given to those who are renting because I'd actually, if we're holding onto some money for home ownership and we're not spending it, I'd like to see that given and helping out more renters.

[00:47:59] One of the things the board could do is determine, sort of similar to the human services needs process, that we have applications that come in to meet the requests for nonprofits that are negotiated during the budget process and staff evaluate them based on a score.

[00:48:23] We have an application, we score that. and then they are ranked according to priority based on what the board has said is the highest priority, vulnerability, those kinds of things. To that end, should the board be interested in, the board could rank in order of preference the three eligible activities. Right now they are all identified as sort of equally valuable. They do meet individual needs along the housing continuum. If you all remember the housing continuum, we need resources on almost all of those buckets in order to have a successful affordable housing strategy. And so there's

[00:49:02] data and defensibility in serving and meeting the needs of all three of these categories. However, what's in the board's discretion to say you'd like to award additional points to one or rank them in the order of your particular preference. And perhaps, perhaps with additional monies for rentals, you could even in some cases, you know, lower the, it wouldn't have to be 60%, maybe it could be lower than 60% AMI, something like that. And the last thing I'd like to bring up is it was mentioned that regarding fees for ACSA for sewer and water hookup, is that something

[00:49:41] that would be viable, simple to do, that would help out, that would encourage developers to actually put in units for affordable housing the hookups for only for affordable units we've heard conflicting information about that we've heard both an interest in tap fees being one of the sort of a menu in the in past years we've talked about tap fees as being a one of many developer incentives we might offer developers and we've also heard from developers that that financial support isn't sufficient to meet the need and so they would prefer that that's an and item yes tap fees and also some

[00:50:20] additional support and so i don't mean to steer us away from that conversation and anticipate that being part of the conversation in august 5th when we talk about housing album all in the full range of incentives around housing policy good thank you very much that's all supervisor missal thank you um thank you for the presentation it was really helpful can you do me a favor i want to make sure i'm categorizing my comments appropriately can you go back one slide please process and evaluation criteria okay i'll start with process um so first of all it's great to hear the 7.033

[00:50:57] read out um that's that's uh empowering i think and it's it's great to see that um still more need of course and and we're working towards that um also looking forward to the two-on-twos, two-by-twos, the four of us getting together at some point in the near future on this. I think flexibility is important, and I can tell just by looking at this and even speaking to some constituents over the last couple of days that you've heard them even in the last couple of days and made some edits to it. So a lot of what I was thinking and wondering about

[00:51:34] has been addressed by even just this simple approach, so I really appreciate that. A couple questions in terms of the timeline i think what i understand is that the edits to the timeline are to align with the ability for the developer to find other funding sources and know in advance that they have these at their disposal so it can help to build the capital stack is that right yes ideally we make our internal decisions present them to the board for your approval in time for like a LIHTC application for any rental units as it happens and none of the folks

[00:52:12] that we've talked to are actually pursuing LIHTC applications this year which is why we can be in front of you proposed for October 8th instead of before October 1st which is when it would be due but that would be our ideal sort of timeline is that we provide enough information so that they can pursue those.

[00:52:33] If we agree, the county agrees to provide funding to someone, that's an important part of their application for LIHTC and drives additional points for them, and so that's going to be something that people are going to want to have. They don't need to have the performance agreement signed, but they need to have your decision prior to that application date line.

[00:52:52] There are certainly other sources of funds, community foundations, et cetera, that people will be seeking, And we want it to not be in the way of your budget decision-making process and also create as many opportunities for people to get their leveraged funding in time to use the funds prior to the end of the current, whatever that current fiscal year is.

[00:53:12] That all makes sense. So when you say October deadline, that's for 4% LIHTC, right? Yes. And there's also the March deadline for 9%. So it doesn't really align with the March deadline, right, in a sense, for 9%? Sure. If we have made our decision in October, that's in their funding deck for the March application, so it meets both.

[00:53:32] So then you're getting right at my question here. So as you're establishing that capital stack and you're looking at your full pro forma, this funding will be part of that. As I understand it, and maybe I'm misunderstanding, but part of the criteria of being awarded these funds is that you have an established financial plan.

[00:53:56] Is that a chicken and egg thing? In other words, is your financial plan established by saying we are applying for LIHTC funds? Is that enough to establish a secure financial plan? That's enough for us to believe in your financial plan. I suspect that there could be financial plans that will come in that aren't relying on LIHTC, that already have funding secured and they would get additional points over somebody who is yet to be applying.

[00:54:19] Somebody who is applying, however, meets both our sort of financial plan, a set of criteria for financial plan, and also a set of criteria for us around readiness to deliver on the project. If you're anticipating applying, preparing to apply, that counts as readiness for us, even if it means you're not going to have a shovel in the ground in 120 days.

[00:54:42] That's great to know, because sometimes, obviously, if you don't get the award, the LIHTC awards, you have to pivot and try to find other ways to fund. So that doesn't preclude you from getting these funds? Agreed. Okay. Agreed. Okay, that's great. And we would be in pretty significant conversation with anyone who had been awarded funds by this board to make sure that we are creating a performance agreement that is both viable and some maybe applying some pressure to deliver on something.

[00:55:11] So if we got to the end of, you know, this spring or early summer of next year and we didn't think that there was a viable path, then we'd come back before you and ask for you to reconsider distributing those funds in a different spot. But we recognize that the construction environment and development environment is tricky, and there are many chicken or egg situations around sort of planning out your construction plan, and we're most interested in those units being delivered, period.

[00:55:40] Okay, that's really helpful. I agree. I mean, you want the focus to be on things that can be delivered, 100%. So the 120-day start time, I mean, that's tight, right? So I don't want to spend more time getting into more details, but at some point, maybe on the 2-on-2s, I'd love to learn more about the 120 days and how that plays into this.

[00:56:03] And if that is going to preclude any awards here, you know, really what the rationale was behind that. So that's one. The other is the threshold, and it's quite one of your questions, number four. The 75%, how did you arrive at a 75% number?

[00:56:21] Why is it 75 and not 80 or 65? Three-quarters of the available points seemed like the right place to land. There are others that have 80% thresholds, and then there are some who have a 69% threshold. And so 75% seemed like you got most of the points.

[00:56:38] There would be no way for you to get just points in one category and none in the others. Got it. But I don't think that's proven by science. Okay. You were asking whether we think that's the right threshold. I'm not sure what to base my yes or no on there. But if that makes sense, I mean, if what you're saying makes sense at least.

[00:56:57] I think at our last round we had enough proposals who met the threshold and some who didn't to reflect that not everybody is going to get in there based on that 75% threshold. um and that there's still it's still a high enough expectation or a low enough expectation that enough of our local providers are going to be able to compete for these funds uh effectively got it sort of uh the balance of the stewardship expectation and the flexibility expectation yeah working backwards a little bit so the split the 90 percent 10 percent are perfect i think that

[00:57:32] the way that's been edited and changed i think is the right approach to that um i think that the equal allocation of those three eligible groups is also correct to not bias that in one way or another. However, I would see that as more of a kind of like an evergreen process where, you know, the market might, and this gets a little bit, I think, to what you were saying, the market might dictate the need for more, I don't know, homeownership or, you know, one year. The next

[00:58:12] year. It's like, well, we've got a lot of home ownership. That would be nice to have, but we don't have very much whatever AMI, right? So I think we just have to see that as not a fixed approach, but something that may need to flex based on the market and what's being seen. And to that end, about the proposed timeline, as we think about the inputs to us to make the right decisions, it seems that to add to your timeline a report like what is coming out of the TJPDC the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, aligning that with the decision process on this subject would be a helpful thing to do,

[00:58:50] as well as providing us with information on the prior year's effectiveness of the AHIF and how that works, so that that data can all be kind of combined. And that will allow us to sort of think through what is a priority, right, as we look at that.

[00:59:07] I think I will stop there. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? Thank you. I first want to very briefly, in response to B's comment on affordable rentals, my understanding is that one of the most persistent concerns, critiques of our current process is almost literally opposite of your point, which is that there was a perhaps unintended

[00:59:44] structural bias in the ranking mechanism that created an unintended just statistical preference for rentals based on the total number of points allocated, which has been changed by the fact that they're all now on a 185 point baseline. I'm looking to CACI to see if that is accurate.

[01:00:06] They weren't previously the exact same point value. Correct. They were 210, 185, and 130, and we corrected what mathematically is a bias, albeit mild. Yes. I think the argument was that it was changing how easy it was to get over the cleavage point of 75% based on your missing points.

[01:00:31] I agree with Fred's point, with Vice Chair Messel's point, that this is probably a moving target. And I also, his comments, I think, spoke to what I was going to begin with, kind of an opening observation um we we're currently doing a lot of thinking and doing a lot of investing around housing but I think it's also important to recognize that we it is like a five-year-old process um which means it at least is my perception right now that a hiff and our

[01:01:05] inclusionary zoning set-asides are currently trying to do everything and be everything on housing which means they're they're containing certain like uh intrinsic contradictions um and before uh supervisor missile had even mentioned it i had already written down that i think there's an intrinsic contradiction in our preferencing we're trying to simultaneously preference being the first dollar and the last dollar right um i i want high leverage for my county uh contributions which I think means a first dollar roll, right?

[01:01:45] We want to be able to be in a position to help draw down 9% and 4% subsidies. We want to be in a position to potentially attract better bank rates, which would be a first dollar thing. But that sits in contradiction to trying to be shovel-ready within 120 days.

[01:02:03] There's also, I think, probably going to be some inherent contradictions in, I don't think it's the time to address it, But I think we will need to address it as this becomes a more mature project, as we build out inventory, and as we potentially develop our tool set for other local tools, which is we're trying to do deep affordability using a tool built for shallow affordability.

[01:02:30] Others may disagree with that, but I think of a housing trust fund as something that is very much designed for relatively shallow affordability, and that's particularly true with loan-based funds. And we're trying to prioritize sub-60%, which is hard. It is not the easy way to do that.

[01:02:47] When you're trying to target that percentage of people, you are often either doing it with a direct-to-one-facing subsidy or you're stacking subsidies. I'm thinking most deeply poor people I know who are housed in high-cost living areas are receiving double subsidies.

[01:03:04] They're in a subsidized apartment on a housing voucher. And our housing voucher portfolio is limited by the feds right now, and we don't have a local voucher. Which is just to say, as we have built that out more, and I'm being careful because I know this is a very particular ask of impact, and I think it's the right ask while we only have one tool in front of us, but as we develop our portfolio of tools and as we also build our inventory, I imagine we're going to want to revisit our target AMI levels because I'm not sure it's the best and highest way to leverage a dollar using this particular tool.

[01:03:44] But right now, it's where we have to make up ground most acutely. So that's my opening salvo of a rant. Now to actually get to what I'm being asked to comment on. I zoned out very briefly while writing some of these notes when we were talking about the transition and where we're getting feedback in the process.

[01:04:07] I know there's been requests for some kind of publicly serving board for evaluation, and I was briefly zoned out on the slide that discussed that. Can you refresh me very quickly? I'm sorry. The Housing Advisory Committee or Council is on for future conversations that would follow our Housing Admiral conversation.

[01:04:30] So our Housing Admiral conversation is scheduled for August 5th. The Housing Advisory Counselor Committee is a component of Housing Admiral, one of the recommendations, and one of the recommendations we'll be seeking your guidance on at that time. And so the follow-up would be based on your guidance provided in August.

[01:04:52] We've talked before about chicken and egg problems with how I'm about to ask this question. are you and your staff anticipating the housing advisory committee being able to fill this role on ahif allocations or a separate committee that is also doing that because this is something i've been asked before and i'm like i don't actually know which way we're going if it's going to be two committees or one that's among the things we're seeking your collective guidance on in august is what the role of the housing advisory council ought to be um there's good uh suggestions that

[01:05:26] the selection committee for an AHIF ought not to be the same group of people providing you with policy guidance. So I think we're going to present that question to you all in August. Sure. I would say regardless of how we want to cleave those, this kind of speaks to, I think, a bias that Supervisor Malik was just sharing that I agree with. I would want dedicated seats for tenants in both of those if they exist, even recognizing that a tenant doesn't come

[01:06:04] with the same expertise on funding stacks. I'm reminded of a little over a decade ago, right, CRHA was, there's got to be so many acronyms, CRHA was contemplating doing a bunch of project-based rental assistance demonstration programs, converting public housing to private in order to redevelop and retain subsidies.

[01:06:29] And every, I don't want to typecast, I think every person on this board, if they were in the CRHA position, would have been like, yep, that makes sense. That's a good technocratic thing to do. It leverages more money. And the position that the FAR Tenant Association sat in said, dollars to donuts, I don't care.

[01:06:48] This is going to change my experience as a tenant. And we're very forceful in resisting that. And that is a perspective that had I been on the CRHA board in that capacity, I would not have known otherwise. And so I do think there's always going to be the importance of that tenant voice in whatever structure we create.

[01:07:06] A few very specific questions on how we are structuring this with the proposed changes. Are you expecting to carry through the 10% rather than the 20%?

[01:07:21] Or is this in response, sorry, for the staff-led activities? You've reduced it from 20% to 10%, but I'm also recognizing that we are carrying over a balance from last cycle. Are you expecting to stay at 10% or is this more in appreciation of the fact that we have an unused fund balance? We'll be before you in June with recommendations to use the remaining fiscal year 26 balance. So it is still very much my fervent hope that we have exhausted

[01:07:52] the AHIF by June 30th, 2026. So I would not say we're prepared to carry over money from 26 into 27 at this moment. And so with that, can I also intuit that you're thinking 10% is maybe an amount that makes more sense moving forward? Agreed. And I think having some degree of flexibility, both for staff to push forward some things that might be sort of in the pilot program kind of category to test some things around housing. If we're smaller, just more discrete populations,

[01:08:30] we've had a conversation with this board about the number of families who are involved in child protection services simply because of instable housing. What would it be like if we provided some stability? How would that affect family well-being? How much stability or subsidy would that take to do. Smaller amounts of money, but probably likely available nowhere else. And so those are the kinds of things we can imagine asking for your support to sort of test some things for families of particular vulnerability. But also because the markets are so changeable and because

[01:09:06] our context is so changeable, it allows the board to have some funds to use to respond to an emerging need that comes up during the year it would be my hope that we don't carry those funds forward that we don't have a rolling amount that we spend that money appropriately during the fiscal year in which has been appropriate thank you for that um i don't think i fully appreciated that our our loan periodicity when we do disperse loans is is five years and i've heard some as i'm guessing you probably have, concern that a five-year amount of time

[01:09:44] for that to sit on the capital stack isn't that useful. And I don't know that it's a pressing fiscal priority for us to have that speedy repayment, but maybe it is. Is that something we're prepared to be flexible on? It also doesn't seem like it's written into the guidelines that I'm looking through, but maybe I missed it.

[01:10:02] So is that something we can flex on in the immediate year? It's one of several items that I think we're going to sort of chew on operationally to see what's the right amount of time. This board was particularly interested in the opportunity to use loans because it becomes a self-seeding tool for the fund.

[01:10:23] So there's some payoff there about sort of being able to use the loans right now, but also delaying the opportunity to sort of self-water the fund. So I think we can look to other best practice models in other communities and see what the standard is elsewhere.

[01:10:38] I have heard that concern that five years is not enough, particularly in this sort of construction timeline for that to be immediately useful for a number of nonprofit providers. So that's one of a number of things that we'll sort of chew on between now and July 1st when we open this process up again.

[01:11:02] I know when we were doing kind of an ad hoc opening up of this discussion previously, because we were dispersing the funds I had expressed the thought that we were currently using an identical system for evaluating grants and loans but they had different costs and benefits loans kind of again are I think are better suited for shallower levels of affordability that are serving a broader group whereas grants are less so I think I'm seeing that we're not

[01:11:38] um we're not substantively changing how we evaluate those um could you speak to that is there a plan on how we might qualitatively evaluate them differently how just how that fork happens in the evaluation process uh i think two two phases one is to think about the way other uh for example the city of richmond or the state home uh process evaluate loans differently we did not see substantial differences in the way they evaluated those two approaches but we can do

[01:12:16] some additional digging we could not do that level of work in time for the fiscal year 27 process and meet the timeline expectations of the board at the same time so much like the human services funding process i imagine ongoing process tweaks to this as we learn and go so that the door's not shut on that. But we need to do some more due diligence on best practice. Thank you. I do have one. Most of those were questions. I do have one very prescriptive thing I'm going to say and actually look to the board to see if we have support once we've gone around this. And it's kind of a small

[01:12:54] thing, but in the guidelines, you talk about tenant displacement, and it's kind of a solicitation of a commitment to principles of tenant displacement as a thing that is looked for. I was thinking recently, because of the Cavalier Crossing development, about how tenant displacement tools get integrated into a housing ecosystem and that they all have to be done prospectively.

[01:13:21] You have to do them at the beginning of a development so that when it gets re-deved 30 years later, you actually have it in place. And this seems to me, absent enabling authority, the main place we can implement pretty robust tenant anti-displacement. So I'm wondering, and I want to see your take on this, but if we can adopt a requirement for a tenant displacement plan that is reviewed by staff and or a future housing committee.

[01:13:51] This is a tool I've seen in other localities that when they come and they're like, oh, we have received AHIF funding, we are preparing to do a redev that's going to result in displacement. Here is, as policy, as a criteria for the award that we received from you 25 years ago, here's our tenant displacement plan in which we are going to say how we're going to place these people and what maybe transitional subsidies we're going to offer them to ease that.

[01:14:19] Granted, that's normally done as part of a review for a second round of subsidies for the redev, but I'm just wondering if that is something we could implement in the guidelines at this stage and how you would feel how that comfort level strikes you this board has repeatedly identified an interest in creating some restrictions around tenant displacement and so i imagine there'd be a strong interest in this board in exploring that i think i would need to consult with the attorney's office to make sure that if we're that we're not extending an obligation that's beyond our scope of investment over the 25 or 30 or 90 years since we're sometimes

[01:14:58] we're asking for 90 years of affordability around that so I think we would need to do some some digging on that as well before we could commit to having that be part of this process that's not that's not saying we couldn't do it it could be really straightforward but the board's interest has in ensuring that tenants don't get displaced through redevelopment is long-standing it could also work in the other direction right like we're contemplating these being new these all being green fields that a hip is going toward a hip can tomorrow be used in fact it was just the cycle use for some redevs we could include as a

[01:15:37] component for redevs right because we can we can issue funds for a redev tomorrow but currently I don't I don't read this as creating a strict requirement requirement on how they look at tenant displacement during that re-dev. Although I'm not sure if we are sitting in a capacity where you could even make that change. If there was a small change that could be made for this funding round, I'm not sure if we are sitting in a capacity where we could approve that for this round, seeing that there isn't a textual change in front of us and we have to vote on it.

[01:16:16] It's August or later, right? Well, the funding is dispersed soon, right? It's dispersed next month. To the extent that that can be it, that's an operational change that we could include in the scoring criteria as if an applicant is seeking redevelopment that we would ask for a tenant non-displacement plan from them as part of their assessment about their overall plan.

[01:16:41] I don't think that that requires us to come back to the board for that. That's all I have. Anyway, I would voice to the board that to whatever degree we're able to require tenant displacement management plans in this process, I think we would be well-suited to because it's really the only opportunity we have to create structural requirements on that.

[01:17:06] That's all I have. Sorry, I know that was a long time. Are there any other questions or comments on this process slide? Just because I know we have another set that we're going to go to, so that's what I'm curious about. i heard some criteria things in here so we will have a chance to speak more on that yes i will just add on pile on to mike's excellent idea about the non-displacement because nine years ago the reason the board wholeheartedly said yes to southwood was because of their promise that people who wanted to stay could stay and that is the only place where we've seen any kind of respect for our

[01:17:46] long-term residents up and down 29 in Crozet the new owners cannot wait to kick out the old-timers and they do it by changing the rules and tripling the ground rent in a mobile home park and refusing to help little old ladies mow their grass and things like that it's just and so we have no teeth right now in this nice paragraph we have so I would like to see some teeth otherwise we're just talking we're not doing so thank you I will share that with you because it's something I meant to talk about earlier um and you know that habitat model works and so i hope that we will get more

[01:18:23] in that direction and less in the oh do it if you can and feasibility always makes me mad because people can describe the statistics to make feasibility go any way they want to well i think we just need to figure out that we want to care for the people who have lived there so long and not just throw them under the bus because townhouses are coming thank you others on this slide before we move i mean my from a process standpoint i think there's the improvements here with what you suggested for the next round and I don't think this is going to set it in stone for the next five years. I think there's going to a lot of things, I guess I'll say publicly, that a

[01:18:59] lot of things that I probably have comments on in the interest of time won't be best suited here knowing that we're going to have multiple times to discuss affordable housing over the coming months with what we have planned and then going into next year's budget and during next year's budget. So I'll save my grandstanding for then. So we can go ahead to the next item there.

