Coraggio Consulting
Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Meeting - December 17, 2025, Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Place: Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 7h 34m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1238/media
Official agenda (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3789,plainText=false)
Official minutes (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3841,plainText=false)

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 2026-10-24. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:02:49] Good afternoon and welcome to the afternoon session of the December 17th Board of Supervisors meeting. Madam Clerk. Mr. Chair, the first item on the agenda is approval of minutes for the November 19th Board of Supervisors meeting and December 2nd legislative reception. Any questions or can I get a motion?

[00:03:08] So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Item 2, request to postpone agenda items and additions, deletions, or changes in the order of presentation. Staff has no requests. Item three, Everyday Excellence, Dr. Casey.

[00:03:23] Good afternoon, members of the board and the public that is with us here today, including students that we'll be recognizing shortly. But as we start every meeting with Everyday Excellence, it's just illustrating to the public and reminding ourselves of the value we place amongst the entire workforce of Chesterfield, notably those that are behind the scenes that may not get recognized as well elsewhere.

[00:03:45] Today is no exception, and it's really a nice combination because it shows that each department sometimes has a team and a support network within itself that it's not just one person getting things done. So I will turn it over to Mr. Minx to recognize his three Everyday Excellence employees.

[00:04:02] Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, members of the board, really thank you for the opportunity to celebrate all of the legal work that this team did. This is Rob Robinson, Andrew Fullwider, and Kelly Harmon from our office who worked on the ZOMOD ordinance, which the board adopted in September, but which began five years ago, over five years ago.

[00:04:28] Rob actually was working on ZOMOD at the beginning. This is all pre-COVID stuff, if we can remember that. And Kelly was providing the legal support for that as Rob's paralegal. So that's where it began.

[00:04:46] Dr. Hilton saw Rob with ZOMOD all the way through the Planning Commission, but it was this team, because Andrew joined in 2022, and it was this team that got the ordinance through from a legal standpoint.

[00:05:06] got across finish line in September. In fact, Andrew joining the team in 2022, I will say that in my entire career here with the county, I've had one lawyer come to me and ask to do land use work, and that was Andrew. I don't expect it to ever be repeated again, but he did some really wonderful work along with Rob, and I can confidently say that the The three of them have legally analyzed every single provision of ZOMOD.

[00:05:39] They have written or edited countless provisions, and Rob and Andrew attended most of the meetings on the ordinance, considered or wrote thousands of emails concerning ZOMOD, legally analyzed the many comments received from the public, answered numerous inquiries from planners, the Planning Commission members, citizens, members of the ZOMOT Advisory Committee, and of course, any inquiries that were made by this board.

[00:06:10] So they were on top of that. I made a crude attempt to quantify their efforts, and between the three of them, they dealt with approximately 3,540 emails, attended over 210 meetings.

[00:06:26] We got an estimate of 300 hours. That can't possibly be right. Spent on phone calls and Teams meetings to get through this ordinance. Then there's all the internal communications between the three of them and with me.

[00:06:45] So I can say with confidence that the legal issues have been thoroughly vetted on ZOMOD. There's other work that they did, though, which is a whole lot less glamorous than working on the ordinance itself. They worked out on all the amendments that came up to the zoning ordinance that were sort of post-ZOMOD, the amendments to the subdivision ordinance, any other ordinances necessitated by the adoption of ZOMOD.

[00:07:11] Least glamorous task is to actually ensure that the newspaper online postcard notifications of public hearings met legal requirements. Virginia's publication laws are some of the most rigorous in the country.

[00:07:27] And it sounds like small, boring, but as you've heard, there was a major Virginia jurisdiction that had their entire ZOMOD ordinance invalidated for failure to publish notice correctly.

[00:07:44] I'm not wishing that on us, but I don't think that's going to happen here. While they were doing all this, of course, they were doing the other jobs we paid them to do. And Rob was working on some major construction litigation with me. Andrew was representing mental health department, which is a challenging client and doing federal litigation. And Kelly actually was working with Mike Chernow in our office doing social services work, the hundreds and hundreds of cases that come through that are social services related. So all that was being done while all this was happening.

[00:08:23] So I don't want to end without recognizing those in the planning department for the extraordinary work they did. And it's hard to really come up with everybody, but Rachel Chieppa, Steve Donahoe, Steve Hosh, Tom Jenkins, Ryan Ramsey, Joe Feast, Andy Gillies, of course, and I know I've left people out, but that's to name a few of the people that really, really put in significant time.

[00:08:49] But primarily, I'm here to thank Rob Kelly and Andrew for all that they contributed to this effort. Thank you. So if you've got any questions for them, they would be more than happy to respond.

[00:09:12] Board members, any questions or comments? Just a quick comment. You were giving that list of everything that they've done. I wasn't sure if you were doing just over the last year or if you were doing just yesterday because you guys are just so efficient and so good at what you all do.

[00:09:30] So thank you. so i just want to say uh robbie it was great working with you on zomod you were always available uh phone and text and email you responded right away and i i feel like we're in a really good place because of the work that you put in to making sure that we did it legally and that people had proper notice and that we did everything humanly possible to go through all the comments and weigh the pros and cons of what was submitted to us and

[00:10:07] how we could implement it. So, you know, just sincerely, thank you so much for everything that you did and, you know, the rest of your team. But I know I worked directly with you on a lot of this. I just want to say thank you for that. It was a team effort, not only our office, but the planning folks of which Jeff mentioned only a few and the other community development departments as well so I think we got a good product and we'll see how it turns

[00:10:41] out but thank you mr. thank you for hard work we know that was a lot of work you know look forward to this upcoming year where we're going to work on the comprehensive plan rewrite he said I could ask anything I want you know it's I mean, it's something that, you know, it's time to do it.

[00:11:10] And, you know, you all worked with us to help get rid of the East-West Freeway all through the heart of Matoka. That was a big part of the step forward to what we're going to look at for land use through the southern tier of the county. So it's a lot of good work that's being done every day and not a lot of notoriety, quite frankly.

[00:11:32] It's a lot of stuff that's done behind closed doors that needs to be done. And, yes, there's transparency. We've pushed a lot of information out to the community, but the pen to paper happens in a room where no one's watching. So thank you. Thank you.

[00:11:50] Go ahead. As someone who doesn't appreciate all the – I've learned all the fine points in two years that I've been here, and I can't imagine all the stuff that you guys read on a daily basis.

[00:12:08] And I think that the ZOMOD was started before I got here, but it was an interesting leap trying to catch up to all. I mean, I had been attending some of the meetings and stuff like that, but it's definitely, I'm hoping that with it rolling out this year, we'll see what the changes are and how it's going to change the way we do zoning here.

[00:12:36] And hopefully it'll be a good product and turnout for, so thank you so much for all that you've done. Yes, ma'am, thank you. I'm just going to say thank you for all your hard work. Enjoy the holidays, and we'll get back at it next year. Thank you.

[00:12:52] Thank you all. Item four, work sessions.

[00:13:12] A, Model County Government Day. Welcome, Dr. Worsley. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Dr. Casey, will you all join me up here in the front, please? We are excited once again to celebrate and to participate in Model County Government.

[00:13:30] This is, of course, a longstanding project and program, not only with Chesterfield County government side, but also with Chesterfield County Public Schools. These are six individuals that are going to tell you a little bit about themselves in just a minute, but you can probably wave your hand because we have a watch party going on back at the Eanes-Pittman building where we just came from with lunch and a long morning of activities.

[00:13:52] So the rest of the gang is back at Eanes-Pittman listening to the board session, at least until three o'clock when school gets out. So what they're going to do is give you their name, they're going to give you their school, they're going to tell you their future plans post-graduation, and their singular nugget of what they learned, their experience from participating in Model County Government today.

[00:14:13] And we thank them, as well as all the other students. There are 62 students total that participated today from all of our Chesterfield County high schools. So we are very, very thankful for them. Without further delay, Lynn, we'll start with you. Hi, my name is Lynn Jones, and I go to Matoaca High School.

[00:14:29] And my post-grad plans, I will be pursuing a degree in political science and then hopefully a career in Congress. And today I got to shadow Mr. Clay Bowles, and I just learned how closely the community operations really gets to work with our citizens and how much they do and how they really are representing our communities through the work they do, and I really appreciated that.

[00:14:50] Hello, my name is Maya McGee. I'm representing Matoka High School. And my post-grad experience that I'm hoping to do is to hopefully attend Howard University with a scholarship for a doctorate in political science.

[00:15:09] One of the key takeaways that I've learned from today is how much that Chesterfield County is really a community organization devoted to helping its citizens, whether that you're a student or even like an elderly member of our society, it's devoted to helping you.

[00:15:26] So I just wanted to say thank you for all that you do and thank you for your help. - Hi, I'm Abigail Willis and I'm representing Cosby High School. And for my future plans after graduation, I hope to pursue a four-year degree in communications with hopefully a minor in some sort of public policy or political science.

[00:15:47] Today, I had the privilege of shadowing our constituent in media services and Mr. Good back there, he gave us a very helpful piece of advice entering the field and he said always be willing to change and it just shows just how adaptable that team is and i really commend them for tackling every challenge um that they face especially on days like this when they're so busy to get ready for meetings like this and um it was so cool to see everybody work so hard behind the scenes my name is wesley cambridge and i'm representing meadowbrook high school post-grad i would like to go to a four-year college and study either fashion

[00:16:26] OR ADVERTISING COMMUNICATIONS. TODAY I HAD THE HONOR OF SHADOWING BEHIND MR. GOOD FOR THE MEDIA DEPARTMENT. AND ONE THING THAT I REALLY LIKED IS HOW THEY ARE VERY INCLUSIVE OF HOW THE MEDIA GETS OUT THROUGH, WHETHER IT'S BLOGS, INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK.

[00:16:47] THEY'RE JUST REALLY GOOD AT GETTING THE MEDIA OUT AND JUST MAKING SURE EVERYTHING IS INCLUSIVE WITH THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS AND THE OLDER GENERATIONS. Hi, I'm Mackenzie Graham. I'm here from Cosby High School. My plans post-graduation are to hopefully attend William & Mary with a major in government administration or pre-law and afterwards I would hope to work towards being either an attorney or going into government administration either in federal or state government. Today I think the key takeaway I learned was that the local government really works as a whole. All parts function together

[00:17:26] and you can't have it if you're missing one part. I had the honor to shout out Mr. Minks today, the county attorney, and I really learned what it's like to be a civil attorney and work for the public. You're not working for the money. You're working to help people and to be a good person and to help your community, and I just really admire that.

[00:17:49] Hello, everybody. My name is Mitch Brown. I'm representing James River High School. My future plans is hopefully to study economics at either University of Virginia or Virginia Tech and I also study or I also shadowed Jeff Minx with the county attorney's office and one of the things I learned was just like that with law you don't have to just be in it for yourself for the money like there truly is a way that you can help out your community and other people through it and I think that just isn't stressed enough. Please give them a round

[00:18:23] applause. I think the takeaway today you can see the model county government is working. I've heard several people say they have intentions of going into local government post-graduation and going on to college, so we really appreciate that. Thank you to this board, the school board, and Dr. Murray for participating as well. We could not do this without you, and most importantly, thank you to the CER, our Community Engagement Resources Department, and all the many directors and staff that made this possible, because if we didn't have you to go and shadow behind, we would not be able to do that. So again, thank you for the time today, and we look forward to doing this again in the

[00:19:02] future. This is actually the second one this year that we've done. You remember, we did this in the spring as well. So we look forward to 2026, Marlowe County Government. Thank you. Don't go anywhere yet. Board members, any comments from board members? I know we gave comments before, but what I'll say is I was a student at Manchester High School about 25 years ago.

[00:19:29] I would have graduated. Next year would be 25 years. And so I never thought that I would be sitting where I was sitting now, one thing I would say is shoot high, write down your goals. When I went to undergrad, I wrote down my goals. I had six goals, and I achieved all of those, and I would tell you that most people who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them, so I still, even to this day, write down my goals, and in front of the attorney, I don't know if this is politically correct to say this, but, um, whatever your faith is, faith has been really

[00:20:07] big to me. Um, so I would say that, um, you know, whatever is important to you faith-wise that you exercise that, because I think that the road that I'm on now and where I've been in life, um, you know, has been because of the creator. And so, um, and I, I believe that, um, he's directing my path and directing my goals. And I hope that he does the same for you as you all set forth to do the things that you want to do, and if I can personally

[00:20:39] do anything to help you, please get my information from Dr. Worsley, and I'm happy to write recommendation letters or anything that we can do to get you where you want to be. We want to push you to your highest potential and to be where you want to be, so we're all here collectively to help you, so you have an entire community, and that's the community that I felt as I entered college and my different degrees after that and RME and all the places I've been.

[00:21:13] I've really felt Chesterfield County behind me, and I'm grateful for that. So I hope you feel that sense of community as you set out on your goals. So thank you. I'd just like to remind the other 56 students that are back at the Public Safety Training Center that we appreciate the six here and all of them, their commitment to learn more today.

[00:21:45] Did hear a few that said they wanted to go into state or federal government. I would encourage you to look at local government as you did today a little harder as well. And hopefully we'll see some of you back here, like I said, whether you're an employee or a volunteer for the county because we can't do it without our volunteers either.

[00:22:06] So thank you all for participating today, and thank you to all of those that mentored and shared their experiences with these students today to help them to have a good experience.

[00:22:26] B, Economic Development Annual Update, Mr. Hart.

[00:22:45] Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey.

[00:23:04] It is the purpose this afternoon of the work session for me to present to you the annual report from Economic Development that you all have at your place. but rather than to go through each page in detail you guys can read if you have any questions I will hit a few of the highlights but we thought it would be more interesting to you all to to catch up with a couple of our companies and see what they have done for the for 2025 so I have with me today Angela Martin who's the director of accounting and people operations accounting and people

[00:23:41] operations. That's a great title, isn't it? It's super radiator coils. A company has been in Chesterfield for 45 years and continues to expand here, which is, you know, when you talk about relationships or a community, it's the best is when our companies stay here and grow.

[00:23:58] And then I've got Claire Mansfield, Senior Manager of Government and Public Affairs for the Americas from Lego, to give you guys an update on where they are. And then Terry Byrne, chair of the economic development authority of chesterfield county will finish up our report on things that that the the eda is into um i've got good news here you know it's it's all good news but yeah then the numbers say everything we're doing well but what really makes me know that the county is going to do well in the future and our country is going to do well in the future

[00:24:37] is spending time with these kids and their peers. We have a bright future in this country because we have some really, really excellent young people. Before I get started, I wanted to recognize that Jennifer Wakefield is here, president and CEO of Greater Richmond Partnership.

[00:24:59] She slipped a one-pager in for you guys. She was with me in this report last year, but we gave her the speaking part off. but if you have any questions about the regional when we finish, she'll be happy to answer those. With that said, I will get started.

[00:25:18] So our labor force is up to 205, up about 0.74%. That is always good.

[00:25:33] The talent attraction is a key here for us. The number of jobs is up to a record high of jobs created in Chesterfield County. We have a record-high weekly wage, which that's the goal in life, is for all boats to rise.

[00:25:53] So, you know, that's what we're doing, successful. Our business, a number of businesses continue to grow. If I go here, when you look at those numbers individually, they're all impressive.

[00:26:10] They're all in the positive, doing like that. But I think it's important to put kind of three of them together. Our labor force growth rate is almost about 1%. It's just under 1%. But our job growth rate is just under 2%.

[00:26:25] So we're creating, you know, a little more jobs than we're having labor force, which is not a bad thing, but we need to keep drawing the talent. But even more importantly, our 3.3% increase in wages this year exceeds inflation.

[00:26:44] So the people who are here are staying ahead of the inflationary curve that we've seen. I am so proud of all of my team, but every year we do more than we did last year.

[00:27:01] And we assisted over 7,000 people this year in small business programs. It was 177 events that we had. We could not do that without our partners here. All of these are joint meetings or meetings sponsored by others that we jump into.

[00:27:17] But, you know, the chambers, BizWorks, the public schools, the libraries, Bright Point and Brian Stratton and Virginia State are all partners we work with weekly, you know, on events to help people either start a business, grow a business or, you know, or find out how to attract more customers, how to do their books, how to get capital, how to talk to the banks, all of those important things.

[00:27:48] if you want to continue in the business in Chesterfield. I will go over the activities a little bit just to highlight. Once again, a record year, $3.4 billion in capital investment, covering eight projects with 1,200 jobs and 1.2 million square feet of new building in the county.

[00:28:14] I wanted to redo a five-year average where we keep up what's going on on a five-year basis. Obviously, this is a track record that we lead the state in. We've had a really good five-year run, 11,053 projects, almost 7,000 jobs, and almost 9 million square feet of investment.

[00:28:43] Now I'm going to turn it over to our community partner, Super Radiator Coils, and if you have questions about my presentation, we can catch them at the end. Good afternoon, everybody.

[00:29:00] I'm here representing Super Radiator Coils. My name is Angela Martin. As Garrett mentioned, my title is Director of Accounting and People Operations. It's a little weird. But I'm here to talk to you today about Super Radiator. I've been with them for a little over 16 years.

[00:29:17] And before I get started, I just have one ask of everyone. There is one word I want you to listen out for as I go through this presentation. At the end, I'm going to check in with all of you and see if you could figure out what that word is. You will probably have it figured out by the time we hit the second slide, but that's okay.

[00:29:35] So I'm going to go ahead and get started. So here we go. All right. So our mission is to unleash the power of thermodynamics to improve our world. Super Radiator started in 1928 in Minnesota, and they expanded to Chesterfield County, Virginia in 1980.

[00:29:59] So we like to say that we have been super in Chesterfield County since 1980. Our location here in Chesterfield is off of South Lake Boulevard near Chesterfield Town Center. And we, company-wide, have more than 1,000 employees, with over half of those being here in Chesterfield.

[00:30:20] We have had three expansions at that location since 1980. the most current expansion was about three years ago and many of you in this room were there for that expansion so all right so what we do is we make super products to power our world and what that means is we simply make engineered components that are for custom heat exchangers and they go into components that are in HVAC units such as residential or commercial applications

[00:30:58] one of our big customers raising cane so the big unit you see on the top of the building that's what we make we make parts that go into that also your refrigerated display cases and your grocery store the convenience store where you can you know get your food power generation plants and data centers so we cover a lot of industries and we think that's one of the really awesome things that Super Radiator does is that we're not just involved with one industry. We are involved with several industries. We also have super technology and engineering. We are a manufacturing company but we'd like to say we're also

[00:31:35] an engineering company. We have a thermal innovation center located in our Chesterfield facility and that's used for research and development for next generation heat exchangers. We have a super advanced manufacturing operation right there on Southlake. It's a modern facility with the latest technology, and we invest heavily in our process equipment.

[00:32:06] So between 2024 and the end of 2026, we will spend approximately $20 million in our capital investments for equipment in the Chesterfield location only. All right, so who works at Super Radiator?

[00:32:25] We have a ton of super employees, more than 500 in fact, that are in the Chesterfield campus off of Southlake Boulevard. And how that breaks down is there's a roughly 110 office or professional positions. More than 30 of those are engineers. We have more than 400 in our shop that are production, skilled production workers. And in 2025, we added 100 employees.

[00:32:52] We really are proud of our values and how we've grown that segment to our business. And one of our the most the top value is relationships and we like to say we care and we care about our employees and their development it's super important to us so we have designed different training and leadership pathways for those employees we always say you do not have to have a manufacturing experience or background to work at super radiator we will train you some of our most successful production individuals have come from hospitality and food service and so we're

[00:33:27] really proud of what we've done with our training programs. We are also proud to say that we've been a top workplace for seven years in a row. And in 2025, we also received an award for strong values from the top work from Richmond Times-Dispatch top workplace. And just last month, we received second place for Virginia Manufacturers' top, most coolest thing made in Virginia. So that was awesome. It was our first time doing that. All right. And then we have a strong commitment to our community. We like to say we have a super commitment to the community. We have an in-house

[00:34:05] community engagement committee where the goal is to reach, educate, and inspire those within the community. We like to call it time, talent, and treasure. So for time, we like to partner with those organizations in Chesterfield County.

[00:34:22] We have really strong connections with Chesterfield communities and schools. And we enjoy going out and partnering with them and doing many different things. For talent, we have a lot of individuals that work at Super Radiator. An example would be like individuals that don't speak English as their first language.

[00:34:41] We offer ESL for those in the community at Super Radiator. And some of our employees actually teach some of those classes. And then Treasure, we give back with money, right, to the community in Chesterfield. And so over the past three years, we've been able to donate more than $300,000 within Chesterfield County.

[00:34:58] So we're really excited about that, and we hold that very dear. So you've heard a lot of things. Want to talk about what's coming up? Well, what's coming up for Super Radiator is super growth. And we just signed a lease for space in the Chesterfield Airport right down the street.

[00:35:18] That location is there to support the growth that we've had recently. Initially, we were going to expand our Southlake location. However, with time constraints and demand and things, we had to pivot a little bit.

[00:35:34] And so we still plan to expand on Southlake. But right now, we're going to be at the Chesterfield Airport. And we're hoping to go live in March. And so that's going to bring a little over 100 jobs to that location. so we're excited about that and so I just want to take a moment to thank the Chesterfield Economic Development for their support and cooperation throughout all of that all right so now I'm gonna come back to the one word I'm sure all of you were able to figure out but we have this phrase we like to use at super

[00:36:08] radiator we use it in our all hands meetings it's on all of our swag and so if you can finish this phrase then you will know the word so if it has to be perfect it has to be awesome y'all good job thank you you're welcome to talk to her now ask any questions or we'll move on and mr. chair I was kind of so I'm actually I represent the area where you're off your building is in Chesterfield and I was kind of wondering what was happening with that with the new

[00:36:48] addition that we had announced last year, but that's the, thank you. I'm glad that I found out what's going on with that. Were you, was there not some finances from the Department of Commerce for acceleration of training also, the training accelerator or something program that the governor announced? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've been working with them, the VEDP. Is that where some of the hundred new people have come from? Okay. That's awesome. Yes. Well, thank you so much for all that you do in Clover Hill District.

[00:37:21] Thank you. You're not going to mention they're coming to Dale as well? We already have two locations over there. I don't know if you know that. Two smaller, but we're just going to be white pine here soon.

[00:37:39] It would just be super if you keep growing in Chessfield. Look at that. You caught on. Look at that. Just a little different topic, but for super radiator coils, One of the county's best moments was during the heat of the pandemic when the vaccinations first came out.

[00:37:57] They are labeled an essential industry. You could tell by some of the products that they make. And while they have three locations across the country, this was the only location that we were able to stand up our fire EMS through their 24-hour operation and different shifts to get the entire shift vaccinated with the first vaccines that came off.

[00:38:19] And I just remember the family and the national leaders of the organization just amazed by how a county could deploy its resources to what is deemed an essential business. And it wasn't as deemed essential in other parts of the country. And it was a win-win because you were able to continue the employment and the production of essential goods.

[00:38:40] We were able to, again, keep our citizens employed as well. That's right. Thank you. you. All right. With that, I'll turn the mic over to Claire to talk about where Lego is. Just keep pushing. There we go. There you go. Angela, dare I say it, that was a super presentation. All right.

[00:39:12] Well, good afternoon. As Garrett mentioned, my name is Claire Mansfield. I'm a government and public affairs for the Lego Group in the Americas. So thank you for having me and for this opportunity to share an update with you about the LEGO Group's progress and LEGO Manufacturing Virginia's progress and all that we've achieved together with many, many folks in this room in 2025.

[00:39:35] First of all, I just want to say we are so pleased to be part of Chesterfield County. You know, we continue to receive such a warm welcome from the entire community and want to start out by thanking you for your partnership, the partnership of many folks here in this room.

[00:39:55] Our great partnership with the economic development team. You know, we continue to work closely with them on many, many things, including infrastructure development of our site. You know, the Lego Group is a fourth generation family owned company.

[00:40:12] And in 2025, we were named the number one most reputable brand by RepTrack for the third consecutive year in a row. And for the fifth year, or excuse me, for the fifth time in the past six years. And these strong partnerships that we have here in Chesterfield County with the county, with the community, they're so important not just to the investment that we're making here in Virginia, but to the values that we hold dear as a company and how we are achieving our ambition to make sure that we're bringing learning through play to children in Chesterfield County, in Virginia, and all across the world.

[00:40:48] So let me start off in true Lego fashion by saying that everything is awesome. not super, not super awesome. So super awesome. You have a few minutes to come up with a really good word. You know, as a business, we saw really great results in the first half of the year, and we continue to grow our share in the global toy market. We had consumer sales growth of 13%,

[00:41:22] you know, and that allows us to continue to invest in expansion and capacity like we see here in Chesterfield and our strategic initiatives that really allow us to fuel our growth and help us reach more children with Lego play experiences. So speaking of that capacity expansion, it's really been an incredible year of progress over at the construction site. So we started the year with this site looking quite different than it does now. If you'll remember 12 months ago, although we were doing a lot of underground work, what you would have seen if you drove by was dirt, right, for the

[00:42:01] most part. And you saw very little, if any, vertical construction at the beginning of the year. Today, if you drive by, it's a very different scene. The factory is really coming to life. And just like if you're building a Lego set, we're at that point in construction where you can really start to see what the final product is going to look like. And it's a really exciting moment for all of us.

[00:42:24] So this year, we've laid over 20,000 cubic yards of foundation concrete, over 15,000 cubic yards of slabs on grade and 6,000 cubic yards of slabs on deck. Please don't ask me what the difference between slabs on grade and slabs on deck is. And we had the opportunity to celebrate with a lot of you back in October, our steel topping out ceremony. So thank you all and many others in this room for coming and joining us for that. But that final steel beam capped off the placement of over 16,000 tons of steel, which to give you a little bit of context, is roughly one and a

[00:43:02] half times the amount of steel in the Eiffel Tower. And of course, none of that happens without the hard work and the dedication of our construction teams. We currently have approximately 1,100 workers on site every single day, and they've completed over 1 million man hours on site. So since the steel topping out in the weeks that we have ahead of us, we're going to continue to erect and complete the building envelope. So as you can see in that sort of lower left hand photo there that's our energy center and and we're kind of watertight there now

[00:43:39] which is very exciting particularly this time of year we are working heavily on constructing as well our external infrastructure as you can see in that drone photo in the top right of the overall site and we've begun to install mechanical equipment such as the chiller that you see on that bottom right hand photo and yes each of our chillers is a bright lego color that one's red, we have blue, we have yellow, because we wouldn't be the Lego group if we weren't always looking for ways to insert a little playfulness. And of course, as I believe you all know, we are

[00:44:15] not just building a factory in Chesterfield County. We also celebrated the two-year anniversary this past November of our temporary packing facility out at Walt Hall Interchange. We have more than 500 Lego team members already employed between these two sites, between the factory construction site with our own employee team and the external or temporary packing facility, and we're only going to continue to grow. We're hiring, obviously, in 2026 and beyond. The second half of 2026 will be, see another huge wave of hiring for us, particularly in molding and logistics operations,

[00:44:54] among others, and we'll begin onboarding colleagues both here and at our locations around the world before they come here to start work in 2027 when we'll be opening. So I also wanted to just to give you a quick update on two specific projects in progress that are really part of our company commitment to playing our part to help build a sustainable future and make a positive impact on society and the planet which our children are going to inherit. So on-site solar, as you know, that's always been part of the delivery plan for us. We continue to work through the permitting

[00:45:32] process both here in the county and at the state level, working specifically on some land disturbance permits here with the county. And I want to thank everyone. There's many folks in this room as well who've been an integral part of helping us navigate that process in a really timely fashion. So it's just such a fantastic partnership to be able to work with the team at the county and EDA on these things. Our Parkland Reforestation Project, you remember we had a ceremony back in early 2024 to announce that partnership with the county, Parks and Rec, and the James River Nurseries to plant over 1,400 trees across county parks.