[01:19:21] That wasn't meant as a smackdown. Grandstanding? No, because I know I was smackdown at me because you all know I can climb up on my soapbox. I'm saying that I'll reserve that right until a later date. That was not a commentary on anybody else here today. Much of the application is based on good stewardship or legal principles to gather information from potential grantees to make sure that they're going to use our money well.

[01:19:48] There are opportunities for the board's discretion, particularly in this category of county priorities, and so we want to spend some time with this slide to make sure that we're reflecting your interests. And there are, as you have noted, a number of ways in which your priorities show up in the operational component of this process, But there's this very specific section on consistency with county priorities that I'd like your specific feedback on, particularly focused on the cost per unit.

[01:20:19] There was some discussion in March at the meeting about whether we ought to be evaluating having a scored section on how much each unit costs in production. There's both a strong stewardship sort of argument for doing that, the consistency with existing policies, the extended period of affordability.

[01:20:38] We ask in the application for a hope and a wish that applicants were going to commit to 90 years of affordability. That's an extremely long period. But inherent in that is a strong interest in making sure that our investments remain, make sure that we can keep affordable units in our community as long as possible.

[01:21:00] The high level of energy efficiency is defined in a number of different ways, but we would rely on the sort of state home funds as the basis or the criteria for ways to achieve and arrive at energy efficiency. The same with accessibility standards and then, of course, the focus on vulnerability in our community.

[01:21:19] All of these are additional point-earning opportunities in this section, and so it's worth hearing your feedback and guidance on whether they reflect your interests. All right. Supervisor Duncan. I realized as I was asking my accessibility question that I probably had jumped ahead.

[01:21:38] The amount per unit, so you're taking the applications kind of as is on each one.

[01:21:55] Do you compare them at all? I guess I was thinking about the ones that we looked at earlier this year. there was a wide range in costs per unit and I was a little frustrated that some of the much more expensive per unit ones got funded over more less per unit ones and so is there a is there a way to sort of I guess maybe prioritize like increase the points of if they're you know less than 30,000

[01:22:34] you get maybe more than 10 points or something to sort of incentivize funding more that are cost less per unit um and then it feels like a lot of these are sort of you know we want these and i guess you have the sliding scale of points but for example for like the green energy and stuff are any of these required in it or it's just if you include this you're going to get more

[01:23:07] points like is there a way to like require some of these things certainly there would be a way to require these things i think the um the question is uh related to sort of how you arrive at that um there are some uh projects again serving all three areas of sort of funding projects that the standards and the definitions are going to be different for rehab than they are for rental units are going to be different from home ownership and so it's hard to identify a hard

[01:23:43] threshold, which is why we asked for a plan. In the criteria section, we do identify some name-branded sort of practices that we think are ones that people can get there. And we ask them to identify, are you certified in these? Have you had experience? Is this part of your plan? Given how tight the process was, competitive process, the first go-round, now that they're all 185 points, I imagine that it would be really hard to get zero points in any one of these categories and still proceed with the process, which sort of de facto acts like a requirement without being a requirement.

[01:24:21] I think we'd need to do more homework to identify sort of where we would identify that threshold for requirement. And the same, I think, with the cost per unit. The board has made plain its interest in not being a sole funder, And this is another mechanism of saying we want to fund and support units that are cost-effective, and also we want to make sure we're not the only one investing in it.

[01:24:52] The one other thing. Oh, to me, like, the 90-year affordability sounded like really a lot, and then I looked it up, and that's sort of like a national best practice.

[01:25:10] And so I guess that's great. So, yeah, those are all the only questions I had. Supervisor Malek? Thank you very much. So my dilemma with the cost per unit earlier was the loans and the grants were treated the same, even though their inputs were totally different, and the pay of return.

[01:25:35] So if you're separating them for looking at, then I'd like to learn more about how that turns out in the next round. The extended affordability question. I remember several times in the last 19 years, the board has invested in a project which was about to end its contract to preserve the affordability there for the next 30 or 40.

[01:26:00] So that would still exist, I guess. Is that what you're replicating here, or is there something different that I just don't understand? Because the same building is not going to be the same for 90 years. I mean, it's going to need constant every 25 years or so stuff, rehab, new roofs and plumbing and electrical, things like that.

[01:26:23] Agreed. I think that sort of development of a new project that will remain affordable over 90 years doesn't mean we're not likely to be asked to contribute public dollars to its maintenance and support, whether that is through grant-making or loan-making or through a request, for example, for subsidized units through voucher programs to sort of offset the operational cost for those units.

[01:26:48] I agree. I think, as we've seen, particularly in this market, any level of sustained affordability requires the sort of layering, I think is what Supervisor Pruitt identified earlier as layering of subsidies in order to maintain them either in the competitiveness of our current market or for any kind of sustainable period of time.

[01:27:08] Okay, so I get that. More to say. Energy efficiency, passive design, and weatherization is really important, but I do not think that the extra expense of going to LEED or some definition that's always changing out of Washington is a good idea because it's going to triple the cost of everything and for what.

[01:27:27] So having things that orient south and have overhangs on the west and north to make your house function so much better. Preservation of trees is absolutely essential if you're talking about energy efficiency. And the original executive director of LEAP described me as the poster child for how we all do things wrong.

[01:27:51] And she was very sweet about it. But she said, you know, here we have this board member here who goes out 15 years ago and gets her geothermal. and she puts up her solar panels and only last does she do the $1,500 worth of weatherization that she needed to do first. So that's sort of the hard truth that I think we need to make sure if new things are being built, let's use those really basic stuff that people did 100 years ago intrinsically.

[01:28:17] They didn't put west-facing 30-foot-tall glass walls. I mean, that was just, that's ridiculous. Nobody can afford to heat and cool that. So I'm just trying to get down to basics here, and hopefully the geniuses in the room who can do the designing will figure out how to do that.

[01:28:33] And that's all I had. Thank you. Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley? Yeah, cost per unit, I think we all want to make sure that we do the best regarding the price and such, and no problem with consistent with existing policies.

[01:28:53] Extended period of affordability, you said 90 years, right? and how we keep up with that i'm not sure i mean i think in 90 years or 50 years the building's going to be falling down you know i mean if you get one that they build brand new 90 years i don't know how long the average apartment building or home lasts but i can tell you 90 years you're going to need a lot of repair and such is the developer responsible for that or weed responsible

[01:29:27] for that question it sounds simple what you've asked but it's more philosophical I'm not sure how to answer that question I think collectively we're responsible for that if it's 90 years of affordability and I there are communities who have extended periods of affordability who have used multiple tools for making sure ultimately it means that that that price of property could not be purchased and turned into sort of higher end condos because we have designated as a community that this is a property that will continue to be affordable. How remains a question

[01:30:05] to be answered in that 45 years or 50 years, which could include grant subsidies, subsidies through vouchers and other forms to maintain its viability. Okay, so the land remains the whole process affordable yes and I'm assuming that in 45 or 50 years would be a new board here I'm not going to comment on that except maybe Mike might be here the extended the high level of energy efficiency you I was happy to hear you

[01:30:38] say that the developers could use other monies that are out there from federal or state governments or whatever to be able to put in these high or these energy-efficient, be it, I don't know, washer-dryer or building or making sure that the windows, A.C. and everything is good, that would be good because if they have to absorb all that process because in your proposal you have all these things, you know,

[01:31:16] Supervisor Malik mentioned it, you know, LEED certified and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought that's going to cost a ton of money. There are, I think, at least six different certification methods for sort of meeting this requirement around energy efficiency that are included right now in the guidelines.

[01:31:33] And there's flexibility in hearing a plan from a developer to say this is how we intend to do that, whether that's through design or whether that's through renovation or whether that's through certification process, whether it's through ENERGY STAR appliances that are sort of at least all of them are ENERGY STAR.

[01:31:50] I think there's lots of ways for a developer to get to that requirement and still get full points. I think what we've heard from developers is that they don't want to be and can't be boxed into one particular. LEED certification might be amazing for a large rental redevelopment process.

[01:32:08] It might not be at all for a home ownership. So we want to retain as much flexibility to say here are the ones that other communities who use government money to support affordable housing development use. And so we're triggering you to say this is the kind of standard we're interested in and tell us what you do.

[01:32:25] Okay, because I did notice you had an array of different options and everything, which I thought was good. And you're not saying you have to do all of these, that they can pick some of them. Proposed units will meet accessibility standards.

[01:32:41] Is that all the units? Yes, we're suggesting that all units would meet a universal accessible standard. It's different from an ADA standard, and so we do have some cleanup to do in our application to identify the difference. And I think we know now in our community that there are not enough accessible units.

[01:33:01] As our community is aging, we're going to need more and more accessible units, universally accessible units. So one way for us to ensure that they're being developed is to require that if people use our funds to build affordable housing, that they make sure that they incorporate these accessibility conditions. Okay, could you define accessibility standards versus ADA?

[01:33:22] ADA is more required for condition, universal accessibility standards. I should send you more information because I'm not going to be able to speak articulately clearly about the difference. If we want all the doorways to be wheelchair accessible, whether that's somebody who comes to live there or whether somebody comes to visit.

[01:33:45] But that doesn't necessarily mean we need all of the countertops to be wheelchair height. That's a distinction between the two. So I can send that information out to the board for follow-up. That would be good. Thank you. I'd appreciate that. And when you're talking about the most vulnerable members of our community, could you define that?

[01:34:04] Yes, ma'am. I mean, it sounds simple, but I'm thinking, you know, single mother with four kids, you know, young. I'm thinking of older people. I'm thinking of handicapped. The definition of vulnerability used last year is also the same definition of vulnerability used in our human services funding process and is rooted in our human services needs assessment, which is housing instability and risk of homelessness.

[01:34:34] HUD identifies that is likely to lose your current housing in the next 14 days. Community members who are over 65, families with children under the age of 6, and families with children under the age of 6 are the highest risk of becoming homeless based on all kinds of other kinds of stressors and are the hardest to serve, and people with disabilities.

[01:34:59] So that's the sort of baseline threshold for vulnerability that this board has supported in the past. Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Missal. Thanks. I'll make my comments quick. One is just a general comment. You know, what I've learned, as I've learned more about affordable housing, I realize that many of the requirements to obtain funding add cost, which is counterproductive.

[01:35:24] And we've just got to avoid that as much as possible. And some of that's been addressed with the comments others have made. I think, you know, the cost per unit, the $30,000 number, that's an example where if an applicant is coming with LIHTC funds or if they have that as part of their funding sources, there are costs added because they're going through the LIHTC program.

[01:35:49] If someone chooses to not do that, then it seems that they should not be penalized for getting a lower amount of funds from Albemarle, right? So just thinking about how that plays out in terms of the larger picture, there may be a choice to not move forward with LIHTC funds but still get funding from Albemarle because LIHTC was going to add so much more cost, at least the 9%, that it became cost prohibitive.

[01:36:16] So there's going to be a decision by the applicant as to how to balance that and how to work that through. I think as you talk about sustainability, I'm all about sustainability. I think it's critically important. I think if we, you know, the nice thing about saying it needs to be LEED Platinum is that you have an objective measure, right?

[01:36:39] I'm not saying that we should do that because it adds costs. I agree with what I think everyone else is saying here. However, if you enter into a conversation with one applicant and you say, hey, just give us your idea of what you're planning to do, it becomes more subjective.

[01:36:56] And I think that's dangerous because you might decide that, oh, well, I liked what they said. They articulated it better, and therefore, they should get more money. So I think we need to think about what that means to be sustainable without adding cost to the project and yet finding a way to be objective as opposed to subjective.

[01:37:18] The 90-year affordability limit, you know, most developers have a planning horizon of 10 to 15 years, right? so there are other initiatives going on locally that have a benchmark of 90 years because that planning horizon of the owner of the land is much longer i'll just say cryptically right so i think we have to be careful about that 90 year and i would just be interested to know what impacts the cost and feasibility that has on affordable housing i'm not saying we shouldn't have affordable housing for long term but i think there's a sweet spot there that we should look at and maybe it's

[01:37:58] Asking the applicant community, what is it that, you know, what does that look like? Is it, does it make more sense to align with our housing policy? Maybe that's too low of a bar. But just asking and wondering what the realities of that are.

[01:38:14] The other is that, you know, I mean, projects like this get recapitalized every 15 or 20 years. And so there's going to be a decision point in 15 or 20 years. And it gets back to, I think, what Supervisor Malik said, maintenance, property management is absolutely critical.

[01:38:32] And I'll just echo the need to have some measure of that in this policy, I think, which is what I think Supervisor Malik said. I'll stop there. I've got a couple other general comments at the end, but that's it.

[01:38:49] Supervisor Pruitt? Yeah, I will begin by apologizing to the chair. I had accidentally collapsed my previous comment into this. So I, but there's some pointed questions on this that I didn't respond to, so I'll still, don't worry, I'll still find something to say. I want to kind of first jump in on the kind of 90-year discussion, because this is a requirement, like Supervisor Duncan mentioned, this is a requirement I see as very ubiquitous in other local models that resemble AHIF.

[01:39:23] And Supervisor Missile probably has more current knowledge on this than I do. When I was last deeply familiar with LIHTC, I was under the impression that just the almost bidding-like process that people compete for tax credits for has pushed it so that 90-year is a pretty common expectation for LIHTC, too.

[01:39:44] Yeah, that's right. 80 to 90, yep. I would also be interested to see if this does impact affordability, but I would just reflect that. I don't see it as being cost for developers. I don't see it as being radically different than, it's essentially a strong form of a ROFA, which we fought for legislative authority in the past for, a right of first refusal for things that we've invested money on, because that's almost what we're doing.

[01:40:14] We're just saying, we want to make sure that when you're – development horizon ends, this will stay affordable and we get another bite at the apple, likely to receive a request to reinvest in it, which is also why I've alluded to before. I think like 20 to 15 years probably makes more sense as our loan horizon because it is nice to think that it's being refeeded back in for new projects, but realistically we're going to have to capitalize the same project again and we'll just do it with the same money. Anyway, that's all just to say, I think it makes sense.

[01:40:52] I would be interested if there's any further thoughts on how it affects developer costs. But to me, I think 90 years, there's a reason. It's the going standard. I do actually share Supervisor Missile's thoughts on both the energy and the accessibility standards.

[01:41:12] Both of those seem like desirable things to push toward, but I don't think, and this isn't meant to be a critique, I don't think we have the organizational capacity to define good standards at this point that aren't overly onerous, right?

[01:41:30] Like, I understand that universal accessibility is a higher standard than what the ADA amendments require, but I don't know what they look like. And I also understand that we're not asking them to be fully universally accessible.

[01:41:45] We're asking them to comply with degrees of it. Same with energy. We're not asking them to be LEED certified, but we're asking them to consider it. And that does introduce issues. And I would be interested to know if it is even feasible for us to develop more concrete objective standards with our current staffing capacity.

[01:42:05] Because I might doubt it is, right? Like, there's only so much expertise you can have in a team of a dozen. Oh, but we're so, so smart. I don't doubt that. I don't doubt that. No, I think you're absolutely right. think we would look to best practice in other localities and other places that have established or tried to create the sweet spot whether that's about long term affordability or whether that's about accessibility or around energy standards and and sometimes that's going to mean that we identify a standard that we think probably there's no one in our community is it is actually able to

[01:42:44] achieve at the moment to get 10 points but maybe they can get eight or nine it's not a threshold requirement question it's a question of how how close are you getting to the standard that we've set here we the board made the decision to fund all of the projects in the 26th this 90-year affordability standard was in the last go-round and those were proposed at 30 and 40 years and so So this is, again, not – this is about trying to push the philosophy of we want more affordable housing to last longer in our community so we have less turnover and redevelopment that runs the risk of moving people out.

[01:43:24] And at the same time, we need – we know the board has an interest in climate change goals and energy efficiency. This is one way to say we want to make our housing policy align with our policies in other areas. So, again, not requirements. That is a helpful reminder that at the end of the day what we're talking about are whether or not they get the full 10 points, not whether or not they get money at all.

[01:43:47] I would also just, and this I think will be the last thing I say here, I am reminded once again with some frustration that our, I think, 2023 analysis of impediments to fair housing that was done through the TJPDC, I find leaves a lot to be desired.

[01:44:07] I can't find in it very clear answers to what our gap in unit accessibility is. I also, like, let's just set aside the fact that it hardly has any reference to racial disparities in the county, despite it being the analysis of impediments to fair housing.

[01:44:24] And it's also frustrating that I don't think we're ever going to see another one because of the change federal rule. I wonder, as we kind of grapple with questions like this, right, we get a sense that there is a need for deeper levels of units that are accessible to our elderly and disabled residents.

[01:44:48] I also get a sense that we don't have a good handle on the problem. And so this is kind of to project past this. I'd be curious, maybe at a later date, maybe we can discuss this in early June, how your office is planning to grapple with just this.

[01:45:05] what I see is a really essential information gap on our fair housing gaps, on accessibility, and, again, other dimensions such as race, which we also have issues that I think we're completely blind to.

[01:45:22] That's all. We went somewhat past time. I'm going to make some comments. Does anybody else have any other questions or comments on this? Was this the last section, or was there another section? The only next section is to remind you when we're coming back to you and for what.

[01:45:40] All right, so if you'll go back then. Any additional questions or comments, and then I'll try to be efficient. Can I just throw a couple in there? I'm sorry. I wasn't sure if that was the last. Thank you for asking that question. So just a couple of things that are in my mind.

[01:45:56] Number one, the timeline is incredibly helpful. Seeing that somewhere, maybe even online, understanding with other milestones fit in is really how to get the big picture. I'll skip that. I'll skip that. I think benchmarking other communities, you mentioned that a few times.

[01:46:16] I mean, we up here are not the experts in this. And I think the humility with which this is being addressed and approached is very helpful. I think we have a lot to learn in this community, and I think we're getting better. So I appreciate that use.

[01:46:33] And then one last thing is, and this is where Jacob's going to give me the stink eye probably, but as we think about $7 million, right, it's a chunk of change. And I don't know, and when you think about, I've thrown this out before, it's probably a dumb idea, but how can we make that money work for us while it's sitting in the bank?

[01:46:50] Is there a possibility or a way to do that? You know, at a 7% return, it's almost half a million dollars. So I don't know if there's a way to do it, and I don't need an answer tonight. I'm just throwing that out there because it starts to make you think into the future where we might have a fund that is established that we can have as a revolving fund and be earning interest and potentially be using as an ongoing way.

[01:47:15] So just thinking forward as to how that might work. Done. Any others? To skip past the criteria, when the dollars go out the door, when we had the last round, the percentage, their score, turns into their percent of dollars.

[01:47:39] Is that still the case? It did this last time because that was a way for us to fund all of the projects that scored above 75% without not funding, leaving one out. So in order to get there, we recommended we fund a portion of the proposed project to be able to fund all of the ones above 75%.

[01:48:03] I don't think that's necessarily a method that we should replicate. It happened to be workable without, and all of the projects could move forward with that reduction in the funding. And it was an easy way for us to say yes all the projects who met the threshold requirement. I don't necessarily think that that's the way a recommendation from staff would come in the future or a decision that the board would make in the future. So how's it going to disperse? Like I read through, and if I missed it, then just say you missed it. But I didn't read in there that said if you score above 75 percent, so now it's

[01:48:39] not going to equate to that score what your dollar amount is going to be. How's the actual dollar amount determined. I think it's based on how much money is in the fund and how much is being requested will require us to sort of back into that answer. If the board had decided today to prioritize rentals over home ownership or rehab over rentals, then we might be in a position of saying we've got three projects, all who scored in the 80 range, but the board has a higher interest in funding rehab projects, so this one is recommended to be funded in full

[01:49:18] first, and then the remaining funds to be distributed among the remaining projects. And there's so many requests that we can really fund only those projects that scored above 80. Even though you're eligible for funding above 75, we don't have enough money to fund all of the projects, and so we rank them either by score, or we rank them by priority to make a recommendation to the board about how we get there and if we can fund the first the project comes the score of 99 uh what is it that's a hundred and 185 scores 183 uh we would probably recommend full funding for that

[01:49:57] project and then then back into funding for the remaining projects that met the requirements so that equates to okay so the higher your score the higher the probability you get your full ask is that a fair statement i think that's fair yeah so i i'm not i guess it's when looking at the point structure because you're just assigning like fives or tens to different things so i would think of if you had projects at 40 percent ami that was benefiting that segment that that's higher

[01:50:35] than a 50 percent or a 60 percent uh to get the bonus points the lower they go yes so we one of the changes for this year is not to just get the point or not get the point. You now, the raters, will have the opportunity for some applicants, some questions to do 0, 5, or 10, and for others to do 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, depending on how complex or layered the points are in a particular component.

[01:51:06] So we're trying to avoid this idea of all or nothing. So we get close to our goal of saying, let's say, use affordability as a good example. You can demonstrate a reasonable plan to maintain affordability for over 50 years, and you demonstrate an intention to do that.