[00:46:12] We had hoped to have that planning completed by now, but as per what one might expect, nature and the weather have had other plans for us. But planning does continue and is close to wrapping up. My understanding is that they will start planning at Matoka Park after the holidays, and then once that's completed, move on to going and finishing up with Dodd.

[00:46:36] So we're very pleased that all of those are moving along as planned. So our mission at the LEGO Group is to inspire and develop the Builders of Tomorrow. And one of the ways that we do that is through our community engagement. So you see these numbers here at the top.

[00:46:54] These are over the past two years, so 2024 and 2025 combined. We have granted over two and a half, so about $2.6 million in grant funds to community partners in the area. I think our current partners include the Science Museum of Virginia, the Children's Museum.

[00:47:13] We have the local YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, SOAR 365, and James River Association at the moment. But in addition to our grant funding, our employees have two days a year, two paid days a year that they can contribute. We encourage everyone to contribute in volunteering in the community.

[00:47:33] So in 2025 alone, we had more than 300 of our colleagues volunteering time at more than 30 volunteer events in the area, reaching thousands of children. And those are November numbers, so we've done even more in December. Our largest opportunity has been with the Chesterfield County Public Schools.

[00:47:52] So there's a couple of examples of very specific events that we have participated in a volunteer capacity with Chesterfield County Public Schools. We've also done some YAMCA Camp Thunderbird cleanup. Our construction crews were particularly eager and got their hands dirty on that one.

[00:48:08] And then this past weekend, we held our Build to Give event, our annual campaign that we hold with the Lego group to build a heart and share the joy at the Children's Museum of Chesterfield. There are countless opportunities, though, that we provide for employees to give back and partner with the community.

[00:48:29] So we've packed backpacks for school supplies, volunteering the local community food bank, Toys for Tots, Children's Hospital, and many others. So 2025 has been a busy year for all of us at LEGO Manufacturing Virginia.

[00:48:50] We've had so much growth. We've been building the factory. We've been building the workforce. And we've been building our connection with the community. So thank you all for the roles that you have played in supporting that growth. And we look forward to building with you in 2026 as well.

[00:49:08] Thank you. All right. I will pass the clicker down to Terry. Okay. And I'm going to, Mr. Chairman, if you'll indulge me, I'm going to take a moment and turn the spotlight back on Garrett in case your board did not recognize or did not realize that Garrett had recently been named the president of the Virginia Economic Developers Association for 2026, which is a wonderful recognition of his accomplishments.

[00:49:41] Didn't know I was doing that, did you, Garrett? Good afternoon. Thank you for having me before you again this year. I'm happy to be here, and on behalf of the members of the EDA, thank you for the opportunity to volunteer for Chesterfield. This is a really fun place to be right now.

[00:49:59] These are the members of the board, the seven members of our board. I have the pleasure of serving as the chair at the moment. You just reappointed John Cogbill to our board, and we're grateful for that, and Jesse Calloway is up for reappointment in 2026, and I know that if you're so inclined, he'd be thrilled to be reappointed to join us.

[00:50:18] We serve four-year terms, and we're at large positions, as appointed by you. We've had another fabulous year of CDA success, so successes. At your direction and with your support, we've finished the following projects in the upper Magnolia Green area.

[00:50:37] The first is the Westerly Parkway extension to Deep Creek Middle School. The photograph on the far right at the top demonstrates that. The second is the roundabout at Otterdale Road on Wesley Parkway, which is the photograph to the left of that.

[00:50:59] And that is a CDOT project, improvement project that you asked us to complete. The third at the bottom is the right-of-way clearing for the North-South Road, which we did via a change order to the Westerly Parkway, the project, the Otterdale Road roundabout.

[00:51:18] And then finally, we extend the water and sewer infrastructure to all three of the schools. As you know, the middle school's open, the elementary school will be opening next year, and the high school in the following year. We have received several grants over the last few years from the Virginia Business Ready Sites program.

[00:51:38] The first two and a half years ago was the $25 million that we received for engineering and design of the area. And then we received $13 million, and that's used for widening and straightening Duval Road beyond the north south road and that was for safety purposes primarily and then 10 million dollars most recently to what is to begin what will eventually be called the poet parkway extension

[00:52:10] what we're calling now the western area arterial connector as you know it i guess and then um just to let you know that upper mag has received more vr bbrs bbrsp grants than any other site in Virginia, and that we are the only site in the state that has more than a thousand acres near a metro area. We will continue to apply for these grants annually, and hopefully they will continue to love us as much as they have to date. Here's a recent photograph of Springline. Phase one is

[00:52:48] complete. As you can see, we've got the parking deck in the top right corner, the first office building below that, and then across the front is the apartment building. This is a great picture of the entire 42 acres of that mixed-use development. Phase two is now underway.

[00:53:07] Many of you had the pleasure of coming to the groundbreaking last week for the Hilton Hotel. It's going to be an 11-story, 270-room hotel, and we're looking forward to it opening in spring of 2028. And that's it. That's it. Thank you for your time.

[00:53:30] If you guys have any questions or comments. Go ahead. Just to continue on that theme of words, I was looking at the whole presentation, And I came up with super awesome successes. And that's what it's been, super awesome successes over the last year.

[00:53:50] It was nice that you finished with Midlothian over at Springline. So we'll continue the competition and the playfulness between us. But you know what? The whole county is benefiting, and you guys are doing a great job, and keep up the good work. Dr. Miller, didn't you promise a view of Virginia Beach from the top of that hotel?

[00:54:11] Mr. Chairman, if I might, I would love to invite your board to come to another one of our meetings. I know Dr. Hilton swung by to see us at the last meeting, but if we could do some two-by-twos.

[00:54:27] It's been a while since we've had you there when we're in our new digs down in Spring Rock, so please join us if you can. I was going to say that I had the pleasure of coming by one of your meetings, and I appreciate that you all welcomed me in.

[00:54:46] It's good to know that Chesterfield County is open to business. You know, our open light is on. And, Garrett, we appreciate you and your team for not only encouraging new businesses to come, but also growing what we have. And so those two efforts are very important.

[00:55:04] You can't focus on recruitment without focusing on retention because we know that that's a negative game a lot of times. So we want to make sure that we grow what we have and that we attract new businesses. So just want to say thank you for ensuring that our light is on.

[00:55:22] It says open for business because we do want people to live, work, play, and stay here in Chesterfield County. So thank you for being a part of that. And thank you to the folks who came to speak to us today. And let us know if we can do anything to help you.

[00:55:37] Thank you. Mr. Chair. Garrett, you brought up something important earlier when you started. and we talk about the young adults we have sitting in the room right here. We were just over at the training center with a bunch more.

[00:55:54] But it doesn't go unsaid, but maybe it does, that we graduate almost 5,000 students from our school system every year. And many of those children want to come work for companies like this. Not everybody wants to go away and leave Chesfield. We actually want to make sure we provide opportunities and jobs here so that those children that get raised here in our schools and get raised in our community, that if they want to stay here, There are opportunities for them to stay here and raise a family and live, work, and play for generations.

[00:56:23] And certainly two major companies like this that are providing those opportunities is extremely important. I was interested earlier listening to them, and anybody want to work for Lego now? Anybody change their mind in the last five minutes? Or super radiator corals? Because you probably didn't even know, right?

[00:56:40] But I've heard from a lot of students, a lot of young adults, that are like, when's Lego going to open up? I want to work there. I said, well, they just apply online. But providing these type of opportunities, whether it's going to be working at the new hotels or all the other businesses that are coming, I think are extremely important for our community as our adults continue to graduate from school, go to college or not, and go into the trades and want to work at all these great companies as opposed to having to move somewhere else.

[00:57:11] So I appreciate you all's companies coming here and continuing the partnership with us and providing a great opportunity for our people. It's just, it really is super awesome. - Okay, so I'll just finish up by saying thank you.

[00:57:27] Thank you for investing in Chesterfield. Thank you for investing in the community in Chesterfield. What you do just directly for schools and other organizations is remarkable.

[00:57:42] Not everybody gives back to the community, but obviously your organization is doing, we just thank you for that. And we thank you for the opportunity as you grow to be able to work to try to lower the burden on our citizens on the tax rate by having new revenues come in to the county so that we can offset some of their costs.

[00:58:04] So thank you for doing that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. I was going to ask for, you did it perfectly. Thank them for their commitment here. And now I want to thank the board for its continued support for economic development and its understanding of, you know, our continual, we can't sit still.

[00:58:24] continually. We have to train our children. We have to have new talent come in. We have to have places for them to work. And the goal is to make this the highest quality place to live, work, and play, and to keep the burden of taxes low. And I thank you guys for support every day.

[00:58:51] C, Chesterfield County Airport Annual Update, Mr. Wilkinson.

[00:59:28] Good afternoon, board members, Dr. Casey, Mr. Minx. Thank you again. Another opportunity to

[01:00:08] give you guys a quick update on the airport. If you feel free just to interrupt me if you guys have any questions as we roll through here a busy year at the airport. Just going to cover just our staff. Not much has changed there. Just a general overview. Run through our projects and then hit on our economic impact study to the State Department of Aviation and then wrap up with our financial update. Same staff as last year. Great staff. We have had a lot of projects go on so the staff itself just in turn had a little bit more work this year. They always do a great job covering each other if there's

[01:00:45] time off and able to work well, coordinating all of our vendors and letting access to our facility and just does a great job and we are lucky to have every single one of them. Frontline there, Faye Lewis, Travis Lloyd, Ben Huff, Chris Verlander, and myself.

[01:01:05] Could I just stop you real quick? Yeah, go ahead. I know we have some students that are probably leaving the remote site that's been set up. Would you let them know what uh school you went to what school i went to i graduated from lc bird in 1999 yeah just want to highlight uh highlight you as we recognize the students at a remote i wanted to do it very quickly as they will likely be signing off so sounds good just want to say thank you for that even though it was chesterfield but not manchester sorry about that we are general

[01:01:41] reliever airport with three major user groups uh journal aviation the corporate government which includes military public safety and law enforcement still sitting at that 140 based aircraft just like last year still the same 67.5 annual flight operations and this year we're at 950 for our annual gallons of fuel sales for this year. Amidities still stay the same 110 T hangars 14 county-owned buildings a full service terminal building our fuel farm facility and again fire station 15. I don't see anybody in here from the fire station but just always a special thanks to them not many airports our side have the capability of the fire department on the field like they do

[01:02:20] so great service there this is a new slide so just kind of wanted to give you a just an idea of actually who uses our facility so these are vendors that have come in this year in 2025 use the facility access chesterfield county so just kind of wanted to give you guys an update of who actually uses our facility on a day-to-day basis this video is data provided by the department of aviation It's actually a screenshot from the video.

[01:02:49] You can see there a little over 6,000 flights annually. These are all IFR flights, instrument flights. So VFR, these are really just the corporate and the larger aircraft. So 618 destinations out of Chesterfield County. As you can see there, 47 states impacted.

[01:03:05] As the colors get darker, more trips have been made, and blue means they access. So you can see one state remaining there. So we just need somebody to fly to North Dakota next year. so as we update this is 2023 data so if anybody wants to book that it is available yeah on to our project this is a mill and overlay back in our t-hanger taxi lanes the first one we've done of this nature since i've been at the airport again we have 110 t-hangers we did impact 30 customers at one time we allowed them to gain access to their hangar the whole time just like a milled service with vdot they could pull the aircraft in and out that we asked they not taxi through the

[01:03:44] surface so we did have to coordinate 30 at one time and that was a lesson learned as we go forward we'll probably only impact about 10 at a time so we can better manage that instead of 30 at one time a state-funded grant there 90-10 split with the amounts right there just an update on our north ramp if you're not aware we are fully booked out on the north ramp all four hangar sites are developed and constructed. First three pad sites are land leased by 5G Air. The Virginia State Police occupy the first one. Air Methods, another Air Ambulance Service, occupies the second one.

[01:04:22] Three is recently just completed and in search for a tenant. And Vantage Aviation owns that fourth hangar, the largest hangar on our facility of 14,400 that houses their managed aircraft. On to our runway extension, we are currently under design. We currently sit at 5,500 feet with the plan to extend an additional 800 feet to 6,300 feet. Just a reminder that the runway itself will stay on airport property. We do have easements, eight easements, or actually seven easements with eight different owners, and just to maintain the safety area of flight and the ability to go cut

[01:04:59] trees if needed in the future. And some of the phasing for that, the left-hand picture you'll see there is a gas valve set that is owned by TC Energy, Columbia Gas, that will have to be be located. The right-hand side is the red marker that shows you a location of that that has to be moved. That will be inside of the new safety area with the runway extension. So that is the first phase. We hope to start on that 2026. We have issued Columbia Gas a check and we'll be working with them to start the spring. Also have a Verizon line that will need to be located in Virginia Power all next year. Then 27 will actually start the grading and site work that was bringing up the

[01:05:36] elevation off the end of the runway to meet the current grades of the new runway and then 2028 is the big year that's when we'll actually pave take out our instrument landing system displace that threshold impacts to our tenants and users so we're already starting communication about those impacts so they'll know well in advance that that is coming oh is it this one all right sorry about that underway is our south ramp development project the north ramp is full so So now we're constructing for future use on our south ramp.

[01:06:15] The right-hand picture is a current picture. We are just now issuing a stop work order, which is planned due to, as we move forward with this project, we will impact what we call our ILS or our Glide Slope Critical Area, which will take our instrument landing system, which brings the aircraft in under bad weather, out of service.

[01:06:34] So we have planned during the winter months to pause, let the weather go through a better construction season and and knock this out in the spring and bring it back into service this is a two-phase project as we end the south ramp they will start on the pad site development again a state-funded project you can see the splits right there with the total completion of the project being in 2027 our non-air canonical development this is a 16 acre parcel we've talked about this last year on the corner of white pine and iron bridge road just to note that the revenue produced from this land lease has to stay at the airport to maintain that self-sufficiency per the FAA

[01:07:12] guidelines. We do have a land release from the FAA on this and working with EDA in partnership to look for the developers. And that is just a rendering. We do not know the actual layout or facilities that will be located on this site yet. Our terminal building fixture and finishes update.

[01:07:31] This is something we do every 10 years on our public use spaces. We acquire grants to get new furniture and finishes and just keep it fresh all the time. As a grant expires, we reissue a new one. There's the split there, a 90-10 split this time. The big lift on this is the bathrooms.

[01:07:47] They have not been done since 2003. And as you watch passengers and customers get off the plane, 50% of the time they run right to that bathroom. So a lot of times that can be our first impression of our facility. So we want to keep that tight, nice, and neat. So good project, another heavy lift for our staff.

[01:08:03] We've taken a lot of the project scope and put it into our staff's maintenance department's needs and saved a little bit of money there. On to our growth and development plan. Thank you all for meeting with us earlier this month on this. Some of the items that we didn't cover, and Dr. Casey thought this would be a good idea, to kind of identify the aircraft.

[01:08:25] We throw these phrases, small, medium, and large, out for the aircraft. So just kind of show you some images of what they actually are. So the small of the single-engine Cirrus-type aircraft you see at the top of your screen, typically four passengers, one of which would have to be a pilot. So three carrying passengers with one a pilot.

[01:08:43] Then you come into your medium-sized aircraft. That picture you see there is a vision jet. That's when they switch to turbine instead of a piston-driven, burning jet A. Typically, those are, you know, five to eight passengers. They have other aircraft, TBMs and things of that nature, in the medium-sized aircraft.

[01:08:59] And then on to our large, where eight or above, obviously, turbine-powered aircraft there. Through the growth and development plan, we talked about how the small has maintained. They're not really growing or shrinking in occupancy at our facility. but the medium-large are growing, and that's the need for that kind of south ramp and those larger hangars.

[01:09:20] Some other areas of the growth and development plan is staffing. We did do a staffing plan with the growth and development. As we grow in facilities, as we bring new buildings on board, we want the staffing to align with that just to maintain that high-quality facility that our customers expect.

[01:09:36] We always joke and say they don't expect much, just perfection, and we want to provide that for our customers. Implementing new software, about just the lease management side, so we can, you know, have updates to our minimum standards, have updates to at least have the ability to send that remotely to our customers, have them approve it.

[01:09:54] So we're looking at implementing new software to support that. And then obviously our minimum standards policies update just as market trends change and things change to keep that updated on an ongoing basis. This is some preliminary numbers from our Department of Aviation on the total economic impact the airport has to the region there.

[01:10:16] So some pretty large numbers. This last was done in 2018. This is a draft form currently, too. We will have the fully completed document in the middle of January that we can share with you guys at that time. So some fairly large numbers there, 647 jobs, and the output is fairly large.

[01:10:31] So we will share that document when it's fully available and complete. And just an update on the restaurant. You can see some rebranding there. The top logo there is it fits more in line with their location, but they're doing great.

[01:10:47] Business is good, and they're very popular, especially with the military traveling aviators. On to other community outreach. Runway 5K, we did a good this year in partnership with the PALS Police Athletically. It's a great event, a pretty light lift for the airport, just a one-day kind of impact to our customers.

[01:11:05] We do stay in operation the entire time, phase the run and the event away from the kind of general movement area so we can stay in operations. But a great event we plan on having again this year, and we always kind of increase it by 50. We had 140 participants this year. On to our movie night, our annual movie night open house.

[01:11:26] This was threatened by weather this year, and actually we were able to squeeze it out with a beautiful sunset you see there in the middle. Just a special thanks to the Forgotten Heroes Foundation out of Hampton. They brought an L-39. We played the original Top Gun, so it was well attended. Food trucks were there.

[01:11:42] Great event, and it started raining as soon as we started cleaning up. So we did squeak that out this year. We'll be doing it again in the fall with a later date to be announced. And just wrapping up with this financial update of our operation budget, somewhat of a shortfall there due to equipment.

[01:12:00] Just as we evaluate new equipment with a 10% to 20% gain in prices, it just exceeds that 10% and 20% with equipment costs with two zero-turn mowers and a truck this year. And obviously you see the personal property tax, It's just a clause that we do take a portion of that personal property tax for major maintenance-related items like roof replacements, things that we cannot get grants for.

[01:12:27] So that is it on the airport updates. Happy to answer any questions or comments. First, I just want to say that you're in Dell District. That's correct. We don't plan on moving either.

[01:12:47] Yeah, and what I also want to say is thank you for the tour. You and John gave me a tour a few months ago and, you know, just excited about what's going on at the airport. One of the questions I had was, who cuts all this grass and who does this snow removal?

[01:13:05] And you said, hey, I hop in the truck with the guys and get out there and do it. That says a lot about your leadership. You know, just like the firefighters who get out and cut grass at the fire station and do different things for cleanup so we don't have those expenses, you know, it means a lot.

[01:13:24] And it goes a long way, I think, with taxpayers when they know that, you know, we're doing everything we can to be good stewards of the money that we're collecting from them. And so I just wanted to, you know, just highlight that and just say thank you for your leadership in those areas of being a good steward and just knowing that when you need something, You can ask us and we know that you're doing those type of things to keep the cost down as much as you can.

[01:13:49] So I just want to highlight those and just say thank you for your leadership and the staff and, you know, everything that you all are doing. Thank you, sir. Go ahead. So as long as you're talking about grass, I just read an article recently and I used to live in Chicagoland area.

[01:14:08] Yeah, so O'Hare actually has, they work with farmers and they bring in cows and sheep to do a lot of the exterior areas that are outside of the fence. I just thought it was an interesting partnership that might be able to bring it up.

[01:14:25] Okay. Out of my lane, I'm not sure. They're in the lawn mowing business. Seeing no other questions, thank you for your presentation.

[01:14:43] Thank you for all your hard work during the year, and we appreciate it. You're welcome, thank you. What kind of socks you got on? Oh, they're airport socks. We'll have to get you a pair. Thank you. D, financial update, Mr. Harris and Mr. Durkin.

[01:15:11] Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey. Mr. Harris and I have a few financial updates for you this afternoon. I'm covering a smattering of topics you see on there. I'll lead off with the fiscal year 2025 year-end for accounting and schools, provide a quick tax relief update, do a required notice we give on our long-term liabilities and school bus financing which is on your agenda this evening before turning it over to Mr Harris to talk about the school enrollment trends and local composite index before kind of wrapping up with some data that gets published every year and then some upcoming items as we are now working

[01:15:50] through the fiscal year 2027 budget process. So looking at fiscal year 2025 for the county it ended with a net surplus of approximately 3.9 million dollars just to put that into kind of percentage perspective that's about 0.4 percent of the ending fiscal year 2025 budget a lot lower than what it has been in prior years with that surplus we are recommending that one and a half million of that be appropriated for a future domestic and sexual violence resource center with the remainder falling to our revenue stabilization fund or rainy day fund as we

[01:16:27] sometimes call it in parlance. A quick update on our unassigned fund balance you know that's something that it was a directive especially of Mr. Holland a few years ago to update that to put us in line with our peers moving from kind of eight percent to ten percent and this is something that we look at at the end of every fiscal year and you made an addition to that as part of the year-end process and your June item. Our original plan was to get to about ten percent by fiscal year 2029. We are a shade under that just over nine and a half percent as it currently stands this year so we are well ahead of the cycle which is reassuring especially as we're

[01:17:06] still in somewhat uncertain economic climate. Also on your agenda this evening is a request to appropriate previously reserved capital funds for land acquisition and for turf field investments at James River and Meadowbrook high schools. Before moving on to the kind of fiscal year 26 last two bullet points on there I really want to draw your attention to the big part of the side, which is really the debt service policies. As we wrap up the audit every year, this is something that we work with our financial advisor accounting department on to look at those ratios. We hear a lot about our debt and, you know, the assumption of debt that we're putting

[01:17:42] on. You know, a lot of that being driven by the voter approved referendum in 2022, November 2022, that was approved by about 77%. But one of the things that we thought would be good to show is The trend of that over the last few years, and I'm not going to go into the nuances of every single one, suffice it to say it's always good when you see green arrows, irrespective of whether they're going up and down.

[01:18:05] Even though the arrows are going down, it's one of the few times we'll suggest to you that that's good. It's dependent on the specific piece here, but don't want to alarm you with that. But that's a good thing in this instance. And what I will say is, you know, unlike our federal partners, we actually have guardrails in place when it comes to our debt policies.

[01:18:25] You see in the kind of light green color there, a planning cap and a planning floor and ceiling. Those are the kind of guardrails when it comes to our debt policies. That's to say, you know, on a theoretical level, on those measures, we could borrow up to those amounts. In reality, that will never probably happen.

[01:18:41] But those are designed with still being in that kind of, you know, what I would say, we used to say AAA, quad AAA status now. The two that I will really draw your attention to for two different metrics is the last one on there, the 10-year payout ratio. You know, to kind of draw people's attention, you know, you buy a house, your mortgage is typically on a 30-year term.

[01:19:01] When we go out to the market for most debt structures, especially the referendum debt, it's on a 20-year cycle. We look throughout that 20-year cycle to refinance, just like you would with rates come down in your mortgage. We do the same thing with our debt service. We did it a few months ago. We realized the savings is about $600,000 on that one.

[01:19:19] But when it comes to our actual policies themselves, we actually look at it through a prism of a 10-year payout ratio. So it's not 30, it's not 20, it's through a prism of a 10-year ratio. And when you look at that number there, you know, it's kind of the inverse of the others. If you issued no more debt today for debt that's supported by the general fund in 10 years' time, just under 70% of that would be completely gone.

[01:19:43] That's basically what that metric is saying. So our planning cap is 65%. We are almost at 70%. It's well ahead of schedule in that one. I think that the real message on the matrix is simply, and we get to slides later in the presentation about school referendum and some school facilities that still need to be delivered in the next five years, we have the capacity that we have built.

[01:20:08] I would almost tell you this chart sort of signals some underinvestment, particularly on the debt service ratio up there. So we do have a number of capital projects, particularly on the school side, some big ones that are coming up over the next few years, but we have deliberately put ourselves in a position where we can absorb that from a capacity perspective and from an affordability perspective as well, we should be in pretty good shape.

[01:20:32] So this is, again, an important thing we like to report out on when we get to year end. So any questions on that? I have one question that's partly a statement. We're quadruple, triple-A rated.

[01:20:49] Part of that rating is based on the amount of debt that we take on. And most people would think that you get a higher rating if you have no debt. But in actuality, they want to make sure that the county is reinvesting in the county and that there has to be some guardrails on it, but amount of debt that is taken on for the proper growth of infrastructure and replacement of infrastructure.

[01:21:26] Can you speak to that and how that, because you sort of touched that, but you didn't really explain that. Yeah, so, I mean, I think, again, the debt service to, as a percentage of general fund expenditures, which is now dip below 6%, and the rating agency is going to look at that as, you know, positive, we're not over leveraged in any way, but it also is, again, starting to signal a little bit that particularly from a, and they're not even necessarily worried about new infrastructure, But they're looking at that through the prism of, are you replacing your facilities on a reasonable schedule?

[01:21:59] So they look for that healthy balance. So our job is to kind of keep it somewhere in the middle of the gauge. And I think on some of these, we are a little low right now. But again, that was a deliberate strategy to build the capacity for the remaining portion of the referendum. If I could add to that, Mr. Engel, I think your observation is right.

[01:22:17] I remember coming out of school and trying to get my credit rating. And they said, you don't have one because you don't have any credit. And so it's a similar situation is that there is an expectation of any business or government or even person as they go through life that they need to incur debt to sustain their operation or sustain their home life, if you will.

[01:22:42] So what you see up there, those rating agency caps, if you will, they are in essence triple AAA type caps. And when they were set, they were set not to just issue debt. They were set to make sure that we don't get near what is what they consider the AAA threshold.

[01:22:59] And, you know, just as we pursued a fourth AAA rating, you know, I always like to think that we actually technically have a quad-quad. You know, if there was a fourth triple, you know, a quad-A type rating, we actually are in the upper echelons of those tiers.

[01:23:17] But they do expect you to come back to the marketplace to rehab, renovate. And if you are growing in population or demands, some of it's federal and state mandated, as you know. We are in the road business now. Eisenhower didn't think that. Senator Byrd didn't think that.

[01:23:33] But somebody else has since. And so that is an example where there's an expectation for us to be issuing debt, even for road infrastructure, which we've never done that before. It's not necessarily intuitive for a citizen to understand that we need to have a certain amount of debt issued to actually keep our credit rating.

[01:23:54] So I just wanted to have you touch on that. I thought that was important. And lastly, I know it's down in the really, really fine print, but this also does include capital leases. And I mentioned that because we have one of those in a couple of slides on the school bus topic. So this definition that's embedded here, definitions, include things like leases.

[01:24:16] So it's very, very comprehensive. This is not just a library or a school or a fire station. We have to go look at all of those kinds of debt obligations, even short-term leases, and roll this up here. So it's capturing, on the general government side, everything we have in terms of debt.