[01:51:25] You probably wouldn't get all 10 points because 90 would get 10 points, but you'd probably get eight or nine. So we're trying to move away from that idea that was reflected in the 26 process sort of yes or no instead more variation to reflect the nuance that we've talked about today so if did i miss it in my reading of the materials that my first question you you might have missed it in the introduction to the process for in the slides which was that we're answering the

[01:51:59] questions with more nuance so i would i hope that what you explained just now if i'm an applicant applying that I understand that prior to the application. Because if you're somebody applying to do these projects, you have just like we do at SmartScale, we try to game it and maximize our chance to receive as much as we can. And that I think is critical to how you put your application forward. We will certainly update both the scoring matrix tool and the guidelines and post them on

[01:52:31] the website based on the board's guidance today i also think that is there a way and i was scanning back through it because i didn't really have the thought until i was listening to others talk the creativity and flexibility of an application can receive i guess it perhaps could be in the in the judgment of those doing the evaluation but if i'm an applicant that's coming forward and have mixed together some very creative different things.

[01:53:03] And then, in addition, whatever I get granted from this could make the project work. And then on our side, having the flexibility to go, oh, well, maybe if you added this in, that that could win them the award.

[01:53:20] My worry is that, like, if they look at our opportunities to work with the county, that this is just, this is it. So how do you combine this with a developer? And like I've appreciated the last couple applications that we've talked about, some are thinking, oh, yeah, we've got a couple different things that we could play around with, and that's the flexibility that needs.

[01:53:38] That's how, when I say housing's economic development, a lot of times that's what I mean, because there's all these different flexible things that you can pull together to pull off what we're trying to achieve. So I'm hoping that that's factored in there somewhere. I guess I'll make this comment just thinking forward to the work that we're going to do on affordable housing.

[01:53:59] but just I've been thinking about this like the connection fees specifically and how to back into that to a renter and I'll use the premier circle as an example is premier circle paying connection fees for all the units they're doing there I'm assuming so I'm assuming so we're not paying them so so the developer is the developer is paying and this is a permanent supportive housing project so if you take 60 units I think for for a development like that the connection fee would be 15 grand per unit. That's $900,000. So if you take $900,000 and you think of that in terms of

[01:54:37] you need to add that to your loan or take out a loan just for that $900,000 at a prevailing rate, and Google decided the prevailing rate for me when I was trying to figure out how to do the math, because anything that starts to even reek of algebra, my brain shuts down and I can't do it, so I need help. But it factored into about $8,000 a month for 60 units would be the cost to the developer just for the connection fees. Divide that by 60, that's about $135 per unit. So if I have a permanent supportive housing project, and if I remember the top rent at that project

[01:55:15] for the high bedroom was like $1,700 in that range, is that ballpark for the high-end one? That would be for the Piedmont Housing Alliance component for Premier Circle, yes. Yeah, the one we just had a few months ago. That's the one I'm thinking of. And the lowest was like $583,000 or something like that.

[01:55:33] So if you take $135,000, now the beauty of the connection fee from the service authority's perspective, and I'm not casting shade at them, is they don't care where it's at on the spectrum. They just want the $15,000 for the unit. So there's no difference like our car tax changes based on the value of the car and stuff like that.

[01:55:52] Well, that doesn't work that way in the connection fee world. So a $583 apartment has got to pay the $15,000 unit cost just like the $1,700 a month. So that $135,000, though, at the $583,000 could be, gosh, $430,000, and $17,000-something would be $1,600.

[01:56:15] That's a big deal at those affordability levels. So if we decided to take that on out of the Albemarle Housing Investment Fund for just a 60-unit project, that's $900,000. We have $7 million in the bucket. And how many projects have come before us that are 60 units?

[01:56:37] I mean, like Arrowwood, I think, had 40 or 50 units in it for just the affordable units. Royal Point had probably 60. The one next to Agner, and this is at our old standards, was probably in that 30 to 40 if you break out the percentage. If we actually started going to the AHIF fund to actually pay for the connection fees, we'd probably be wiped out in a project or two with rezoning requests.

[01:57:02] So I guess I'll say the hard part out loud. Why is the ACSA not working with us to help achieve our affordable housing project just like developers are? We put a requirement on developers in our policy that says you must meet 20% at 60% AMI. But then we turn around and look at it and just to say to our agencies, You can charge the same connection fee for a market-rate three-bedroom apartment that's going for $3,200 that you can charge for a $583 deeply subsidized unit that's going to go to somebody at a low AMI.

[01:57:34] So I think that's something that we should be knocking on the door of the ACSA board and go, you know what, we've got a policy parameter here that we're trying to achieve. And I know that when I first started on the school board and stuff, The phrase, growth pays for growth, was the big mantra as to why these connection fees were there.

[01:57:51] But I've got to tell you something. The growth that we see in this county is luxury market growth. Affordability is about retaining people. It's not a growth tool. This is a human retention tool. Keep them in our community, right? So I think that's a public good that all public agencies should be looking at.

[01:58:11] And I promised I wasn't going to grandstand or get on my soapbox. But, by God, I couldn't adhere to that promise today. But that's something that when we're talking in our two-by-twos and we're looking at affordable housing or housing Albemarle, that I think has to be dealt with.

[01:58:26] Because $15,000, if I did my math right, and the Niels and the other experts in the world that know how to figure out how this cost goes from a developer cost to a renter cost, If we don't understand that thread, and then how we can use subsidy to help offset that in tandem with other subsidies, then I don't know how we really get to be affordable.

[01:58:51] The group that I just shared with Supervisor Pruitt before the meeting, it's a new consultancy group out of Richmond. They had an article about Richmond. But in terms of affordability, in terms of rent burden and housing stock availability, we have the lowest in the state.

[01:59:11] We're in front of Northern Virginia in terms of stock and ability to pay or a low affordability. That's both homeownership and renters. And that's something that we have to contend with. And $7 million in a trust fund using this project, this kind of application process, as good as we're trying to make it or as better as we're trying to make it, isn't going to get it done.

[01:59:35] So it has to be in tandem with some of these other things. And that flexibility piece, like if somebody has an application, do the people that look at these applications and go, wow, this actually might get 88% and you get the AHIF thing.

[01:59:53] but are you aware of our developer incentive program that could also get you a tax abatement along with that that could maybe make it even more viable or go further if we're not in the process or the committee's not in the process of having that dialogue with applicants then we're siloed in everything we're doing and it has to be in tandem um in tandem with it can't just be waiting for people to knock on the door knowing what we could potentially do we have to be proactive in saying let's use this together with other type of things now the housing albemarle calls for the housing committee i appreciated bringing that up is it this committee or that

[02:00:29] committee and i'm not going to get into that right now but that's going to be a big i have strong opinions on this and those will i'll surface those again i've said most of them out loud and i'll remain open-minded because not everybody agrees with my opinions on that but that's probably something we need to really contend with as we do the work over the next couple months in dealing with housing Albemarle and the policy update, etc. I agree with the track record as property managers, with Supervisor Malek brought up, and I don't mean to be stealing any thunder

[02:01:03] from a conversation that may be coming later this evening, but I wholeheartedly agree that if you're not doing your job now with the people you're doing now, that I would not be thrilled about giving you new dollars to go do new projects. I think that's, we have very little in the way of effectiveness to be able to deal with those situations. Perhaps they should be knocking on the door for other things, not on new monies for new projects. So that's something, I think

[02:01:31] that was your point. So I endorse that one. I do hope that at some point, AHIF to several people have made this point of turning into something that's not just all the dollars go out the door and it doesn't start helping and working because that's how other places use their housing funds that the dollars come back and right now i'm not seeing what the strategy is even though we have some loans that we're starting to do they're no amount of huge dollars but when those loans get

[02:02:07] paid back how are they going to be used and i certainly endorse the question that supervisor Missile asked about getting a fund big enough that can start help producing some of that and knowing some of the legalities of how public dollars can earn money etc but places that have had housing trust funds in place for 20 and 30 years that's that's how they've done it it's got to be such a size that they've had several cycles where it does come back in so the dollar we use now and goes out the door comes back at some point and then how does that dollar then get reused again for somebody in the future we don't need to know the answer to that right now because we're

[02:02:45] just don't have the you know we've only we've we haven't had that much capacity i mean we've we finally up to seven million this year um but those are those are things that i think we should be thinking about um but end of the day the the the changes that have been made both process and criteria wise i'm happy with happy to see um add my comments and others on top of that i think we'll have a better process this year but i think it's something that still would be parked into the yeah we should probably have a conversation about the next round after

[02:03:20] the next round occurs to see where we're at and it just so will happen i mean the the application process will be done but i suspect this will resurface again during budget conversations next year um i'm just checking my notes priority hassle i guess just to speak i mean the further we can go with the with the ami the better um i don't know if lowering ami for homeownership really accomplishes anything other than us lowering the number because the lower you go

[02:03:57] in the ami the even more difficult it is to get all the other hoops or the other checkbox checked for the folks i'm not saying that i wouldn't be interested in doing that or helping it if folks have got creative things but um you know the county may you know at times we talked about We've purchased property now for economic development purposes, that it's likely going to be in our future when we decide to purchase property for affordable housing reasons, because the land cost a lot of times is what the burden is.

[02:04:31] And just like in economic development world, having site control helps entice economic development projects. Well, having site control can eliminate a lot of things that are obstacles to providing affordable housing as well.

[02:04:47] So just throwing that out for food for thought as we gear up for the conversations we're having. Thank you for letting me take a few minutes on those items. Any other comments or questions? Yes. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, you talked about rehab, rental, and ownership, and you said that most of it went out for rehab.

[02:05:07] Is that correct, or did I misunderstand that? For the 2026 round, yes, of the four projects we funded, the largest projects that we funded were for rehabilitation and preservation of existing affordable housing.

[02:05:25] Frankly, we were surprised to see that many applications related to rehab in that cycle. We don't anticipate that happening every year. And anyway, so we were surprised by that. I'm not sure that that's something we can expect to see every year.

[02:05:42] Would you be able to provide us with how many applications were for rehab, rentals, and ownership? I mean, that might just be interesting to see how many people that applied and qualified. Sure, we can send that to you. Thank you. That's all. Anything else? Yes.

[02:05:59] Just two questions that I don't have answers for, and one is, does ACSA have the authority to have differential rates? I know they do for volume of water being used. They have four tiers for the below wholesale rate is for the small house user, and four times that is for irrigation and other things in between.

[02:06:19] So that's a good question to get answered for. And regarding the AMI and the ownership, one thing that just popped into my mind is would this be helpful when the next generation is able to keep a place instead of giving it up?

[02:06:35] And I'm thinking of one of our longtime county residents who lived their families 150 years in Esmond, and they had 500 acres in all those years and generations and divisions and divisions, and it got down to the last 25 acres. And she said, hell no, we're not selling this.

[02:06:50] This is all we've got left, and it's a place for people to live when they need a place to live or a place to gather. So the challenges of the younger people, as we know, having a place to grab or stay in is maybe a byproduct that we hadn't anticipated here, that's all.

[02:07:07] All right. Kaki, do you have what you need from us? I do. Thank you very much for your patience and faith in us as we navigate this new world of the AHIF. I'm certain that we'll get better and better every year. Thank you. Ms. Dimmick, I see this is cast as an action item. Are you looking for a motion or approval of the board at this point?

[02:07:25] No, feedback and guidance only, which has been delivered. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Fantastic. Any other comments? Mr. Richardson, you leaned in at one point. Did you have a comment you wanted to make somewhere in there? I was thinking through the board's interest in connection fees from the ACSA, which is a board that this board appoints.

[02:07:44] So each of you have representatives that you point to that board. And if the board is so inclined, I could begin a discussion with the executive director about our interest in exploring and further understanding the connection fees specific to residential.

[02:08:07] I'm not talking about the usage charges because Ms. Malik just spoke to that, but the connection fees with that flat fee across the board and talk and try to learn what I can and then maybe come back to the board in the two-on-twos and be a little better prepared to talk about that.

[02:08:25] And then that could inform this board if you are inclined to have future conversations with your board member that you appoint. Seems like a good idea. Any objection? Good idea. One, I forgot to say, is for 35 or so years, up until 2012 or so, the connection fees were minuscule.

[02:08:48] And just like so many public service agencies around the country, they had no money in which to do the reinvestment, the repairs, all of the new piping and stuff like that. Finally, when the board membership at ACSA was changed by strategic appointments from board members, the survivability of the agency became understood.

[02:09:08] And that was the end of the free ride, basically, for the new projects. Because for all those previous decades, the current users were paying 100% of the freight for the new people coming on. And there was a huge rebellion about that in my election in 2007. They just said, we're done with this.

[02:09:24] You know, we're paying all these increased costs, and the new people aren't getting assigned anything. Proffers came along, and that helped some. But we're sort of back to the starting place there. Thanks. All right. Thank you very much. all right board we're going to move to our budget process review discussion um thank you king um which i will lead no presentation there's nothing here this is a board uh there was some suggested evaluation questions that i had sent out uh to share just as a starting point to get your um

[02:10:01] to get your thoughts going you were leaning in i was just going to ask the board chair and we did not pre-script any of this. Mr. Chair, is it helpful for our CFO to be with me here in case there are specific questions, or are you not? I think, honestly, I know that we're going to be doing our own meetings two by two, so I mean, if we need Jacob, he's here, he can come up, but you're welcome to join us, Jacob. But that may not be the focus. But I think the focus here, board what what the idea we had some we started early today we had some found time I thought it would be a good idea to do some budget conversation in public

[02:10:40] about how we as board members feel the process went with one another right so that was the focus and with our elected school board you're gonna have an opportunity to work with staff next week and our two by twos to focus on staff work and staff process etc so this was really done in the spirit of saying all right how do we feel we did working with one another throughout the process etc and we only scheduled 30 minutes so that's about five minutes per person but you're welcome to take more time as needed we've got a little cushion but we are getting a late start as well so i'm just going to go around you do not have to stick to the questions that were out i would imagine

[02:11:15] you all have your own comments so just going to ask you to verbally share what you have and then we'll i may ask some follow-up questions at the end and we'll go from there supervisor duncan any thoughts the one thing that i think i've said this before but i felt like early on was that like the budget is really like the end of last year's process and kind of like the discussions we just had tonight might get worked into next year's budget and so i really approached it as

[02:11:48] sort of just learning how the process works um and you know reading through the whole budget and kind of, you know, seeing how it's laid out, what it means, comparing it to the way that the school board budget was laid out. And so I feel really good moving forward. Like, I feel like I learned a lot and understood most of what I was learning. And so that was, like, that was good. Like,

[02:12:23] that was helpful. Sort of some of the questions about, like, you know, shaping outcomes and stuff. again, I mean, unless I'm wrong, but I feel like that kind of happens in the meetings throughout the year and kind of staff hearing us and going back and forth. As far as, you know, the school board part, I hope and sort of assume that we are going to work more closely with them this year

[02:13:00] and kind of like build that relationship. I think that's been stated by several people on both boards i think you know planning somewhat together can be helpful i also you know there's nothing we can do but i wish that their budget document was better and i wish like the cip things were in the budget so it made it it made it hard to even kind of figure out like you know what the school board

[02:13:34] wants what we should be kind of discussing and the you know arguing over you know two million kind of felt like i don't know it just felt like we were arguing over numbers and not like priorities because the priorities weren't laid out um so yeah i i thought it was a really helpful exercise um you know it was a little challenging having it right at the beginning of the year but i overall actually really enjoyed it so and you felt you're uh we have two brand new folks so

[02:14:13] you do get some orientation on i mean that's heavy the budget orientation and you may discuss that more with staff but you it sounds like you felt like that was yeah we had yeah we had a lot i mean yeah total orientations we had five i think maybe two might have been specifically budget um but other neighboring municipalities do not give their new incoming people any orientations and so i just really really appreciate the amount of time and effort that county staff gives to us and throughout it whenever we had questions i also felt like you know staff was hearing us and like knew what i wanted and like were able to get the answers got

[02:14:51] them like quickly um just very responsive and so it made it easy too because then i like wouldn't forget what i'd asked like the answers were coming you know pretty quickly and so it made it it was and it was all just very well organized the work sessions were organized like it just yeah it was just really really well done and it's and i know that that's not easy to do either thank you supervisor malik thoughts um thank you very much uh i will just everything's totally out of order on my list here but the december 3rd meeting was incredibly powerful and i think that

[02:15:29] it was the first time in literally 20 years that there was substantial interaction and board who agreed that we had to have better effort. So somewhere along the process, is there a place for expectations to be clearly printed out? Because within the last 10 years, everything has changed without the board having any choice in the matter. Number one, we used to get a budget book. And I mean, I would read on a snow day, read the whole thing, and then come in with all these questions and that really made them mad because they didn't want to have to answer the questions or explain why the numbers were different in different places but they were calling them all

[02:16:08] the same thing you know i'm i'm asking third grade questions here and there didn't seem to be answers so i can understand why they decided oh if you want to look it up go online and look it up well good luck with that in my broadband that's just not going to happen so the uh responsibility for that a responsibility for so many things from their parents saying of course they weren't prepared to meet with you all because they didn't even discuss the budget before adopting the recommendation of the superintendent just okay sure send it on to the board of supervisors so my expectation is that

[02:16:43] they would own the things they prioritize and own the reasoning for that not just have something that changes every six months and that working with the school board does not mean give them everything they want but yes we're willing to have a conversation but only this board has the funding ability and statutory responsibility and so they are not in my opinion to be invited in to make funding decisions they can advise all they want to because that's what their role is i understand the difference between the need-based budget and what we can afford to give them to

[02:17:19] carry it out but um there i think some very clear guidelines in communication about and others may have other ideas about what you felt was missing or not you know i may be the only one that feels this way but I think some things off the bat at the beginning would be really really helpful and perhaps give some support to some of the members who of the other board who did not like the way things were happening so anyway that's basically what I have for that that was I sort of jumped to

[02:17:55] the end first I think that the transparency the visibility of the information is is really really important. Okay. Let me go back to the beginning here. So I think with the training that we have received over the years, I really feel confident about question one, about the stewardship and understanding the processes. I think all the time is what I wrote down, does this impact your

[02:18:33] decision-making? Absolutely. Because of knowing what the constraints are. And the same accountability can be held for the other departments whom we fund as well. And schools are one of six, or more than six, but anyway, one of six categories.

[02:18:55] So that's important. Prioritization of trade-offs. I guess in philosophy, in thinking back, I've been on lots of different groups, some very politically diverse, some more in agreement. But even the one which was very politically diverse, there was more of an approach of countywide benefit than single district benefit, which I get a sense that there's a sort of more single issue, single district focus, and I hope we will continue to work on the

[02:19:31] whole county benefit, certainly with examples of impacts that each of us knows the best from how certain things would impact the districts we represent. but it's hard to explain. At some point before the end of the summer, I hope that the board will have a discussion and understanding to help staff going forward to the next budget about any changes that can be agreed upon as far as funding all the requests that come from city agencies.

[02:20:09] Because I will remind you that $22 million has gone to or will be about to go to the city, for which I prefer that they take that money to spend on Holiday Drive and the Salvation Army and the other things that they need to do because our taxpayers have already paid for those things in the county share.

[02:20:27] And this would actually provide more revenue or savings, but it would also provide more ability to fund county agency requests that are to the benefit of our local people.

[02:20:44] This goes with the revenue sharing, too, is that we need to get back into a more structured conversation about living up to the codicil on the agreement which was passed by referendum that said these funds are to be used for benefit of city and county residents.

[02:21:01] And yet we have no proof whatsoever except, oh, we put it into parks, but county people have to pay to use those services at the city pools and things like that. So that's the kind of thing that I hear about often. Others may or may not. But I think that that money is already being paid.

[02:21:21] Did I clearly identify prioritization in context? I have talked a lot, I'm sure, too much from some perspectives about the basics for life are the first priority for me. So all the other things have to come after the clean air and clean water.

[02:21:37] And if we're not protecting those, then all the other decisions we're going to try to make really become irrelevant. And I think that what we're seeing more and more now environmentally is much higher risk on so many different fronts, whether it's fire or drought or floods or anything in between.

[02:21:56] So I will try to do a better job to keep reminding of that priority as we go forward. And I really think the board has done a great job of discussing and, you know, low temperature factually agree to disagree, things like that.

[02:22:13] I think that's really, really important to make sure that we continue on with that. Someone on the radio coming down here was talking about a pre-Civil War in Congress and the caning of some representative who didn't have the right opinion, and somebody came up behind him and just about pulverized him to death with his cane because he was abolitionist versus not.

[02:22:37] And so I thought, wow, yes, we've been there before, but let's not go back there again. So, anyway, that's the end of my ramblings for now. Thank you very much for asking. And if anything else, like, doesn't surface today, just bring it up when we have our meetings next week, because this will be an ongoing process.

[02:22:56] Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley? Thank you very much. Yeah, for number one, fiscal stewardship and understanding. I feel I have a pretty good knowledge of that. Prioritization and trade-offs, I think we did that, And I'm proud of this board because we did have tradeoffs.

[02:23:17] We did have discussions. And I haven't seen that in the past where we actually had the ability, where we took the ability to discuss things, and Supervisor Malik is correct. We didn't always agree on everything, but it was a respectful discussion of where and how the money should be spent.

[02:23:38] So I'm good with that engagement. budget process I thought we did a really good job I I will tell you I was thrown for a loop regarding the school budget didn't expect that didn't see that one coming if we I don't know if we could have had advanced warning of that or not but that was a real surprise and even talking to some board members we know know now that, you know, they don't have as robust a process as we do, not casting aspersions.

[02:24:16] Maybe they don't need it. But we have a very robust budget process. We go through everything and make comments. And I think they would be wise to do the same thing. And I like the fact that we ask for data to prove what it is that they need.

[02:24:35] Not sure about their level of engagement with each other, but that's their concern, not ours. Yes, so with the school board, that was kind of a shocker.

[02:24:53] And I think we now have certain, I think that our chair is discussing things with the school board chair, and I think that's good. I think they could learn from our process should they want to, not telling them what to do.

[02:25:10] But, you know, we do our thing, they do their thing. I agree with Supervisor Malik again that I don't want them imposing their, you know, what they think we should pay for. In other words, them having input on our budget, frankly.

[02:25:28] They're there to say what they need, and that's good. But then other than that, we make those final decisions. I would like to see any advance warning of something that could be concerning, if that's possible.

[02:25:46] I know that we received the budget on February 25th, but we usually kind of get a heads up of, yeah, you know, this or that, little things. So I appreciate that, financial things, you know, whether or not we feel, how we feel the interest rates are going or the tax rates are going.

[02:26:10] um other than that i i really did deeply appreciate our discussions this time i don't think i've ever seen that level of going back and forth usually you're kind of a you know we're not allowed to say anything we just have to wait our turn and i i'm not saying it was a free-for-all no it wasn't but we all had input and i deeply appreciated that because you know i learned a lot what other people think and swayed my my thinking in some things and other things no so I thought

[02:26:45] that was very healthy I thought it was a very healthy process and I'd like to see more of that and if we can do it sooner that's good if we can get a heads up from the school board that's that's good also sooner but because I think that would affect how the our county executive how mr richardson actually does the budget uh if he and i don't know how much advance warning he had or not but i think all that factors into it so thank you thank you supervisor missle thanks uh

[02:27:21] and i might echo some of the things that uh supervisor duncan mentioned too as we ascended the nmlc which is the new member learning curve um and i also just would love to take this opportunity to thank staff and i'm kind of skipping to the bottom first but staff and other supervisors were incredibly helpful answering questions and and just kind of giving sort of a general environment kind of more of that subjective aspect of the board of the of the budget process a couple things one is really appreciated the understanding of the debt capacity in our limits

[02:28:00] right so you sort of come into this going oh why don't we just borrow more money but understanding the, you know, our, what our coverage ratios are and what the requirements are was incredibly helpful and something that's a really good reminder at the beginning of the process to sort of set expectations as we try to get to $10 million in the housing fund, et cetera, et cetera, right?

[02:28:23] So that was, that was helpful. I think oftentimes that's probably not conveyed to the community as clearly as it is to us. And so there are questions that come up from the community about, well, why don't you just, It's, you know, $727 million. What's another $10 million?

[02:28:40] Well, there are limitations. And so knowing that was incredibly helpful to your question about could I apply it to the budget process. That was very helpful. I think this sort of, maybe I'm answering the last question through this discussion, but I think the prioritization and tradeoffs.

[02:29:02] So the partner organization process, to me, as we've been talking about, sort of needs work, right? That idea of it feels like we're playing favorites to those who sent us more emails. And maybe that's what we do, and maybe we represent our constituents that way, but I think we need to be thinking more about what that looks like and is there a way to make that more objective.

[02:29:24] I think engaging the city in the discussion to me sort of seemed like a missing link. And I know that we did go out, and I think Mr. Richardson did go out and talk about, for example, the city as it had to do with the dogwood memorial and how that contribution was really in land etc etc but i think also with the partner organizations echoing what supervisor malik said the county benefits the city how does that partnership look let's see the school board we've all talked about that that was a surprise to me i've learned more about it i've talked more about it with my with

[02:30:04] bop beard and i look forward to other conversations relative to the cip the december 3rd meeting was really interesting even not as a board member miss duncan at the time was texting me from the back of the room and i think we both were interested in to see that dynamic and understand how that looked i think the timing the two the two on twos that we had with the school board felt a little bit late in the discussion to me. So getting those up, getting those earlier, potentially on that schedule, thinking about how that looks. So on reflection, onboarding, fantastic. Communication

[02:30:41] clarity was fantastic. Response to questions, really excellent. And the way they were posted on the website, I think was really helpful. The change, we talked about the partner organization process. I think, and maybe this is on me, having a forward-looking forecast. So we talked about the ties to the strategic plan and how that looks. Having that five-year plan and really reinforcing that, and it was when I really finally got my head around it, it gave me peace about this process that we're not just working in a vacuum of one year, but we are thinking proactively into future

[02:31:16] years. And then having a list out of that process and thinking proactively into the future of what are our aspirational goals. So that would be, for example, getting from $7 million to $10 million in an affordable housing investment fund, et cetera. That's it.

[02:31:32] Great. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? Sure. I want to begin with the things I think were really, really good. This is always good, and we've already said it, but staff does a really, really good job of equipping us for our budget conversations, maybe even too much of a good job.

[02:31:50] This is almost now too much of a critique, but the degree to which we are handheld is really intense, which can be very beneficial and maybe sometimes necessary. but it can feel intense. I will also specifically call out, I know I mentioned this at the time, but I will say again, I think every year I've been in this process, we've gone back and forth for clarification of language of the different types of reserves and pools.

[02:32:18] There was a single graphic that was used once that I think is the best budget graphic I've ever seen, which was that block made of a bunch of little other blocks that were color-coded of all the different names of the different things. Because Operation Stabilization Reserve sounds like it would mean something that's very similar to budget stabilization.

[02:32:40] Like, you get the point. It was a very helpful thing. If I had had that in front of me more frequently, I would have used it more frequently. Because that was often what we were working off of in a lot of ways in our head. And similarly, I think as we started to narrow down the conversation about what pools of money we were talking about. Once we had our revenue parking lot and our expenses parking lot, I think staff did a very good job of managing those and keeping those in track for us, right? That kind of all speaks to the number one, right?

[02:33:15] That was a thing for the public. There's a little list that the chair shared of different things he wants us to think about. That's what I'm referring to as number one. Another thing, I think we kind of steamed past this, but I want to really put a pin in it. I think our interactions with the school board were a significant improvement over past years. And I know Supervisor Malik alluded to that pretty explicitly, but I want to say it again very explicitly because I think the easier takeaway was they were more fractious, which is also true, but I think it was fundamentally a

[02:33:52] radical improvement over the past in that there were discussions, right? I was really pleased with that, the level of discussion and discourse I thought was important. I think this is an important dimension of how our budget works, and we're doing everyone a disservice if we're not talking about it. I like that we had the two-on-twos with our opposite numbers and with school staff. It might have been more helpful if that had been more structured around specific actionables. It was very blue-sky conversations that we had. To your point, if we're going to do blue-sky, maybe that's fine, but it should be earlier than we did it. At that stage, it probably

[02:34:28] would have made more sense to be more substantive um and the other thing this was having a discussion with a community i was having a discussion with the union leader um who happens to be a friend um about how this conversation went on between us and the school board and i expressed to her the frustration you've heard me express several times of my confusion over the last second position change by the school board that came out in the letter. And she said something that I said, yeah,

[02:35:03] it would have been great if they had just requested a work session with us. That's what I would have liked. We had extra work session holding spots that weren't used. We had one, I think, work session holding spot that wasn't used. It seems like we should have come back to the table after December. And she said, do you think they know that they can do that? Which is a good question.

[02:35:27] The answer is probably no, right? You don't feel like you can just email Claudette and say, hey, I want to schedule something during the board prep, right? I think the answer is any significant stakeholder can do that, but it depends on how confident they are dwelling in their own power, right?

[02:35:44] We know, for example, Sheriff Bryant is very comfortable dwelling in her own power, and she did exactly this two years ago, right, requested a specific time to speak during a work session, And I think the issues that she wanted to highlight, we were benefited from having those discussed, even as I disagreed with her on that.

[02:36:04] It was to our advantage to have that brought to our attention and discussed in that forum. And so I think we would do better if the school board also understood that they had that authority and, frankly, other stakeholders, which is this is a thing I have been thinking about that feels kind of disconnected from this.

[02:36:19] But we have several advisory committees that are not acting as advisory committees. in that they're not advising us, not in meaningful ways. It's come up a few times, and the public might have heard this leaking out, but we've had a single member of the Police Citizens Advisory Committee asking us for a very specific budget request.

[02:36:43] Maybe on behalf of the Police Citizens Advisory Committee, maybe not, it's not clear. They should also feel enabled to request to speak to us during the budget process. I think our social services advisory board should be presenting a funding request.

[02:37:05] I think that's what an advisory board does, right? I know other large localities have these processes. I would expect that when we have a housing advisory committee, I would expect them to be a mouthpiece during the budget process for what they think priority should be with housing.

[02:37:23] We should be using, the budget is our most substantial policy document. And the purpose, I think, of an advisory committee is to act as a second brain for us on policy decisions. And I worry that they're not being leveraged for that purpose in the most critical place they could be.

[02:37:43] So, I mean, that has to be something that is led by those organizations. But I think that's a really important role that they could be stepping into. That could be something that our Housing Advisory Committee, our Police Citizens Advisory Committee, and our Social Services Advisory Committee, and maybe there's others I'm not thinking of.

[02:38:00] We've got like 30 of them, could all be doing during this process. And, of course, where I started, our school board. Our school board should feel empowered to be able to come to us again during the budget process. This wasn't a budget thing, but it comes up frequently because it was such a major learning experience for me.

[02:38:26] I know it's included in new onboarding-like information. The most significant time I pissed off my peers was when I did not telegraph my intentions, right? And since then, I have learned that it is very helpful to always say how you're going to vote or how you're thinking and what you care about voting on over and over and over, over months so that people have the opportunity to discuss that and catch that ahead of time.

[02:39:00] And ideally, I found it is helpful to make it very, like there are things that I have very technical thoughts on, and I'm not trying to telegraph big, like here's how I think we should be calibrating.

[02:39:16] I'm trying to telegraph very chunky, digestible things over months. And so I mentioned this, and this is going to feel very pointed. I'm sorry, but I don't think it's helpful to keep frustrations, and this is the point of this.

[02:39:33] The part of the budget process I was most frustrated by, I got very frustrated with you, Supervisor Missal. And not, well, not just because of your position on the tax rate. I understand how you got there.

[02:39:48] It was not having gotten a sense and an opportunity to sit with your counterpoint until it was in front of me. And I opposed it because it was hyper-technical.

[02:40:06] You were moving several, you were proposing very specific moves rather than, I think, a very gross cut and move. And also the degree of polls from the Economic Development Fund were the first anyone on this board had floated.

[02:40:25] Even I, as Mr. Let's Rob the Economic Development Fund, right, that's been the hat I've been wearing for two and a half years now, had not proposed that. And so it was a surprise, which left me as a peer unable to engage with it with the weight it might have deserved.

[02:40:52] And that was, I think, the single biggest frustration point, and it was about telegraphing. And so I would just say it is helpful for us to telegraph. I have found it is helpful as a board practice that we try and telegraph these kinds of things well ahead of time so that we have the opportunity to catch them.

[02:41:12] Because when we go around in a horn, right, we structure it so that we have to respond to things iteratively. We have to engage in discourse iteratively. We can't do it in real time. We literally can't do it in real time. I think that is everything I had on the feedback process.

[02:41:33] That's all I got. Can I respond? I really appreciate you sharing that. And I sensed that during the conversation. And I think one of the things, one of the challenges for me is, again, the new guy, is understanding kind of how that discourse occurs, right?

[02:41:54] Because it felt like we made a lot of significant decisions in that two or three or four-hour timeline that may have benefited from prior conversations, but were based on real-time input from some of the constituents.

[02:42:10] So trying to balance that is something that I'm learning and trying to understand. But I appreciate your comments. I did remember this is a shift. One other thing I wanted to add, I ended up supporting, as I think we all did, a shift around with the public agency contributions because it felt like a prudent compromise to make sure we were all in lockstep on the final budget.

[02:42:41] And it felt like otherwise separate priorities might be jeopardized. I am worried about, I feel like it is important that this board, frankly, signal publicly how we're going to engage with these questions in the future before the budget next year.

[02:43:01] Because right now, like, I mentioned this as a joke, but now I'm going to say it as a serious thing, right? Like, if we do not say explicitly, like, we're locking in that this is something we shall not touch after we get a recommendation, then, I mean, I'm going to go to Cien Barreras and say, hey, you didn't get as much money as I think you could if you started coming to every board meeting starting January.

[02:43:30] And so I would encourage you to come to every board meeting starting January because it's an organization that I value a lot. as a personal priority right and i don't think that is the kind of process that we want to engage in where we're separately thinking ah what agency most aligns with both my platform and my district that i can be whipping up to be as effective during this process so that i am most capable of leveraging additional funds for them during this right because i i see getting more money to

[02:44:07] Simbreras as being very directly being responsive to my constituents. And I don't think, I think that potentially undermines the goals of the agency funding process. Same thing with, like, we have an AHIF process, so that I'm not saying, Habtac gets it all, because they're building in my district. They get it all. And I don't think we do ourselves well by end running that

[02:44:38] that process well thank you for that i will be as quick as possible on the high level or specific points i think the um i think the most interesting change in my head from approaching the budget this year was starting to think that you're not just doing the one year somebody said doing the vacuum of the budget in one year maybe fred said that but we have to start staff i feel like staff has been there doing it this way and have been saying it but this was the first year that i really felt

[02:45:13] like i started to contend with that from a from the level that i sit and i think that that is true of elected bodies around the state that hit a certain level of size with their budgets and priorities um that you have to switch to that where it's not just you're doing the budget you're doing the next three budgets and so i appreciate that staff has been there but at the level we exist at that's been a real challenge like how do i oh yeah how do i start thinking about that

[02:45:49] i think this year it also started to surface more not just our individual priorities i'm not talking about that what our personal elected priorities are but how you compete with priorities like fire positions versus school children police positions versus an affordable housing investment fund so i think it's important for us to deal with that and contend with that as early as possible because fire was an obligated piece and i found describing that to people it was an aha moment i was like oh yeah it's not like we went out and chose to add these fire positions if we chose to

[02:46:26] add fire positions we would have been augmenting the force somewhere this was backfilling a need that could no longer be provided by the source that it's always been provided by and that's a real challenge so i think that that's something that in tandem with working with the school board having the broader picture of those competing priorities what's both occurred historically but then tied into multi-year budgeting what we must do so that we don't have to always have this you know it's this not that but here's the game plan over two and three and five years of how

[02:47:02] we're going to try to to bring all of those priorities up so it doesn't feel like we're competing because you can't i mean if it continues to just be a schools versus fire department discussion who does that help um but folks have to understand the dynamic of it i think and i certainly feel like i do um and have not appreciated that like i have in the past um i think the agency point that you all raised is spot on um it can't be what you just described

[02:47:36] that was what the whole process was designed to prevent and this year i felt like that was something that i got frustrated by that it went there and i voted for it too and got involved with it but felt like i felt like it got into this negotiating this bartering type of situation i don't like that um i feel like that even and it's not something that we should deal with before next budget, but before we send out and ask for the applications. Because we've sent the message that your advocacy power equals dollars. That's what I feel like we've done. I don't like that

[02:48:10] message. I do think that one nuance that has never occurred to me before was you ask for your annual funding based on your normal year-over-year operations. But the little Seville band, the gentleman from my district that said this is the 250th anniversary you know our birthday as a country the seabill band might have extra performances this year so a little extra would help with that because it goes beyond what we normally do that was the first compelling thing that has made me go hmm that's actually interesting where the board may get into those

[02:48:48] nuances that you could ask on an application that says hey there's a special circumstance this year that a supplement might be helpful but doesn't need to be in our base in year two and start getting them to think out loud in terms of your multi-year budgeting as well so i just throwing that out that for board members i think we're going to have to signal early and often that the process if we if we have problems with the process we got to fix it but once it goes out and the applications are in yeah we if we don't back it up then we're just inviting a whole lot

[02:49:24] more to come in in the door yep um but i did feel like there were data questions and things like that uh and and even board members i looked a little side eye at a few people going what what are you talking about so i think that that in ways needs to be surfaced early uh mike said no surprises i think amongst ourselves if somebody says or does something out loud and it's a complete surprise um then that's probably us not communicating well not just during budget time but throughout the year making your point like if ann's going to speak to uh the conservation program you know

[02:50:02] that that i get that that's not a surprise because she says it often and frequently out loud um so i would encourage everyone to do the same and i point that finger at myself um the um multi-year budgeting getting i don't want to get ahead of myself for next week because that's the notes i'm working on i think that the school board interaction and relationship definitely i think while the discussion and publicly disagreeing or having those conversations is useful and functional and

[02:50:39] necessary i think that there's definite process improvements that could be uh could be had both from our perspective, looking at our board and how we do it, how the school board handles their bit that we can't touch, and then how we interact with one another. I think it would be fair to say that the school board chair and I have been having conversations about this, and I think that the work we're doing, both self-board evaluation, we'll move into some work with them, and things might look a little differently next year. That will be helpful as we try to determine, as they asked us, what is the budget philosophy moving forward?

[02:51:18] And I think a changing to a multi-year budget strategy, our fiscal year policies and planning that we're doing to achieve things for all of our county has to be bought into by all the things that exist under that umbrella, not just the school board, but our agencies and our departments, et cetera.

[02:51:40] So I'm committed to that work with the school board chair and trying to do things in a way that are meaningfully different so that while we may disagree still through the inherent tension of the state's authority to us and our requirements, that the public sees that we were all as knowledgeable as each other and can agree on what the facts are and can show that we can do this in a way that may not always produce the outcomes from the requester versus the funder.

[02:52:12] But everybody can step back and go, the diligence shown in the process was strong. And I think this conversation alone is a good step in helping do that. So I appreciate the feedback. And then I think it's always there.

[02:52:32] Staff has always mentioned it. But I don't know if the board, I don't know if this supervisor always fully appreciates the operational consequences of capital projects. And when we think, because we're all thinking high school, we're all thinking the big numbers, and I don't mean to just pick a school project, but understanding what that means on the operational side as we think year two, year three, year four, year five. I think that's something that needs to be there. And then the last thing I'll say here, and I probably have other points that

[02:53:08] will come out in the two-by-twos, but I think that the way our fiscal management policies are packaged together and in both in the budget document but in the way that the public could engage with them so when we talk about like our triple a and our debt capacity policy and why we do it the way we do it when we talk about you know should we have there are some other counties i've noticed that have statements on why they do multi-year budgeting right so start surfacing and putting that into a formal fiscal management policy fiscal management policy a tidy spot the

[02:53:44] tidiest spot where we explain it all right now is in the budget document, and it should live in there. But I'm saying a separate piece that basically gets cut and pasted into the budget document. If somebody says, well, how does the county determine their CIP priorities? The school division has a very defined process for determining at least a cycle of how it comes through an advisory committee, then the board deals with it, then it comes to us. Then it gets little muddy but you don't we don't really have a clean way of that because it's messy a quartz project or a library project doesn't just happen on a because you say it's going to happen in year

[02:54:21] four there's other agencies involved there's other factors involved but explaining that in a way that's very clear to everybody i think would be would be good um so those are some of the things that i'll be highlighting in the work with staff as well uh and then challenging the board to be thinking about of how do you collectively put all that together at the forefront and then i do like the point about having one more conversation before we have a final vote because we've had we've not needed some of the last work sessions but that could be a way to utilize that last work session we do our final public hearing we know what the tax rate's going to be we make sure we

[02:55:00] have one final conversation before we take a final vote so that we get all clean on where we're at all the different back and forths and decisions then it has another some sort of time for both us to digest it the public to digest it knowing that if we're going to come back in and change anything that that would be unusual not the norm because i do feel like that at the end we did some things there that i mean it was all valid we had surfaced it with the public i'm not feeling like we did anything that everybody thought was a surprise but i think it would be valuable to have that extra that extra point so i appreciate it thank you all for entertaining and doing this

[02:55:37] i hope you all found it useful um and i will put a summative piece together to to throw back at you all of this conversation um so that you can have uh at your disposal when you go in uh if not for the uh two by twos with staff but uh we're going to be doing further work as a board together so that you'll have it have it then all right yep quick because we got to get into closing yeah i I know, quick, I just wanted to say the only problem I had with the budget is when we went through how to get to the $7 million, and we were talking about the tax rate and everything, then we took these other discretionary, I'll say discretionary funds or leftover funds.