[01:24:31] Well, that's another thing that's a pet peeve for me because many of the things that you call in the accounting world leases are actually purchases so like the buses that will be called a lease will actually be a purchase of a bus not a lease of a bus but the way accounting world works they call it a lease so again I don't think that all the accounting terms are set up for the layman to understand yes sir I would agree with that okay well I'm curious on the slide it says early for forecast

[01:25:09] a surplus between 2% and 2.5%. Can you translate that into dollars for me? It's in the region of maybe like $25 to $30 provisionally. Okay, so $25 to $30 million. Yep. Okay, thank you.

[01:25:26] Before we get off this page, I just want to thank my board members and Dr. Casey for prioritizing the $1.5 million to a project that has been near and dear to my heart since I've been here, pushing to get a domestic violence shelter here as a survivor.

[01:25:48] I think it's so vital, and I understand the importance of it, and I think that it will be an amazing resource and asset for our police officers and our CAC and our advocacy group for the domestic violence, and so I'm very excited about that, so thank you so much.

[01:26:08] And, Ms. Schneider, I appreciate you and actually the entire board. it has been a topic for a few years now and I hope everyone knows that we've been trying through whatever properties we've owned whatever partnerships to play whatever proposals to make and and and again sometimes it just needs the partner needs a little bit more money at the table so and this is capital money we're not here we're here to figure out what is a Chesterfield based type facility you know there's many regional partners we have and like I've said during my state of the county if there is anyone in harm's way we are taking care of them it just may not be as local as we like to do and and we recognize

[01:26:47] that's an important facet of it and I want to thank mr. Harris because when I made that impromptu statement at the state of the county I just it just was a feeling to make but you know mr. Harris is urine review is with me next week so I think he he came back to me pretty quickly on that one in just the location of that we will not be sharing publicly but it's not to hide something from the citizens it's to keep people safe in the future but we are doing it on the

[01:27:21] property that will allow the project to go forward at the lowest possible cost and still meet the what we need to do to take care of the victims of domestic violence. Unfortunately, um, I found out recently that some of our police officers have paid out of their pockets to, um, put people somewhere because they had nowhere to put them. And that's not acceptable. If I could, um, I think that, um, and as we looked at, as we looked at the domestic

[01:28:00] violence shelter, um, I think we all wanted to do it. I just think it was trying to figure out when and where we could do it. So it wasn't effective. We didn't want to do it. We wanted to, but we had to be strategic about how we did it. And so, you know, I think that that's something that we should highlight to the public is that, you know, we were all behind you and we supported you and we were really shoulder to shoulder with you. We're just trying to figure out exactly how to do it and where to do it and how we could do it without, you know, in a way

[01:28:40] where we could prioritize the need in terms of other things that were kind of happening too. So I just want to say thank you for that and Dr. Casey for your execution of it. So, and Jessica, your idea. So thank you. Yeah, I mean, there are actually, there were multiple locations that have been batted around for a while.

[01:29:01] And so it's good that we found one that I think is going to be suitable. As Mr. Engels said, we're not going to talk about where it is. Maybe batted around was a bad word, tossed around. That's probably a bad word too. Debated. How about that? Debated. There were a bunch of different locations that were debated.

[01:29:20] I just speak for the part we're going to tell you, right? And so it took a while to find our location, but we did. Looking at the school's fiscal year 2025 year-end, they ended up with a surplus of $22.2 million, largely from one-time vacancy savings and reduced utility costs, which is typical for them on a year-to-year basis.

[01:29:46] As part of the agenda packet this evening, There is a request to reserve $7 million of that as part of the fiscal year 2027 budget. As you remember, for the last few years, they have stepped down in their use of one-time funds. This is a continuation of that path. The $7 million is a decrease from what was included in their 26 budget.

[01:30:04] There is also a request to amend the 26 budget by $15.2 million to support four initiatives that you see on there, future debt service payments. Mr. Harris and I have briefed the Board several times that with the referendum projects in particular, We knew that there were some elevated payments coming for the school sites just to use the kind of one-time funds to be able to get over that kind of hump.

[01:30:25] Replacement of staff laptops, intercoms, and classroom projections. Funds for CTC hull space conversion. They've identified other funding sources within the CIP from savings and projects, one-time operating funds. They are proposing for the board to approve a $3.1 million use of their fiscal year 25 year end for that.

[01:30:45] And then to replace some vehicles beyond their useful life, about $650,000. I was looking it up before we came in here. They have about 25 vehicles, just for example, that are running over 200,000 miles on the clock. So those funds would be used to replace vehicles such as that.

[01:31:01] And the debt service fund, just to elaborate for a minute. Again, the referendum projects coming through, they're large issuances that give you those spikes in debt service. And so what we don't want to do from our end is put undue pressure on any of your operating budgets when you come in here that would, you know, choke out things you've been able to do in public safety pay or other initiatives in the school division.

[01:31:25] So you all created that debt service fund a few years ago, and then we've been putting one-time monies in there and using those one-time monies to smooth that debt service curve out so that it doesn't have an impact on anything else that you want to do. and we're able to execute the referendum and maintain those debt ratios that we touched on earlier.

[01:31:45] So the mechanics there have been really important in order to digest the county's largest referendum ever and not be disruptive to everything else we're trying to do as an organization. Mr. Chair, can you go back one slide, please? Because we kind of skipped over this.

[01:32:00] This is kind of important, actually. I've been getting a lot of emails from people asking us to fully fund schools. I can't even tell you how many. And those emails were directed at General Assembly members coming into the next session.

[01:32:20] And if you would look at this, some people would say, well, wait a minute. How come they have all this extra money at the end of the year? And I think a slight explanation is probably a good idea to understand that some monies that came in from the state into the school budget were after the budget had been finished and finalized last year.

[01:32:38] And so they had not necessarily been designated, perhaps. But so additional funds came in from the state last year, which we had not anticipated. And then another reason could be because of unfilled vacancies, which were budgeted for but didn't get filled.

[01:32:58] I mean, are there other reasons why they would also have a $22 million end-a-year balance? I think you've hit on the big ones. The one that has hit them the last couple of years in both directions is state sales tax.

[01:33:11] That one's a pure estimate. The state's not beholden to that number. A year ago sitting here, this one went the other way, and their margins got very, very thin because the state sales tax didn't materialize like was forecast. This year, they had a little bit better state sales tax, but we always have to put these things in percentage terms. That $22 million in the total school budget is a very, very small portion. I'm sure their finance staff was sweating that out a little bit.

[01:33:42] It is a small portion of a billion-dollar budget, but some people look at it and still say it's $22 million. And so even though it's a small portion, there is a reason why it actually is sitting there, and it's not because, you know, I guess the point I'm trying to make is there are still additional funds that we need to get from the state to fully fund our operation because we actually probably put more money in on our side because we've had, for example, all the positions that we fund that the state gives us no money for.

[01:34:16] And so I don't want the community to look at it and go, well, why am I advocating for more money from the state when they had a $22 million surplus? There's still a reason to advocate for the J-LOG study to be funded properly. And the state has made progress in that over the last two years, but there's still work to do.

[01:34:33] And I just didn't want someone to look at the slide and say, well, if they got extra money, they must be fully funded. And that's just not true. Well, and I would tell you that, you know, the vacancies obviously were filled up. They wouldn't be in that situation. And, you know, there's a management aspect to this.

[01:34:49] They're going throughout the course of the year. Those intercom systems, as an example, they've been talking about that for any number of years. They purposely hold back on those replacements to make sure that they are in the black and they're in a positive situation at year end, knowing that, okay, if it materializes, then we come back and we ask to have it reappropriated.

[01:35:08] So some of it is just the conservative nature. I mean, they could have spent all of those dollars and said, we're going to replace these things. Nobody really would have looked at them twice, but they could have been very, very thin on the year-end piece. This is a much safer way to go. So really, it's more of a deferral on some of those major maintenance items as opposed to anything else.

[01:35:29] Mr. Chair, just three observations. And again, just shows you how hard it is for the schools and their almost billion-dollar budget, if I'm not mistaken, The state receipts of sales tax is one example that we get in July and August. We have to accrue that back into the June. So, you know, we can figure out expenses and what we need to buy by June 30th and incur that as a liability and appropriately account for.

[01:35:51] We're guessing what our July and August checks are through accounting practices, the same people who came up with capital leases to make it confusing. So 60 days later, we are booking revenues back into this fiscal year. So we have to always hedge to be lower, because the other side of the story, and there are many local governments in Virginia, that it's the opposite that they're presenting here.

[01:36:13] And to Mr. Carroll's point, you know, the way many local governments work, they're saying to the schools that $22 million is my money, not the school's money. And you can see clearly that the reward system we're giving to the schools is to reinvest it back into the school system.

[01:36:30] And last but not least, and it's worthy of another story, and I think the schools have defined this before for you, and Mr. Harris and Durkin are going to get into school capacities and enrollments in a second, but that 3.1 million is helping 650 students have an additional seat at CTC Hall.

[01:36:48] They're also going to be counted as part of their own high school population, so we see ratios at some high school might be at 90% or even 100%. know that there's actually 650 additional students, which I think gets a close almost to 1,500 to 2,000 students between the Byrd facility of Trade and Tech and CTC Hall in total that are actually going to be sitting somewhere else for sometimes most of the day, if not all of it.

[01:37:13] I'm just providing a quick tax relief update. As part of this current calendar year, the board did approve changes to the Tax Relief for Elderly and Disabled and Veterans Program, removing the caps on the maximum and the eligible acreage.

[01:37:34] We had a part of the 26 budget that will be effective this January, and we did add $5 million to that program. As part of the policy that was put in place, you know, the last few years, you've approved the adjustments to the program to be in line with the Social Security Administration cost-of-living adjustment.

[01:37:53] And that was 2.8% that was announced at the end of October. So the net worth and the income brackets components both are increasing by that 2.8% come January 1. Additionally, as of January 1, the BPOL, or Business Professional and Occupational License Relief Threshold, is increasing from $500,000 to $550,000.

[01:38:13] And Mr. Harris and I have been working with Commissioner Hughes on looking at additional programme enhancements for calendar year 2027 that would be incorporated into the fiscal year 2027 budget.

[01:38:29] One thing that we traditionally present around this time of year is, you know, the picture of our long-term liabilities, both in terms of the county's supplemental retirement programme as well as the school system. As we always know, both of these plans are closed to new participants, but they do carry some long-term financial obligations and we have strategically used one-time funds in the past to put into these programs and those most notably the schools portion of the supplemental retirement program and with the one-time payment from that your surplus freeing up about 12 million dollars in operating capacity for the school system with the market adjustments over the last few years

[01:39:06] you know we're still continuing to see pressures in that sphere they have impacted the long-term cost of these plans. The goal that we have in here is to have them funded at at least 80%. So with even the additional contributions, both plans do remain above that 80% threshold.

[01:39:24] And it's the school start doesn't do the topic justice, but for those of you that have been following that subject, and again, it's tied in with year end, that's part of the reason that we're discussing here today, but when that topic came to the forefront, the funded status of the school's plan was in the 20% range. So you can see there it's 99.72 i can't stress that and that is an absolute amazing turnaround in just a very short handful of years by using year-end results as we're doing today with the

[01:39:59] shelter to make some of these strategic investments and that's 12 million dollars every year that we are not having to pull out of the general fund to send to the school division because they were previously making that $12 million was going as a payment into that program because of the underfunded status. When you make that one time payment that we did a few years ago and think about how the investment returns have materialized over that, you know, four or five year stretch and the return that you have gotten on the overall portfolio by making that investment has, you know, not only taken pressure off their operating, but I mean, 99.72 for a program like

[01:40:38] this is is really unheard of ours is you know we we try to maintain that 80 percent status that's our goal and we're doing right there but schools has moved past us and now they have a very minimal contribution and these really are not topics thankfully anymore but we do like to update you in the public on them on an annual basis yes sir it is i'm also on the consent agenda this evening is a modification to a lease agreement that the county entered into in 2015 as it primarily relates to the purchase of government equipment and buses.

[01:41:16] Just for some context, we've heard a lot about inflation over the last few years, especially as it relates to things about CPI. You know, schools have put cash-funded this program for as long as I can remember. But for some context, you know, the price of a school bus maybe five years ago was about $85,000 a bus.

[01:41:38] It's now pushing about $150,000 a bus. So essentially, the same dollar from 2019-2020 is not going anywhere far as it used to today. The way the plan will work is that there is an authorization for a line of credit up to $50 million. We have worked with our financial advisor in the school system to devise a plan to basically half fund the program with cash, half through this line of credit, with the long-term goal being flipping that over to a full cash payment.

[01:42:06] For some context, the way their fleet structures work, if they just continued on that pay-go model of about that $4 million, If they bought a bus today, they wouldn't have the funds available to buy the replacement of that bus for about 22-plus years. So this program is really kind of a jump-start now with a long-term model to move it into a pure cash operation.

[01:42:25] We've been making inroads on the PAYGO budget for school bus replacement, but it's moving slower than it needs to to make sure that we ensure the safety of the fleet. So this is a tool we've used many years ago.

[01:42:40] We're bringing it back. Again, that $50 million authorization, that's a total number. The item tonight is to approve a resolution amending these new terms and then appropriate the first $4 million of the $50 million draw. That's the deal with the bank. They're going to set that capital aside.

[01:42:57] They want to ensure that you're going to access a portion of it. So the $4 million goes into the school bus program, and then we have the remaining of that principal balance to draw over the next several years. so really what you're approved tonight is sort of the maximum terms of the program rate can't exceed six percent can't exceed more than 50 million dollars and then we manage within that within the school division to take care of those needs now if we get to a pago program that speeds up and we you know get to that threshold sooner or later we don't need to access all of the line of

[01:43:31] credit that's being established but it does allow us to to make some catch up while we're doing that at the same time, as opposed to the longer road that Gerard's mentioning. And as I touched on earlier, that is still accounted for in all your financial policies in terms of what we can borrow and all of those other metrics that we've already discussed. Gerard's handing me the clicker, so I think it's my turn. Again, December's a big month from us, a lot of annual updates. This is a nice chart that we've been using for the last several years. I want to thank the IST team,

[01:44:12] trip ray our john and those folks for working closely with schools to get this information updated not only the nine take a step back 9 30 september 30 is a big day for school enrollment that's kind of the the big point in time of the year where we take a hard count and we use that for all of our enrollment forecasting that team that i just mentioned they take that number from schools put it into the stratus model and then we can look five years ahead so we we do schools does intermediate one, two-year forecast. We use Stratus to kind of take that longer view. All of it

[01:44:49] is shared publicly in the fall. We're doing it in December, but this information's been up on the website now for probably 30 days or so. The website has a lot of wonderful resources, but I would tell this is probably the most dynamic portion of my life. You go back historically and take a look at what enrollment trends have been by school, the way you can aggregate it and sift the data really is unparalleled. I don't know that there's another division in the Commonwealth that does it that well. So I certainly encourage folks to take a look at that. This is a summary chart. I think

[01:45:25] you see folks in first and foremost on 930. You see an actual decrease in enrollment. I get it's kind of another one of these things that kind of floats around out there. But the last three years school enrollment has really been very flat. Small increase last year, small decrease this year.

[01:45:44] So I think that was not terribly unexpected if you look at Stratus results from, you know, several years in the past. So we've kind of plateaued, you know, very sort of modest growth, you know, over a longer trend. This year we actually have, in real terms, a decrease of 216 students.

[01:46:02] So we are talking about this, you know, Mr. Durkin and myself, because we are getting into the facility season through the CIP. So that's really our primary interest in this topic. So we're looking at the next few columns, enrollment as a percent of the capacity of the system.

[01:46:22] And this is capacity as defined by the way, not design capacity, but program capacity, how they're actually using the buildings. So in total, the system as it stands today, a touch over 91% utilization. You can see that's pretty consistent across the various tiers.

[01:46:40] The final two columns really repeating that exercise using that Stratus information that our IST folks help us to develop. So as it stands today, looking out, 92.5, that's a five-year outlook.

[01:46:57] So it does show some growth, like I said, modest growth in the system. But with no capital interventions during that period of time, you know, you're between 92 and 93 percent. The final column takes what we know today, the best information we have in terms of the programming of announced or named school capital facilities and layers those in and says if these were on the ground, what would that capacity level look like?

[01:47:26] And that drops it back down into the mid 80s. Last year, I think it was a little bit higher than that, maybe 85%. But what this is saying, small decline in enrollment, really been relatively flat for about three years. System utilization about 90%, small increase, everything else held equal five years from now.

[01:47:46] If we proceed with the referendum as we have discussed here today, it takes that system-wide utilization down into the mid-80s. Does this include the two schools that are being built right now out at the western?

[01:48:04] The far projected column, yes ma'am, does. And you'll see that as we go through. We kind of break it down here with some maps at each level. Got it. But yes ma'am, it does. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we hear all the time, Chesterfield County is growing, growing, growing, growing.

[01:48:23] But yet we're finding that when it comes to school population, it's relatively flat. How do you square that circle? Like, how does that fit together? Well, I think it's, it kind of dates back to one of Mr. Durkin's previous slides. We're just seeing growth in different segments of the population that, you know, if you look back 10, 15, 20 years ago, you wouldn't necessarily have seen.

[01:48:47] Dr. Casey has been a good person to explain that. The grandparent is anecdotal, but, you know, that kind of segment of the population, either staying here or moving into the area to you know be near family those are segments that we just have not previously seen that level of growth and then we're also you know picking up that sort of you know 20 something folks that are coming back here you know Mr. Hart's presentation a lot of jobs a lot of opportunities so we're seeing a more holistic full spectrum growth as opposed to it really kind of focused on this traditional piece. I mean that's the point you know I want to kind of

[01:49:25] make to the community in that I got a phone call today where someone said we continue to grow and grow and grow and the schools are must be packed packed packed and it really is a districting question maybe but as far as the population of who's moving here to Chesterfield that it's it's a broad spectrum of who's moving in and more importantly who's staying absolutely mr. chair if I could just interject there's gonna be a couple more slides on this that's really going to illustrate it nicely and and I'll just say that the CIP is the bond referendum, plus the Dale Elementary School, I think, is also included in that. That wasn't part of the bond referendum. But I think that when we talk about the CIP,

[01:50:04] it's those two facets. But you have some nice slides by school even. Yes, sir. Y'all ready? So yeah, so taking that information and kind of taking it to each individual level. So these, the maps that you're seeing up there are as of 930s. Those are not the status pieces. We're looking again through the CIP window where are the pressure points today I don't think there's any surprises with what you're seeing up on the screen you got sort of that western area that's got some pressures and then has been discussed you know at length in this room over the course

[01:50:40] of the last year the Dale area where you've got pressure stretched across a variety of zones What you see in the top right hand, sort of the lime green table, is the expected add-on of those two elementary schools in particular.

[01:50:58] And you've also got the Deep Creek Elementary that will be opening up very soon. So CIP could move around. It could migrate. I wouldn't, you know, overly focus on the year. but within the next handful of years, it's got over 3,000 seats that are already slated to be injected into the elementary level. If you do that, that's what this chart here is taking you back to. All of that would take the elementary level, if that happened, to not even necessarily in those particular years, in that particular sequence, to 80% utilization. So when we look

[01:51:36] of this, we said, yes, you have two red spots, but we have already loaded in the capital plan facilities to address those areas. When you get down, the colors aren't necessarily intuitive, but the darkest green is where you have the most capacity. So Dr. Miller, to your point, there are also, as you'll see as you go through, there's some, you know, redistricting conversations that can happen to utilize some seats that are already on the ground in particular spots.

[01:52:00] Hey, so Matt, thank you so much for providing this. What is the difference between the numbers or the projections that you have here and what's in Stratus and then what's in their Excel access database that they're using also?

[01:52:21] So the way I look at it is you have three buckets. Where are you getting your data from? Their Stratus, where they're getting, you know, the planners in the school are getting their data from, and then they have access database on the outside? Could you just explain kind of?

[01:52:40] It's a good, great question. So we all start off with that same 930 benchmark every year. Schools is looking at it for a separate purpose. They're doing teacher planning for the following fall, so they do that sort of student cohort survival method that you've heard them discuss.

[01:52:56] It's more of an operational model for them. They're starting with that same piece. That happens within school division. Again, that's the operational consideration. We take 9:30 and then we run it through Stratus to get through that five year. And then as you saw in your work on the planning commission, now we've added where we have the housing pipeline layer on top of it to provide sort of a range within Stratus to give us even more information.

[01:53:19] But it all starts at that central data point. And then we take it and use it for various purposes, but it's all tied back to the same exact trend that we work closely. Schools has a great group over there now that's looking at this. And so we share information very, very easily.

[01:53:34] And we're making sure that we're using the same numbers when we're doing this. And the Stratus forecast is the first place that it's shared to get the buy-in and make sure something doesn't look off is with school staff. Yeah, thank you for that. I think it's important that citizens understand where we're getting the data from and the consistency of it.

[01:53:56] So, yeah, thank you. So repeat that same sequence again at the middle school level. Again, you've got lots of capacity that has been created out in sort of the western part.

[01:54:13] You can see that whole sort of, you know, top end, sort of the light yellow color that a year ago wouldn't necessarily have looked like that. You've added the new middle school. You've still got some pressure points there at Swift Creek. But again, that's where, to Dr. Miller's point, sort of maybe that redistricting question comes in.

[01:54:33] because certainly there are enough seats if you look sort of that northern end of the county. So, you know, maybe a little bit of movement there. There's potential for some additional seats with a replacement Midlothian facility that could help with some of that. But this map looks completely different than it did just a handful of years ago by opening up the new school that you see on the screen.

[01:54:57] And at the high school level, I think we could all pretty much predict what this looks like. One problem point in the county, that's cosby and as you've already heard today that construction is underway so you have 2400 seats that are coming and as if you're going to go back to this chart which you know this analysis has held steady for a number of years takes that high school level down to 85 utilization once uh once the new high school is is online so uh there's still you know perhaps some work to do around the edges in terms of you know maybe a little bit of redistricting work that's always is gonna be the case, but I think in terms of major capital initiatives, all of the pressure points

[01:55:37] that 930 or Stratus data suggests to us are either addressed or are planned to be addressed through future capital plans. Any questions on any of those?

[01:55:52] Like I said, these are just really just screenshots, static screenshots of all of the very interesting information. So much so, just a brag on those guys for a minute, they've actually had the ability to go back and for the middle school, for example, they can recreate what that facility would have looked like over time, even though it didn't exist.

[01:56:13] Because they're pulling, they've got the data, to Dr. Hilton's point, down to the exact coordinates, the exact addresses for all of those students. So they can go back and recreate what the journey or capacity utilization for a facility would have been just in a theoretical exercise to kind of help us capital planner.

[01:56:31] So it's a very, very powerful tool, And you can go out there and, again, see all that information. The middle schools? Yes, sir.

[01:56:53] It dropped Tomahawk Creek down to 1,000 students. They have 1,800 student capacity. So there's room for some redistricting in the immediacy to relieve some of that that's occurring there.

[01:57:10] Over Deep Creek, they get 1,400 students. That's 1,800 student capacity. Like I said, they have 12 empty classrooms, from what I'm told, at Tomahawk Creek now. And that was at, what, 120, 110, 120 percent, and it now has 12 empty classrooms, which definitely could help Swift Creek with some redistricting.

[01:57:33] The hard part is the school board has a hard time because even when they have new schools open and they're trying to district for the new schools, they get sued by people that aren't happy with where they draw the lines.

[01:57:49] but it's not responsible to have schools that have 70% with another school that's over 103. We have to have those conversations, and citizens are going to have to be more open to understanding.

[01:58:06] Tomahawk Creek was a very sought-after school. I don't know why it's so crazy when someone says, hey, we want you to go from one great school to another one, but for some reason it seems difficult. but those conversations have to be had because we can't build schools just because something's over capacity when there's something that's very far under capacity that's adjacent to it yeah mr chair i think what we're going to try and do is staff as i said i think staff to staff we have come a long way i think you as a board school board relations have come a long way for many

[01:58:42] topics i think we're going to try and get to you together you know individually with your counterparts in early 2026 because we have to maybe get a better appreciation what are the challenges that are otherwise not evident on a screen about drawing lines you have from a capital standpoint have done everything but we we actually are poised in a position that and we could probably trace it back 30 to 40 years that you may be able to say that there are no modular trailers in Chesterfield County and even some of the trailers you know we have to get an appreciation that some of them are used for storage quite frankly and if they have storage needs you know how best can we address them so you don't have the visual of a trailer so they're going to be worthy discussions

[01:59:22] but you are on the cusp of something that probably has not happened in 40 years in chesterfield county and and going back to budgets and finances to the degree that we can then focus on maintaining our infrastructure thereafter you may not necessarily be in the building of new infrastructure as much. And even, as I said earlier, these capacities don't include the people who are the students that are sitting in your trade and tech centers at any point in time, or those that may be in dual enrollment courses at Bright Point, or even Brian Stratton that I know the schools

[01:59:55] are looking forward to working with. I mean, these are their home schools. All right, so yeah, real quick, again, something we typically do at this time of year, internal audit had a quick discussion of this at an audit finance meeting, but thought it was worthwhile to bring some of these concepts back. So this is the auditor of public accounts. They do this on an annual basis. They look at, take a, they get data from all localities. They standardize the way that it's reported. And they have these very, very detailed reports that are, again, available on their website. But it gives

[02:00:34] us a, you know, it's not an end all be all, but it gives us a sense of kind of how we stand up against our peer group in terms of various cost metrics, various budget metrics. So local revenue per capita, so that's all in. So they take all of the basically full revenue burden that's on a citizen or a resident and divide that out on per capita basis. And for FY 2024, which is the most recent information that's out there from the APA, the one that was just published, it takes a while to compile the four port. Chesterfield was the lowest amongst our peer group, and you can see

[02:01:09] how we stack up against some of the other statewide averages. And then, as you would hopefully expect, operating cost per capita, also the lowest amongst our peer group. And just tying back to sort of the opening of our conversation today, this is looking at net debt per capita. So you see we're right neck and neck with Prince William, a little bit lower than Henrico. So this is, again, it's one thing to look at our debt metrics and our ratios, and we try to make sure that those are kept up, but using the APA as another layer, another filter to make sure that we are proceeding,

[02:01:48] and from a long-term obligation perspective in a very reasonable and cautious manner, second lowest debt per capita load anywhere in our peer group throughout the state. And that takes us to, yes, sir.

[02:02:08] Go back to the previous slide, please. I see a population with Prince William being much higher than Chesterfield, you know, comparatively. But yet Prince William has a net, the balance of net debt to per capita is lower.

[02:02:24] What do you make of that? What's the reason for that difference? So deflating it by the per capita just puts it on even terms, regardless of the size of the locality that you're discussing. We consider this to be our peer set, so there's a lot of similarities with everybody that's up there.

[02:02:44] So you could very easily, there's not necessarily a ship from one side of the chart to the other. I can help you out, Dr. Miller. And this is old knowledge, but I think it's still to be true. Prince William has a very high cash proffer system, if I recall, from yesteryear.

[02:03:01] So that they have charged, which made the housing prices very unaffordable up there when they're charging maybe $20,000 per cash proffer. So when they're taking that cash, they might be buying down into some facilities. I mean, I'm not here to compare facility parks, libraries, schools, you know, quid pro quo.

[02:03:19] But having said that, the housing unaffordability up there sometimes is attributed to the extraordinary cash proffers placed upon them. Thank you. That's exactly where I wanted to go. So thank you for that. Okay. I'm sorry.

[02:03:35] I know this is backwards. Do you know if the numbers that we saw for strata counts, the trailer number or the trailers that are at schools? In terms of the, so we're just looking at, strata is just looking at the projection of students. So it wouldn't be on that side.

[02:03:51] And we are not, from a program capacity perspective, it's not part of that conversation. TRAILERS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN CAPACITY. WE HAVE ALL THE NUMBERS, WE KNOW WHAT THEY ARE, BUT THAT'S NOT SOMETHING WE'RE DOING FORECASTING FOR FACILITIES.

[02:04:13] FINALLY, AS I SAID AT THE BEGINNING, WE ARE WORKING OUR WAY THROUGH FISCAL YEAR 27 RIGHT NOW. THE APPLICATIONS FOR OUR COMMUNITY CONTRACTS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANTS CLOSE ON DECEMBER 15.

[02:04:28] ME AND MY TEAM ARE WORKING, AS I SAID EARLIER, ON FISCAL YEAR 2026 PROJECTIONS. governor's biennium proposed budget released this morning um january february you know mr harrison will be back back here several times in the next few months and land book being released with residential values you all will set the maximum real estate tax rate um internally we will be meeting with county administration and the departments to vet their budget requests for fiscal year 2027 on the school side um they go a little bit ahead of us as you all remember and will present to their school board in january where their 27 budget march we will be back

[02:05:08] presenting the county administrator's proposed budget we then have our condensed two three week period where we go out and have the community meetings in each district as well as online so anyone has the chance to participate in providing feedback for the budget as well as the annual budget hearings in april will be the formal adoption of the 27 budget as well as the 27 through 21 CIP. And then the billing process as part of calendar year 26 will be mailed out to residents as well. And just one of the note, very, very timely today, we saw a first peak at

[02:05:41] the outgoing governor's first salvo at the next state buying a budget that this thing I wanted to note there is clearly that's going to change quite a bit by the time we get to what the state budget will actually be. So in these weird years where you have an outgoing administration and new one that's coming in, just from a timing perspective, it is a challenge, particularly for our friends in the school division. It's very, very challenging. They're likely to get late information again, just the way that that process plays out. So we're working today to sift through

[02:06:18] the details that are out there, but at the same time, we're not putting too much weight into that. So that's going to be a patience factor as we all collectively work through FY27. And then last note on this topic, not pictured up here, but your Citizens Budget Advisory Committee has been working through some preliminary FY27 topics and some other things in a way that since I've been working with them, I haven't seen.

[02:06:42] They've been very, very diligent. They have a long meeting tomorrow on some FY27 topics. So not pictured up here, but that work is absolutely underway and can't thank them enough for their hard work as they, you know, weigh in on some FY27 matters.

[02:06:58] So with that, there's no more information from us. Have you taken any questions? Is that one of the reasons why we do it? I feel like last year we had like preliminary type budget stuff that we've been working on, but maybe I'm wrong. Is my brain not by this time?

[02:07:14] I think you guys are on a pretty standard calendar. So the next big thing for you guys will be the max tax rate, the land book, and we'll start laying some of those items out. It's really citizen budget advisory that has gotten started on an earlier, like tomorrow they're going to go through some school capital things that you've seen up here and some police topics.

[02:07:35] But they've rolled their sleeves up earlier than otherwise. You guys are right where you need to be. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And, Jessica, what you might be remembering is that last year we did already set a max tax rate. Yeah, we did.

[02:07:51] We did do that. No, no, that's not last year. Ah, okay, yeah. And I asked that we push it back a month just so that we have a sense of what – it felt a little early to me to set it.

[02:08:08] So I asked to push it back just so that we could get a better feel for what's going on. So maybe that's not what you're referring to, but I just wanted to call that to everyone's attention. No more questions on budget stuff, we'll move to our next topic, my next guest host.

[02:08:30] E, Citizen Satisfaction Survey results, Mr. Harris and Ms. Highsmith. So this is really an extension of the budget conversation we just had, because this is our Citizen Satisfaction Survey. We do this every three years. I'm going to let Ms. Highsmith, who works in our Learned Performance Center, is one of her many many duties walk you through some of the high points of the survey but bringing it to you today in conjunction with these other budget topics because this we use this feedback mr durkin somewhere on the hard data we also take survey data and that type of information and feed

[02:09:06] it into our you know discussions and deliberations for the upcoming budget is very very important to us so with that introduction i'll turn it over to tamara and she'll walk you through some of the high points from the 2025 survey. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Vice Chair, Board Members, Dr. Casey and Mr. Meigs. Thank you for your time and support of our recent initiative to better understand our customers and residents. Today, we want to talk briefly about the purpose, the process, and some highlights of our recent citizen satisfaction survey ahead of posting the results online. This survey is a key part of our commitment to responsible and transparent governance.

[02:09:45] Not every community does this, and those that do tend to be like us. They value data, accountability, and continuous improvement. This survey is conducted every three years, and this year we had 3,000 randomly selected residents were invited to participate.

[02:10:02] While not everyone participated, the results are statistically significant within a 5% margin of error. This means that we have results that reliably represent community-wide perceptions. And just to note, so we use a vendor poll co, and we've had them in place now for a number of years.

[02:10:22] So the three-year cycle allows us to incorporate three different topics all now with that same firm. So we get some, not only do we get sort of every three-year to three-year comparisons, but we can get some similarities across the three instruments. So we do one internally, we do one for the business community that we had just completed last year, and then we do the broader citizen satisfaction survey.

[02:10:46] But all the same instrument, same approach. It gives us, again, a very comparable data set. This data, though, on this one goes directly to them, right, not to the county? It's collected by the vendor. I just think that's important because some people may say, well, the county's receiving it, and they can do whatever they want to the data, but we're not actually receiving the data until it's already compiled.

[02:11:10] Yeah, just to clarify, when you said we sent 3,000, we didn't do anything. We didn't even pick the 3,000. We give them, you know, here's the entire address list of Chesterfield County. They're statistical experts. That's how they can get to the point, the 5%. I just wanted to make sure everybody knew it was actually truly an independent survey.

[02:11:29] Yes, thank you for that clarification. Absolutely. This survey is a key part of our commitment to responsible and transparent governance. And when we look at the data, I'm going to transition. When we look at the data compared to 2021, the story is one of stability and specific targeted growth.

[02:11:48] Of the 105 measures tracked, the vast majority stayed consistent with 19 areas significantly improving and only nine showing decline. I want to highlight the most improved areas because they reflect deliberate and intentional effort.

[02:12:05] Residents rated us specifically higher in transparency, openness of government, customer service by county employees, and welcoming resident involvement. This confirms our efforts to be more accessible, encourage engagement, and open up our processes that this is being felt by our residents.

[02:12:24] We also maintained our traditional strengths in public safety and quality of life. And as excited as we are about our successes, we must also be transparent about the challenges. The clear area for improvement is transportation and traffic flow. And yet, we don't view this rating as a negative surprise, but as a validation.

[02:12:43] It validates that our current strategic focus is exactly where it needs to be. When we look at turning feedback into action, we see that residents' top priorities of a safe and secure community, thriving communities, and a vibrant economy are already pillars of our long-term planning.

[02:13:00] In essence, we aren't reacting to new news. We're already executing unknown opportunities. Regarding safety, we are actively investing in public safety enhancements, fire stations, and police facilities. You've just heard Mr. Hart's presentation on his successes and initiatives to support the vibrant economy.

[02:13:20] I want to pause a moment on thriving communities, which encompasses transportation and planning infrastructure. We know residents desire traffic improvements. It's important to contextualize this, though. Infrastructure projects have a long timeline to fruition.

[02:13:37] Because these initiatives come to you for approval, you know that we have already undertaken significant work in this area, funding, planning, zoning changes, etc. However, there's a natural lag between when we take action and when the driver feels a relief on the road. The concerns showing up in this survey reflects the growing pains of a desirable community, but please know that countermeasures are already in motion.

[02:13:59] We're confident that these long-term projects will come to fruition. We will see the results similar to the improvements we saw in customer service, welcoming involvement, and transparency. As a tangible example of focused effort and intentionality yielding positive results, we were recently honored with the Voice of People Award for Transformation in Parks and Recreation.

[02:14:23] This places us among the top 10 most improved communities in the country in the area of Parks and Recreation, A distinctum based on resident feedback and national performance data. This didn't happen overnight. It's a result of planning, strategic investment, and a shared vision.

[02:14:40] Made possible the commitment of parks and recreation staff, county administration, and the continued support of the board. It's proof that when we identify a priority, invest in it, and execute the plan, we achieve results. We're applying this same transformation model to our infrastructure and transportation.

[02:14:56] And in closing, we want to thank you and thank the citizens for their feedback, and thank you all for your support and our ongoing improvement initiatives. The survey affirms our directions, sharpens our focus, and reminds us that listening to residents must continue to guide our decisions.

[02:15:12] Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Highsmith? Go back for a second. I think it's two slides. With regard to only nine areas showed decline, I do see the key concerns with regard to transportation and traffic flow.

[02:15:30] does that encompass all nine areas of decline or what were the other areas yeah it it's in the like mr highsmith said it's in sort of the infrastructure you know growth and development areas um we can get you the the specific nine but they all would fall under that that singular heading in terms of the nine that decline but like she said there's so much that's happened you just you know can't necessarily see all those results just yet hopefully sitting here in three years you know we see some uh some improvement in those particular categories are some on school

[02:16:05] capacities uh so this this instrument has limited uh really exposure to the school topic not not because that's not what the county does directly even localities across the country sometimes they have their own school district with its own taxing powers there there's a maybe a question or two sort of the how we value education and the opportunities that are available but it does not get into school infrastructure as an instrument i do think though it would be good to um share what all nine of them were um for transparency sure thank you and i do think we try and make

[02:16:45] the survey publicly available i would say sometimes before you know when whatever we're doing and even on the improved side it could be a perception not a reality so you know sometimes when someone is saying something that we don't have. We used to always get accused of not plowing the roads well enough as a locality when it snowed. Well, it's the perception that they think that's local government's responsibility, not that we have to go out and hire snow plows in addition to VDOT.

[02:17:11] So some of it's just dissecting the questions that are out there. And, you know, also it's the time period. You know, sometimes, you know, there were certain things, maybe when this last survey was done was during COVID, for instance, that there might have been a different perception, expectation engagement with us now as an environmental factor than existed during these times. So, you know, there may have been more of a sympathy to local government. It was distracted on certain things, so it could have given you higher scores. And I'm not saying that's what happened, but there's a lot of dynamics to it. But I think fair enough to say is, you know, we need to understand for the nine that showed a decline, you know, is there a plan that we need operationally

[02:17:50] capital or information campaign to educate? And in fairness, too, for the 19 measures that improved? Is it something that people are thinking we're doing well that we know that we may not be doing as well as people think? So it works both ways. And I'm going to push a little bit in that if you go back to the previous slide for this one, you showed a confidence interval of plus or minus 5%. I'm going to put my statistics out on for a second. We may have improved on the 19th, but we may have only improved slightly, meaning that the confidence interval may not necessarily mean

[02:18:27] that we did. So I want to kind of be careful with our numbers. There were 3,000 randomly selected residents, but we don't have on here how many actually responded. So I don't know what the N is. So that makes it more difficult for me to interpret it. So I want to kind of be careful with the numbers. I do see that there was improvements, but I just want to be careful with the numbers.

[02:18:55] So my statistical, and I'm rusty on it, but I think if you get about 600 independent people that are randomly, truly randomly selected, once you cross around the 600 threshold, you get into the confidence interval of 95% or so. And I didn't come up with that. Archimedes came up with that 3,000 years ago.

[02:19:13] so so you know but there is there's a proportion like when you see you've seen surveys on tv all the time they have to have that's right but it's amazing how you get to 600 or so people and you may have had courses in this and you know miss dr hutchinson was you know wore me down on that at vcu but it is amazing you know that's how you can get so high of a confidence with just 600 randomly selected right that actually responded and that's and i think yeah 600 at least responded possibly to the 3,000.

[02:19:45] I think that would be helpful, too, because I don't think that the community is going to necessarily know that. And what was the response rate? How can we improve the response rate so we can get better numbers and we can then shave down the confidence interval? The full report will be posted online, so we'll certainly make sure you can identify what the nine were, but this is something that's open book. Again, like Mr. Jingle said, we get the results sent to us, and we're just interpreting them we have to hit that that threshold for the vendor to you know consider it valid we did that but we will publish the entire report all of the the feedback that we got on the website so that'll

[02:20:25] be that's helpful out there for everyone to see and just to make the point that the door swings both ways meaning that it could actually be higher than those because we don't know um and so the trick is you see what i'm saying is we could have actually improved in other areas where we don't realize we did. Well, here's the other thing, too, and this is where you don't get the same confidence interval because the results are broken down. So the respondents may be listed by age group, geographic area, different households, and so forth like that. But we don't report out the results in those subcategories because, again, that 600 is broken down, the increments of 50 this,

[02:21:03] 40 that, and then the confidence interval goes down significantly. So, but having said that, You know, you're getting it soon after we have it, so we don't want to be accused of holding something. But because we do it every three years, we're going to spend, you know, a couple of months dissecting it.

[02:21:20] And if there are things to present during budget processes or operational updates, you'll be the first to know, which means if we do it here, everyone else can know at the same time. We need to make sure Constituent and Media Services gets that out on all of our different touches to our citizens so that we can, I mean, we'll get some other feedback when we put that out, and it'll help us to just verify or look at where we need improvement and where we've had improvement, and it helps us to properly move forward.

[02:21:55] So thank you for putting this, or thank you for working with the survey company to put this together and coming back and presenting it, And thank you to Constituent and Media Services for getting this out. F, Consent Agenda highlights, Mr. Harris and Mr. Bowles.

[02:22:19] As normally is the case, we've got about six or seven items that Mr. Bowles is joining me to go through one in particular. You've got two registrar sort of voting topics on your consent agenda tonight.

[02:22:35] The first one is a waiver, state waiver, to split some precincts where you have overlapping congressional districts. This is at Genito and Clover Hill. This would be the fifth consecutive year that we have done that. So there's a very regimented process that's out there to be able to apply.

[02:22:54] So we've done the analysis again, and we'll ask for that waiver to be in place for those two districts. So nothing new there, but you do have to do that on an annual basis. And then we have another item to set a public hearing for January to move three precincts.

[02:23:12] That is the LaProd, Wagstaff, and Southside precincts. The example of one of those would be LaProd moving it back to LaProd Library now that those renovations are done. But again, you have to go through that deliberate public process. And as you just mentioned, we will get that information out if the public hearing goes well in January.

[02:23:33] Today is just setting it so that we can have that in place. We have the acceptance and appropriation of $580,000 of federal grant money that supports our access on demand program. We've been continuing to receive that over the course of the last few years.

[02:23:50] We talked to you about that in conjunction with some of the access topics that have been in here the last few years. So that's on your consent agenda as well. And then three sort of community development type items. You have one that is putting in place a policy that allows us to use CDB dollars for relocation assistance in certain circumstances.

[02:24:12] I think the Shady Hill was why this kind of came to the surface, but we could also use it in terms of natural disasters, fire, other emergencies. We can use those dollars to facilitate those movements, but we have to have this policy framework in place to be able to access and make appliance with those federal rules and regulations.

[02:24:34] So that's up there tonight. You also have setting a public hearing for the use of eminent domain out related to the Duval Road reconstruction project. And then lastly, setting a public hearing to consider some code amendments and subdivision ordinance related to the submission of plat deadlines.

[02:24:54] And so that will be also set for January. That's all I have for my portion. I'll turn it over to Mr. Bowles. - Mr. Chairman, members of the board and Dr. Casey. So we also have tonight a land acquisition item for about 98 and a half acres at 1101 Otterdale Road appropriation of funding to support that purchase. This parcel is situated below the 288 Woolridge

[02:25:28] interchange between Otterdale Road and the Woolridge extension that's slated to begin shortly after the new year. This will be to site three future public facilities, a replacement Midlothian Middle School, a future Old Hundred Area Elementary, as well as the James River Police Station.

[02:25:55] The replacement middle school with partial funding and the James River Police Station with full funding were part of the 2022 bond referendum. The middle school is a future project and the middle, I'm sorry, the police station will be the last of the four planned stations constructed likely in the 2029 to 2030 timeframe. The Old 100 Area Elementary School was not part

[02:26:28] of the referendum. It's a future planned facility to address growth. And just to clarify, this is not intended to replace the current Old 100 Elementary School. It would be an addition to that facility. So as you can see from this visual, the overall size and acreage is unique in that it would allow for the siting of three public facilities. We need at least 65 usable acres for

[02:27:03] these projects. And we also project that once we work through final siting details, this parcel could also allow for some passive recreation use and open space for Midlothian.

[02:27:21] So we've negotiated a purchase agreement in the amount of $10.5 million based on independently prepared appraisal as well as looking at comparable sales in the area that tells us that land in this area has a value in excess of $290,000 per acre.

[02:27:44] So if you put that together, then you're talking about potentially over $13 million in expense if these parcels were purchased separately. So the funding for this is available through a combination of prior land acquisition funds, and you have a year-end appropriation item tonight as well where you're requested to appropriate up to $3.1 million additional for this purchase.

[02:28:15] SO I'M HAPPY TO TAKE ANY QUESTIONS IF YOU HAVE ONE. WELL, THANK YOU, MR. BOLS, FOR CLARIFYING A LOT OF THE POINTS THAT I WAS GOING TO MAKE BECAUSE THERE HAS BEEN SOME CONFUSION. WHEN WE'VE SAID OLD HUNDRED AREA, I THINK THAT FOLKS WERE CONFUSED AS TO WHETHER IT WAS REPLACING.

[02:28:37] THE PLAYFUL SIDE OF ME WANTS TO JUST CALL IT MIDLOTHEAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, THAT THERE'S A MIDLOTHEAN ELEMENTARY, MIDLOTHEAN MIDDLE, AND MIDLOTHEAN HIGH. but I just wanna make a point to the community that we're talking in addition to Old Hundred.

[02:28:52] So there was some confusion about that. The other point I wanna make is that some folks were confused that because it was Old Hundred and it was replacing, there was a confusion because in the article from BizSense, it was saying that there's some land that's next to Old Hundred and that that was the place where they were gonna put the middle school, where we're gonna put the middle school.

[02:29:15] and that's not the case at all. They were thinking it was going to be all the way down by North Halsey, which is not the case. Folks, if you look at this map, just to kind of orient you, what's happening, if you see the yellow that's there, the orange, that is going to be the Woolridge extension. It's about a mile and a half long. That road has not been built yet, and so what we're talking about, if you're going down Woolridge right now, what you have the opportunity to do is to get on 288 and go south that road will now continue and it'll continue on and we'll connect woolridge to woolridge so bright point if you're heading that

[02:29:53] direction will be on your left hand side but then the road will continue and just on the right hand side as you're going down woolridge that's going to be the placement of the school and the police station on just on the other side of 288 we're only talking you know less than a couple of miles so very much nearby that was one of the other concerns that folks had so excited about this I think it provides an incredible opportunity to see what we can do with the current site for Midlothian Middle there'll be a lot of discussion what that's going to be there has been a lot of say okay well

[02:30:33] where that's going to be a place of, you know, development in the way of more townhomes, things like that. Hey, folks, I've been saying all along that I would like to see that be Midlothian green or essentially a park, green space for Midlothian. I would like to see some commercial on there.

[02:30:50] But this is going to be a community engagement process where we're going to work together to identify what does the community want for that area. And looking forward to that conversation, what we want to do is we want to work together, be transparent.

[02:31:07] But the other part of it is, remember, at one point, Midlothian Middle was going to be right across the street from J.B. Watkins. And at one point, I think we were offered, this is before me, somewhere in the neighborhood of about $10 million is what Chesterfield offered for it.

[02:31:23] And they wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 million for it. And Chesterfield, look, it isn't our money, it's your money. And so when Chesterfield, again, before me, when they were asking for $14 million, essentially what Chesterfield said was, go pound sand. We're not going to spend an additional $4 million there.

[02:31:41] And I do really think that that's been a blessing in disguise, that that's not where Midlothian Middle ended up. I would like to see possibly that area that's right across the street from J.B. Watkins to fold that into part of Midlothian High School land.

[02:31:58] That way, because right now, Midlothian High School is very much landlocked. So if we're able to do that, a couple of philanthropists have come forward with the possibility of purchasing that land and then turning it over to Chesterfield.

[02:32:14] We're in the early stages of that conversation. So no matter how this slices up, If we would have put these three products, you know, the middle school, the elementary school, and the police station on three separate properties, it would have been far more expensive.

[02:32:33] I want to also clarify one other thing, and I would like your take on this from the board, in that, you know, the assessment seemed very low. But that is because that, for a starter, there was no road there. And the other part of it is that it was zoned agricultural.

[02:32:52] So that is a lot of, I mean, Melvin is going to know a lot better how we got at that number. The bottom line is that we had appraisals. We went with that appraisal. The appraisal was one for which we trust the organization that put that together. And it gave us a sense of where or how much we should offer for it.

[02:33:13] One final point in that I want to appreciate East-West. EAST-WEST WORKED WITH US ON THE SALE OF THIS AND THE COST OF IT. AT ONE POINT, THEY WERE ASKING FAR MORE FOR THIS PROPERTY. AND WHEN I REACHED OUT TO EAST-WEST AND SAID, HEY, YOU KNOW, YOUR KIDS HAVE ATTENDED MIDDLEOTHIAN MIDDLE AND YOU KNOW WHAT STATE THE MIDDLEOTHIAN MIDDLE IS IN AND I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WANT MORE MONEY FOR THIS PROPERTY, BUT THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR EAST-WEST really do something for the community and you know what they did so I want to

[02:33:49] appreciate them because we were able to keep it at the cost that made the most sense so I want to appreciate the board for your flexibility and patience as we went through it it was a long process and now we'll move forward with it but it's going to be a while as far as when the middle school is going to be built it's not going to be tomorrow it's going to be soon but we still only have enough money to build half a school so but this is the first step toward doing that so a lot of explanation to the community

[02:34:25] and appreciate your patience as we've gone through this thank you mr chair i was just going to tease that you know that clover hill looks forward to midlothian middle school and elementary school being in their district we'll have that conversation along the way there's one other elephant in the room that um dr miller didn't touch that i think warrants a little bit more explanation i believe

[02:34:56] this property was purchased in 2020 by the east west and they paid 1.5 million for it so there are a lot of people in the community that are questioning such a large change in value from them from that time so can somebody just work to just share i know from looking at all of the locations that we can move these the school to that this is actually um right

[02:35:32] where we thought we were going to end up and what we're willing to pay um but i just want to make sure that the citizens there's been a lot of uh questions like who in east west paid off who in the county to get that much more money on a property from that short of a period of time.

[02:35:53] And I just think it warrants the discussion of why we're at this sales price. And I can confirm what I'm going to say, but I'll try and make an educated guess. As you can see, even from the map, which is a good illustration, the property really to access any type of intensive use is landlocked.

[02:36:13] You have to kind of use that road on the southern perimeter there and come up almost through two other parcels. VDOT will not let you have a turnoff lane off of an exit of 288. You know, it could seem intuitive. Come off 288, just make a quick right-hand turn into that property.

[02:36:30] Development, any kind of intensive development along Otterdale Road, as you well know, would involve a lot more improvements to Otterdale Road than what you see on the screen there. So there's lending to that. As we all remember, and it was a hard decision of the county, but we did it partially because of the values of the CVTA and other sources.

[02:36:51] Woolridge Road Extension was going to be a developer-driven project when those subdivisions or other uses came to fruition and paid for by those people. Woolridge Road Extension is needed to serve so many people to the west that we made a local government decision that that road is needed today.

[02:37:10] It can't wait for some speculative future development that was subject to even a zoning possibility, at least for that particular parcel there. So we created the Woolridge Road just recently as far as a funded project. That dotted line, in essence, became perfected just even in recent years.

[02:37:29] It was just a philosophical line going from 288 to Old Hundred. I think it's a mile, mile and a half long. So that's a change of what's enabled to bring that not just property we're purchasing closer to being activated, but in essence, perhaps the other ones.

[02:37:46] But as Dr. Miller said, ideally, this community discussion can take time and purpose, not just for this site, but for what will be Midlothian Turnpike's existing school site. It's a one-two discussion as well, and during that time period, those two properties to the south of it that I believe do have some zoning already to be developed, if they can create the infrastructure, road and water and sewer utilities, that can bring the value further to the property.

[02:38:17] So, again, we were not part of the transaction that was acquired a few years ago, But hopefully some of those constraints I just illustrated, no Woodward Road extension, no ability to turn off of 288 on that road that was already there, water sewer road infrastructure, Otterdale Road infrastructure.

[02:38:36] Those are constraining items that would have had it been paid for by a zoning case. So that's probably what could be the differential. Again, I do not know what other was discussed between the property owner and the seller, but that's just my educated opinion.

[02:38:52] But I'll defer to Mr. Bowles, who may add to that. I would only say I agree. That transaction between that seller and the current owner, we weren't a party to that. I don't really have any knowledge of what factors may have gone into that.

[02:39:14] Any other questions? Thank you. Item five, reports. Are there any questions regarding the report? Madam Clerk, we still have the retiree. Oh, sorry.

[02:39:34] No worries. Just looking at the time. Yep. No, I'll be very, very quick, but it's an important one. So we have nine retirees on consent tonight. Didn't want to miss that. Cumulative 238 years of service, 115 of which tonight happens to be in the police department.

[02:39:50] So, as has come the custom, I think it's been a good one. I'm going to read their names in years of service. Lieutenant James Henderson, the police department, 36 years. Mr. Norman Campbell in planning, 30 years. Ms. Phyllis Jones, mental health, 30 years as well.

[02:40:08] Corporal Allen Poston, police department, 29 years. Lieutenant Colonel David Shan, police department, 28 years. Ms. Kima Cepeda, treasurer's office, 23 years. Firefighter Nathan Verlander, 23 years. Mrs. Julie Jeffers and Utilities, 17 years.

[02:40:26] And finally, John Rockline at the police department, 22 years. So just wanted to make sure we included that in the minutes. Thank you. Were there any questions on the reports?

[02:40:45] Seeing none, the reports are approved. Item 6, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. We have no speakers. Item 7, Closed Session 1, pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A5, Code of Virginia 1950 is amended to discuss or consider prospective businesses or industries or the expansion of existing businesses or industries where no previous announcement has been made of the businesses or industry's interest in locating or expanding their facilities in the community.

[02:41:17] And two, pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A3, Code of Virginia 1950 is amended to discuss the acquisition by the county of real estate for a public purpose or the disposition of publicly held real property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position and negotiating strategy of the public body. Mr. Chair, we need a motion to go into

[02:41:41] closed session. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Good evening and welcome to the evening

[02:42:24] session of the December 17th Board of Supervisors meeting. I verified that all board members have received copies of the comments posted to the online comment portal for consideration on the matters before us tonight. These comments are part of the public record and will be attached to the meeting minutes. At this time, I'd like to ask Dr. Miller to give the invocation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to invite everyone here in this room and those watching to take a moment

[02:42:56] to what I like to call the looks within place. So take a moment, if you may, if it calls to you to take a moment to breathe, to breathe in, breathe out. Call in spirit, gratitude for our lives, but also recognizing that there's folks in the community that are grieving. Our fellow board

[02:43:36] member, Jessica Schneider, is grieving the loss of her mother-in-law, Ingeberg Schneider, your husband's mom. Tracy Dyer's mother, who works with us. Marie Gunn, who passed away.