[02:56:15] That was a little bit, the chart and everything was a little bit, I'd ask for better clarification of that, because that I didn't, it was going so fast, and it's like, well, we have this, but then we saved this amount, So we took that amount and it came up to the $7 million, which was fine.

[02:56:34] I didn't mind that, but that went very quickly, and I would have preferred it to slow down. The last thing is if we can get with the city of Charlottesville, I'd love to get what Supervisor Malik said.

[02:56:51] Let them tell us exactly what they're spending the money on since it's supposed to benefit both. That's it. Thank you. All right. We have a closed meeting. Do we have a motion to go into closed meeting? I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under Subsection 1 to discuss and consider the annual performance of the county attorney.

[02:57:16] Second. Without objection, if the clerk would please call the roll. Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. All right.

[02:57:34] Is the motion over there?

[02:57:43] Let's go.

[02:58:40] Are we on? All right. We're going to come back to order. We are down one supervisor, but she will be reattending. If we're coming out of closed meeting, can you please read the certification of the closed meeting? Yes. I move that the Board of Supervisors certify by a recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

[02:59:14] Second. All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. All right, very good. And we will move to item number 14 from the county executive, report on matters not listed on the agenda.

[02:59:35] Mr. Richardson, do you have a report this evening? Yes, sir, I do. And members of the board, thank you very much for the opportunity for our CAPE division to help line up our report for May of 2026. Before I get started and progress, I just want to say a second about, talk a second about the Albemarle County core values.

[02:59:57] We talk a lot about high performance. We talk about aligning these presentations to the board's strategic plan and looking at the six strategic goals and tie back with metrics. and report of the good work that's going on in the organization.

[03:00:13] Tonight, I'll take a little bit of a different approach. Tonight, I want to point to one of our core values. The county has five. These core values drive a lot of how we behave, how we treat each other, how we treat our community and citizens that we interact with.

[03:00:30] And specifically, the core value I'll focus on tonight is learning. It's the one I talk the most about in new employee orientation. So our HR staff would verify that I hone in on the learning core value in our organization, which I really lean into hard, where it says we encourage and support lifelong learning and personal and professional growth of our staff.

[03:00:51] I'd like to thank our board publicly for supporting us in this year's budget, FY27, with $1.4 million that we will focus toward training and education for our staff to continue to try to partner with our staff who lean into continuous education and learning.

[03:01:09] So tonight, what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk through and focus on a variety of credentials and training from across the organization. Just have a couple of minutes to just recognize some of the good work that's going on. And I put my finger in the ear and say that we were really overwhelmed with the number of responses back from departments of training, education, certifications that our staff is going after on a regular basis. So this may not be the last time that you hear from me on some of the good work that our staff is putting in to lean into the learning core value. So with that, I'll

[03:01:44] start. And oh my goodness, here we go. Trevor Henry, our deputy county executive, has earned the ICMA credentialed manager designation. There are 1,734 managers in the world, not in the United States, in the world, under the council manager form of government, 1,734 credentialed managers in the world. 83 are in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that's all counties and cities.

[03:02:16] We have 83, and that's one of the highest numbers of any of the 50 states. Virginia would certainly be in the top five. The International Seating County Managers Association credentialed manager designation, it's one of the most prestigious recognitions in local government leadership, awarded to managers who demonstrate a commitment to professional development, ethical leadership, lifelong learning. To earn this credential, Mr. Henry, when he was promoted, it took him about seven years to earn this credential. He's been working on it diligently and he does a lot of continuing education on a year-to-year basis. He now has the designation, and he is required to

[03:02:54] continue to complete 40 hours a year of continuing education and write a learning paper, submit it to ICMA every year, so the 40 hours is connected to what did you learn and how are you going to apply it at work, and then it is reviewed by a peer group of managers in Washington, D.C.

[03:03:13] Trevor's credentials will strengthen the county's capacity to deliver effective, transparent, and innovative public service. And I want to say something about this picture. I love it. Because Trevor gets in the field. He gets with our departments. This is one where he went into the field, into ACFR.

[03:03:29] And I think he actually suited up and went through the Byrne building along with several other staff. And it really shows his enthusiasm in really supporting our departments and learning more about the work they do. And I'm certainly very proud of him. The next person, I know her very close to because she's on our OLT, and that's Emily Kilroy.

[03:03:51] When we promoted Emily to the economic development director's job several years ago, I talked very clearly with her that I wanted her to go after her economic development institute, the completion of the credit hours in order to become a certified economic developer.

[03:04:10] So she has taken 117 credit hours over the last several years to complete this course through the Economic Development Institute. It's offered by Oklahoma University in partnership with the International Economic Development Council. She completed the coursework and then set for her economic developer exam.

[03:04:30] So it really equips practitioners with the tools, the framework, and best practices needed to drive sustainable economic growth in their communities. recognized as really the best in the United States. It covers areas such as business retention, expansion, site selection, workforce development, strategic planning, all of this directly applicable to Atomark County's economic development strategic plan. So again we're really proud of Emily with the effort that she's done because she as you folks know she's also working full time while she's earning this accreditation and she's also a full-time

[03:05:03] mom. So we're really proud of her. Okay also on our organizational leadership team is Jessica Rice, our Human Resources Director, and I am so pleased to report that she has completed the HR Executive Leadership Certification Program. The HR Executive Leadership Certification is an advanced credential for senior HR professionals that focuses on strategic leadership, org development, talent management, workforce planning, and board you know we split apart and created our own local government HR department about five years ago with the support of the

[03:05:40] board of the school board and the school staff and I think it's working well for schools and it's working well for us but Jessica's focus really is on local government and so she's helping us in a number of areas with this credential such as aligning HR strategy with organizational goals navigating complex employment law fostering an inclusive and high-performing workforce and just to name some of the areas. So we're really proud of Jessica and the good strategic leadership that she's providing. Michael Dellinger in our community development department, he is one of

[03:06:18] fewer than 1,000 people in the world to hold the International Code Council Master Code Professional designation. This designation is one of the most demanding and exclusive certifications in building and codes industry.

[03:06:34] Earning this credential requires mastery across multiple code domains, including building, fire, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, and accessibility codes, along with the years of experience in successful completion of a comprehensive examination process.

[03:06:51] Michael's designation provides residents and developers an expert who can navigate the full complexity of modern building codes, helping to ensure the construction is safe, compliant, and efficient. So he has done a really good job staying current in his field, and we appreciate his hard work.

[03:07:09] Tim Palladino and Mitzi Hammer were part of the inaugural cohort from the University of Virginia's Leadership LEAP program. This immersive leadership development program is designed to cultivate the next generation of local government leaders. It's aimed at aspiring and future leaders.

[03:07:25] The program is a precursor to the LEAD program, and many of the county's managers and supervisors have attended the LEAD program. And again, this is taught at UVA, just 10 minutes from here, and we're so lucky that the University of Virginia has such nice continuing education program opportunities for our staff.

[03:07:44] As members of the inaugural cohort, Tim and Mitzi were the first participants to go through the program, and it includes mentorship, cohort-based learning, leadership assets. and the participation in LEAP signals both the individual potential and the county's commitment to growing our leadership from within to prepare them for future promotional opportunities.

[03:08:05] So we really wanted for you to pick them out in the crowd in this picture. So the red arrows point to Mitzi and to Tim, who Tim comes to some of our meetings and works in Parks and Rec. Mitzi is in strategic planning and does a lot of project management work, and they both do really good work.

[03:08:22] David Dollins and Tim Scarborough recently earned their Playground Safety Recertifications out of the Parks and Recreation Department. The Playground Safety Certification is a nationally recognized credential administered through the National Recreation and Park Association training professionals in playground hazard identification, equipment standards, and best practices for safe design and maintenance.

[03:08:48] Certified playground safety inspectors are trained to evaluate the equipment, the surfacing, the layout, age appropriateness to reduce the risk of injury at public play spaces. Having certified inspectors in-house means our playgrounds are regularly evaluated by credentialed professionals, providing an additional layer of protection for our kids and families in Albemarle County.

[03:09:11] So I'm really proud of these gentlemen for going after these certifications. Our fire rescue logistics team prioritizes professional certifications, as this board knows, to keep the county's emergency fleet mission ready. Emergency vehicle technician EVT certification is the industry standard for professionals who inspect, maintain, and repair emergency vehicles, including all of our fire apparatus, our rescue units, and our ambulances.

[03:09:40] The EVT certification program administered through the Emergency Vehicle Technician Certification Commission assures that each of our technicians have demonstrated competency in complex mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic systems unique to emergency vehicles.

[03:09:57] The team holds a wide range of credentials, including EVT and manufacturer-specific qualifications, pictured on their wall of credentials. So behind these four gentlemen, you can see the wall of credentials. In the photo, we have Chip Walker, Calvin Butler, Eric Lohman, and Matt Stump.

[03:10:16] And, Board, I'm just going to make an invitation to you. If you're interested in taking a tour of our PSOC, which is out at Fashion Square Mall, that's the property that we lease inside the mall, to take a look at the operations of the PSOC. If you just let Trevor Henry know that you would like to have an opportunity to go out there and see how things are done, these fine folks would be happy to show you a little bit more behind the scenes of how they take care of the equipment and how they stay on top of things.

[03:10:42] They do really good work. Giselle Garchio has earned her QPR certification, a critical training to recognize and respond to mental health crises.

[03:10:57] She works in the Department of Social Services, and the QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer. It's an emergency mental health intervention training that's designed to help individuals recognize the warning signs of suicide and take meaningful action. It's much like CPR for cardiac emergencies. QPR equips trained individuals to intervene at a critical moment by asking direct questions, engaging the person in crisis, and connecting them with proper care. Giselle's certification is representative of

[03:11:32] the many trainings that CPS and Protection Services Division of DSS, that staff, undertakes on a regular basis. These staff members regularly work with vulnerable individuals who are facing housing instability, family crises, and other high-stress circumstances. Prioritizing mental health and crisis prevention training allows staff to provide the services they need that our residents need when they are in their greatest time of need. So congratulations to Giselle. We're really proud of our DSS staff. Our Housing Choice Voucher HCV program is the federal government's

[03:12:12] primary mechanism for providing rental assistance to low-income households and requiring special knowledge across multiple disciplines to implement locally. Housing office staff have earned certifications in three key areas, executive management, program oversight, compliance, and strategic leadership, specialist certification, day-to-day program administration, and participant services and finally quality standards inspector certification which includes ensuring rental units and HUD's housing quality standards that they are met before vouchers are issued. Together

[03:12:49] these credentials ensure that the entire process is managed by professionally certified staff. The training directly benefits program participants by improving accuracy consistency and fairness of housing assistance and it strengthens the county's compliance posture with HUD requirements, which is quite complex. In the photo, we have Bill Perry, Naatith Arroyo, Anthony Harrow, Adrian Knight, Ty Shee Chambers, Andy Gardner, and Cassandra Struggs. And I really appreciate the staff's

[03:13:26] hard work every day. They're on the front line and they see community members that are in their greatest time of need. So, board, this is just a small glimpse into the work that our team does with the learning and continuing education money that is provided through our budget. And I think our department heads do a really good job of trying to keep certifications up to compliance.

[03:13:49] Some of it's mandatory. This is just touching the base of some of the work that our staff does. I'll send this to the board, as I always do, after this with Abby's work to make sure if you're in the community and you think some of these slides are appropriate to share in your meetings and such, please use that. And then again, I'll go back and suggest that if you've not had a chance to look at the Public Safety Operations Center out at Fashion Square, you're very busy people, but if you want to go out and take a look, again, just shoot Trevor an email and say, I'd love to go. And if there's more than one, we might try to group two at a time just to take a look at what's going on

[03:14:27] out there. Mr. Chair, I'll turn it back over to you, but thank you very much. Thank you. We'll see what questions comments we have supervisor duncan no specific comments just that was really great to see and yeah continued training is really great supervisor malik so much appreciation for all the staff even ones who have been here for 30 years to continue to get training because you can always learn something thank you supervisor lapista currently i really appreciate you identifying all of our outstanding staff members and um i know there's many many more out there we know but it's

[03:15:04] really nice to see all the positive things that are happening in this county and how well managed it is supervisor missile yeah i mean i think one of the greatest gifts you can give to an employee is professional development and advancement and it's also a great way to manage retention so congratulations that's great stuff and congratulations to everybody on that list supervisor pruitt um i just love hearing about all the success we're having throughout our organization I also love that you and these updates cover really the the full gamut of our organization right we started with three C-suite folks who we see every day but then as we went on we we heard from a lot of success of folks

[03:15:43] who we as individual board members don't really have much cause to interact with and it's really great to see how that touches the entire organization I will also just say for that photo of Trevor it did make me think we need to at the picnic next year have some firefighting olympics instead of kickball um because i want to race trevor in an ffe dress out drill um because i think i can beat him oh called out yeah i was going to say if you coordinate a tour of any county facility via trevor that he will put

[03:16:17] on the gear of that particular place during your tour so i've often thought about that i um you know to the point that was made about continuing professional development and and the fact that folks are here i mean when you're somewhere for a long time and perhaps think it's your your home organization you can become complacent and not wanting you know think i well i'm here i need to go i and i don't mean to single out jessica but i mean once you achieve your shr then you achieve an executive you know you're the head of the hr department a lot of times you think like all right i've hit the end of what the learning capacity could be so to take that another step and continue

[03:16:54] to want to learn and develop in your in your in your particular field just like all of the folks mentioned here did i think that's real credit not just to uh the fact that it's available to them as an organization but to the uh forward blanking and interest of the employee themselves to want to continue to do that so well done on for all of them um very good well we always appreciate that report i suspect you'll be sharing that with us because i'm going to have to go back and look up that code when fewer thousand people fewer than a hundred people may know that that is a thing you can get certified and i want to go check out what that is because that's remarkable what that one is

[03:17:32] um but i didn't write it down fast enough to see what what it was all right we're going to move to public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled uh public hearings and vice chair missile will read the rules and move us through our speaker list. Great. Thanks, Chair. During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, 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. Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting. A sign-up sheet is

[03:18:09] 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. The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments.

[03:18:24] In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, 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.

[03:18:41] 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 do not speak from your seat or out of turn please all comments are live streamed recorded and published on the albemarle county website all right with that our first speaker is claude cabussier good evening good evening my name is claude david convisser and i reside near white hall i conclude remarks informed by my experience as a homeless

[03:19:16] man here for the past two years and a lawyer bringing a 500 billion dollar lawsuit against opponents of my straight vegetable oil fuel company from the petroleum and natural gas industry, the organized crime biodiesel mafia, and big tech, which serves them by creating new demand for fossil fuel consumption.

[03:19:36] I strongly recommend that you not provide any taxpayer money for either a low barrier shelter for the homeless or for Vista 29. While the goal of supportive housing is laudable, Vista 29 will simply offer another housing venue for the agents of the intelligence services of the interests I mentioned to advance crime and corruption. This man, hope supposedly homeless, Anthony Arseniega, asked me on behalf of the petroleum mafia to stop my lawsuit in order to return to West Africa, where I have worked for

[03:20:10] a number of years, and help secure for them the mineral riches of Mali's north. If I did not, The result is implied in the fake last name he uses, Arseniega. Any house reliant on the consumption of fossil fuels will burn itself down.

[03:20:28] He autographed this photo and showed me his Virginia driver's license with the Haven's address on it as his fraudulent residence. The Haven is a day shelter. Nobody resides there. You may recall that John Frazee of S&P Global Intelligence physically prevented me from speaking at the Impact Nehemiah Action on March 24th.

[03:20:52] When I was finally given the microphone at the Nehemiah debrief two weeks later and began speaking peaceably against a low-barrier shelter, Impact's treasurer led a walkout of everyone else there while another man shut off the lights. Bob Reverend Alex Joyner, Impact's co-president who hosts Patchham in his church's offices, sent me a notice forever barring me from all future impact meetings.

[03:21:17] While I was a guest in a Patchham shelter that churches in this area generously provide, Patchham's deputy director, a young woman named Haley Shelton, asked me to have a personal relationship with her, just as the Haven's operations director, another young woman named Ocean Iello, did.

[03:21:33] They wanted to monitor and influence me on behalf of the fossil fuel funders and masters that direct them. When I declined these invitations is when the retaliation started. Haley Shelton assigned me cots next to big, fat men. Their terrible sleep apnea prevented me from sleeping.

[03:21:51] As a result, I quit apnea and slept outdoors during the winter. The Haven barred me instead of agents of fossil fuel opponents in my biofuel company who were convicted of assaulting and battering me on the premises. Why does IMPACT's leadership not allow public discussion?

[03:22:09] One last word, if I may, that from proceeds in my lawsuit, I'm offering $100 million. Sir, your three minutes have expired. Your written comments can be placed into the record with us if you would like. Thank you, sir. And that $100 million will have to occur this year for the foster use.

[03:22:24] I'm going to ask you some of your written statements to the board if you would like. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to my comments. Next, we have Stuart Overby. Good evening, everyone.

[03:22:46] I'm Stuart Overby. I live in Samuel Miller District. I'm with the grassroots group, Don't Spread on Me. We're working to change the policy and practice of dumping sewage sludge on farmland. I'm here with an update. I want to make sure you know that DEQ is at long last moving ahead with their sludge spreading permit known as VPA 01587. If renewed as is, it will allow the company Center Grove to spread sewage sludge on a total of nearly 6,000 acres across eight different properties in the county. Most of that sludge is going to come from large urban wastewater treatment plants

[03:23:24] in Nova DC and Maryland. The first step is for DEQ to hold an informational public meeting, and as of two days ago that meeting is scheduled for monday june 1st 6 p.m at pvcc in the bullock center event space b now don't spread on me has been working as part of a coalition of local conservation groups to raise awareness and get county residents to come to this meeting we'll be there too with some informational materials ourselves so we want to make sure all of you come as well so you can ask questions and learn more see what i did there

[03:24:05] It's important to us that you're there, and I'm sure it's important to all your constituents who care about this issue, plus all those who would care if they only knew about the dangers inherent in this practice. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak, and I look forward to seeing you on June 1st at PBCC.

[03:24:23] Thank you. Next is Rebecca Brown. Good evening, Board of Supervisors. My name is Rebecca Brown.

[03:24:40] I am a Rio district resident, a chapter leader with Virginia Organizing and a disabled due to a genetic condition. You've heard bits of my story before. I was removed from a housing wait list while I was in the hospital after a kidney auto transplant. I stayed in a relationship four and a half years longer than I should have because I needed his group insurance for surgery in order to eat solid food because Virginia policy left me with no other option. That policy has since

[03:25:13] changed. There's been new laws there. I have had health crises I cannot predict. Since the last time you saw me, I dealt with vascular bleeding. When my housing is stable, I can do productive things. When it is not, I cannot plan. I cannot work. I cannot contribute. Stability is not a luxury. For people like me, it is a precondition for everything else. Thank you so much for the AHIF expansion and some of the administrative changes. It happened because you chose to prioritize the most vulnerable people in this county, and I am grateful. I emailed you a policy

[03:25:52] brief today. It is a living document and a starting point, the rest of which I defer to you. Albemarle has 40 mainstream voucher slots for people with disabilities that cannot be activated because of a federal budget authority constraint. That is a federal problem.

[03:26:09] But 206 people on our wait list qualify and have nowhere to go. That does not include the people that are not able to get on the closed wait list. A locally funded bridge program that could house 50 disabled residents for $13,308 each per year.

[03:26:27] One person on a Medicaid nursing home costs the state more than $60,000 a year. We trust the board to figure out how to fund this. We just ask that you do. Thank you for your time. You have more time on your... Okay. Thank you.

[03:26:43] I sent you all the brief. Thank you. Next is Robert Brown. Good evening, members of the board.

[03:27:05] I'm Robert Brown, a Rio district resident and a chapter leader with Virginia Organizing, as well as a disabled person. I'd like to speak on why we should fund housing programs for people confronting disability. Approximately one in five Americans have a disability, making it a sizable demographic.

[03:27:28] People with disabilities face higher risk for homelessness and poverty. It saves money when society steps in with crisis prevention versus crisis intervention. Money spent by a person with disability, by and for them, primarily is spent in the community that they live in.

[03:27:47] People with disabilities are able to provide meaningful contributions to their community when they don't have barriers blocking them. As a county, we are home to UVA Healthcare, which consistently ranks one of the best in Virginia and in the top 50 nationally.

[03:28:04] Having affordable housing options for people who need UVA services to live in Albemarle County will help multiple positive downstream impacts. People with disability often require many related support services, but unlike UVA, those services will be consumed locally by the person wherever they actually live.

[03:28:26] The rate of poverty for people with disability is more than double that of the non-disabled. Some disabled people are forced to live on supplemental Social Security benefits of roughly $12,000 per year. That means that every single community in Virginia, and even in the country, is unaffordable for those people.

[03:28:47] Many people with disabilities live with caregivers who are now elderly. As the caregivers age, it puts the persons with disabilities at greater and greater risk for institutionalization or homelessness. Inadequate and insecure housing increase stress and trauma, which leads to increased negative outcomes and increased community costs for emergency services and health care.

[03:29:12] And without stable housing, navigating the process to even apply for assistance is daunting. When people with disabilities have stable, safe, healthy housing, they no longer need to spend time and effort dealing with the problems related to inadequate housing and for all of the associated problems that come with it.

[03:29:31] That time and effort is instead spent on benefiting the person and their community. It's no longer, or they're no longer in crisis. They're able to invest time into improving themselves with adaptive strategies, education, and increasing options for gainful employment.

[03:29:48] Total discretionary spending by people with disabilities is a $21 billion per year amount of money. It far exceeds other disadvantaged demographics for discretionary spending.

[03:30:04] Thank you, Mr. Brown. If you want your full written remarks part of the record, you can submit those to the clerk, and we will make sure they're part of the, like I said, we'll enter them into the full record. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Sophie Massey. Hello.

[03:30:30] My name is Sophie Massey. I live in the Samuel Miller District in Southern Albemarle. I wanted to reiterate everything Stuart said about don't spread on me and this DEQ permit. hope to see you on June 1st for that meeting. And I also just want to thank you more broadly for your engagement on this issue of biosolids and your willingness to engage on a biosolids ordinance. We would love to see a resolution of intent to adopt an ordinance. Biosolids disproportionately affect people in southern Albemarle. That's where most of the acreage that is spread is concentrated, including in Scottsville's protected drinking water supply

[03:31:10] of the toter creek watershed and when i first learned about biosolids a few years ago and i learned where it was spread i got really worried about my friends in scottsville and i ordered a bunch of pfas home test kits and i sent them all home test kits for christmas and i kept one for myself and i figured there's their water would be contaminated and mine would be fine and in fact it was the other way around so i apologize for ravana water authority i should have never doubted their capabilities if you're a municipal water in this county you're sorted we have really good municipal water but rural wells are very vulnerable to pfas contamination from industrial waste from sewage

[03:31:49] sludge from livestock factories from pesticides we're very vulnerable and in this era of federal deregulation and rollbacks of protections from chemical pollution we really need every we need to pull all of our resources together and localities need to step up and fill in some of gaps to protect rural people. I want to thank you again for your engagement on this issue. It means a lot to rural families like mine. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:32:18] Thank you. And last on our list is Sae Vo-Flynn. Good evening. Sae Vo-Flynn with the Community Climate Collaborative. C3 is currently leading a utility decarbonization study that follows on from a preliminary study done by Shard at Spill Gas in 2024. We secured grant funding to work with the Southern Environmental Law Center and UVA's Center for Community Partnerships and we contracted with an environmental consultancy firm named Dunsky which is based in Canada to investigate financial, legal and structural pathways toward decarbonization for the utility

[03:32:57] with a firm grounding in equity to protect Charlottesville gas repairs which include many Admiral residents and businesses from the impacts of any of other Charlottesville gas customers moving away toward electrification which is happening with or without local intervention. We're about a third of the way through the study. We have a few progress points to share this evening. UVA's Center for Community Partnerships is leading public engagement opportunities at the moment, including focus groups, workshops from community members that are currently customers of Charlottesville Gas. Participants are being compensated for their time with gift cards.

[03:33:30] Their input will directly inform the recommended pathways identified in the study. The project lead from Dunsky will be visiting Charlottesville between July 6th and 8th to engage with local leadership, yourselves, staff, and the public, and to answer some of the more technical questions that benefit from his expertise we'll be reaching out soon some times and dates for both supervisors and staff to join dunsky for a status update while he's in town um i am also here on behalf of the green teen alliance with another c3 supported initiative the gta is a student-led group that unites the various high school environmental clubs in the area shardsville and albemarle the gta as many of you know is currently circulating a petition through the

[03:34:07] community to improve recycling and composting systems in the albemarle and shardsville schools both public and private which will be presented to both municipalities school boards this and next week the petition is long because there are a lot of problems that the gta has identified it's alarming that student-led environmental clubs currently manage all of the recycling and composting systems instead of custodial staff the petition to admiral and charlesville school boards requests that the schools remove this burden from students adopt a consistent and sustainable approach to waste management and upscale the custodial staff compensating them appropriately for this also. So the petition has hundreds of signatures, but the students are

[03:34:45] asking for more support from the school boards, peer decision makers in the area, like yourselves. Understanding that the timeline is short for any formal endorsement, the DTA is asking support from individual board members before presenting to the school board next week. So please lend your support to this initiative. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a Mr. Christians here? William Christians?

[03:35:07] He missed earlier. We just wanted to make sure he wasn't missing the opportunity tonight. all right great thank you to those who came to speak this evening we appreciate hearing from the public board we will now move to item number 16 public hearing utility easement across county-owned property along townwood drive and we have cow mowry is that that's not an l is it hi sorry the the eye looks like an l it's happened a lot the readers with the next magnifier up are on order but they haven't got

[03:35:42] here yet. Sorry, sir. Okay, there we go. Good evening, Chair Galloway. Good evening, members of the board. I am Kai Mowry. I am the chief of facilities for Albemarle County. I am actually going to be joined tonight. I've got Keane Rucker with the Albemarle County Service Authority, primarily here, hopefully to take care of any questions that may come up. So we are talking about an easement along Townwood Drive. This is in support of the Albemarle County Service Authority systematic upgrade of some of the older PVC water piping around town some of it's been in

[03:36:20] service for a long time and they have experienced several several breaks causing water disruptions one of which actually happens to be on Townwood Drive they had in February so this is kind of important for them to get that upgraded for those who don't know the property location is located at the intersection of hydraulic and Rio Road most people turn on to Earliesville Road but if you turn the other direction, you'll actually be going Townwood Drive into the housing community that exists there. Why is this actually important for the county? This was an interesting dive into

[03:36:57] some of the legalities, but basically Townwood Drive was originally going to be the extension of Greenbrier Drive. It was platted and dedicated to public use in the subdivision plat, and it was dedicated on may 14th 1981 it was never accepted into the state's secondary highway system nor has it actually been formally abandoned so it is still a private road uh due to virginia code uh the way all this plays out alderman county is the actual uh becomes a property owner of the uh the property

[03:37:32] underneath the road there and therefore the counties must be the one to authorize any kind conveyance of utility easements along the roadway. This is kind of a ACSA's picture. You can see the water main lines that they've got that run underneath Townwood and through the community there. They want to replace those aging PVC lines with ductile iron, which will hopefully last for a long time. The other benefit is the new water mains will actually cross-connect the RDWSA main that runs along hydraulic road with the ACSA main that runs along Weblen Drive, which will add

[03:38:08] a little bit of backup in the event they have a problem with that cross-connectivity. Their request, sorry for the large picture there. I was trying to squeeze a couple of plots together. They'd like a 20-foot permanent easement along Townwood Drive to allow them to get in there and get that old piping up and install the new piping.

[03:38:32] Staff recommendation to the board is to adopt the resolution that would approve the easement and authorize the county executive to sign the appropriate documents to allow that to happen. And pending any questions from the board, that's all I've got. All right. Thank you.

[03:38:50] Supervisor Duncan? No questions. Supervisor Malik? No questions for me either. Thank you, Kai. Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley? No questions, Kai. Supervisor Missal? No questions. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? No questions. Thank you.

[03:39:05] The only question I'd have is the understood granting the easement for the work that's going to be done. But the fact that it's the road, I mean, just like all ACSA projects, any disturbance or problems they do with a road, it must be put back into the proper condition after the work's been done.

[03:39:27] So just on behalf of the community, I don't know the extent. How disruptive would this be or the work that's going to be done? Is it the whole road will be done? I'm just curious about the scope of it. Give more specifics on the project. Thank you.

[03:39:44] Good evening to the board. My name is Kian Rucker. I'm a senior civil engineer with the Alpemarle County Service Authority. Just so you could raise those up or raise the podium up. Yeah, thank you. Is that better? Yes, thanks. My name is Kian Rucker. I'm a senior civil engineer with the Alpemarle County Service Authority.

[03:40:03] I'm the project manager for this Townwood Water Main Interconnect and replacement. So to speak a little on that, ACSA will be repaving the entire section of asphalt in Townwood Drive and throughout the project extent. We've been working with the Townwood Homeowners Association and actually a positive thing that's come with the discussions that we've had with them is that they are going to be kind of piggybacking, if you will, on this project and they're going to

[03:40:41] driveways replaced along with this as well so a lot of positive movement for this project yeah but at the end of the day it's going to be a fresh new roadway there on town wood great and that's awesome to hear that the coordination with that do all the work at once that's awesome very good well thank you for that i appreciate knowing those details um all right um we will open the public hearing do we have anyone signed up for this item no one has signed up so we will close the public hearing. The matter is back before the board. Are there any additional

[03:41:16] questions or comments? Is hearing done? This is in my district, right? So I will move that we adopt the resolution as attachment C. Second. All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes.

[03:41:40] Ms. Lopisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Very good. Motion is approved or motion carries. Thank you. The next item tonight, number 17, VDOT, Admar County, fiscal year 2732, secondary six-year plan public hearing. And we have Alberic Karina Plun with us this evening. Oh, I was looking to the left. There you are right in front of me. Good evening. All right. Good evening, Chair Galloway board my name is Albert Karina Plunn and I'm a transportation oh good I apologize I mispronounced your name let me just do it you're all good

[03:42:20] transportation planner and planning within community development tonight's presentation the following agenda is for these two items the Europe updates or unpaved road improvement program and the secondary six-year plan adoption as a little background the secondary six-year plan is a VDOT document that applies to roads and the secondary system and identifies the funding allocated for the next fiscal year and estimates the available funding for the next five fiscal years. Telefee funding stems from utility companies paying a fee to VDOT to put lines in the right-of-way. These funds are

[03:42:57] being used to help fund the Berkmar Drive extension by Airport Road. District grant unpaved funds are used both on rural rustic and other paving projects. This plan is updated and adopted by the board annually each spring. Some unpaved road improvement program updates. Staff presented the draft URIP document at the April 1st work session. As a reminder, URIP is a program that would do improvements to unpaved roads but not pave them. Staff recommended Birches Creek Road, Batesville Road, and Hammocks Gap Road for this year's URIP. There is not funding available for FY27, but staff

[03:43:34] will work with VDOT to add these roads for FY28. Following board and VDOT feedback, staff is ready to implement the UREP starting next fiscal year. These are the roads that have received support of at least two-thirds of the residents and VDOT has confirmed are eligible for rural rustic paving.

[03:43:53] Old Sand Road, Gilbert Station Road, Janine Lane, Murray Lane, Blacks Lane, and Broken Sun Road. Does the board have any comments on the draft SSYP or the UREP program? Let's find out. Supervisor Duncan, any questions or comments?

[03:44:10] Yes, I do want a couple of questions. If members of the public wanted to change the criteria for how roads are chosen to be paved, such as adding hiking, walking, running, biking, traffic counts to the criteria, how would that process work?

[03:44:41] Currently, we do use traffic counts. That is how we prioritize the projects in order for... So highest traffic counts are first in line. We have not discussed how to implement hiking, biking, and walking in that, but that can be something that staff looks at for following secondary six-year plans.

[03:45:01] Okay, just because a couple of the roads, not on this list but on the upcoming list, have high recreational use counts. And so I'm very curious how we can get that user count into the criteria for deciding whether or not to pave some of these roads.

[03:45:23] I understand. We've had some roads in the past that, I guess, have rejected paving because residents there did feel strongly about having biking or walking. Kevin, do you want to add to that anything? Thanks.

[03:45:39] Kevin McDermott, I'm Deputy Director of Planning. I'll just say that a criteria like that wouldn't have any effect from VDOT's regulations, So that would be a board choice if you wanted us to start doing that.

[03:45:56] We don't have a specific method for counting recreational users on those roads, so we'd have to dive into figuring out if that's something that we could achieve, but we're happy to look into that. And if we wanted to add that criteria, we'd figure out how to do it, come back to the board and present on that for next year's, that could be added to the process that we do.

[03:46:23] Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And, yeah, I mean, just looking at Strava, you can, like, see what roads people are using. But I appreciate that. That is very helpful. Thank you. Supervisor Malek. Thank you. Hang around, Kevin.

[03:46:39] So I'm going to talk some more about the same issue because both Supervisor Duncan and I talked about this when the draft came up months ago. And I'm very disappointed that there's been no progress both in Europe or the rural rustic proposals to be able to take this into consideration.

[03:46:56] Both of you have made multiple trips over the last 15 years out to Ridge Road and other places. It's very evident where these uses are happening. Dickwoods Road was the first of the Do Not Pave list 15 years ago because people selling properties were going around telling the new buyers, oh, don't worry about the dust because it's going to be paved next year.

[03:47:17] number one big lie so that had to stop and the way to stop it was to make an official list that this is not going to happen because the longtime residents the new residents they were all continually roiled up about one person who moved in and wanted to change everything so the I know that so I guess what surprised me was the the Russet Perry bill did not allocate money for the URIP program and and that's going to be county-funded.

[03:47:48] That was not made clear at the draft earlier, so I'm surprised to hear that there's no money in this right now when we have a lump of money that's for the gravel road program that we can choose to use, divert some of that existing funding rather than paving something that has 45 cars on it. I apologize for the confusion.

[03:48:05] We spoke to VEDA about the Europe, I believe, two weeks ago now, and they told us that they plan to implement this similar to the rural rustics, so it will come from the same pot as money as rural rustic funds. So there's no county cost borne with this new program. It's all state funds that are being allocated to roads, unpaved roads in the county.

[03:48:26] The only difference between this and rural rustic in the end is that your projects will not have paving done. But the goal is completely different. And so was this something that came from the secretary's office? Because I know it sat on the previous secretary's desk for three years waiting for a signature.

[03:48:45] So can you update us on what's happening with the implementation of this? The gravel roads non-paving money? So the reason why there is not money this year and FY27 is because that money has already been allocated for the six rural rustic projects that I presented before.

[03:49:02] They said that if we start programming out for next year and years beyond, we can actually start to prioritize both rural rustic and URIP. But this year, there was just not enough money left over to do a URIP project. That was clearly not presented when the draft and early introduction of this year's allocation was talked about.

[03:49:21] I mean, these six roads, this is the first time we're seeing half these roads even on a list. So who made the decision to make these the roads that are going to be paved this year, as opposed to having that part of this process, which it has been in the past? These roads were residents emailed me or called me asking about paving.

[03:49:41] I emailed them the list of owners that they had to get signatures from. the rural rustic toolkit and the priority or the the process for how it works and then when i received two-thirds votes back for all these roads all these have had two-thirds then vdot went to the roads to see if they're eligible for paving under rural rustic and then they were put on this list but in the past those roads have come back to the board before being sent on to be written in stone i mean this completely takes the funding dischoice out of the board's hands as far as the secondary road funds are concerned. The fact that it went straight from the public to VDOT and now

[03:50:19] it's written in without us even knowing about it. I mean, I understand about the process, but that was all set up to be done last November so that you would be ready to move seamlessly through the spring process. So I fully expected these identifiers to be given out. The last we heard was White Mountain and other things like that, not any of these new roads. Sorry, I think I just want to clarify I think that these are I'm sure these roads were presented at the work session last month is the recommended roads for rural rustic and

[03:50:56] that's when we asked the board for direction if those roads were the appropriate ones so those are the ones we move forward with we at that time we requested that VDOT look at the roads we recommended for the unimproved road improvement or unpaved road improvement program but VDOT didn't have time to evaluate those fully before this final one was out and so the three roads that we recommended for that just dropped in the priority below those six that we had already brought to the board and so that's why they're in this order right

[03:51:32] now but we will continue to try and move forward with the unimproved roads as well. And if you would, if the board wants to direct staff to prioritize retaining the unpaved roads and focusing on just improving those, we're happy to take that direction from the board.

[03:51:54] Okay. I guess unless we have a vote to affirm these kinds of things, the same thing happens year after year after year where we bring things up and they disappear. So I'm feeling crabby here about this because this is we are going round and round um let me get back to my question list here because it was clearly it was not made clear to me and maybe all the rest of you understood it that that by affirming these other roads that we were wiping out the funding for the the new program that we've been waiting so long to have um and the runners walkers and bikers have certainly

[03:52:31] talked about strava for years so there's there's no question about finding data that's easily available um the one of the questions was about these are a little out of order sorry uh the tele-fee funds that were presented in the chart that showed a whole lot of money available i understood that for the next five years all that money was being swept to berkmar to the extension so it's showing up as two million dollars extra money here that i perhaps should be have an asterisk or something so that it's not available um yeah we are still putting all that um all the

[03:53:09] funding that is in tele-fee towards that Birkmar extension and the reason is is because the county has a has to match the money that we take out of the revenue sharing program that was also approved for that project so any money that we can move from the tele-fee program to put on to that reduces the amount of of county funding that comes out of our CIP that we have to put towards that so so we're trying to save the county money by using state's money - but I was only trying to clarify that it's showing up as extra money when it's really been allocated already to something else and I want to make sure

[03:53:48] the public is not confused gotcha when they see that okay let me go back to my list here the I was also concerned that repeatedly with Carrie Shepard and with transportation staff talked about maintenance on Wesley Chapel Fox Mountain Bluffton those none of those were even included and I mentioned these last time when we were talking about the draft URIP and they're not on the list anywhere so I would like to find out what

[03:54:22] happened to those the unretained unpaved roads I guess this is what you call the do not pay list now and so Bluffton's mill their data that should insufficient right away would be what keeps that off for sure. And Wesley Chappell said that I requested it when I absolutely did not. And I pointed these things out before and they're still not corrected in the data that's been sent out.

[03:54:50] So when you say that I've requested paving for Fox Mountain Road, that has to be removed because I've requested maintenance for sure because people can't drive an auto through there because the ruts are so deep. But I did not request that this be paved because the neighbors are very adamant that they do not want that to happen.

[03:55:12] This was a very difficult, difficult thing to go through because of the confusion. So let me go down here. In your number, what does that say?

[03:55:31] 17.A. All right. So I did that. Let's go here. I guess that's all I have right now. I can forward back to you the marked-up staff report things that I'm so concerned about. I would appreciate that, Supervisor, very much.

[03:55:48] Thank you. All right. Supervisor Lepisto-Kartman? Yes, I only have one question regarding Gilbert Station Road. Do you know offhand if that's about 0.6, 0.7 of a mile located in the area of 4073 Gilbert Station Road?

[03:56:08] Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. That's all. Supervisor Missal? Thank you. I thought I used a lot of acronyms, but this is a whole lot of acronyms that are kind of foreign to me, so I'm learning a lot about it. And I also have learned that of all the emails that I get, this is right up there with a lot of the majority.

[03:56:31] Pave my road, don't pave my road. Too much dust, not enough dust. I mean, it's just all over the place. So I do have one quick question, and that is I've seen at least one, maybe two situations where actions potentially from this program have caused impacts to adjacent property.

[03:56:51] And I guess my question is, are there programs to assist property owners with improvements and or corrections to their land that were maybe inadvertently caused by adjacent improvements to these roads? To clarify, are you referring to like if when they pave a road, it changes drainage issues?

[03:57:14] And if there is a problem with drainage, we can send VDOT back out there to try and address it. That would be something that would be done, yes, through this program or through their maintenance program. So if they find that something like that happens, just let us know and we'll work with VDOT to try and get that addressed.