[02:43:58] Christmas mother, Carol Ricker's husband, Don Ricker. CSB member, Pamela Steele's husband, has recently passed. Also speaking to Mukhamad Aziz Umar-Zokoff, 19 years old, family is grieving the loss of their son in the Brown University attack.

[02:44:33] The Miller family is grieving the loss of a close friend of ours who passed yesterday, Phyllis McCafferty. And of course, we can't forget the loss of 15 individuals that were showing up for Hanukkah services on a beach in Australia and lost their life. Spirit is really hard at times to know how to grieve and hold all of this. And at the same time, I know that there are times when

[02:45:12] I feel tired and in despair, and I don't feel like I can continue on, that I have to look towards you and remind myself that there are times that maybe if I don't have it, I do know that you do. I don't have it, but you do. We're not in charge. It's not our show. It's so much bigger than ourselves, but that does not make it easier. The spirit of the holidays, it's easy to get

[02:45:49] hopeless, but it provides an opportunity to drop in deeper. I've come to learn that you get what you practice. You get what you practice, especially during the hard times. So gratitude comes from recognizing that we are at a time of luminosity. There may not be a lot of light outside but you know what we can always drop in and find that light within so that is my prayer

[02:46:24] for all of you during this season that you drop in find the light within connect with family connect with friends drop into belief gratitude to this group of for our supervisors we work hard together we may not always agree but we do the work for our county for our neighbors and for our

[02:46:59] community. May it be so. We would like to call forward Eagle Scout Harrison Quimby to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[02:47:37] Item 11, County Administration Update. A, James M. Jim Holland recognition. Dr. Casey. Thank you, members of the board and the public that is here and the public that is watching. We're going to be going through something we don't normally do, and that's just a specific recognition of one individual, one individual who deserves that recognition.

[02:48:02] For those that have known Mr. Holland since his service with us from 2008, where he sat right before us, right here until his passing recently, he was a friend and a colleague of anyone who sat next to him on either side. He was a friend and a colleague to many of the workers and citizens and nonprofits and businesses of Chesterfield County. He was a personal mentor and role model of myself. But tonight what we are going to be doing is slowly but surely, you know, having fitting tributes now paid to him and recognizing who he was. And for

[02:48:39] those that are counting at home, there are six seats occupied before me. We didn't go through an emergency redistricting of any sort. And I don't want to scare anybody. But in 2008, where Mrs. Holland is now sitting, that is where Mr. Holland most likely sat.

[02:48:57] I think we have a new chair since 2008. And we have a fittingly of her with a nameplate of Judith Holland, Dale District. No disrespect to Dr. Hilton, the interim appointment from Dale. He was good with everything we have done thus far, so I'm not here to make him nervous on anything.

[02:49:15] But I did tell Mrs. Holland that she has, you know, if you're sitting up there, you know, feel free to exercise any powers you like, including the dismissal of a county administrator. I need to get behind my Christmas shopping quite a bit. So but I sense she may not do that.

[02:49:32] But having said that, I like to I like to also recognize from North Carolina, her daughter, their daughter, Jessica, who, again, became a friend of so many of the counties. and we mourned together, and it goes without saying, Kim Conley, right to her very left, who is shaking her head no, she became family as well, really since 2008, quite frankly, but more so in this last year.

[02:50:01] So without further ado, if it's okay with the board chair, I think what we're going to do is just go through each presentation, and then at the end, whatever comments any and all board members would like to make, Mrs. Holland, of course, like to make, but we can kind of try and get through all of them at one point, and then we'll take any and all comments, and I would turn over to the board chair to facilitate that. So if I could have Delegate Deborah Gardner be the first, and she's going to present a state memorial resolution that was actually introduced during the General Assembly's special session. I like to think they call the special session just for this, but they may not

[02:50:41] have, but I think it was probably one of the fastest things they did during their special session, Delegate Gardner. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I won't read the resolution because those of you who know about the General Assembly and that part of government, we have a lot of wherefores, therefores, and whereas.

[02:51:01] So it's a whole lot, but we will certainly present that to Judith. I just want to say a few words. I know during this time we've heard so many wonderful things about Mr. Holland. But beyond the titles, the projects, and all the other things you've heard about him, we remember Jim for his character, his humility, his willingness to listen, his respect for every constituent's voice, and his unwavering belief in leaving things better than he found them. He was devoted to you, my friend Judith, for 52 years, and his children, Jessica

[02:51:40] and James Matthew. Jim's legacy lives on in every school, every library, every park program he touched, and in every student, constituent, or colleague who felt his kindness, encouragement, and steady leadership, and I was certainly one of those people. You would often hear Jim say, and these are his words, one of the greatest honors and privileges of my life is to serve you, My friends, neighbors, and community, may his memory be a blessing and his example guide us all.

[02:52:14] I want to say thank you for sharing Mr. Holland with all of us. Thank you, Delegate Gardner. If I could now introduce Dean Lynch, who is the Executive Director from the Virginia Association of Counties, a statewide organization of board members' peers throughout the state, for which Mr. Holland was a very participatory and quite frankly earned some leadership roles within the entire state organization.

[02:52:43] Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chair, Ms. Holland, we truly miss Jim. We do. He was a colleague, he was a friend, and he was a longtime VACO Virginia Association of Counties board member. We've adopted a resolution, I think you have in front of you, on the 9th day of November of 2025.

[02:53:07] There is a lot of stuff in there that you know, that you've heard us talk about Jim and his strength on the board and his strength within counties. But I do want to say one thing, that I think Jim couldn't, he wasn't driving the last couple of years, I think.

[02:53:26] And I gave him a rough time that I was his driver to the VACO Annual Conference. And so we got to spend about three and a half hours together driving and talking and stuff like that. So he was truly a friend, and our board, everybody on our board will miss him.

[02:53:44] There was no better advocate for Chesterfield County than Jim. Every time he was introduced, he always put a plug in for Chesterfield County on something that was happening in Chesterfield. So just we're going to miss him and just want you to know that.

[02:54:02] And we adopted this resolution on the 9th day of November, 2025. He will always be remembered in the halls of Virginia Association of Counties. So thank you for sharing him with us. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

[02:54:19] Next, I'd like to welcome Laura Huyck, representing the Chesterfield Education Foundation. And I believe there's Dr. Murray from our school system as superintendent may also be in the audience. Ms. Hayek will share something that, again, I'll personally give credit. She was one of the first people I called after discussions with the board members about legacies and the importance of education to Mr. Holland and the entire Holland family.

[02:54:43] And it goes without saying, Mrs. Holland was an educator herself for many years. So this is about creating a scholarship that we could try and, you know, people's free will to donate to, but to try and do it in a manner that we can come out of the box with applications for Dale District graduates, this year. So please, Ms. Height. Thank you so much. Thank you, supervisors. Thank you, Mrs.

[02:55:06] Holland. It's really a privilege and an honor to be here tonight. Chesterfield Education Foundation, we're a nonprofit. We support all the students and teachers in Chesterfield County. And one way that we will carry forward Mr. Holland's legacy is in honoring the value and dignity of every single student and every staff person in Chesterfield County. Whether that student is struggling or or whether they're thriving, they are all so valuable to us.

[02:55:32] And we're very grateful to be the holders of this scholarship in his memory. It's open to any graduating senior who lives in the Dale District. And I want to thank Mrs. Holland for your wise counsel in designing that application and really making it meaningful to Dale District students.

[02:55:51] And also for your generous impulse to remember a great man and remember his legacy by supporting students now and in the future. So thank you. And if, Ms. Hyde, I think we actually do have two slides queued up, if you could just introduce them about the scholarship itself and then the application.

[02:56:10] Absolutely. So the scholarship will be awarded this spring to a graduating senior. We're starting out with $500. It may go up in the future. The application is posted on our website, and the donation form is also posted on the website.

[02:56:26] So, if you feel so moved to make a year-end donation in honor of the scholarship, know that we operate with full transparency and we are accountable to the school system. So, your donation is going directly to that scholarship. Thank you, Dr. Caton. Thank you, Ms. Holland.

[02:56:43] The next we have is Eldon Burton, who, again, has been a friend of Chesterfield for many years in many capacities on behalf of Virginia State University, which the entire board and myself were so pleased to be standing next to Mrs. Holland at the most recent commencement exercise.

[02:57:01] Mr. Burton. Yes, so on behalf of President Abdullah, who could not make it here today, he's traveling, we just are excited to be a part of this celebration. We were excited to have you join us for commencement and be a part of that celebration, have all of you join us in commencement.

[02:57:17] I can truly say that Mr. Holland was a friend, a true friend of VSU, and he believed in our mission, and that was definitely shown through the fact that his presence was always there. He never turned down an opportunity to come to a homecoming, to come to a game, or any time that we invited him to be on campus.

[02:57:40] And so we really do appreciate him and appreciate you, and if there's anything we can do, we're only a phone call away. Thank you. Those are all of our presenters, but finally, on behalf of the entire county, there's two other mementos that you have before you.

[02:57:59] For those that are in the audience, you can see just to Mrs. Holland's right is the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch that they actually did above the fold and did a very nice tribute article to Mr. Holland. And from the Richmond Times Dispatch, they did what I call a perfect print of the article on a plaque for you to have as a momentum forever.

[02:58:24] And then in addition, further to my left at the end of the dais here, on display is something that has probably never happened to this degree in the state of Virginia's history that I can recall. What you have is a picture of 21 flags flown at half-staff, the local flags for 18 localities, and then three other entities, Virginia State University, Bright Point Community College, and Bon Secours, which, again, you know, Mr. Holland played a large role in the St. Francis campus and the support he has given to them.

[02:59:03] So those 21 flags, not federal, not state, but in essence the local flag itself, which that's our powers as localities to lower. We're all lowered to half staff on the, in essence, on the date of his internment. And I will tell you that wasn't necessarily a call or asking please to anybody.

[02:59:24] It was people coming forward. And what those 18 localities represent are the entire planning districts for Plan RVA, which is, again, the Richmond region, as it's often referred to, and then the Crater Planning District Commission, which is basically which we're also a part of, which is very unique, of all localities then going south, in essence, to the North Carolina line.

[02:59:48] So very powerful tribute, and I'll just leave it at that because I always get choked up when I see flags like that at half-staff because it means the localities are mourning. We mourn the federal flag and state flag, rightfully, for things that might be national or international.

[03:00:06] When you see the local flag at half-staff, for those in the audience, it means we're hurting because it's somebody that we knew personally or knew of the situation. And again, those flags are lowered and have staff with board chair and other board concurrent. So it's not taken lightly just to lower it.

[03:00:23] So with that, Mr. Engel, I'll turn it over to you to moderate through all of your comments and Mrs. Holland as well. And then just as a procedural note at the end, if it's OK with the board, we like to just you can stay exactly where you are with your nameplate right in front of you, but maybe the board can kind of gather around you for a picture and those that were the presenters and Jessica, at least, and Ken Connolly, you're going to have to come up to just stand in front for a second picture.

[03:00:52] And if there's any former elected officials in the audience, I do, you know, they are welcome to join in that picture too. I don't want to turn my head on you. Mr. Engel. I'm actually going to defer my comments to the end, so would any board members like to make some comments?

[03:01:14] Jessica. I'll go. It's such a blessing to have you here sitting next to me. And we didn't have him long enough, but he was here for the time that he needed.

[03:01:33] And so thank you, thank you for sharing him with us and being his strength. I know you were. And his sounding board, I'm sure. Yeah, it's so hard being, you know, not being able to be there and doing everything with but he carried you with him everywhere he went because that was the relationship that you two had.

[03:02:05] And so thank you, thank you for sharing him with us. Eldon, could you tell the group what you guys bestowed upon Mr. Holland?

[03:02:20] Because I don't think we touched base on that at the recent ceremony. Yeah, so we did a posthumous honorary degree that Ms. Judith Holland was able to come and receive. For a doctorate, right? Yes, for an honorary doctorate.

[03:02:37] Yes, honorary doctorate, yes. Amazing, thank you. I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that. Look, I met Jim in 08 when he first got elected, and I was in my capacity as the local president of Returnal Order Police.

[03:02:54] He never once, when I asked to have a meeting, said no. Always discussed issues, a strong supporter of public safety his entire time on the board. And then when I got lucky enough to get elected and honored to serve with him, He was a good mentor, a person that wasn't afraid to give you a little advice when you needed it.

[03:03:22] And sometimes we all need a little advice about different things. I've been here a long time, 40 years. I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen an outpouring from the community. And I've seen a lot of people pass away in the past, public safety, you name it.

[03:03:40] He was beloved and well-respected, and not just in Virginia, not just through VACO, but NACO. When we went to NACO with him in Denver, everybody knew him. Everybody all over the country knew Jim Holland. I'm like, I'm with him.

[03:03:57] Everybody knew him. And that's a testament to his personality and his ability to communicate effectively with people and make friends. And make friends, it doesn't matter what side of the eye you're from. It doesn't matter. It's people were people. Thank you for sharing him with us.

[03:04:14] And thank you for being his, I want to use a little Forrest Gump rep, but you guys are like peas and carrots. And it was pretty amazing. And so thank you for being here tonight and letting us do this in his honor and for you.

[03:04:33] And you have my number. You have to just press the digits if you need anything. God bless. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I miss him. I do.

[03:04:50] And what I miss about Jim Holland is his steadiness. If there was ever a question that I had, I could ask him because he'd been there, done that. And because he'd been there and done that, it helped me as a new supervisor coming on.

[03:05:13] to benefit from his guidance, his wisdom, truly was what I would call a wisdom elder. And so when I expressed interest in getting involved with Vaco and with Dean and being able to go to the conferences for the first time, one of the things I was struck by was whenever he walked into a room, and I've mentioned this before, there was this hush that would go across, like, do you know who just walked in?

[03:05:50] And there was that sense of who he was in that capacity because he, everyone just so deeply respected him and honored him as a statesman.

[03:06:09] And I remember sitting at Vaco and we were saying goodbye during the meeting and we were all reminiscing, maybe 40 of us in the room, maybe, for all leaders on the board.

[03:06:29] from across the entire state. And someone made the comment, you know, when we step into this role, it's one thing to be a politician. And then maybe sometimes we can graduate from being a politician to being a public servant. But then very few get elevated to the point of statesman.

[03:06:52] And that's who he was. That's how he conducted himself. And what a role model for me. I appreciated how both of you would take me around Vaco and introduce me to everyone. I felt like a little puppy, but at the same time knew that I was with the both of you and that being with both of you held some weight.

[03:07:21] So thank you for all you've given this county with Jim, but also as a teacher, as someone who taught for a long time, and what you gave to the community.

[03:07:40] it's immeasurable. It's just completely immeasurable. And this community is going to benefit for decades to come. And for that, we could be nothing more than grateful and just deeply appreciative. So I'll start with where I, I'll end with where I started. I miss them.

[03:08:06] So I like to coin a phrase, the Howland model. And I think that it's very befitting Because you all together, a power couple, you all really knew how to move.

[03:08:25] And as a younger person, to see you all move, I was like, I want to be like them. And my wife was like, I want to be like them, too. And that's the Holland model, you know, is how you all move together. We've talked a lot about Mr. Holland.

[03:08:42] I'm not putting anything aside from that, but you are a bad woman yourself. In a very good way. You are dynamic. You really, you know, I know you have your AK sisters here, and, you know, you are, you're just amazing.

[03:09:13] I really admire you for everything you've done. That's why I say you're a bad woman, because, I mean, you are dynamite. Mr. Holland was an amazing guy. I mean, I went to VCU.

[03:09:29] I majored in public policy, urban policy, public management. You know, I did the whole program. But to sit beside Mr. Holland at budget meetings and he say, you can really tell what's important to a county or a locality based on what they fund.

[03:09:48] To sit beside him and he said, hey, you know, we got to look out for our seniors. We got to pay attention to what's going on in schools. You know, he really embodied what public administration and public policy is all about.

[03:10:06] And then for Virginia State to give him an honorary degree. And now for me to brag that he went to, he's a Trojan now, is good bragging rights because, you know, you want good people to be associated with you.

[03:10:24] So I'm glad to call him a Trojan, glad to call you a Trojan also, because in the absence of Dr. Abdullah, he says that if you go to Virginia State three times, you become a Trojan. So I think you've been there enough. But, you know, I just really appreciate your example and Mr. Ali's example.

[03:10:44] And that's something that I'm going to continue to do. I'm going to take the high road. I'm going to do things the right way. I'm going to do what's right for the county. And I'm not going to break that chain, as you all have started.

[03:11:01] So I just appreciate you. I appreciate you, Mr. Holland. And I'll stop before I get emotional. But thank you so much for everything. Yeah. Well, I know it was an honorary doctorate, but Virginia State's in the House.

[03:11:22] start off with this. Dr. Holland meant a lot to me. I wouldn't have had an opportunity to be in his seat today if it wasn't for Mr. Holland. And I appreciate that opportunity that he gave me.

[03:11:45] And I know there was other board votes, but I know that I'm here because Mr. Holland supported it. And I'm very thankful for that. Also know that Dr. Hilton is on this dais because Dr. Holland wanted him to be here. And I know there's some people out there that think that we may have

[03:12:16] appointed Dr. Hilton in a weird way, but Mr. Holland told us what his desire was. And there was no sense in taking applications or going through a process that we all knew the outcome on because we all trusted Mr. Holland enough to say if after 18 years this is the person that he recommends to be on the stias with us and quite frankly I'll be honest with you I was gunning for

[03:12:51] you for a minute because you and him were as Mr. Holland said carrots and peas is that what you the peas and carrots i i wouldn't have gone that way um but what i can tell you what jim judy that's right i i'm just telling you the more that i got to see you all together the more i could not tell which one of you was the first person and which one of you was the second i mean really truthfully

[03:13:22] jim judy was a uh fantastic way to describe your relationship and um i'm just so thankful to him and to you. I'm glad that we got to see you, Jessica. And I'm glad that you got to come in and pull off a surprise for your mother because she didn't know that Jessica was going to be in town.

[03:13:47] And I'm just so glad that that could happen as well. Just thank you to your family for sharing him with us for all these years as a statesman.

[03:14:11] um we have a few other tokens for you um i have a challenge coin for you from the board of supervisors i'm not sure if everybody can see this but this is the flag that was um on mr holland's casket on the day of his funeral we have that in a frame for you and we also have a county flag and to the best of my knowledge it's the first time it's been presented this way

[03:14:47] to somebody. As you can tell, the seal doesn't fit in a triangle very well, so we had to have the flag folded uniquely to be able to fit in here, but we wanted to present this to you as well.

[03:15:17] And with that, we're going to give you the opportunity to open up from the dais and say anything you've been waiting to say to the county for 18 years. Very good. I didn't know what the protocol was. Thank you so much. And first of all, I would like to say good evening to everyone. Mr. Chairman, Supervisor Engel, board members, each one of you,

[03:15:52] Dr. Casey, Mr. Meeks, it is an honor and a privilege to sit before you tonight to express my heartfelt gratitude for the kindness and support you have shown my late husband during his many years of service as a member of the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors.

[03:16:23] On behalf of my family, I want to sincerely thank you, each one of you, for honoring him, for recognizing his unwavering commitment to our community, and especially the Dale District.

[03:16:46] Mr. Holland, my dear late husband, developed and devoted many years of service to Chesterfield County. He had a deep sense of responsibility to listen and serve all people.

[03:17:08] He firmly believed that our strength as a community comes from unity, not division. Unity and not division. His leadership was not always defined by party lines, even though he was a Democrat, or political differences.

[03:17:35] Instead, he saw every person as a neighbor worthy of respect and inclusion. I am grateful that our county is fortunate and, yes, blessed to have supervisors who take the time to work with everyone to build a better community right here in Chesterfield County.

[03:18:04] And for that, I say thank you, and I'm going to give you an applaud for the good work that you do, each one of you. Jim always strived for excellence in every aspect of county government.

[03:18:25] He consistently sought innovative solutions and championed initiatives that foster growth and opportunity for everyone. His vision for Chesterfield was rooted in inclusion, ensuring that no voice went unheard and that every citizen felt seen and valued.

[03:18:49] Through his actions, he inspired others to rise above unfairness and focus on building a stronger, more united community where people can live, work, and play.

[03:19:07] As a proud member of First Baptist Church Centralia, under the leadership of the late Reverend W.E.B. Shannon, who encouraged Jim, he sought God's guidance in making decisions and found strength in prayer.

[03:19:29] I know that some of my church members are here tonight with me. Will you please stand so that I can see you? Thank you, church members. Thank you so much. Jim always said that Chesterfield County staff are very special people.

[03:19:55] The staff are so special that they are the answer to the supervisor's prayers. With staff support and hard work, they have turned visions into reality.

[03:20:13] Thank you, staff. If I could give out a hug to everyone for what you have done. even if i had my way and had all those billions that are out there somewhere tonight i would say staff you get a car you get a house you get a vacation oh yes and you back there even get a bonus if i could do that for jim but i don't have the billions maybe someday it's in the making my family and i appreciate the support staff that you provided us as we planned the homecoming

[03:20:53] services for Jim. Also, I have talked with so many people in the community, and they were so pleased with the way Chesterfield County honored James M. Holland. Thank you. Also, if I can take a moment, Christmas mother. Yes, Carol, as she's going through bereavement at this time as well.

[03:21:20] My Christmas mothers, where I am affiliated, work with them, they supported me and loved on me. Also, my Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters, where are you? I see you out there. All right, very good. Thank you, sisters, for supporting me.

[03:21:40] Friends of the library, Jim, love that group. Thank you. Oh, so many. Chesterfield County School System, thank you so much. Even Virginia State University, thank all of you. Our dear friend, Representative Deborah Gardner, thank you.

[03:21:59] Natalie, I saw you tonight. Thank you, Natalie, for walking with me through so many things. Susan and Mary, thank all of you all. Jim got to know each one of you on a personal level. And I can say, he said the staff rock here in Chesterfield County. You are all the best.

[03:22:22] Lastly, Jim's mission in life can be summed up in his own words. My aim has always been to lead the world in better condition than I found it.

[03:22:40] He also shared, when you're on a journey towards excellence, doing nothing is not an option. Hallelujah. Amen. Thank you, everyone, once again in the community as well for standing with my family during this sad time.

[03:23:03] We will forever be endeared to you all for showing so much love and kindness. Now, as we move forward with life's journey in Chesterfield County, it is my prayer, because I believe in prayer, it is my solemn prayer that Jim's legacy will continue to inspire you all, supervisors, each one of you, to pursue unity, strive for excellence, and serve the people with an open heart.

[03:23:43] As Jim would always say, God bless you all, and may God bless Chesterfield County. And I'm going to say amen. Amen. Mr. Chair, with your indulgence, I think if we could, and hopefully the audience would

[03:24:21] appreciate that we just take a moment for the five of you to pose together with Mrs. holland and then everyone that you thanked mrs holland um they're welcome to come up and presenters

[03:24:31] as well for come on down then please thank you we're doing many shots mrs holland don't worry

[03:25:27] this is like a wedding ceremony thank you if i could get the presenters to come up next and then everyone else will be the third shot will be the other people that you thanked and actually the

[03:25:44] fourth shot could be as much as the fire marshal allows up here presenters please well then uh all

[03:26:20] those people you recognize, Christmas mother, church, friends of the library, the person you're giving the car and the house to, they're welcome to come on up. A.K.A. sisters, of course, please.

[03:26:35] Everybody that, um, That might be good.

[03:27:15] I'll turn it back to you to finish your...

[03:29:59] Sure, Mr. Chair. There's only three more things, and as people are exiting, I do want to just end on when I was... My professional ethics and personal is to have let the five supervisors know when I was retiring and go through that individual conversation, but I did call a sixth person in honor of Mr. Holland and had that conversation as well before anyone else knew.

[03:30:23] So I just want you to know that. And with that said, I only have three other items. These shall all be fairly brief, but hopefully purposeful. If I could have the CHASM CEO, Shelley Marin, to speak, come to the podium. As you know, just, and again, this is something that Mr. Holland, which, again, the Dell District at the fairgrounds and what they do over the Thanksgiving holiday with all the volunteers, all the food, all the caring, and not just food, but the ways in which they can other help families get through more than just that weekend.

[03:30:57] Ms. Morin. Thank you so much for allowing us to be here to talk to you tonight. I deeply appreciate it. So just to talk to you a little bit about CHASM, we're a very small nonprofit that's been around for 37 years, and we provide support to many families in Chesterfield County.

[03:31:18] We started in Chesterfield County and have expanded to also serve Colonial Heights, Petersburg, Hopewell, Dinwiddie, and Prince George counties. We work with two people, myself and another person. That's our entire operation. And we work to provide emergency food pantry appointments to 12 area food pantries six days a week, as well as since 2022, our Project DASH for individuals who are 65 and older, disabled, or simply have no transportation.

[03:31:52] Our theory is you could live one mile from a food pantry and you not have any transportation and you live in a food desert. So we are working and that has exploded over since 2022. We're very proud of that program that CHASM also supports and pays for.

[03:32:11] So, I wanted to talk to you just a little bit about what we do. We provide emergency, also utility assistance. We get money from the CDBG grant in Chesterfield County to provide emergency help for families who are experiencing a hardship, who have to decide between making bill payments, making rent payments, and we have been able to help over half of our grant so far this year, over $20,000 in utility help.

[03:32:42] We helped during the fiscal year 24-25, over 26,000 individuals between all of our services. And our largest program is probably our Thanksgiving event, which is held at the Chesterfield County Fairgrounds. And it is a massive event.

[03:33:00] And every year, I stress myself out completely and think, this isn't going to happen. And nobody's going to donate anything, as you can see from that first blank picture, when we start out. But it does come together, thank goodness. so and a lot of that is with the help of people from Chesterfield County and we would not be able to do this without that support so we start off we provide as many gift bags non-perishable food bags to as many families as we can we open it up based on pledges and based on donations during the year and we go to the fairgrounds we get donations Monday and Tuesday preparing for that

[03:33:39] if you look for the pictures, you see we get many bags Monday and Tuesday. We pack and repack. I want to thank Chesterfield County especially for instituting the policy that Chesterfield County employees could donate time. That has been invaluable to help us and also foster that good spirit of helping your neighbor. We worked with the Chesterfield County Food Bank because we're a virtual organization. We do have our home base at Chester Baptist Church, but I didn't have anywhere to put all the 600 bags that Chasm had to buy. So they were wonderful and they actually

[03:34:14] helped me store food and then deliver that to us. That was a huge benefit. So we're very appreciative of that. So we start, we pack up bags, we get those right back out as soon as we pack them up Tuesday and Wednesday. We worked with partners to deliver bags to Bright Point Community College, Petersburg Community Resource Center, City Point Restoration Church in Hopewell, and the fairgrounds were four delivery hubs because we felt like we couldn't leave out people who normally got deliveries during the year and then to say, you're not allowed to get a food pantry, a bag, and a gift card because you can't get here.

[03:34:50] So we worked and we delivered to over, I think we had about over 275 deliveries that we did. We also gave to different types of groups, senior groups. We had the veteran groups in Petersburg.

[03:35:07] Communities and Schools is one of our largest organizations, both all through Petersburg, the Tri-Cities, as well as Chesterfield County. We had over 57 different pre-pickup groups come Thursday and Friday, and we were able to deliver in that day, Thursday and Friday, over 2,041 families.

[03:35:29] So we had a great event, even though it did rain. We had some great CERT volunteers. I want to give a big shout out to them. They were phenomenal. Law enforcement helped us, and we got through it. And Chesterfield, we had Thomas Dale Key Club that helped us and cheered us on one as we were getting through the day.

[03:35:49] And our impact was pretty phenomenal. We had 3,129 meal bags with $20 grocery gift cards. We had the most, if you can tell, in 48% through Chesterfield County. and then we had the different counties as well represented.

[03:36:06] It would not be possible without the support of Chesterfield County and the money that you give Chasm to keep us going. We're very small, but we try to be mighty, and I deeply appreciate it. And I just want to say, after listening to all your moving talks about Mr. Holland, I only had a chance to meet him twice, and I've been in this position for two years.

[03:36:29] And I can remember I was at Transformation Church last year, and he and his wife just came through and talked to me like they'd known me for years. And we're like, we need to make sure we take care of Chasm. And I was blown away by that kind of support and genuine caring about somebody.

[03:36:49] And I asked my parents, I grew up in Chester, I'm like, do you know who this person is? And my parents go, absolutely. Like, here are my parents, Chesterfield residents, absolutely know who Mr. Holland is. Made a big impact. My dad worked at DuPont. So he, you know, I couldn't believe it, to be quite honest.

[03:37:06] And I do appreciate all the generosity that everybody has shown from Chesterfield to help us get through this. So I appreciate your time, and y'all have a nice evening. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Morin.

[03:37:28] Next, I have J.C. Poma, the Executive Director of our Sports Visitation Entertainment, with some just exciting news for participatory events for our citizens to participate in and some other good news that's coming out of his shop for all of Chesterfield. Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey, thank you for the intro.

[03:37:48] You know, we're still in an era of a lot of news, as you call it. New things, new initiatives, new marketing campaigns for the county. I won't get up here every year and share a new marketing campaign, but we have a lot of exciting things coming up here in the future.

[03:38:03] The first, you probably remember, and Dr. Hilton, I'm sure I'll brief you on Monday about some of these things, but spoke to many of you about our first campaign and I think Dr. Miller especially you challenged this department from a tourism standpoint and your background in the regional tourism efforts of how we can get new visitors to Chesterfield County. We know sports tourism is a gateway to the county.

[03:38:28] Mr. Schneider you know you all know the the benefit of River City Sportsplex on our community but we're really focusing on that next level of engagement and I I wanted to start, you remember the holiday campaign that I showed you. I'd still like to say the success of this campaign is due to the models that dropped out and the models that had to jump in for the photo and videos of this campaign, but it went extremely well.

[03:38:53] We're coming off, Ms. Schneider, Dr. Miller, you were out there for the Tacky Light Run. That was a record-setting Tacky Light Run. And as a backdrop for this holiday campaign, we are a family-friendly destination, Listening to the citizen satisfaction survey, from a tourism standpoint, we are a family-friendly destination.

[03:39:14] And that's exactly what these campaigns are meant to showcase. The campaign was such a big success that I wanted to show you results of a very intentional effort of how we can get new people to Chesterfield and positively impact our business community.

[03:39:30] For the investment that we made, partnered with Virginia Tourism Corporation from a grant program we received, a very intentional campaign for basically 60 days leading up to the Tacky Light Run, showcasing Chesterfield as a family-friendly quality destination.

[03:39:48] This campaign, we can only truly measure about 33% of results from these campaigns. But of essentially 33% of the results we can measure, a campaign of this magnitude directly equated to 820 hotel night stays, 25,612 destination visits by basically that's what you would call your transient travel, your leisure travel visitors, which also resulted in 229 flight bookings into the RIC airport commission.

[03:40:20] And I say that very intentionally. Again, we can positively impact the next visitor at Chesterfield County to spend money through these very intentional efforts. When you look at ROI, and really to Mr. Harris's world, when you look at where we are spending limited budget, for every $1 we invested on this campaign, and again, 33% of the metrics we can only track, that's a 1 to 15 ratio.

[03:40:45] For every dollar we spend, we're getting $15 back into our community. And again, that's really about one-third of what we can track. So this campaign, at minimum, had a half a million dollars in economic impact on our community. On the next front, I thank all of you for your support every year.

[03:41:05] Both parks and recreation and sports visitation and entertainment have focused on quality of life events for our community, for our residents. One of those is the Chesterfield Outdoor Fest, and to the surprise of all of our department, it was named as one of the best new festivals by the USA Today.

[03:41:22] Voting is open for the Outdoor Fest through December 22nd, and we are currently in fifth place out of, or as of yesterday, we're in fifth place out of 20 special events around the country, largely places Los Angeles, New York City. So to have Chesterfield on the map, again, just showcases what these events and what the quality of life means to our residents.

[03:41:44] Finally, two really last things for you. You'll see tomorrow, and thank you all again for your support of the Hall of Fame, we'll be announcing our third class with four tremendous folks, Larissa, Morgan Moses, Stan Morgan, and Will Bates, four extremely well-known names in our community that we wanted to share with you first before it goes out tomorrow.

[03:42:04] At the same time, I cannot thank Dr. Murray, Dr. Phillips enough on the school sides for their partnership in kicking off the first scholar-athlete class. The reason we moved the Hall of Fame to April was to better coincide with the end of the school year to be able to story tell about our residents and our scholar-athletes here in Chesterfield County.

[03:42:24] I know we're short on time. I won't let the record show all 22 names, but perhaps after April we can potentially have these 22 fine folks in for a picture with all of you. But I was there at CBS when they filmed all their segments, and it's pretty breathtaking what all these kids are doing in their scholastic and athletic careers.

[03:42:49] So on Friday, April 17th, at the Stonebridge Recreation Center now, we will honor both our four inductees and these 22 finalists. I cannot thank Virginia Credit Union and 804 Travel enough for their support to be able to allow us to award these student-athletes scholarships for what they have done.

[03:43:08] And on the last note, I had to say happy birthday to two of our fine community members here in Chesterfield County. Christmas Mother program through Cole, a first birthday celebration and cupcakes and all. And as you all know, Poppy has been a huge draw for Chessfield as, again, quality of life and a tourism destination. So on a much lighter note, happy birthday. Thank you for all you've done to support all of these initiatives this year. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Poma. And last but not least, if Carolyn

[03:43:47] Jensen could come to the podium. She's been the assistant director for our public library since 2016 and has been working with Chesterfield since 2008, known statewide and nationally for some of the awards we've gotten for the creative and innovative services we provide. She was a key person during COVID, quite frankly, that enabled our libraries ahead of most other institutions to stay open for our people. And I applaud her for that specific effort. But our tradition is anytime that we have a new director that we want to introduce them to the public at the next meeting.

[03:44:20] So in keeping that with tradition, Ms. Jensen is here before you. Thank you, Dr. Casey. I will be very brief. I think most of us have seen a lot of me recently, and you will continue to see a lot of me going into the future, which is a great thing. That's what a library director should do, and I plan to do that. I thank you. I thank county administration for entrusting the future of the library system uh to me and the team here i promise you you will continue to see all the wonderful things that you already see from this library system and and even more um you know

[03:44:58] we all know that libraries improve lives everyone's life doesn't matter who you are where you are from and we are deeply committed to continuing to do that and um i just want to thank you and look forward to working with you thank you that concludes my report thank you item 12 board member reports? Ms. Snyder, it looks like you're up first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right. So the first one, Dr. Casey was here for this briefly, and Chief Carpenter and his wife were there also

[03:45:38] for the 15th Annual Excellence in Leadership Awards. It was so many amazing dance performances. So this is their Excellence in Leadership Award hosted by the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce. The event honored outstanding Asian American entrepreneurs and featured, like I said, cultural performances that were from all of the different areas and regions of Asia. And it was, I have some amazing videos I wish I could share, but yeah, so it was a great evening.

[03:46:19] So I have the honor of being on the board at Maymont and we had our annual holiday gathering and it was at the nature center at Maymont and we got to see the baby porcupettes and the otters that they just have.

[03:46:37] But we are going through a very huge, we just finished a capital campaign. There's gonna be some exciting, they're just starting to move the furniture back into the mansion that's been out for a year and a half because we've been under a lot of construction, replacing the roof and redoing some of the interiors and the facility, the HVAC and stuff like that, as well as extending the nature trail and adding some new animals.

[03:47:06] So it's gonna be an awesome new year for May months. So there's gonna be, the opening of the house will be in April and I believe in May is the new animals at the trail. So look forward to that this year for everyone.

[03:47:24] So this was, I joined my fellow YMCA boards. Mr. Ingle was there also with his board from Chester Y, and I'm on the board at Manchester Y. This was just our gathering to celebrate all of our year's achievements and the Chester area holiday party.

[03:47:45] So proud to serve on the Manchester Y. We do a weekly food distribution there. The welcome committee, it's just a great organization. these are my fellow board members. So I did go to do some shopping with some of the Christmas mother recipients this year. Did you shop also with people? Okay, sorry. I see a picture next to mine. I didn't know that you were there also. So that's awesome. It was such a great experience.

[03:48:24] This time of year, it's just awesome to be able to, it's the smallest things. And when I was a single mother the first time. The first Christmas I had with my kids, I didn't have enough money to buy stuff. And someone sent me a box with Christmas presents and a cashier's check for $100. And I never knew who that came from until 10 years later, my aunt told me it was her. And it was just, I guess you don't know until you know. So it's a great thing to be able to give this to so many

[03:48:59] people in the community. This was an awesome event that Lego has been doing. They mentioned it today in their report that they gave us. This is Build to Give, and they get a new organization. This year it was for the Children's Museum here in Chesterfield. Last year it was the YMCA at Manchester, and they donate a bunch of Legos, and they invite the community to come and build these heart-shaped ornaments or there's a bunch of other structures that they built and every time one is

[03:49:39] taken, a picture is taken of one and shared with the tag, they give another box of Legos to someone else. So it's a great community event and that's my heart that I made there right next to me. So that was, it's an awesome event. Kids are so creative. This was the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 25th anniversary. Mark was there. You stopped by. I think we all forgot to get a picture together, but I, so I'm sorry about that. But this was a great, they had some great community,

[03:50:19] some talks early in the morning about energy and housing and education. Just, it's so interesting to hear the, they had some feature Hispanic people in those specialties talking about how it's affecting their communities. And it's always great to get different perspectives.

[03:50:39] And we got to be with the former mayor there. That's awesome. It's the first black mayor of, or excuse me, governor, excuse me, mayor, sorry, the mayor and the governor. So Doug Wilder. Yeah. first black governor. So again, we could have used the other picture. I don't know. This is, this got said did. We didn't take a picture together. We were all at the event for Mr.

[03:51:09] Holland at Virginia State. This was one that Kim and Laquan and I got with the president before we left. So it was such a wonderful emotional ceremony and so well-deserved for Mr. Holland to receive that honorary award or degree.

[03:51:32] And Judith was just so emotional and honored to be there. So it was a great day. And I think that's it, sir. Thank you. Dr. Hilton, I think you're next. So I completed my term with Partnership for Housing Affordability.

[03:51:53] I was their vice chair. I just want to say thank you to them for having me on the board for three years. When you sit in this type of position, you have to come off the board. So it was one of those difficult boards that I had to come off of.

[03:52:13] But, you know, I'm glad that I'll be here with the knowledge of how important affordable housing is. And I'll kind of tie this to another slide. But in Sworenton, we went to another locality. I won't mention that locality.

[03:52:28] But when you talk about economic development, and I said this last night in our planning commission meeting, a company wanted to come there, but the locality didn't have enough affordable housing there.

[03:52:43] They didn't have enough what they call bed spaces there. And so that locality didn't get picked. So when we talk about affordable housing, it also impacts economic development and the viability that a locality has to attract more job and employment opportunities to the locality.

[03:53:05] So we want to, and I understand my board colleagues understand this. So, you know, I just ask that, you know, we continue to push forward with affordable housing. In addition to that, January 22nd at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture Arts, there will be a state of housing.

[03:53:27] So I've been for the past few years there. You can come and learn about affordable housing. I would say Google Partnership for Housing Affordability and their website has the link to RSVP for the conference.

[03:53:44] Well, the event, State of Housing, is usually about three or four hours and ends with a very nice reception. So I would encourage people to come to that. So Nash Road opened up. I've been getting a lot of text messages and emails about how glad people are that utilize the Nash Beach Road area in their ambition to get to Iron Bridge and when I say ambition at one

[03:54:17] point in time if the road closed you had to go all the way around I mean it was crazy and it was it was definitely something that needed to happen so I'm glad that we got that road that Nash Road Extension opened up. Tessie, and I just want to say thank you to you and your department and anybody else who had a hand in it. I know we had some challenges to work through there, and I appreciate how staff and everyone handled the graves that were there. If you all remember, we had a few

[03:54:51] community meetings about that. And what I like about Chesfield County is we just don't do things just to do them. It's very intentional. And I appreciate the concern that went into the grave sites. I appreciate the concern that went into the vats that we had to start the project a little early. We also had to relocate a veteran in order to get that road put in. And I just appreciate just the care the staff took with that and the transparency that they operated in.

[03:55:31] So I just want to say thank you for that and glad that that's open. I think we were the first people to ride down that road. So just really excited. Legally, yes. So probably about 20 years ago, I put on my list of goals that I wanted to do was to go through Sorensen, and I just kept moving it down on my list.

[03:56:01] And then finally last year I said, hey, I'm going to go ahead and do it. It was an amazing experience. We spent about 10 months together, or my cohort did. We went to, my notes say, 22 localities. It was very interesting to see certain things like how Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol Virginia worked together across state lines it was really good to go meet dairy farmers in Harrisonburg and understand what goes into their operation to talk to poultry farmers to go

[03:56:37] to northern Virginia understand how important bike trails are to them and their their their pursuit to get to work and when I say pursuit that it really is a pursuit to get to work up there and so we went to a lot of different places and I'm very grateful for the friendships that I made both at the local level and at the state level.

[03:57:00] We did also have some folks from the federal government so I'm very excited to be finished with the program but I hope that I can still stay engaged with what's going on across Virginia because I think it's an added bonus to understand what worked and what didn't work in other localities and how we can learn from those successes and those losses from other localities.

[03:57:23] So thank you all for the support on that. So I'm a Lancer at heart, Manchester all the way, but Bird is in my district, and the Great Dale District has Bird there.

[03:57:42] And so I was very happy to bring remarks on behalf of the Board of Supervisors and staff And congratulations to those who were inducted in the Hall of Fame there on Friday. It was a great event, well attended, and I was very happy to be there.

[03:58:02] So that was that. I got a tour of the LaPrade Library, so they're still stacking books. Well, I would say that the Dell folks will use the LaPrade Library.

[03:58:19] And we've had community meetings there previously, and I'm happy to say that we'll have more space to have more people in those community meetings. I'm happy to say that we'll have an outside space for folks who enjoy having outdoor atmospheres to read.

[03:58:38] I said it, and I think it's in one of my other colleagues' slides, but I attended the Friends of the Library event. And I will tell you, as a child of a single parent who was also in school at the same time, that if it wasn't for the library, I wouldn't be here today.

[03:58:58] My mom and I, we shared a computer, and I would have to handwrite my papers and then go up to the library and type them, because I didn't want to take away from my mom doing her college work to get where she had to be. So I'm grateful for the library. My kids have found it to be a great place to be also.

[03:59:18] We started out doing a summer going only once a week, and then that kind of got ramped up to three times a week, and them reading through books really quickly. So I hope that the community really sees the hard work that went into the library. I want to thank, and I don't see him here, but I see, is Clay here?

[03:59:38] Clay, I know Clay. We had folks from the library, John Neal. You know, the hard work that went into that library was amazing. And it's just a showcase of what happens when departments get together, which happens on a regular basis to make sure that we have what we need for our citizens.

[03:59:57] So I just want to take a moment to say thank you to them. So I did go to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event on Friday, but it was also a day that the superintendent breakfast was occurring also.

[04:00:17] So we are double-tapped a lot of times. This is not a part-time job at all. We laugh about it. Dr. Miller told me it was a 60-hour-a-week job, and I believe it because I live it. But I did get up early and go to the superintendent on breakfast.

[04:00:34] I went around and shook everyone's hand and thanked them for being there. The superintendent is also a Manchester graduate, and I pointed him and say that he's a little older than me. But he did put on a great breakfast and just thank the people in the school system that ensured that our kids are taken care of.

[04:00:55] So I just want to say thank him. Thanks to him for what he did. Next, I went to the Richmond Association of Realtors. I am a realtor, a proud realtor. And Dakia Knight, we went through a leadership program a few years ago with the Richmond Realtors.

[04:01:17] So she's a classmate of mine. She will now be the president of Richmond Realtors. And Rhonda Howell, I can't remember her name, she got married, but she's going to be the president of MLS. So I did go there and congratulate her.

[04:01:33] Realtors play a big part in what we do in the community and very big advocates of affordable housing. And this links into Partnership for Housing Affordability because that's a nonprofit that they work with and housed there at the same office.

[04:01:50] So I do want to thank the realtors for what they do. The next one is, so public safety. You know, what was interesting is that as I look at my priorities for the Dell District and what I want to advocate for here on the board is public safety.

[04:02:09] Anytime, as a realtor, when I talk to people, they say, is it a clean, um, is it a clean area? Is it safe? Um, you know, those are the most of the things that they ask where they just want people in a nice clean place to live that's safe. And, um, I really feel safe. Um, I went with Ms. Snyder and also, um, Chairman Engel. We were, um, we acted as crowd control, if you will, for exercise with not only Chesterfield, but other regents, um, here, in the area came to, including the state police,

[04:02:47] they came to understand how to do crowd control properly. And I will say that I was very impressed by all the localities and what they did and how to handle the training scenario. I'm in the Army, so anytime I get to work out is a great day.

[04:03:06] And so I started off one day this week working out with the fire department. We have some really top recruits. One of the guys is a West Point graduate, and he commanded the Air Assault School, so that's the type of talent that we're attracting in Chesterfield.

[04:03:22] He's going to be the next generation of public safety for us, and we're grateful for him. He wants to be one of the folks that repel and save people that we honor in our Valor Award. So I look forward to seeing him grow up in our public safety sector.

[04:03:42] Also went to the ECC, so that's if you call 911, those are the folks that answer. I went there on Thanksgiving Day. Just wanted to say thank you to them and toured their facility. They were in the midst of it, getting a lot of phone calls, and so didn't spend a lot of time with them, but I definitely understand what they're doing and how they're doing it.

[04:04:04] I'm grateful for them. I visited two fire stations, also had coffee with one fire station and then went to another one. You know, our airport is safe because one of the fire stations I went to, they respond quickly if there's an incident at the airport.

[04:04:23] And I also went to MedFlight. So MedFlight, if anybody needs MedFlight, it actually takes off from the airport. So we're grateful for them and what they do in conjunction with the state troopers. So, as I've been going around and touring, you know, I just want to say thank you to everyone and to say that I'm humbled by what we have service-wise in the county as I understand how different departments are responding to the needs of our citizens.

[04:04:56] So, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hilt. Mr. Carroll. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I've got to add something to this. So my wife and I, Leigh-Anne, every Thanksgiving or Christmas, we go to all the fire stations in our district and the police stations and deliver.

[04:05:21] If you've ever been to Costco, they have these huge pies that they sell at Costco. We started doing this back in 2019. It's usually Thanksgiving or Christmas. We go to all the stations. So this year we started out at Dispatch first, and then we went to Company 11.

[04:05:41] We went to 11, and you can see Laquan was there when we got there. What can I call you that, or should I say Dr. Hilton? Either one. Either one. And so he was there first, and we didn't know he was there when we walked in.

[04:05:57] It was great to see him, great to see him there, actually. And we went to that station because they lost a firefighter this year in a motorcycle crash. And I know it's not in the Matoka District, but I don't think Dr. Hilton minded me stopping by and land.

[04:06:13] There's no county funds used for this. Leanne and I pay for these parties out of our own pocket. I was a Chessville police officer for 32 years and a volunteer firefighter before that. And so I understand what it means to work on a holiday and not be with your family.

[04:06:30] And it's just a small way that Leanne and I say thank you to the firefighters and police officers. We went to 11, and then we went to Company 7, which is serviced by the Clover Hill District and Matoka District out on Hill Street.

[04:06:46] I think you went by there, too. Then we went to Hill Street Station. Then we went to 25, which is on Woolridge and Ottodale. And then from 25, we went to 19, 19, 13, 12, and finished up at 8. It took us about four and a half hours on Thanksgiving morning.

[04:07:05] But it's really important for us to support our public safety. And I will always be indebted to our firefighters because they helped me out through a very difficult time in my life and probably saved my life. truthfully, by forcing me to go to the hospital and get checked out, being the stubborn guy that I am.

[04:07:26] Next slide. So the Friends of the Chester County Public Library had a gala, was held a winner gala to celebrate all they have accomplished this past year and kick off their fundraising efforts for the upcoming year.

[04:07:42] The late Jim Holland, we didn't talk about this earlier, we probably should have, was posthumously awarded Lifetime Achievement and Government Award. The award honored Mr. Holland's distinguished service in government, Mr. Holland's wife, Judith, who you get to hear many great things from earlier, was here to accept the award on his behalf.

[04:08:02] We're very thankful for the Friends of Cheshire County Public Library, dedication to our community and our libraries, and they hold many different events throughout the year as a fundraiser to support the libraries, which we always try to attend. One of them is at a golf tournament that they usually hold at the Highlands.

[04:08:19] Next, I was honored to be invited to the Motoka Women's Club Christmas tree lighting. This is something they've been done for many years, right at the intersection of Pickett Avenue and River Road. There's something that they do.

[04:08:36] And I've got to tell you what was amazing about this. It was a huge crowd. But they had the first graders from the Motoki Elementary School there, and they actually sang Christmas carols. These kids were absolutely amazing. I couldn't remember all three Christmas carols that they did. And it was really just a really special event for the community.

[04:08:54] I appreciate their efforts to bring this forward. They work with the bank every year to do it. And I look forward to it next year. We all had the opportunity to attend the Valor Awards, which was held at the Convention Center.

[04:09:15] Eight Chessfield Fire and EMS firefighters who were members of the Virginia Task Force, eight Urban Search and Rescue team were recognized for life-saving work at this, which was the 25th Valor Awards, and we were all there. Firefighters received awards for three separate rescues that occurred while the team was deployed to Southwest Virginia during Hurricane Helene last year, over a 17-hour period.

[04:09:38] Valor RVA also took a moment to recognize Lieutenant Robert Talbot and firefighter Sammy Urshadat. Lieutenant Talbot passed away after a brief but violent fight with cancer. Firefighter Urshadat was killed in a crash while off-duty. Chesterfield Fire Enemes also invited a special guest to attend this year's awards, Mackenzie Price.

[04:09:58] She's a nine-year-old who helped her family escape a burning home last year. Several Chesterfield police officers were also honored. Five officers earned silver Valor awards and one officer earned a gold Valor award. The public safety personnel continue to make us proud, and we're grateful that there's selflessness and services to the community.

[04:10:15] I've said it before and I'll say it again. We have the best public safety. What Dr. Hilton said earlier about people wanting to live in a safe community, I think if you don't have a safe community, everything else is gone. You can have the nicest schools. You can have the nicest roads.

[04:10:32] It doesn't matter. If people don't feel safe, it's no good. And we repeatedly get quarterly reports from our chief of police and from our fire departments on the calls for service. And we are by far the safest community in probably of our size in the country, quite frankly.

[04:10:57] The Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 47, has been holding our annual Christmas with a Cop program since 1996. This was the first time that four members of a Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, a commonwealth attorney and our sheriff attended this event.

[04:11:22] The children who we get through the Head Start program were paired with law enforcement volunteers who helped them choose clothing and toys, all of this made possible through generous community donations to the Fratern Order of Police.

[04:11:40] These children, it makes a huge difference for them each year. We had 40 children to show. I think only two didn't show. And I'll be honest with you, years ago, and I've told this story, I was doing this when I was the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, and I took a young family, a mother with two young girls, and we went shopping, had a great time.

[04:12:00] I walked them out to the car, and the little girl looked up at me and asked me if I was coming home with them. I said, no. But that was so sweet. A year later, when I was in uniform at Chesfield Town Center, I ran into them, and those little girls remembered me.

[04:12:17] and they came up and gave me a big hug. So this program helps foster relationships with young kids who don't necessarily get to see public safety in a great light all the time so that they understand that the police officers, sheriff's deputies, they're their friends.

[04:12:35] They're not there to hurt them, not there to be their enemy. And I commend the Fraternal Order of Police for holding this. Like I said, I led that for many, many years when I was president of the organization. I want to thank all the board members. I know, Ms. Dingle, you were tied up in something else. But I want to thank all the board members who came and participated in that.

[04:12:53] And the only thing I want to add to the Nash Road extension, you know, there was an article in BizSense that it cost $35 million for one mile for that road. But if you looked at that picture, it was a massive bridge that had to be built over top of Swift Creek to make that road extension work, which was the biggest cost of that project.

[04:13:13] But what Dr. Hilton said was true. If you were coming towards the courthouse on Beach Road and there was a crash in the bottom, which happened a lot, you had to turn around and go back to Nash Road and loop all the way around to get to Lewis Road to get back out on Route 10, or you had to loop all the way around to Spring Run and loop all the way around the Newbies Bridge to get back out that way.

[04:13:34] Now, if something happens, there are two avenues for people to go to here. And also, in August of 2020, when we had the huge flood, that road was flooded there, too, and people couldn't get through there. So I know it's an expensive project, but I think that it's going to be – I've already seen the difference it makes in the morning with queuing on Nash Road.

[04:13:56] It used to back up past Applewhite Lane, and now it doesn't do that. Mr. Chair, that's my report. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Dr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Carroll, I want to pick up on a theme of what you were saying about fostering relationships.

[04:14:16] A lot of what we do, the reason for these reports, is to give you all a sense of how we foster relationships in the community. It's not about just sitting up here. My God, it's not just about sitting up here. It's about being out in the community and being able to understand what's going on so that we can do our jobs effectively and efficiently.

[04:14:36] And so when we're out there and we're talking and fostering those relationships, that's what it's all about. And I kind of want to speak to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Jessica Laquan, that we attended. That was down at the Jefferson. And what was interesting about, as far as leadership is concerned, of the neighboring counties who was there and more importantly who wasn't there and i think it's incredibly important that you all recognize that what we do is we need to understand not what is happening in chesterfield but we need to get our heads around what's happening around the whole community so if we're

[04:15:12] talking about affordable housing or we're talking about energy generation or if we're talking about workforce development all of those things being with hispanic chamber during that period of time was so important to give us a feel about being able to develop those relationships.

[04:15:28] That's the reason with the Bonaire Sheltering Arms Institute ribbon cutting. This is incredibly important in that they just opened up a just completely renovated area about rehab, and they've just done a wonderful job.

[04:15:45] And so we're lucky enough to have this in our community. We're lucky to have it. It's off of Providence Road. Bonaire Sheltering Arms is well-known up and down the entire East Coast, so when folks are needing rehab, they know that Sheltering Arms here in Bonaire is one of the places that they can go, and that they can heal, and they can work with physical therapists, with occupational therapists.

[04:16:11] There's a swimming pool there, and we're talking about some of the best in the business, and they're here in Chesterfield. So why is that important, not just for the rehab, not just because of that, but making sure that when the families are coming here from North Carolina, that we have a hotel that's here that can be able to support the rest of the family as they're there with the loved ones.