[03:57:36] As part of a follow-up. Great. Thank you. that's all supervisor Pruitt I actually don't have any questions I know the one of these that is in my district residents have been asking for for about a year now and we'll be excited to see moving forward what was the road you were saying you didn't request supervisor both Fox Mountain and Chapel Spring are listed on the chart as BOS request

[03:58:05] okay well I'll follow up I don't um and by Elaine sorry there's the third why am i not seeing those in the packet okay i'll deal with deal with that at a different time i suppose um i mean i was just going to make the comment on i like how they say they have a new program but they don't provide new funding they're just slicing up the other funding

[03:58:42] so there you mentioned we got all this new funding there's no new funding there's just a new program woohoo it's like soq positions we're giving you a bonus for soq and then they don't pay for them all um so you know it's not that the just because there's a new program if there's no more dollars to go along with it doesn't mean all of a sudden there was expanded money well the new program was to give localities the authority to make the choice because up until now finally after three years of not getting the program implemented we will have the choice to not pave everything and be only able to use gravel road money for paving which has been a complaint

[03:59:20] for 20 years. So they're just shifting the money, though. It's shifting the outcome of the use of the money to make it more useful for a broader section of people. And one further question for you. Is it explicitly stated in your correspondence with neighbors when they think about signing a petition that pretty much the universal result of paving roads is higher speed? I would have to refer back to my rural rustic toolkit to see my exact language. Because that's something else we've discussed several years, and I would really like you to consider seriously, because the great

[03:59:55] disappointment after something is paved is that then people are going 60 instead of 35, and it makes it almost even less possible for people to walk or go with their child bicycling to a friend's house on the road in the countryside. If the board wishes to add, I guess, pros and cons language to language for residents, we can look into that as well. Do we need a motion about that to get that to be done i mean you tell me what's required to be able to get these things done i have one more question if i hold on yeah you kind of flew past my question answering it and introduced a new

[04:00:34] question before i finished question go ahead okay that's fine so now you're asking about a motion and i'm not even sure i caught your point so let's slow down here if we need to have a conversation about something beyond the decision we need to make tonight then we can do that as a separate piece but let's stay focused on what the public hearing is about for the moment and then I can deal with that are there any additional questions about the item for public hearing tonight I do is there a way that people can sort of proactively request roads to be on the retained unpaved road

[04:01:13] list so like for example like the Dick Woods section that's already on here is like not the section that people actually use to run on There's no proactive way that we have right now. But again, basically, if we don't receive signatures from the residents, then that's not moving forward.

[04:01:34] So the two-thirds really acts as that threshold to even have VDOT look at the road to see if it can be paved. So there's no way to preemptively block paving. So we can't just, like, pick out roads that we know we don't want paved and, like, make a list and just say we're not?

[04:01:53] will add that if the that is one way that we add them to the do not pave list the retained unpaved roads list is if it if it doesn't meet the two-thirds majority to be able to get paved we put it on that the other way is for a board member to request that that road be added to the unpaved roads list and if the full board would vote for that then we can add up add a road that way as well. Excellent. Thank you. One follow-up question. Hold on. Sorry, for her, from her. I'll wait.

[04:02:30] All right. I'm just going to go back through the order here. Supervisor Duncan was at the start of the order. Supervisor Malik, any additional questions on the item in front of us? You all love transportation and roads. I do too. Okay, so that was how Dickwoods got to be in the Do Not paved originally was through lots and lots of people reaching out to me when it was all in my district before 2010. And I brought it to the whole board and the majority voted. I think I was actually 6-0 to say, this is ridiculous. The track kids need a place to run from the high school out

[04:03:05] there. And yes, there are sections that are paved and sections that are not, but people wanted to pave the gravel stuff and that was where the stop had to happen. So both those phases have been successful over the years supervisor lapisto currently does it come back if if it's on the no paved list this is the connection if it's on the no paved list is there a timeline when it can come back so let's say everyone moves out and a bunch of new people move in is that like two years

[04:03:39] was it did i remember that correctly six years six years okay so after six years and it can come up again okay thank you supervisor missile thank you this is maybe just a point of clarification and maybe this is also for folks to consider if they're signed up to speak in the public comment timeline we're not here to add new roads to this program correct we're here to approve the secondary six-year plan for fiscal years 27 to 32 correct so that's okay that I just wanted to make sure that was

[04:04:13] clearer. All right. Thank you. Supervisor Pru? I think Supervisor Lapisto currently actually asked a question that I wanted to remind myself the answer of, but I'm thinking specifically Mountain Vista, which didn't meet a qualifying criteria of throughput. In addition to the six year criteria for us reevaluating it, do we wait on new data from VDOT to update that, or are those counts taken ad hoc?

[04:04:48] Are you following what I'm asking? Yeah, I do. If we tried to do it again, would they say, well, we're still using the same data set? If VDOT is required to count all roads every seven years, all public roads, so that's typically when they do it.

[04:05:04] But we can request a new count and they'll evaluate that. If they say, we just did a count two years ago and I'm looking at that road and I see no new development on it, they'll often say, I don't think we need to recount this because they'll make the assumption that it hasn't been changed.

[04:05:22] But if there is a change in some sort of use out there, then we can request VDOT to recount, and they absolutely would for us. Thanks. I'll just put in when the build-out on BIRD in Scottsville is done, I am going to want this one revisited.

[04:05:39] Happy to talk to VDOT about that. All right. Are there any additional questions to be able to make the decision on this item? this evening. All right. We will open the public hearing. Is there anyone signed up for this item?

[04:06:04] All right. Vice Chair Missal will read through the rules. Great. Thank you. During public hearings, the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item. Time keeping 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.

[04:06:32] The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments. In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your name and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District. Address comments directly to the board as a whole.

[04:06:48] Any written comments 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. Do not speak from your seat or out of turn, please.

[04:07:05] All comments are live-streamed, recorded, and published in the Albemarle County website. We have two signed up this evening. Rob Myers is first. Mr. Myers is not here. And Ronald Hahn.

[04:07:27] Good evening. Good evening. My name is Ronald Hahn. I live on White Mountain Road, which is a road familiar with Miss Ann and Kevin. I've talked to them. I lived on that road.

[04:07:42] I bought it in 1975. My house was told then I was on the six-year plan to do something. 51 years ago it's still dirt and I've been on the six-year plan I've seen it on the board here when I come to the meeting this is my 29th meeting I've seen it up there on the board and if some reason now it gets taken off I was told in 2019 this is my first time back since in cuz Kovac come up 2019 I was put on the six-year plan I called about a week or so later talked to Kevin he told me it was only six-year plan and it would definitely get done this time

[04:08:20] Well, that should have been done in 2025. Still not done. This road is the worst road in Albemarle County. If anybody wants to travel it, you can just go over and go for yourself and check it out. I noticed the one lady here was talking about a road that was 0.7 miles long.

[04:08:41] It was like this. Well, that road is a mile and a half, and it's worse than that. Every hill is a curve. You can't go fast on it if you pave it or not. I mean, you've got a speed limit that's just a terrible road, and it's been that way since I've been there 51 years.

[04:08:59] And I've been on the six-year plan several times. I've brought letters over here from the fire chief in Afton saying they cannot get a fire truck up the driveways on that road. The houses would burn to the ground because they cannot get to them, and they have trouble just getting up the road. They cannot turn in the driveways because everything's so narrow with these trucks.

[04:09:18] I brought a letter over from a construction engineer. It said it was one of the worst roads he's ever been on in his life. We've had accidents. We had a lady not too long ago that pulled over to the side because some lanes on the road ain't big enough to pass, and you've got to back up in somebody's driveway.

[04:09:37] She pulled over as far as she could. The road giveaway, the car turned over on its side. It's just an awful road. Like I say, after 51 years, I think it's time to do something to it. I mean, I'd like to see it before I die, and my daughter would be moving in the house when I'm gone, and that's not going to be that much longer, and I hope she don't have to wait 51 years to get this road done, and it is one of the worst in the county.

[04:10:06] I can tell you, if you want to travel it, just come over and do it, but being on the six-year plan that many times and not getting it done is amazing to me. I thought, sure, it would be done in 2025, but it wasn't, so I'm back over here again.

[04:10:24] And I'll probably be back over here again next year, good Lord's willing, if it ain't done by then either. So thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And there's no one online, I understand, so that concludes our list. All right.

[04:10:41] Are there additional questions for staff and or feedback to what we've heard? Supervisor Duncan? Nothing else. Supervisor Malik? Nothing before the vote. Thank you. Supervisor Lepisto Kirtley. I have a question regarding the roading question.

[04:10:59] I can ask that because he's public hearing. Is that, I guess I'm asking whether or not it's something to be repaved or is it something that actually needs structural improvement? Which are two different things. I don't know off the top of my head what White Mountain Road means currently.

[04:11:19] Okay, thank you. Supervisor Missal. No questions. Supervisor Pruitt? Nothing. All right. I'll probably have follow-up on the public comment, which may end up being after we take this vote, it sounds like.

[04:11:37] So we will close the public hearing, and the matter is back before the board. The two motions that we're looking for, we have the attached resolution, attachment B, approving the fiscal year 2732 secondary six-year plan.

[04:11:56] Can I just stop there, Andy? You want me to read the rest, attachment A1? It would just be, at this point, why don't you stop at that point to adopt the attached resolution, attachment B. Attachment B, all right. I move to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment B.

[04:12:16] Second. All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? All right, without objection, the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley?

[04:12:32] Aye. Ms. Malik. Yes. All right. And the second motion is to approve the unpaved road improvement program as attachment A4. I move to adopt the unpaved road improvement program, outlining the process for the administration of this program with attachment A4.

[04:13:04] All right. Is there a second? Second. All right. Discussion. so uh as the program evolves this is something that can be amended correct and you'll bring it back when you learn more from vdot you'll bring it back for changes and as you go along because as many state programs it takes a while for them to get right so i appreciate that this is a place to start and i hope that solutions will will come along quickly and uh obviously i must have been asleep at the wheel last month because or whenever that was six months ago when uh when it was back because none of them were in my district,

[04:13:43] and I thought, well, other people are jumping up and down for these, but I will not be doing that again because now I realize that this has to be a prioritization that we need to take seriously for doing this. Thank you. All right, is there any further discussion? All right, if the clerk will please call the roll.

[04:13:58] Mr. Missel? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. All right, motion is approved. Now what I'd like to do is just do another pass here based on everything we learned.

[04:14:14] I've heard some learning things, like I need to know some information type of stuff. And there may just be some other comments. So I just want to surface all that and see where we're at, and then we'll go from there if that's all right. Supervisor Duncan? I have nothing further.

[04:14:30] Supervisor Malik? Okay, well, I will bring up again, and just to put into the record that on 17A, your attachment, it talks about these retained roads that I would suggest and request that they be listed as potentials for the URIP because 25 years of doing the same thing has not improved anything.

[04:14:55] And Wesley Chapel from Chapel Spring to Free Union Road, it's like five miles, treacherous the whole entire way, three-foot-deep ditches similar to what Mr. Hahn was describing of cars falling in the side when they try to let a school bus go by. So that's the sort of thing that's been in my mind as a poster child for the project for the gravel road structural improvement ever since Senator Perry put that bill in.

[04:15:21] Fox Mountain Road has significant steep slopes, and regular grading has not solved that one. And Bluffton Road was a failed rural rustic during the interval 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when VDOT hired contractors to do this work.

[04:15:36] And they did it in January, and it was a disaster, and we wasted $500,000 on that road. So those three are explicit requests to put into the list for consideration for the URIP for this as soon as funding is available.

[04:15:55] And I will send you by email the corrections that need to be, I would ask, to be made so that when people look at this, they don't think that I've requested all these things. Thank you, and thank you for your feedback, Supervisor. The second feedback, do we need a motion on that?

[04:16:13] Do we need a vote on that? Are you squared away with what you need, or shall I make a motion to do that? So you're saying a motion to do? To list these roads for future consideration in the URIP. Since they are already roads on the do not pave list, they already are in consideration since it is a rural unpaved road in the secondary system.

[04:16:33] So by nature of existing, they are qualifying to be in the URIP program. But they weren't considered as somehow the other three roads from someplace else that were not on the do not pay list are in the program already for next year. The reason, yeah, sorry about that.

[04:16:50] The reason the other three roads were prioritized is because we do it by traffic count like the rural rustic and those three roads had the highest traffic counts. And I apologize if I did not make that clear in my materials to the board. Okay, we'll have to get a box that has the traffic counts back into these ones that, for these ones that are retained.

[04:17:09] because they're major cut-through roadways, all of them. So that's a consideration. So to conclude that topic, are we? Well, I'll just say where I'm at myself. I don't quite understand the new program.

[04:17:28] I'm just asking it to be on the list for consideration. So it sounds like just by sheer nature of what kind of road it is, it's on the list. That's what I just heard. It can be put on, yeah. It'll be prioritized. If we get requests, so if a road is requested for paving, for example, and VDOT finds that it cannot be paved, then it could be added to the Europe list.

[04:17:47] And then, yes, roads that are in need of repair can also just be added to the Europe list. And that's something that I think we're looking for VDOT feedback as well to tell us these are the roads that are in very bad condition, that are having problems with ditches, with water, stuff like that.

[04:18:03] I mean, if this is a new item that we have not come around us before, that it sounds like the board needs to be brought up to speed, I need to be brought up to speed on what the program is, what the process will be, and how the board can interface with it. Right. And that's so unclear to me.

[04:18:19] So I don't like making motions when that part is not clear. Right. Or I don't like taking a vote on a motion when it's unclear to me. So I guess I'm looking to staff to say, is it reasonable to request a future informational item so that we can get up to speed on this program?

[04:18:39] what the process is as defined, just like we all understand the other programs that come before us and we take votes on, so that we're all on the same page about how roads get on the list, how they get prioritized, and how board feedback or input will be received and how we can influence it as we are elected to do.

[04:18:59] Kevin? Yes, we can absolutely do that for you. We will schedule a time, we'll take a look at it, work with the clerk and our staff and find a time to come back here and make sure the entire program's laid out so everyone can fully understand how it works. Got it. And I'm just looking.

[04:19:15] Thank you. No, no, okay. It doesn't seem like anyone above you is concerned, so we're good. That solves my problem. On the org chart. As I said, it's evolving, and we just don't know where to raise it. Yeah, and I didn't walk in the door ready for that. Like, I don't even, I mean, that program.

[04:19:33] I just have not done my homework on that. Well, it's brand new. Yeah. And I have a second issue when, I don't know if that's, we're ready to move on to the second one or not. Go ahead. Okay, the second one is how are we going to convey the resulting speeding or higher speeds of vehicles when gravel roads are paved to the people who are about to be asked to be signing a petition in favor because quite a few of them have reached out to me and said if I was told that the people were going to be going this fast, I never would have signed that petition.

[04:20:06] So they feel sort of trapped, and I'm trying to get clarification that's provided at the beginning so that people know that that's a possibility. And so I don't know what process would be required this time around to try to make some progress on that. We had, I think, last year provided the board with some of the materials we send.

[04:20:26] What we can do is take another look at that and make sure that information, get that information to you. If we want to talk about that when we come back with the unpaved road improvement program, we can include that information as well. But we have a letter that we send out to the property owners that are requesting this.

[04:20:45] I'd have to take a look back. I can't remember if it, I thought it had some language that you're describing, but we'll take a look and check on that and get back to you. Because we did receive a draft from Albaric when he was redoing everything, and the improvements to the process are fabulous. But I did, others as well, and the Planning Commission did respond back to say, This is what's missing because of what they're hearing from people.

[04:21:06] We'll take a look at that and come back to you. Thank you. And that sounds like that may address Supervisor Duncan, some of those questions as well, because that would be criteria or what's being communicated prior to signatures. Do I have that right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. All right.

[04:21:22] It's a start. Okay. Good. We good? Everyone on the same page? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, well, I wanted to follow up on this White Mountain Road comment. It's not in my district. It's not something I've heard, but any time I hear something is and then isn't, I just noted the note here that it said VDOT does not recommend for rural rustic.

[04:21:47] So I would just like the background on that, and I don't think that has to be any sort of presentation, but I'd like to understand it, and you can send it to the whole board by email so that maybe by the next swing you come back with these other items. If there's any further concerns or questions about that, we could surface it then.

[04:22:06] Definitely. I have actually pulled up my computer. My computer, I have the rural rustics. Oh, now someone above your pay grade has gotten concerned. Okay. I finally found the right question to ask. I think what I'm hearing from you, Chair, is that maybe this would be something that we could bring back when we talk about the rural rustics overall.

[04:22:31] But if that pleases you, we can bring that back at that time. I think that's probably better. i mean i'm just looking i don't any times if it's about learning about context or background a lot of these roads and these lists is one of these things where whoever's the supervisor of the district tends to have all that has the best information and i don't have that information specific to the history that was laid out so i'm just asking for that and then if it's tied into this new program or other things we can see what happens but i can't even make a judgment call without without the info on understood and i can maybe get that just by talking to ann after we

[04:23:08] adjourn i don't know yeah but i'm saying that that's something i'd like like just some context on so i can understand it better get my head wrapped around it difficult because these roads the by nature they're way out in the rural area we don't see them very often i think this is in in mr missal's mr missal's uh district well you know talk to fred mr mr hans correct he and i talked a lot about this and we've been out there on the road it has been on that on the list for a very long time it is a very narrow and difficult to pave road that is what we've heard from VDOT

[04:23:43] over the years and when we come back we can talk more about this but because of the changes in the way we administer the program that we put through last year that required the two-thirds property owner support before we evaluate and move the road forward that's why the white mountain road had come off at that time so um it was because we didn't have the two-thirds uh support from the landowners out there and so that's why it was pulled off so okay unpaved road is not sued okay

[04:24:18] that note's just not on the chart that we are looking at tonight so the vdot does not recommend for rural rustic is because of the lack of signatures no those are two separate issues so that's i just asking for the cleaned up info so i can under understand it a little bit thank you all right good that's a perfect example of how the new program process has been a success because many times over the last 18 years the white mountain residents on both sides of this issue have come to the board meeting and some are completely adamant that they do not want it paid because it would increase the traffic through there between two major roadways.

[04:24:58] And they were terrified about becoming a cut-through road at high speed. And others who very much really want to have it paved for various reasons. So that's why the signatures are so important. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Alberta and Kevin.

[04:25:15] All right. So, board, we are to item number 18 from the board, committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda. Supervisor Duncan. For board reports, I went to the Chamber of Public Policy meeting last week, and most of it was spent talking about planning for next year's State of the Community event.

[04:25:43] As far as the matters not listed on the agenda, I did have something I wanted to bring up that I've talked to basically everyone about, some of you in more detail than others. But I have always been told that we can't do anything for renters and tenant protections and holding landlords accountable.

[04:26:07] I was made aware last week that that's actually not the case in that the General Assembly passed legislation in 2004 that allows municipalities to have a rental inspection program. And so I spent a lot of the weekend researching it and learning about it.

[04:26:24] There's about 18 other municipalities in Virginia that have this program already, and it seems to be pretty successful. I mean, it's simple, sort of. You basically create an overlay district where you know you have rentals, so it cannot be like the entire municipality, and then basically you have specific housing inspectors.

[04:26:49] And so what it does, one, is it, to a point made earlier, like it actually creates an inventory of rental properties so you actually know what exists you know in the county the big thing is that it gets rid of retaliation by landlords because it's just you know we're the county we're going to inspect our rental properties make sure that there's not you know mold or rodents or you know infestations that people have safe clean places to live it's also you know can be actually helpful for landlords, because if you have a tenant that's, you know, I don't know,

[04:27:24] letting the water run and creating the world, you're in, you know, to be like, hey, you know, this is also what's going on. It helps tenants who, you know, maybe they don't know how to file a complaint, or maybe they don't speak English. It just sort of standardizes it, makes it much more neutral that we are just going in and doing it. So I am interested in just sort of seeing if there would be interest in having staff look at what it would look like to do a program here,

[04:27:59] what the cost would be, you know, how many housing inspectors. Some of the municipalities actually start with a small district, and over time the districts get expanded, which seems like it would make you know more sense that rather than starting a huge program um there was you know danville has three housing inspectors and i think they're you know smaller than we are um so i don't know how much it would take how big our districts would be um but i just you know once i found out that there is actually a way to kind of help tenants have you know better housing i was like oh this

[04:28:35] is really interesting so i'm just sort of curious if other people would be supportive of having staff look into what that might look like um we'll stay on that topic so i'll just go through and hear from everyone i have a thought on or a suggestion supervisor mallet oh yes i would like to find out more about what's possible i know we discussed the maintenance code off and on with the house across in diantha's neighborhood where the tree was going through the roof and this is a little different because when you have neglect as the one i described to the board a couple of years ago an elderly lady living in a trailer near airport road and the ownership of

[04:29:14] the neighborhood had changed from grandfather to a younger person who did not want to maintain and was really terrorizing her that she you know if she didn't like it she could leave but she had nowhere to go she couldn't leave her house because she was afraid that when it was raining you know that if the water got in things then it would start a fire and that would burn her everything else that she had so i'm very interested in finding out what the possibilities are for the protection of these individuals and if it can also someday evolve into a some policy to protect

[04:29:49] mobile harm part people particularly who are especially vulnerable i think to manipulation in this way especially when the properties change hands then that is uh something i'm interested in learning more about that's all supervisor lapisto currently it seemed like we there was discussion on this that i attended regarding affordable housing at the omni last year yes that i think uh what you're talking about was in richmond and they have this overlay district anyway very very interesting and i would be interested also in starting out small where

[04:30:23] there are a lot of apartments and such uh but i'd be very much interested in knowing what we would need the cost and everything and that would probably be something for the budget session coming up next year to be able to do that and that would and i'm wondering if our program now because i think you mentioned it sally um supervisor duncan is that we can look on the outside or maybe it was diantha mckill we can look on the outside but we can't go on the inside

[04:30:55] i'm not sure that's exactly true does anyone know that question usually code inspection is like the outside this is like an internal right no and I think we need to look internal because as I mentioned I know the rats are going to be on the inside the mold is going to be on the inside probably not on the outside so I mean I think that's it's that's something worth looking into and seeing what we can do all right supervisor missile I agree I think the city of Roanoke is the one that has the program and has since 1996 so there's probably a lot to learn from that the

[04:31:32] city of Richmond is starting one now. I'd like to know, I mean, I agree 100% support this. I would also like to know what if. What if we find conditions that are poor or concerning, what then?