[04:16:31] So that's the reason why there'll be a hotel that's going to go in there, but it's going to also be a residence in so that we're able to support sheltering arms and be able to support the families that are coming from far away. Happy to report and I'm very proud to report that we have broken ground on the Hilton and Springline District 60. This hotel is really important for Chesterfield because this conference center is going to complement Springline District 60's residential retail office space and

[04:17:11] entertainment space and it's going to help the county to meet and demand for lodging as we continue to grow in tourism, in special events, in sports entertainment activities. This kind of event, this kind of development, some folks have difficulty understanding, yeah, we did give a very nice incentive to Neal Amin, who was going to put this in.

[04:17:36] But understand that doing something like this, what was sitting there for 25 years, was the best products building that was sitting there forever. And so we needed to move the process forward.

[04:17:51] I'm appreciative of the EDA that we can make the numbers work. And now that area is going to start to thrive again, instead of just sitting as empty. I was speaking to this too. I was sitting and spending time with our fire and police.

[04:18:09] And one of the things they said was, This was a very dangerous area. It was right up along Richmond, and what was occurring was there was a lot of nefarious things that were happening in that building. And now we have completely revitalized it and so excited to have this now.

[04:18:24] And it's gonna set the bar as we move forward, going west, up, when we go through the revitalization of the whole District 60, the whole Midlothian Turnpike area going toward Cheshirefield Town Center. And now many of you may know, with a lot of work of this board and myself to see if we could get Chesterfield Town Center moving forward.

[04:18:46] So now it's not gonna play second fiddle to what's happening at Short Pump because some of you may know, the previous owners owned both places. Now when you own both places, what are you gonna do? You're gonna send them to Short Pump and that's what was happening and we were really getting undercut.

[04:19:05] So now the Chesterfield Town Center has sold, Now we can move forward with what that area can look like and having Hilton at Springline District 60 on one end and bookend it with Chesterfield Town Center, we have an opportunity to really revitalize the whole Midlothian corridor.

[04:19:28] Jessica and I, we were at the Tacky Light Run. This is a big deal for Midlothian, for Chesterfield County, for Clover Hill. This year's Tacky Light Run was a huge success. As Sportsbackers board member and runner myself, it's always exciting to see our community get outside and be active in such a fun and festive way.

[04:19:51] Kudos to Walton Park for what they do every year to pull it together. I'm telling you, if you haven't participated in it, it's a really big deal. I also want to mention, because I don't think it's in any of the board reports, it's about the tree lightings. And I want to put out an appreciation to Jerry Turner and Wanda, for you showed up at all five.

[04:20:14] No, did you guys only hit four? You have it in my life. Oh, I'm stealing it from you. I'm sorry. But I do want to appreciate you all for showing up. What I would appreciate about you two is that you show up at every meeting, and you stay for the entire meeting.

[04:20:30] And you are here, and you're supporting us. So whenever you're speaking, at least I can speak for myself. I know what kind of energy and love you're putting into Chestervale County. You don't just show up to one thing and then walk out and pretend that nothing else exists. You all work really, really hard to get your head around Chestervale County.

[04:20:48] And I really appreciate your citizenship. I really appreciate you guys showing up. So thank you for that. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Miller. Thank you for working on my last slide. You're welcome. Before we go to my first slide, I had a couple things that aren't in my slides.

[04:21:10] Last Friday, I had the opportunity to go and support Bob Dunn, who's represented Chesterfield County on CVWMA for 35 years, and they were recognizing that time that he spent as a volunteer, unpaid, to represent Chesterfield County on that CVWMA.

[04:21:35] So I just wanted to give a shout out to him and 35 years of volunteer service to the county. And to another slide that Ms. Snyder had, the Christmas mother, I was also able to help out in the distribution, one of the distribution days.

[04:21:53] But what really stood out to me, honestly, there was many volunteers in there which made that work for many people that needed that help for Christmas, but also involved in that is the sheriff's department and our inmates.

[04:22:12] They were a vital role, the inmates played a vital role in making sure that these citizens were served, that the items that were picked for their families were properly put into the right bins and made it to their cars so that they could take them home to their children.

[04:22:30] And I just want to give a shout out to people that are incarcerated that are taking the time to serve the community. I thought that was awesome. So I just, I'm ready for my first slide now. All right.

[04:22:45] So my board colleagues and I were able to co-host a legislative breakfast with our school counterparts earlier this month. It was great to see familiar faces and meet with some of the new faces that will be representing in Chesterfield County at state level in this next 2026 session.

[04:23:04] We were able to share several key topics for the county and schools, but some of them were unfunded mandates, more ability for the localities to make decisions at the local level, and funding the JLARC study for schools.

[04:23:33] And I can tell you that every board member has received multiple emails from our citizens to the state advocating to fund the JLARC study.

[04:23:48] And I believe that came from our PTA that was involved at the legislative breakfast hearing our call. Four years ago, we would have never had a meeting with the school board to do anything together.

[04:24:04] quite frankly, and now we not only are meeting together, but we are advocating together, and now we have our citizens working together with us to advocate that the state properly fund the school positions and other funding for schools that, quite frankly, is their responsibility, that they have not done well overall, and that has caused an additional burden on our citizens at the local level.

[04:24:38] So it was just phenomenal to have that opportunity. I believe that our state delegation was listening to us. We will know and we'll be watching with the votes that come forward in this next legislative session, but we're optimistic that they will advocate at the state level for our priorities.

[04:25:03] Next slide, please. Night and day infusion center. I was happy to be invited to the ribbon-cutting for a brand-new business here in Chesterfield County, and it's in the Bermuda District. They're a family-owned business offering a variety of services like cryotherapy, IV infusions, and more.

[04:25:27] I want to thank them for coming to Chesterfield County and providing services that apparently are available in many other places in the country, but not as much in this area and not as much in Chesterfield County. So I'm glad to see us branching out into other areas to have businesses to better serve our community.

[04:25:50] Next slide, please. State of the County. Dr. Casey and a panel of other county leaders presented the 2025 State of the County. It wasn't really an address. It was more of a panel discussion about how different departments work together to serve the community.

[04:26:13] The presentation highlighted the county's latest achievements, major investments, and community-focused initiatives that are shaping our future. And this video is available on the county's YouTube page, so if you would like to go back and watch it, I highly encourage it.

[04:26:30] And finally, the tree lighting. What Dr. Miller didn't share is that one board member had perfect attendance, and that was Dr. Miller. And I believe Mr. Carroll and the Turners tied for second.

[04:26:54] So I definitely had that in my notes to make sure that I recognized the Turners. And we have several members from the community that come to a lot of events. But it really does mean a lot when you not only come to a board meeting to share your thoughts on different things with us, but you also show up in the community and you advocate for the areas that you live in, you advocate for areas that you don't live in.

[04:27:24] And again, we have several, I know Renee's here tonight, we've had several others, even And David's been visiting us a lot more this year. And we recognize that when people show up, not just to come to a board meeting, but to all the events and to learn more about the county.

[04:27:46] And we appreciate all the citizens that take that time. So from the Board of Supervisors to the county, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah. And if there's anything else you celebrate in this time and season, we wish you a happy and good time with that and a happy new year.

[04:28:09] And that concludes the Board of Reports. Happy Holidays from the Chesapeake County Board of Supervisors.

[04:28:28] We hope the holiday season brings you peace, joy, and hope. This time of year reminds us of what truly matters. Lifting one another up, finding joy in shared community, and extending compassion and kindness to others. 2025 has been filled with accomplishments we can all be proud of.

[04:28:45] The county remains strong and stable because of the commitment and connection of the very people who call Chesterfield home. As we look ahead to the new year, we do so with gratitude for all we have achieved as a community and with optimism for what lies ahead.

[04:29:03] Together, we continue to build a county that is vibrant, thriving, and full of opportunity for everyone. From my family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. From my family to yours, I hope you have a very, very Merry Christmas.

[04:29:22] From the Hilton family, may your holiday season be safe and happy. And may 2026 find you with laughter and love. On behalf of myself and Leanne, we wish everyone a happy holiday, a safe holiday. From my family to yours, may your holidays be filled with laughter and love.

[04:29:41] So on behalf of the Miller household, my wife, Jennifer, and myself wish you only the happiest of holidays. Item 13, resolutions and special recognitions.

[04:29:59] A, resolution recognizing Boy Scout upon attaining rank of Eagle Scout, Mr. Goode. J.R., please come forward of the Midlothian District and join Dr. Miller on stage.

[04:30:15] Mr. Quimby is here tonight to be recognized for the very prestigious honor of having attained the rank of Eagle Scout. Thank you. Madam Clerk, can you please read the resolution?

[04:30:51] Yes, sir. Whereas the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by Mr. William D. Boyce on February 8, 1910, and was chartered by Congress in 1916. And whereas the Boy Scouts of America was founded to build character, provide citizenship training, and promote physical fitness.

[04:31:10] And whereas after earning at least 21 merit badges and a wide variety of skills, including leadership, service in outdoor life, serving in a leadership position in a troop, carrying out a service project beneficial to their community, being active in the troop, demonstrating scout spirit, and living up to the scout oath and law, Mr. Harrison Quimby of Troop 800, sponsored by Bethel Baptist Church, has accomplished those high standards of commitment and has reached the long-sought goal of Eagle Scout, which is received by only 4% of those individuals entering the scouting movement, and whereas growing through his experiences in scouting,

[04:31:50] learning the lessons of responsible citizenship, and endeavoring to prepare himself for a role as a leader in society, Harrison has distinguished himself as a member of a new generation of prepared young citizens of whom we can all be very proud. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors this 17th day of December 2025, publicly recognizes Mr. Harrison Quimby, extends congratulations on his attainment of Eagle Scout, and acknowledges the good fortune of the county to have such an outstanding young man as its citizen.

[04:32:27] Can I get a motion? So moved. All in favor? Aye. So Harrison, before you get an opportunity to speak and introduce who you're with, I just want to take a moment, and I want to appreciate you.

[04:32:53] One of the things that says in the resolution is that only 4% of the individuals that get involved with Boy Scouts actually follow through to Eagle Scout. What that means is 96% of those who maybe even started out don't. I think it's really important just to recognize that what you have accomplished is a big deal.

[04:33:14] Accomplished so much, in fact, that we would do a resolution for it. I want to congratulate that, congratulate all the work that you've done and what you've done, and to give you, the reason I want to give it to you is that, you know, it's so important that we pass down those things that are important to us, and that's what your folks here have done, and here you are.

[04:33:47] So congratulations, and we're really proud of you, and what you bring is a lot of distinction to our district, to Midlothian, so thank you. Good evening, everybody. I would just like to start out by saying thank you to Dr. Miller and the Board of Supervisors for having me here tonight.

[04:34:08] So my project was building a set of, sorry, I'm here with my parents and my grandparents in the audience. I really couldn't have done it without them. They were a big help with me. They helped me all the way.

[04:34:24] and so my project was building a set of benches with a storage compartment for the Bethel Baptist Church our charter organization their playground and the first picture was a picture of the work site and here we have and here's a picture of some of the scouts in my troop helping me build the benches and then here's kind of a final product and a picture of everybody who was at

[04:34:58] my work day helping me and better picture of the final product mr ingo also came to uh gave to me a challenge coin for chesterfield county want to give that to you also uh again congratulations happy holidays and uh just be safe out there we'll have an incredible 2026 sound cool all right

[04:35:21] trisha thank you yeah thank you i guess i'm staying up here the resolution recognizing mr Scott Hall, Utilities Department, upon his retirement.

[04:35:46] Will Mr. Hall and his guests please join the board on the stage?

[04:36:14] Madam Clerk, will you read the resolution? Yes, sir. Whereas Mr. Scott Hall will retire from Chesterfield County on January 1, 2026 as the chief plant operator at Proctor's Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant after providing 43 years of dedicated service to the residents of Chesterfield County, and whereas Mr.

[04:36:40] Hall began his service to the citizens of Chesterfield County in 1982 as a plant operator trainee, and whereas Mr. Hall demonstrated tremendous work ethic, high standards, and exceptional dedication throughout his career, and whereas Mr. Hall's extensive knowledge and experience have made him an indispensable resource and a valued mentor to staff and colleagues across the department, and whereas Mr. Hall motivated his staff to strive for excellence while promoting an environment of continuous improvement and operator safety, and whereas Mr. Hall exhibited tremendous skill in plant operations and maintenance and

[04:37:17] provided enthusiastic input in planning and implementing capital improvement projects, and whereas Mr. Hall was recognized for earning numerous awards for Chesterfield County's wastewater treatment plants, including the 2024 National Association of Clean Water Agency's Peak Performance Platinum Award for excellent treatment with no violations in the preceding five years, and whereas Mr. Hall will be sorely missed by an appreciative department which wishes him the best as he enjoys a well-deserved retirement marked by more time spent with family and traveling.

[04:37:54] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors this 17th day of December 2025 publicly recognizes Mr. Scott Hall and extends on behalf of its members and the residents of Chesterfield County appreciation for 43 years of exceptional service to the County and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be presented to Mr. Hall and that this resolution be permanently recorded among the papers of the Board of Supervisors of

[04:38:22] Chesterfield County, Virginia. I get a motion. All in favor? Aye. Wow. 43 years. Did you start when you were nine? I think we might have broke some labor laws when you started. Well, they probably didn't have any back then but um that two weeks out of high school wow that's a that's a good run 43 years i i can't tell you how much we thank you for what you've done for us um you know it's it's

[04:39:00] very important that clean water flows into our homes and that clean water our much cleaner water flows back into our rivers and we thank you for um your part in making that happen thank you mr Chair, Board of Supervisors, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to recognize Scott Hall, Chief Plant Operator for the Procter's Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

[04:39:28] On behalf of a very appreciative department, we want to thank you for your 43 years. Thank your wife for lending him to us all this time. Scott was an instrumental part of our department and our operations. Scott stepped foot at Procter's Creek as a very young man to cut grass and is a model employee of what hard work and dedication can do where he jumped into plant operations excelled through the ranks assumed increasing levels of responsibility completing his career at the pinnacle of plant operations as the chief at Proctor's Creek he has won numerous awards for Chesterfield County

[04:40:04] and really the environmental stewardship goals that we have as a county Scott is an instrumental part of how we reach those goals so on behalf of an appreciative department I want to thank you and congratulate you on your retirement well uh doing all those years i have to work till 95 i think to get those same words in the resolution and that's not happening um you know we get a lot of credit and a lot of press and media attention for water um you know and and but they don't realize you may not realize

[04:40:37] i think it's 27 million gallons per day come your way um and it's and you do something with it i have no idea what it is but you make it better before you put it back in the river and and as we talk more and more about what we're trying to do in Chesterfield County and being a leader and innovator you've actually positioned and done such a good job down there that you know we may actually have one of the largest reuse facilities that the state of Virginia has ever seen and I know the Board of Supervisors has been very supportive of utilities and the various projects to position Proctor's Creek wastewater treatment plant but you know you've been

[04:41:13] downhill gravity for first for 40 plus years so wherever you live just kind of live uphill a little bit more and enjoy the view so again on behalf of Chesterfield County what we have is is a is a brick that has his name and his tenure and it will be placed in front of the historic courthouse steps and then this is a replica of that same brick for you to have forever just to to recognize it and that dash between those two years is quite a dash and we can go on and on about all the recognitions and accolades that the wastewater treatment plant should get.

[04:41:51] But, you know, I just want to say personally, we are so, so thankful for what you've done and really position your successors in the next generation to hopefully do as good as you have, sir. So if you wouldn't mind talking and introducing your better half here, you may need someone to hold all that for you.

[04:42:10] There you are. So this is my wife, Debbie. I would not have had success without her. And my position, my career would not have been successful without the county and the utility department providing me with the tools and resources I needed to get to where I am today.

[04:42:31] Thank you.

[04:42:31] C, resolution recognizing Mr. Mitchell W. Reed, Utilities Department, upon his retirement.

[04:43:41] Will Mr. Reed and his guests please join the board on the stage?

[04:43:56] Clerk, can we get you to read the resolution?

[04:44:24] Yes, sir. Mr. Mitchell W. Reed will retire from Chesterfield County on January 1, 2026 as the Wastewater Operations Manager for the Utilities Department after providing 42 years of dedicated service to the residents of Chesterfield County.

[04:44:43] Who's finding the store? Whereas Mr. Reed began his service to the citizens of Chesterfield County in 1983 as an equipment operator before being promoted to crew chief, then supervisor, and ultimately wastewater operations manager in the wastewater collection section.

[04:45:03] And whereas Mr. Reed committed his team towards continuous improvement by always seeking efficiencies in all aspects of work. And whereas Mr. Reed started numerous programs in the wastewater collection section, including the county's air release valve maintenance program and monthly spot checking and cleaning program.

[04:45:22] And whereas Mr. Reed was commended for his efforts in establishing the environmental management safety system that remains in use, and whereas Mr. Reed established the county's capacity, management, operation, and maintenance framework that prevents overflows and protects public health and the environment.

[04:45:41] And whereas Mr. Reed was instrumental in establishing construction standards that support a high quality of life through reliable wastewater service as a dedicated member of the Utilities Department Product Development Review Committee for over 19 years.

[04:45:57] And whereas Mr. Reed faithfully worked through all manner of crisis, rendering aid and expertise to countless departments over his remarkable career. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors this 17th day of December 2025 publicly recognizes Mr. Mitchell W. Reed and extends on behalf of its members and the residents of Chesterfield County appreciation for 42 years of exceptional service to the county.

[04:46:25] and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be presented to Mr. Reed and that this resolution be permanently recorded among the papers of the Board of Supervisors of Chesterfield County, Virginia. Can I get a motion? Kwon, and then all in favor?

[04:46:47] Aye.

[04:46:57] Well, I actually want to start off with a question to you. Have you trained some good people to follow behind y'all in the wastewater style? Well, I'm just saying, we can't let you leave us up Poops Creek.

[04:47:18] You know what I'm saying? That's 85 years of service and wastewater in Chesterfield County retiring. Thank you. Thank you for all that you've done, that both of you have done, to ensure, again, that the water going back to the river is in a condition.

[04:47:45] I know it's not potable, but I bet you it's better than it was when it came out of the river. So, for that, we thank you. And, wow, it's not often we lose a 42- and a 43-year person that quick.

[04:48:02] Thank you for your service. Thank you, Mr. Engel. And, again, thank you to the supervisors for allowing me to speak to recognize Mitchell Reed after his 42-year career and celebrate his retirement.

[04:48:19] For the public that may be concerned at home, I want to celebrate Mitchell and Scott, previously, both did a fantastic job with succession management. They built strong teams and foundations beneath them, and Chesapeake County's wastewater is in great hands moving into the future.

[04:48:36] Mitchell was an exemplary employee. Mitchell was always one to share a tale, an anecdote, bring a smile to somebody's face. And those skills, and really it was a dedication towards customer service, but people skills, are what resonate throughout Mitchell's career.

[04:48:52] When a customer calls because they're having a problem with their wastewater service and getting the wastewater from their homes to our treatment plants, they're having a bad day, and Mitchell was very aware of that and would go out of his way and instilled in his staff the mindset to go out of their way to make somebody's bad day better.

[04:49:10] Those are the lessons that resonate with me and resonate with the department. And so on behalf, again, of a very grateful department, I want to thank you for your long and very successful career with the department and wish you well and a long and happy retirement. This is a first of back-to-back people so long tenured, so long in a dedicated singular profession that is an essentiality 24-7, so I won't necessarily repeat it.

[04:49:38] For those that were here last month, we did recognize George Hazer, Utilities Director, who, again, is commended for many things publicly. And I just want to let both of you know we are actually replacing that position. You don't have to leave over that. I know that George was a good person, but, you know, we're going to do a good job.

[04:49:57] But having said that, you know, the best thing Mitchell and Scott probably did is tell me not to touch anything when I visited anything that was wastewater related. Y'all like to help out departments, and I don't mind getting my hands dirty, but you kept me away from any dials and equipment and pressurized systems, most notably.

[04:50:15] So, again, you actually will have your bricks side by side accordingly, just because it's a chronological from the retirement date. And for those that don't know, there is a marker right in front of those bricks right now for everyone going back almost 30 to 40 years.

[04:50:35] And we'll go back as far as we can find people. so for those that are listening and in the public if you have relatives or family members and you're not sure if they've been recognized for the the tenure of service go to that plaque look on the qr code because we've tried to do the best inventory we can i see miss romanella nodding her head and if she if you're not there give her a call because we want to go back and and pay homage just like we've done to anyone who's been here for 40 plus years but also i believe it's all over 25 years will have that same recognition.

[04:51:05] So I'll be honored to not step on these two bricks and step around them going for it further. I'll just step on the 25-year-old people more so than the others. So thank you so much, and please introduce your guests here. Thank you very much.

[04:51:24] This is my wife, Robin, Sister Annetta, brother-in-law Tom. Working with the county has been a good job. It's been a good adventure. While I won't miss the long meetings, the team meetings, I will miss all the people.

[04:51:41] And my wife had asked me, now that she's retiring, any way I can maybe think about it? And I have to remind her, I've been working here longer than she's been alive. This is so absolutely not. And you'll continue to work and take care of me.

[04:51:58] But thank you all so much.

[04:52:01] Item 14, new business.

[04:53:20] A, approval of the Second Amendment to the Precision Plastic Manufacturing Program Infrastructure Improvements Agreement with LEGO and VEDP. Mr. Hart. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey. We have received a request from VEDP for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership to extend, to make an amendment to the Precision Plastic Manufacturing Infrastructure Improvements agreement, extending the time period that we have to expend the state funds that were given to the project for site and utility infrastructure.

[04:53:58] We have completed the site work, as you heard today, and we are moving into the road at widening and the intersection where we will signalize for their employees' entrance. We delayed that project in order to keep it from being damaged by the heavy construction of the building so that project won't be completed until june of 26. it's about 600 000 remaining in the initial funding that we will use for that project transfer into that project no new funds

[04:54:32] here it's just an extension of the time period in the grant agreement to the to expend those funds i'm happy to answer any questions you might have i just want to thank you for clearing that up that but there's no funds from the county going into this.

[04:54:50] It's truly a time amendment only. And these are state funds that we have been using for infrastructure improvements in the county. Any other questions? Can I get a motion? Motion approved. Second. All in favor?

[04:55:06] Aye. Thank you, sir. B, appointments. Mr. Chair, we have five appointments to the Chesterfield Community Services Board. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.

[04:55:22] Next, we have one appointment to the Committee on the Future. We get a motion. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have one appointment to the Crater Planning District Commission. So moved. Second.

[04:55:38] All in favor? Aye. Next, we have one appointment to the Sports Backers Board of Directors. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. And last, we have two appointments to the Tri-Cities Metropolitan Planning Organization.

[04:55:56] So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Item C, consent items. We're going to remove item number seven, approval of appropriation of funds for the purchase of parcel of land at 1101 Otterdale Road to, off the consent, to have a discussion or to have some more discussion.

[04:56:32] Other than that, can I get a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. The motion was to approve the amended consent agenda. Is that correct? That is what I said, yes.

[04:56:48] Thank you. All right. So I'm going to call approval of appropriation of funds for and purchase of a parcel of land at 1-1-0-1 Otterdale Road. I don't think that we need to have a lot of discussion at this time on this, but I'll entertain a motion.

[04:57:08] I'm going to go ahead and move that we move this particular to the next January meeting. Let's just do it that way. Next regularly scheduled January meeting. Which will be the 28th.

[04:57:25] 28th. Okay. Correct. All in favor? Aye. Item 15, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. This time is designated for citizens to talk to the Board of Supervisors.

[04:57:41] It is not a time for dialogue with board members, and it is not a question-answer period. Those conversations can easily occur with individual board members outside of the board meeting. As a reminder, the board's procedures state no citizen shall speak on any matter of business that is a subject on the board's agenda for that day, and each speaker shall have three minutes to address the board.

[04:58:02] We have five speakers. If they'll please come forward and speak in this order. Dean Francis, Selina Thompson, James Brennan, Jerry Turner, and Jan Caldwell. First speaker, please.

[04:58:23] Good evening. I'm Dean Francis. My wife, Sarah, and I have raised five amazing kids in Midlothian. In 2017, our son Cameron was an elite track and cross-country athlete at Liberty University.

[04:58:39] He discovered a substance sold online at the time called Kratom. It was promoted as a safe plant-based herbal supplement. It was in the form of a green powder that could easily be mixed in water like a tea.

[04:58:59] Initially, Cameron found it did exactly what it said. It helped him with focus in his studies, energy before practice, and better sleep at night. In time, however, these benefits diminished, and just like any other drug, it turned on him.

[04:59:17] In 2021, he landed in the emergency room, feeling as if he was going to die. It was that terrifying night that we heard a doctor say, Kratom is just like an opioid, and you're in a full state of withdrawal.

[04:59:37] What we thought was a harmless plant powder turned out to be as addictive as heroin. In the following doctor visit, Cameron was told the weaning off of Kratom would be the hardest thing he's ever done.

[04:59:52] What followed was a living hell, including chills, sweats, convulsions, insomnia, and at times what I could best describe as psychological terror. Despite his best efforts over months, he was not successful.

[05:00:09] We then discovered the Coleman Clinic in Richmond. They offered a five-day outpatient medical detox. For perspective, their detox for alcohol is one day, but heroin and kratom are five days.

[05:00:24] His recovery journey that followed, like most addictions, was like climbing a mountain uphill on his hands and knees. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. He's 30 years old today, and while he's doing well, he's still in a battle to feel whole again. He's lost eight years of his life to an industry that's masquerading as a safe dietary supplement, but in truth, exploits and dupes people mercilessly every day. Today, Kratom is sold in Chesterfield County at almost every vape shop and many gas stations and convenience stores and the coleman clinic now estimates 80 of their

[05:01:02] calls are for kratom addiction this is growing fast and it's destroying people's lives in some cases it's killing them i'm urging you as district supervisors to use your influence to sound the alarm to parents and grandparents to help them protect their children and to contact state lawmakers on behalf of chesterfield county residents to insist on legislation this next year that can either ban it completely or potentially control it much more like a pharmacy.

[05:01:32] Many states are now in the process of doing this. To make it easy to learn more about the crisis, our family will soon release a website. But in the meantime, if you just were to Google Tampa Bay Times Kratom, you'll see one of the most well-documented, comprehensive investigative series on the subject. I'm just going to close with a comment that I heard that Jim Holland made earlier a quote from him. In this case, doing nothing is not an option. Thank you. Thank you.

[05:02:10] Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Selena Thompson. I represent Chesterfield Citizens for Responsible Government. I'm here with a simple message. Chesterfield County is spending too much, growing government too fast, and pushing the cost onto taxpayers. Residents see it every year. Our tax bills keep going up because county spending keeps going up. Over the last several years, County spending has grown at a rate far outpacing population growth, inflation, and household income.

[05:02:44] Cheshfield residents have repeatedly been told that the tax rate cuts offset rising assessments. The reality is that tax bills continue going up because the spending continues going up. That is the core problem I am asking you to address.

[05:03:00] This county does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. And until that changes, nothing else will. We're asking you specifically to do the following. First, make real, measurable spending cuts this year, not smaller increases, actual reductions.

[05:03:21] Every department should be required to cut 3% to 5% without touching essential services. Other counties do this all the time, and Chesterfield can too, if this board requires it. Second, we ask you to freeze non-essential hiring. Staffing has grown far faster than the population it serves.