[04:31:48] And what does that process look like? Supervisor Pruitt, am I doing board reports and response to this idea? Just this item, I'm going to then pick it back up. So I would be excited to see basically get a quote from staff uh just like i would for contracting work on my house right um i i will just share i personally like having done some mental calculations on the the expected cost benefits of this i have been and just for the public's context this is something

[04:32:27] that i think most several members of the board have thought about previously because uh erin O'Hare, if you're listening, doing great work, doing the Lord's work, has been hounding this issue for a while and doing a really long-term investigative report on it. I would be concerned that it's a fairly high-cost program, just anticipating. I'd still want to know the cost.

[04:32:52] It would involve multiple, very specifically trained staff that we don't have. We would have to pick the overlay district, which could be messy. And then the important thing is, and then the remedy you get at the end might not be satisfying. The tool they have is fines and condemnation, end of list, which if the landlord is in arrears or distressed does not help. And it certainly does not help tenant. If the tenant has a crappy landlord, the tenant's like, okay, so now my

[04:33:27] landlord is mad at me. And also I might have an unexpected effect of eviction by a condemnation, which is why I was, this is part of why I've been a really big advocate for the new power we got. I think we could potentially do both.

[04:33:43] I see the new powers being able to solve at the same problem potentially cheaper, right? Like instead of a inspection program with districts and inspectors, a office of tenant advocate with half of an FTE for intake and half of an FTE for potential litigation would be solving similar problems.

[04:34:09] The way they would do it would be very different. It would be like five people who are constantly inspecting and issuing reports versus one person who is putting out educational pamphlets and receiving complaints and occasionally then having someone get sued over it.

[04:34:29] The reason I, and again as a plaintiff's attorney, find that also more satisfying is that we could extract direct relief for the tenant in that circumstance. But I want to hear other people's evaluation of it. That's my personal, like, guesstimate of the costs and benefits of the two programs. So I would be interested in hearing both. Also, the Office of the Tenant Advocate, this is the first time I've spelled it out in that way. So I can follow up with an email of what that could look like and what I might want

[04:35:04] staff to look into with that. Okay. I mean, I think any work that the board could do that Sally has done and you could do that share with other supervisors is helpful for the information. And the beauty is it doesn't add to staff time, which I want to be sensitive to. I would think, and then I'll look to Mr. Richardson after I make this comment. Obviously, if it was a budget impact, that would have to be we would want to do that during budget season sometimes these kind of issues that we of course would all be in a likely lockstep and agreement to support uh it's easy to

[04:35:44] do that in a vacuum but when you do it as we just learned through budget season with the competing priorities of other things that we have to then make different decisions support and then paying for what you support are two different things so i would think giving the work we're going to do and affordable housing and the deeper dive into it that this and in a similar fashion that a hip and a hip have started to kind of become joined at the a hip not to make a bad pun but um this potentially could be wrapped in to building on some work by supervisors into that as a reasonable

[04:36:20] piece knowing that any costs or anything like that would simply would have to be addressed during next the next budget season um would that be a reasonable piece uh mr richardson would you like to add or respond or react or i'm looking across at miss wall and do you do you want me to go first mego i mean understanding state code the new law all of that we don't i mean andy has sent the email out i know so i mean there's work here we can do on our own and and we can get there but you know

[04:36:58] it's not like we need a cost outbreak next week or next month um knowing full well that i mean it's a if it comes to i mean just point blank if it comes down to positions then we have to look at all positions and how they relate and stack up against all those other positions um um ann wall deputy county executive um board we are certainly if it's the desire of the board for the staff to sort of scope out the implication of a sort of an inspection enforcement housing program. We are

[04:37:33] certainly able to scope out what we would do to research this endeavor and bring back to you sort of the tasks that we would do and a timeline. And of course, anything related to inspections, we would need to talk about implementation cost, which would then lead into the budget.

[04:37:57] The only hesitation I have related to housing Albemarle is just timing. I think Ms. Demmick spoke with you this afternoon about coming to the board in early August to talk about housing Albemarle, AHIP, AHIP, all of that.

[04:38:14] I'm just this, the scoping and then the later research may take a little longer than that. Does that answer your question, Mr. Calloway? I mean, I don't think any decisions can't be made outside of budget. So budget's my end goal in my mind.

[04:38:30] I don't know that anybody would disagree with that when I was making the statements and all the heads were nodding. So it's unanimous support that they're interested in learning what it would be. But it's also we all understand that it would have to be during that time. So I think if it meets, you know, it's one of those things that we don't want to hear the report during the budget, but it would definitely be ahead of, just like other items usually get surfaced in maybe late fall, December time frame.

[04:39:00] Is that reasonable to ask for? Yes, sir. We can do that. Thank you. Any additional items? Supervisor Duncan. Nope, that was it. Thank you, guys. Supervisor Malek. Thank you. Now, before I do my quick list, I have to go back to my pile of brochure of stuff in the kitchen table because the housing conference that we mentioned last winter, there was a presentation from Henrico where they had used the maintenance district.

[04:39:26] It was parcel by parcel that they could create this district, which was a disaster for the residents there. And they did end up taking it over and rebuilding everything and making sure that there was not displacement, et cetera. So that's sort of one end of the spectrum that is allowed. and they're a big city or a big county, I guess, so they had been involved in this whole process much longer than we, and we can hopefully learn from what they did, and I will dig up what notes I can find and try to make them legible for people.

[04:39:56] So that's good. A few quick things to think about and can advise on any process that you suggest that I work on immediately. A constituent shared, and maybe shared with everybody, I don't know, our neighbor, not a constituent, an article about auditing developer follow-through from rezonings from Arlington Now, and I thought that was a really good idea, because people come to the board, and I've complained about this for years, they say all sorts of wonderful things during the

[04:40:32] public hearing, which the board members use to support or not, and then those things disappear if we neglect to write those individual facets down as an individual condition in the approval. So I would like to learn more about, and I will see somebody from Arlington tomorrow at the board meeting in Prince William, and I'll try to get some information or at least a contact name from him about that process and see how it's going.

[04:41:02] Going along with that, just at a meeting recently, we talked about land to be dedicated for a trailhead in that new development on Ryo Road. And this reminded me that over many years, the board has been very slow at getting control of all of these properties that are promised to us when asked as part of rezonings.

[04:41:26] And sometimes these have been let go so long that then there's a big fight to get it delivered. So I guess what I would like people to think about, and we can talk about it another time, to say, should there be a policy that when the first CO is issued, that's when the demand is sent for the handover of the property, or at least the control of it, so that we don't have to go back?

[04:41:48] I mean, I'm thinking of the connection between South Forest Lakes and North Forest Lakes. That connection lot sat undemanded for 20 years. And when the county came along to demand it, oh, my gosh, it was World War III. So it took literally several years after that to get it sorted out, but it was something that was not necessary if the board at the time had just acted on it much more timely while people had it in mind.

[04:42:13] So that's basically the sort of accountability issue that I would like people to think about. It's been mentioned already about the Louisa County, or no, I guess it was in an email. Louisa County is putting an amendment into their comp plan to deal with transmission lines.

[04:42:32] And I would like to gather more information about that and ask all of you to put your minds to it as well and talk to people you know about this because all the counties around us now are taking a very strong advocacy role to protect themselves and their residents and their properties from this 750-volt, 150-foot-tall towers transmission line that's being proposed.

[04:43:00] And if Alamo County is the only one who's not, we've become the easy location. So I think many times pipelines and things have not come into the county because the word is out that we will stand up to protect ourselves and our residents. But if we start not doing that, then we're going to lose any kind of protection that we do have.

[04:43:19] So please think about that. I had questions about the LCI, and Andy has sent back a response on that, so I will not talk about that. Potential legislative areas to think about. And I know this is early, but one thing I learned at the High Growth Coalition meeting a couple weeks ago was the legislator said, don't wait so long.

[04:43:39] We want to hear from you in early summer about what you're interested in, not November, because they say it's too late, it's too late, it's too late. So I hope that we will consider meeting with them one at a time instead of trying this insane effort to try to get everybody in the room at one time.

[04:43:57] This seems to be very, very complicated. And since instead of six people, we now have only three, it should be easy enough to manage, I think. So many people are reaching out about bringing back a bottle bill because there was one in Virginia in the 50s, 60s, 70s.

[04:44:17] And when you hear about there are only 17 years left in solid waste facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, what are we going to do with our trash? One of the ways to pull back on that and help with the climate impacts of solid waste as well is to not be throwing so much stuff away.

[04:44:35] So that's one focus. The other is a question for legal and for senior staff as well, I guess, is when will the board learn about options and the enactment of HB 2072, which is to allow the county to be requiring testing of sludge that's to be proposed to be put on our properties.

[04:45:00] And I talked a little bit at the beginning about the Farmer's Right to Know Bill. And this is, as I said, driven by concerns over toxic chemicals that last forever. And it's as much a farmer protection bill as it is a neighbor protection bill, because in other states, farmers have found their land to be totally devalued when it's discovered that it's full of toxic chemicals.

[04:45:21] And the meat, the grain, the milk, everything that's grown on that property then has no ability to be sold. Maine actually has a program where they're buying out people whose properties are ruined for this reason. So that's why after 20 years of stewing about this and trying to get people going, I'm really thrilled that there are significant progress being made this year on this issue.

[04:45:44] And we heard some speakers today talk about that. So I think I will stop there. But thank you all for your thinking about all these things. And please, if you want more information or whatever, in the meantime, please send me a question, and I will try to fill you in.

[04:46:00] Very good. Supervisor Lephisto-Kirley. Yes, regarding the EDA meeting that I attended yesterday, our focus or the board's focus, the EDA board, is going to be agribusiness with shared equipment and infrastructure, coal storage, transport, logistics.

[04:46:20] This all helps the producer expand their reach for consumer packaged goods. So that's one focus of the EDA, going to be this coming year. And then also a site readiness efforts. They want to have site readiness efforts through private and public partnerships to remove infrastructure barriers for target sectors.

[04:46:44] So that's another area that they'll be focusing on. And other meetings weren't held, so I'm done. Supervisor Missal? Thanks. Just a few quick comments. One is, just to echo your comment about being involved in the graduations, has been a real honor.

[04:47:04] Last night, the Monticello High School graduation was amazing, and the diversity of the students is just mind-blowing. It's just wonderful, and just watching each one of them was wonderful. Sat next to Delegate Lauffer, and congratulations to her son, Henry, who graduated last night.

[04:47:22] She was able to hand him his diploma, which is very cool. It was awesome. Also, I guess under the heading of education, I had an interesting meeting this morning with a gentleman who I will continue to work with, and I spoke with Bob Beard about this as well.

[04:47:39] He's very interested in improving early childhood education opportunities in the area. He's passionate about that. starting a charter school in New York and has some experience in this and would like to talk to us more about how that might look. So I've got connections with him to the school board and have, I think, started that process. We mentioned the Dominion Line PEC presentation. Also, I met, I toured a family-owned agricultural enterprise in Southern Albemarle, which was really interesting to learn about some of the challenges and the concerns that they're facing.

[04:48:17] both facing both by them and also those that are operating similar farms. And I also have heard from adjacent landowners who are sharing concerns about those agricultural, I guess, production areas.

[04:48:35] And so I'm seeing both sides of this and learning more about it, so continuing to focus on that. The Java Board of Directors, Matt, it's fascinating. We actually got an update. I guess one of the areas that we spent the most time on was the insurance program, the insurance counseling process that they had there.

[04:48:53] And it's amazing the statistics. They shared a few. I'll just mention them. 4,655 people helped, 84 volunteers. They sent out surveys, client survey 99.59% positive.

[04:49:09] And probably the most impactful timeline is when they do their open enrollment counseling and they calculated the amount of money that they've saved their, I think I've got this right, that they've saved the folks that they counseled on their various insurance plans is over $4.5 million. So super impactful and encourage folks, residents that are listening to look into that to see if they're qualified. And then the last was the audit committee organizational meeting.

[04:49:41] Some others of us in the room were also in that. We elected Jacob Sumner as our board, as our chair. And one of the areas that I thought was fascinating and actually very positive, and Mr. Richardson can also weigh in here if he'd like to, but we got a report on fraud, waste, and abuse, which was really interesting that there's very little.

[04:50:02] So that was a good news piece. That's it. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much. I do just, like, kind of casually want to observe, you know, we think, how do we run through $700 million in a budget so easily?

[04:50:22] And in the past 25 minutes, I say this, you know, also aware of my own role in this, I think we've casually suggested, well, we could have a valley-linked defense fund, we could have a new water testing program, we could have a building inspection program, and we could have an Office of Tenant Advocacy.

[04:50:38] And this is how we burn through a $700 million budget. Good job, good job, board. That's not in this one. I will note that there are two community events, well, a community event and an appointed board that I attended since our last meeting.

[04:50:58] So, like our chair, I attended the most recent meeting of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. Just a few notes, because this time I remembered to take notes and make sure I had them up in front of me on what our neighboring localities are up to, because I think that's the most interesting thing we can get out of that.

[04:51:17] Nelson is actually currently mirroring us. They're going through their zoning modernization process, as we are. A major thing that they're grappling with is how they're going to engage with ADUs, both under the new state mandate and in their own ordinance, and whether or not there is an appetite for changing their allowable rural density, Which, you know, we think we're in a bad straight sometimes with two acres, not to mention our subdivisions.

[04:51:48] They have six acres as their lowest density. You can have a single home unit on. So that's fun context. Louisa, you all might have heard, but they are doing a rebate system for their personal property taxes using this is the way that they've chosen to use their new revenue from the three Amazon data center camps.

[04:52:12] that are opening there they are back to being the fourth fastest growing county in the state they had been bumped down to fifth but now they're back to fourth their highest record is third but they haven't quite gotten back to third green was also under some really significant revenue pressures if y'all have not been following green had done some major water infrastructure investments they did a major water impoundment project to support their really significant growth demand driven, I should just say pointedly, by us. And this has caused a

[04:52:51] very significant new revenue demand for them. There was a recommended budget that included a four cent increase, but kind of at the 11th hour, they did not have the political will for that. So it was a one cent increase that was realized. And we are going to see how they're going to trim the Pat on that. I think I've got this all correct. I'm looking at my resident green reporter.

[04:53:17] And I will also say a story, I think for all three of these localities I just went over, and I forgot what Fluvanna was up to. They probably also said something, but I didn't write it down. A trend of all three of these localities is that they do not do assessments every year um this really hits nelson in the teeth because nelson has seen really significant increase like we have since the pandemic and nelson how frequently do they do their six probably the last time it was six yes so doing it more frequently now you will have we will have

[04:53:54] our residents come and say over the last six years you know i've i've seen over time an increase of 50 percent in my property values and that sucks but at least they got it like six percent at a time um nelson county residents are dealing with a overnight increase of 50 percent or more um and that's it is a opportunity to appreciate the good work that peter lynch and his team do i also attended the um state of homelessness um presentation and panel that was put on in conjunction with several parts of our homelessness service continuum of

[04:54:32] nonprofits and organizations this was also this was not stated but I think it was deliberately done to align with the launch of the capital campaign that the Salvation Army is doing for their new house of hope that's right next door here at the top of the hill by the fire station where they're going to significantly expand their existing operations. I will also just take this opportunity. I talked with Jen Fleischer to make sure I wasn't going crazy. I had been under a misapprehension about

[04:55:05] how that property was going to be used. I had been, I think, understanding that as being a low barrier shelter. That was a need that Salvation Army had been trying to meet with some of their other shelter designs. That is not something that they're planning on doing anymore. This is going to be a much more traditional programmatic shelter, in part because the planned Charlottesville shelter that they are building right next door to us off hydraulic, I'm suddenly blanking on the road name. Holiday, thank you. The Holiday Drive shelter is going to fill a lot of that low barrier

[04:55:41] shelter need. It gave me an opportunity to also reflect on how quick a moving target this is. This is a issue that's evolving really quickly and I think I feel like our peers in the city have had to absorb a lot of the um this guy sound like a weird way to phrase it the intellectual brunt of it it does not fall on us uh as supervisors to follow as closely the moving target of these agencies and how they're developing it um and I I do wonder if that's to our detriment um it was also just always a chilling thing this is not this was not new information to me but anytime we hear

[04:56:20] it. We have year-round about 50 shelter beds in Charlottesville, and those are high-barrier shelter beds. That bumps up to about 100 during the winter, which are lower-barrier shelter beds. Our point-in-time count is not high. We have, at any given point in time, about 250 who are homeless or housing unstable. That's an achievable amount, but there is a very concrete gap that we have not filled. Fluvanna did not provide a report because neither Fluvanna person was in

[04:56:57] attendance. I don't recall. No. Well, then it's not on me. It's on them. Aha. The, in the city's report spoke a lot about the homeless piece, which you just covered. So that, remember, I'll recall that. The ACRJ, the regional jail board met. It was a very brief meeting. I learned that just like the comment I made earlier about SOQ positions, the state likes to do this for jail employees as well, where they provide bonuses but don't cover the cost of all the people that could get the bonus. So then it drops to the local agency to cover that. Luckily, or advantageously, the jail

[04:57:36] board has some surplus building where this bonus must be paid out by June 30, and they do not need to ask any additional contributions from the localities to be able to provide that bonus to all employees so they're going to do so and use their and the surplus more than covers it so there would still be remaining surplus uh in their in their budget um i also had the pleasure of attending the last school board meeting uh it was they did a nice ceremony recognizing retirees um so it was

[04:58:14] in particular it was interesting watching some folks that have been teachers of my children who are retiring but they also had a nice presentation from the student senate folks that represent that's going on this was not a program that existed when i was on the school board so it was both that and student representatives on the school board are both programs that are are you know not familiar to me so it was fun watching the student school board representatives be recognized hear more about the student senate program and what it's attempting to do um and of course you can go watch those uh online if you'd like to see that

[04:58:53] and then what was oh um when mike was speaking about the holiday drive um and and the issue with homelessness i did attend a webinar offered by the national alliance to end homelessness this past week. And it was interesting because it was some research done both in a qualitative and quantitative manner on the issue of encampments and what to do to solve encampment issues.

[04:59:27] The qualitative data was not surprising at the least, but the quantitative data was somewhat interesting. And I'm not going to go into all those tidbits, but I'll send out, if I'm remembering, I think there was a deliverable that you could refer to. So I'll find that and send that out just for folks to look at on that issue.

[04:59:47] And then the final thing that I will just mention, just in the spirit of also what we did today with the budget evaluation and how often issues like the tenant piece that Supervisor Duncan raised this evening and others have done in the past, the board doesn't really have a formalized process of how to do that.

[05:00:08] We kind of bring it up and we do it here and it's almost as a, okay, we'll throw it together, we'll put it on this other matters from the board. It's not that I'm looking for a different place in the agenda, but in doing some other things not necessarily related to my work here on this board, other boards have process defined of how to do that in a different way that hits all the marks that we like to hit.

[05:00:31] It's just a little bit more what to expect and put some responsibility and ownership on the board member to do some diligence beforehand versus just raising an issue. So just don't be shocked if there's no objection that maybe some ideas get rolled out.

[05:00:49] And I know that we've been pondering during a board retreat, and that would be an appropriate time for something like that to maybe come up or at least to get kicked off or something like that. So I just wanted to share that I'll be working on some of that to bring back for you all to maybe look at and consider.

[05:01:07] Yes, Bea? I don't know why we don't put you on the list twice.

[05:01:15] Okay. I wanted to ask if there was interest amongst the board members because I've received the presentation from PEC and I know Fred and Ann have also, whether or not the board would like to – it's about a 10, 15-minute presentation regarding the transmission lines that are going all the way through our entire county, I think from all the way through, all the way up to Orange.

[05:01:48] and I would like to know if you'd like to receive that presentation. It's very interesting because they will be building on top of the transmission lines that are currently there, and they'll be going up two to three times higher. So we're talking about, what, a couple hundred feet, several hundred feet.

[05:02:05] I think it's worthwhile to see that. I mean, I could work with you to see if we can somewhere in the board's agenda for a future date. Well, it sounds like if half the board's already received the presentation, that the other half could, if interested, work with the PEC to receive the presentation.

[05:02:23] Okay. I could do that. Sure. I think that would be more appropriate than agenda time, but that's me reacting quickly. All right. Any other items this evening? Thank you for the time to speak. The second time. Any additional items?

[05:02:41] All right. Without objection, then we will adjourn for the evening.

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