[05:03:39] Before adding any more positions, show us why the current workforce is not enough. And third, we ask you to reevaluate long-term obligations, incentives, capital projects, and supplemental retirement costs. These commitments tie taxpayers' hands for decades.

[05:03:58] Some are necessary, and many are not. The board owes the public a clear explanation of which ones deliver value and which ones can be reduced or eliminated. The bottom line is simple. Government must live within its means, just like the families and businesses who fund it.

[05:04:17] Cheshfield residents are cutting back, and they expect their government to do the same. We ask the board to put taxpayers first, not offering talking points about low tax rates, but by doing the hard work of controlling spending. Stop growing government faster than the community.

[05:04:35] Rising assessments should not be treated like a blank check. Make the hard choices. Chesterfield can and should be fiscally responsible, but only if this board decides to prioritize spending restraints. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker.

[05:04:56] Good evening. My name is James Brennan. I am a resident of the Midlothian District of the county. I'm a businessman. I've spent the majority of my life managing for-profit businesses in several states and across the country.

[05:05:16] My request is similar to the previous speakers. It is to ask the Board of Supervisors to direct management as a part of the fiscal year 27 budget process to limit the growth in general fund spending and tax revenues, not tax millages, not tax assessments, tax revenues to 2.8%.

[05:05:38] The 2.8% is consistent with the CPI urban areas for the country, as well as what Social Security has deemed to be the cost of living, appropriate cost of living adjustment for Social Security recipients.

[05:05:56] Citizens' taxes are not an entitlement. They are actually the citizens' investment in good faith in the county government. And the expected return from that investment includes increases in wages, employment opportunities, education, safety, and general growth in wealth and well-being.

[05:06:20] Government spending in excess of CPI and Social Security is essentially not a return-on, but a drag-on private sector and citizen taxpayers' wealth and wealth creation.

[05:06:36] Therefore, consistent with the previous speaker, I would ask the board to direct management to cease funding any real increases in county expenditures from tax revenues and seek cost reduction opportunities and efficiency gains to achieve any real increase in spending.

[05:06:56] Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. I'm Jerry Turner. I appreciate all the kind words. Christmas tree lighting was, to me, was a success.

[05:07:16] You had the citizen participation, and that's what I encourage. A lot of the meetings I go to, I don't talk to the developer or the county people. I talked to the citizens, requesting them to participate in what's going on in the county and stay for the whole meeting.

[05:07:38] Now, while I'm up here, I went to a meeting with Power Heights Extension. That's going to be eight miles, $800 million. It's an expensive project. Right now, they only have the funding, and this is state funding, for the study part of it.

[05:07:59] They've already committed to the phase one, which I'm not sure how many miles that is. But my biggest concern of this whole project is stoplights on this road.

[05:08:15] You're creating another Hoyle Street of Midlothian by putting stoplights out there. You're just creating more dangerous intersections, and you can do all the no left turns and all that mess if you want to, but you've still got a stoplight there.

[05:08:33] All the citizens that are in the audience and watching, I'm encouraging them to go to VDOT. They got to buy a couple more days that they can submit comments. And I'm encouraging them to say, if you can't build a high height extension without stoplights, don't build it.

[05:08:54] Wait till you got funding to build it like it should be built, not another Hull Street or courthouse. The other thing I want to say is the real estate news that I read off the Internet had an article about Goochland.

[05:09:16] They had a project come up in their county. They were only going to build 23 houses. on two-acre lots, planning, and the supervisors turned it down, and the reason the roads couldn't handle the traffic. Y'all allow two or three hundred houses to be built on roads that can't handle what's on the traffic. The roads can't handle the traffic on it now, but you allow another two or three hundred houses to be built to just add more traffic. Y'all have got to learn

[05:09:55] how to say no. Sooner or later, we're not going to be able to move in this county because can't nobody go anywhere the roads are just going to be so congested you made a comment today talking about the traffic up in northern virginia there is a is a problem up there and i'm out of time so i just want to wish y'all a merry christmas and a happy new year and we will see y'all next year

[05:10:22] thank you next speaker good evening i'm janice caldwell i live in dale district currently and I previously lived in Bonaire, but I work in Midlothian, and I forget when it was, but maybe last year, the trees were clear-cutted along 288 between Poe Heights slash Old 100 and Hell Street, and I had mentioned it to one of you, and it was mentioned that that was done illegally and that they were fined.

[05:11:03] However, being from up north originally, my first thought was, yeah, but if it snows and it blows, that's going to be a bad situation. We need the trees. And that's exactly what happened to me last week. I got let off work early at 3 o'clock, and it was like the road had never been plowed.

[05:11:23] And I said, this is not snowing. This is a blizzard, because you couldn't see. People don't usually drive slower on that highway. They were going 30. thank goodness because that's all we could do so i'm here asking where does the fine money go i know you can't answer but i'm hoping that that fine money could be used to at least um plant some trees because right now there's none so that's all thank you thank you item 16 deferred items

[05:11:56] from previous meetings we have none item 17 zoning requests mr chair you have nine items on your consent agenda this evening for the benefit of the public. Consent items are those cases where the applicant accepts staff's recommendation and there is no previous opposition.

[05:12:13] With all the consent cases tonight, staff has received written confirmation from the applicants that they agree with the conditions being imposed and that all propers are offered in compliance with state law. First is 24 SN 1159 in Bermuda Magisterial District.

[05:12:29] Woods Edge Road rezoning is a request to rezone from Agricultural A to General Industrial I-2 on 63.41 acres located approximately 1,100 feet off the south side of Old Bermuda 100 Road, 275 feet west of Old Stage Road.

[05:12:47] Development of a portion of the property for a utility substation that would serve a planned data center on the adjacent property to the east is proposed. Development of the property for additional industrial uses subject to the I-2 district is proposed.

[05:13:04] However, development of the site for a data center use is specifically prohibited as proffered in the case. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 24-SN-1159, Woods Edge Road rezoning.

[05:13:25] Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is in the Bermuda District, and I make the motion to approve case 24SN1159, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

[05:13:48] Second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25SN1127 in Bermuda Magisterial District. Perrymont Road Business Park rezoning is a request to rezone from residential R7, and Community Business C3 to General Business C5 and conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements on 6.17 acres known as 8610 Perrymont Road. Construction of an office warehouse development with outside storage is planned. Planning Commission and staff recommend

[05:14:25] approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Before I open a public hearing, I just want to make the statement that, as chair, I'm going to preside over the case, but I'm recusing myself from any discussion or from a vote on this case.

[05:14:41] With that being said, ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25 SN 1127, Perrymont Road, Business Park, Rezoning. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name.

[05:14:57] Renee Eldred here. I'm glad to have this. Carrimont was a blight for quite some time, so new development is always good. So I'm glad to see it come. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:15:22] It's back before the board. I believe, Mr. Carroll, you're going to make a motion? I am, Mr. Chair. I think this is a proper use for this property. It's going to turn something that was a blighted elementary school into a now property that will provide office space for business and future tax revenue for the community.

[05:15:46] Make a motion to approve case number 25, SN1127, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25 SN1147 in Matoaka Magisterial District.

[05:16:03] Duval Road residential cluster rezoning is a request to rezone from Agricultural A to residential R-12 with conditional use to permit recreational neighborhood facilities, plus conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements on property known as 18301 Duval Road. The 54 acre property is proposed for a maximum development of 108 dwelling units. A residential development containing cluster style dwellings and neighborhood recreation facilities is proposed. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a public hearing

[05:16:42] on case 25 SN 1147, Duval Road residential cluster rezoning. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. I really wasn't going to get up here and say it by Jerry Turner. I wasn't going to say anything about this, but this is another example of let's build houses, put some more up there. We got, we got to have some more houses,

[05:17:22] No cars on the road. Y'all need to slow down a little bit. Y'all are building too many houses too fast. You're not allowing for the infrastructure to even come close to being caught up with what needs to be done.

[05:17:40] Need to encourage planning to slow down, especially these developers. They need to slow down. The infrastructure of Chesterfield County is not up to what it should be because y'all don't give them a chance to even get close to being completed, And you're building another thousand houses.

[05:18:03] And with all the apartments that y'all are allowing to come into this county, that's just that many more cars. So y'all need to slow down. Seeing no other citizens coming forward, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:18:24] It's back before the board. In this case, it's in the Matoka District. Mr. Chair, interesting comments tonight about development. Reference this case.

[05:18:42] It's on Duval Road. So a little history for the community. my first term the county had to buy land to build schools when I got elected with the growth in the western part of Hull Street there were no there was no land to buy schools or build schools on nothing was proposed we had to act we bought the upper mag piece we bifurcated it east and west east case become became school cases for a new high school a new middle school elementary school

[05:19:18] the public library. The West Case became approved for an industrial site. In the process of improving the roads and infrastructure in this area, over $43 million was allocated to make improvements to handle the traffic load on Duval Road. A north-south connector road is being put in and there's road improvements that were made to Westerly Parkway and eventually that road retaliation all the way to Horner Park. Now, if this development had been proposed prior to any of

[05:19:58] that, which I don't think it would have been because the land wasn't worth what it was once those schools were put in, and the road improvements were not slated to happen, and perhaps we could have made an argument that there's insufficient infrastructure. But the truth of the matter is, and some of you may have read this in BizSense recently, that another county recently denied a zoning case because they cited insufficient infrastructure. I hate to break the news to you.

[05:20:28] What we've been told by our legal counsel under state law, you can't say no to a zoning case for insufficient infrastructure. If you don't have school capacity, you can't, and they bring a case forward like this, you can't say, well, sorry, you can't build it because we don't have enough rooms in the schools. You can do it in Florida. Florida actually has legislation that was bipartisanly passed years ago that basically said that if you don't have capacity in the schools to handle new infrastructure new new development you can't build the development until the new schools are built but that's not the way it is in Virginia just so happens in this particular part of the

[05:21:04] county and if you were here earlier for the work presentation you will see where they talked about school capacities with the new middle school opening up we've actually solved the middle school capacity issue the elementary school will open up next year long before this development come out of the ground. That's going to solve the elementary school infrastructure and school capacity out there. And a brand new high school is going to open up in 2027. So from a school standpoint, there is no infrastructure problem out here. We actually solved all that by putting

[05:21:39] these schools in place and working hard to fast track them. And now Deep Creek is open. Everybody loves it. And they can't wait for the elementary school to open up in the high school. So why do say that um because there are a group of people that lived out here that were against all of that against us putting all the schools in and doing all the things we've done out there the road improvements everything one owned this property and sold it for development and now a developer has purchased it and brought a case before the board that is meets the comprehensive plan meets

[05:22:16] the density of the comprehensive plan the product that's being proposed meets what's what's been built in the area already so it's going to add additional residences to the area that match what's being built already and when you look at the case and you you want to judge it and I have it's a good case it meets the comprehensive plan the road and structure the road improvements out there everything that's being done it covers everything that you could argue against approving a case and one would say if Mr. Carroll was a spiteful individual and I wanted to vote against

[05:22:54] a case and kill a case this would be the one but i'm not going to do that because it's a good case and quite frankly i don't fault the person for selling the property and and generating wealth for their family that was a hard decision for them to make they loved living there but they realized there was a bunch of development going on and they decided to sell they have a right to do that people who own land have a right to sell it we have to judge each case individually on what it is and um this case meets the comprehensive plan the road infrastructure out there can handle it The school infrastructure can handle it.

[05:23:31] So to say that there's an argument against infrastructure for this particular issue, even if I could make one, it's not there. So people understand. There were a lot of people who spoke against other developments in this area that not once came to any meeting, not the community meeting, not the planning commission meeting.

[05:23:56] They're not here tonight to talk bad about this case. The only person who's actually stood up and said anything about it is Mr. Turner. So, I have to follow the law. And what the law says is that this is a case that meets the comprehensive plan.

[05:24:15] It meets the density for the property. Everything they're asking for is pretty standard. And so, I have no choice but to follow the law, which is to make a motion to approve case number 25SN 1147, subject to conditions in the staff report.

[05:24:36] That's my motion, Mr. Chair. Second. Any discussion? I agree with Mr. Carroll's assessment of the case. The person that owned this property prior to selling it, which the applicant was not involved in any of it, but that person was the loudest person in this area against any kind of development.

[05:25:13] They pretty much said Mr. Carroll and I were in the pockets of all developers and that all developers had to do was give us some money and they could get their cases passed. which is absolutely false, but this person, not faulting them, they made a good decision for their family, but they, I believe it was a $3.4 million sale. I could be wrong on the exact dollar

[05:25:44] amount. They did good for their family. But before I vote yes on this case, I would want that person to come before me and tell me why this case was good and why we should build here when everything else around them was bad and we shouldn't do it on their property.

[05:26:08] So, if I vote against this case tonight, it's because I would have preferred a deferral until that person came before us and spoke and told us why things had changed, not because I believe that I have a legal reason to vote against the case.

[05:26:27] With that- Mr. Chair, if I can make another comment. Yes, sir. We don't go out to developers and say there's a piece of land available for you to buy and purchase. Can you come build something on it?

[05:26:43] We may do that through the EDA on commercial properties to bring people like Lego here and some of the major companies that we've brought here because we're trying to do exactly what some of the citizens were talking about today, which is cut your tax rate. And by bringing commercial revenue here to offset the residential revenue, which, you know, that's something that's Chesterfield needed for a long time.

[05:27:07] but people who own land have a right to sell it and all these cases you see here on the docket tonight are land that was owned by someone and decided to sell it to someone to develop it it's plain and simple um and um i follow the law regardless of what i think um i follow the law i did it for 32 years as a police officer i'm not going to change it now which is why i made the motion to prove this case regardless of anything else mr chair um i think the person

[05:27:40] made the right decision for their family so there we are yes sir I think what folks don't realize when they come here and speak they everyone has a right to share I mean that's what free speech is about and at the same time we have a responsibility I always start out by asking the question are they right and

[05:28:13] And then after a great deal of deliberation and research, then I will ultimately make a decision. But what I don't appreciate is when people, instead of giving an argument, what they do instead is they attack.

[05:28:37] And they attack personally, and they say mean things, not just in this room, but also on social media. And if you aren't able to get, in your heart of hearts, how personally at times we can take it.

[05:28:57] But we're here because we want to serve. We're here because we want to do what's best for the community. And frankly, I get tired of being accused. And I have served on this board now for three years. And I have sat with Mr. Carroll.

[05:29:13] And we've had a conversation around this particular property. and the owner, and I have never met the owner, and I've never interacted with them, but I do have an opportunity to spend time with this man, and this man is in integrity, as we all are.

[05:29:33] And when someone stands up here, and says these kind of things, and then turns around and leaves, and doesn't stay for the board meeting, they wanna deliver their message and leave, that should give a lot of information to the community, as to where their loyalties lie and this is a perfect example of hypocrisy in its purest form where this individual was railing against um development and then all of a sudden they're like well oh well what's in it for me so i really hear where mr engel is with regard to

[05:30:13] just um and i understand where you're at because you're going to follow the law and how hard that is how hard that is to be able to say, you know what, I had to sit up here, I had to take it, and I had to listen, but in the final analysis, I'm going to stay consistent with what the law is, and I'm going to stay consistent with what is in integrity, and at the same time recognize that it is really challenging when that individual doesn't even have the courage now to show up, doesn't even have the courage to show up and make their point.

[05:30:51] And that is bothersome to me. Mr. Chair, one last thing. Our founding fathers made the First Amendment to the Constitution freedom of speech for a reason, because back then you couldn't do it.

[05:31:09] And if you did, you get locked up indefinitely, which is probably why they came up with the Sixth Amendment, speedy right to trial. So I understand that everybody has a right to their opinion, and they can say what they want to say. And sticks and stones may break my bones when names will ever hurt me.

[05:31:26] Remember that when we were kids? And so, but we're going to do what we believe is right for the community. And I do think that the product that this company has brought forward is going to be a really good product. And it's going to provide homes for people to raise their families in.

[05:31:43] The kids that live here will be able to ride their bikes to school and go to a brand new public library out there. And so it is, it's going to be a vibrant community. And if you look around, it's the same thing as what's been putting in all around it. And so, regardless of anything else, the people who bought it had nothing to do with that.

[05:32:04] They want to provide something nice for the community, and I think they're going to do it. Everything else they've always put together has always been spectacular. And so, again, that's the end of my comments, Mr. Chair. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak to this case tonight. I know it was on consent, and I know there's a motion on the floor.

[05:32:23] Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Aye. Next is 25SN1215 in Matulka Magisterial District.

[05:32:44] Wilson Accessory Building Exception is a request for conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements on 2.63 acres in a residential R25 district known as 12401 Spring Run Road. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report.

[05:33:04] Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25, SN1215, Wilson Accessory Building Exception. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this case?

[05:33:21] If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is in the Matoka District. Mr. Chair, motion to approve case number 25, SN1215, subject and condition of the staff report.

[05:33:38] A second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25SN 1216 in Midlothian Magisterial District, 360 West Shopping Center sign is a request for conditional use plan developments or permit exceptions to ordinance requirements relative to signage setbacks in a general business C5 district on 11.08 acres known as 7200 Hull Street Road.

[05:34:05] Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN 1216, 360 West Shopping Center sign. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case?

[05:34:21] If so, please come forward and state your name.

[05:34:35] Chair Turner, I think this is probably the first virtual meeting I attended on this new system that y'all have got with planning. I'm not against what they're doing here, but I thought I'd just get up and tell everybody they need to participate in these virtual meetings.

[05:34:55] They don't last long, and you don't even have to show your face. You can turn your camera off, so it is. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:35:15] It's back before the board. I don't think Mr. Carroll is implying anything about your face, Mr. Turner. I love your face, man. This case is in the Midlothian District. Dr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a little bit of background on this particular sign.

[05:35:32] It needs to be replaced, as you can see. One of the things my planning commissioner, Frank Petroski, and I talked about is whether this should be a neon sign. They were interested in a neon sign. I really was going to be distracting there, so that isn't what's going in here. And so I feel really comfortable in moving approval of case 25SN 1216, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

[05:35:56] Second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25SN 1217 in Matulka Magisterial District. Bear two-family dwelling is a request for conditional use to permit a two-family dwelling in an agricultural aid district known as 10361 Spring Run Road.

[05:36:15] The 0.89-acre property is developed with one existing single-family dwelling, and this request proposes a second dwelling located in the basement of the home. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25 SN 1217, Bear 2 Family Dwelling.

[05:36:39] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, this case is, I'm going to close this public hearing. This case is back before the board. This case is in the Matoka District.

[05:36:54] Mr. Chair, I think those who were here last month remember we had a long, protracted discussion on 6811 Jeff Davis Highway. And part of that discussion happened because there were many units within that trailer park that people made modifications to that we need to bring in compliance with the ordinance.

[05:37:17] And essentially, this is what you have here. Someone made a great modification to their house, and it's come to their attention that it's considered to be, because of what they did, a second dwelling on the property. And this is a case to bring that to just align with our ordinance.

[05:37:34] I think it's an appropriate use. So I make a motion to approve case number 25SN1217, subject and conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25SN1219 in Matulka Magisterial District.

[05:37:53] Spring Run Communications Tower is a request for conditional use to permit a communications tower in an agricultural aid district on 0.74 acres known as 12520 Spring Run Road. A 199-foot communications tower with a monopole design and associated improvements is proposed.

[05:38:14] Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN 1219, Spring Run Communications Tower. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this case?

[05:38:29] If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is also in the Matoka District. Mr. Chair, it seems like it's a night for cases in the Matoka District.

[05:38:47] I will say that if you've ever ridden on Spring Run Road in this section of the county and you try and talk on your cell phone, you find that you get dropped quite a bit. We've had a communications tower proposal here because the cell phone companies actually did a propagation study and determined that this is an area of the county that's necessary to improve service.

[05:39:11] Many calls for service get dropped. My planning commissioner lives in this area, and I call him, and we get dropped all the time, and he's just sitting in his house. So this tower will also have the ability for expansion for other telecommunications services to be able to put their product on.

[05:39:29] It's tucked up in the woods. Am I going to sit here and tell you that no one will ever see this? There may be someone whose house is close to this that might see it. But I do think that the trade-off for them is that they'll actually get better self-service for everybody who lives in this area.

[05:39:44] And I commend the company for bringing it forward, quite frankly, to try and solve a problem that's existed for a while. I get these complaints all the time from different parts of the Matoka District, which is very big, where they say, you know, why can't we get a tower here? Because the service is terrible. So I think this is going to be a good product for the area.

[05:40:01] That's why I make a motion to approve case number 25, SN 1219, subject to conditions in the staff report. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Next is 25SN1226 in Midlothian Magisterial District, Stanford Fence Height Exception is a request for conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements for a fence in a residential R7 district known as 400 Walton Park Road.

[05:40:32] Replacement of an existing four-foot-tall fence with a six-foot-tall fence is proposed to provide enhanced security and screening of the property's corner side yard. Planning Commission and staff recommend approval subject to the conditions in your staff report.

[05:40:56] Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN1226, Stanford Fence Height Exceptions. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[05:41:13] It's back before the board. This case is in the Midlothian District. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's really straightforward in that four foot is what's typically appropriate here, except what's going on is they're right on Walton Park Road, and this is just to block some light, make it a little bit higher.

[05:41:31] I'm totally cool with it. I move forward with the approval of case 25SN 1226, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Last on your consent agenda is 25SN 1263 in Matulka Magisterial District.

[05:41:51] Woodpecker Road Solar Facilities Amendment and Expansion is a request to amend zoning approval, Case 23-SN-0095, on 124.52 acres to modify the conceptual plan for a large-scale solar energy facility.

[05:42:09] The request also includes rezoning from Agricultural A to Agricultural A on 30.09 acres to remove conditions of a previous zoning approval. The request also includes conditional use to permit a large-scale solar energy facility on 67.97 acres plus conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements on 67.97 acres for property fronting approximately 50 feet on the west side of Woodpecker Road, 425 feet south of Ettrick Landing Drive.

[05:42:44] The overall request accounts for approximately 67.97 acres being added to the project area to generate an additional 3.5 megawatts of energy, resulting in a total site generation of 11.5 megawatts.

[05:43:00] Planning Commission and staff recommend approvals subject to the conditions in your staff report. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25 SN1263 Woodpecker Road solar facilities amendment and expansion. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case?

[05:43:18] If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. This case is also in the Matauka District. Mr. Chair, if you look at this property, if you look at the map that they showed earlier, this land where this is tucked up in the woods, and this case, actually, if you look back at the history, It goes back to an original zoning case in '88 when it was actually zoned for 220 residential units.

[05:43:52] We changed it back to agricultural in '21 and then approved it for the solar facility in '23. This is an expansion of that. And I have yet to date, I haven't had any, no one I believe came and spoke against this at the planning commission, nor if I had, believe me, I've gotten a ton of emails about all the other cases tonight but i didn't get anybody speaking out against this um mr chair so i'll make a motion to approve 25 sn1263 subject to the conditions of the staff report and i do have

[05:44:28] a comment after i get a second second that was quick um mr chair i believe that um when we look at the energy issues we have facing our community in the future we need an all of the above approach as the type of energy that we're going to have generated um and this the people on this property if they feel it's it's a use to uh put a uh highly functional solar facility on that can help with that um i think it's a good interim uh use uh these things are required to have a decommissioning

[05:45:05] bond put up uh so that if something happens to them or if technology changes and it needs to be restored back to its original condition uh our ordinance requires for that and and that's why i I think from a standpoint for this use, I think it's an appropriate use at this time, Mr. Chair.

[05:45:22] I know there's a motion on the floor. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Mr. Chair, you have three discussion cases, the first of which is 24SN 1334, Winterpock Meadows rezoning.

[05:45:38] Mr. Ellis. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Casey. RSN 1334 in the Matoaka district is a request to rezone property from the agricultural district to the residential R-12 district with conditional use and conditional use plan development as well as a waiver to connectivity requirements.

[05:46:00] Subject property is located along the west side of Winter Park Road, north of Beach Road, and is currently zoned agricultural. Property to the north and west are also zoned agricultural, and to the south neighborhood business, and to the east residential R-12.

[05:46:15] As illustrated on the aerial image, the site's currently undeveloped. The land use plan designations for the property are light business, residential neighborhood two, and residential neighborhood four. The residential neighborhood development portion, excuse me, residential development and the portion of the site designated as light business would not be in compliance with the plan.

[05:46:40] This is the applicant's proposed conceptual layout plan. This application has two requests which will require two separate votes by the board. The first request is rezoning from the Agricultural District to R-12 with conditional use to permit neighborhood recreational facilities, plus conditional use plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements.

[05:47:02] A residential development containing a maximum of 79 lots of single-family homes, cluster-style, age-restricted, is proposed. The minimum lot sizes for residential lots would be 6,000 square feet, and they're a minimum of 55 feet in width.

[05:47:17] The density of the proposal is 2.5 units per acre. The development will include recreational amenities such as a clubhouse and pool area, a trail network, and open space throughout the development. As illustrated above, primary access to the site is provided by two points, one along Winterpock Road and one to existing Jordan's Parish Drive, which will connect to the adjacent subdivision Willow Creek.

[05:47:45] Exceptions to ordinance requirements are requested for lot size, lot width, lot coverage, and building setbacks. The second request is for a waiver to street connectivity requirements for a connection to Crump Store Drive, as well as providing a future stub road connection to the western property line.

[05:48:05] Staff did request that the applicant address the access slash connector road, shown above in red, by dedicating and constructing it from Winter Park Road to the eastern property line. However, the applicant did choose not to address that improvement. Without a commitment to provide for that access slash connector road, the request will result in more traffic utilizing substandard roads, Beach Road and Winter Park Road, and the Beach Road and Winter Park Road intersection, which would negatively impact safety capacity and connectivity along the Beach Road and Winter Park Road corridors.

[05:48:39] Further, not constructing the access slash connector road would eliminate an opportunity to improve the intersection capacity at Beach Road and Winter Park Road. While the proposed subdivision is connecting to the Willow Creek subdivision via the existing Jordan's Parish Road stub out and is also providing a stub out to the adjacent property to the south for future connection, staff has also requested that the applicant provide a stub out to the property to the west.

[05:49:06] This stub out would improve, if developed for residential, would improve public safety response time to residents by providing multiple means of access and maintain traffic carrying capacity along arterial and collector streets. The applicant has also chosen not to do that. These are the applicant's proposed elevations. In addition to proffering variation in elevations, allowable siding materials include brick, stone, masonry, fiber, cement siding, engineered wood siding, and high-grade vinyl.

[05:49:36] The proposed development does provide quality design and architecture, which results in an attractive and harmonious community, and the Planning Commission did unanimously recommend approval. However, the outstanding connectivity aspects of the case may result in magnifying existing traffic concerns in the immediately surrounding area of the property.

[05:49:54] further a portion of the property is designated for convenience business on the comprehensive plan and the proposed residential development in that area would not be compliant with the plan further the waiver to street connectivity is not supported the required connection to the crump store drive right-of-way is the only identified means of improving traffic flow at the intersection of winter park and beach drive further not providing the required stub connection to the west of the site would prohibit connect to interconnectivity of these two parcels again should that parcel to the west be developed for residential accordingly staff recommends denial

[05:50:31] of both cases at the planning commission meeting one resident spoke in opposition to the request referencing traffic concerns and a desire for the connected road to be constructed there were two comments on the board's portal for tonight's meeting expressing a desire for that connector road referencing that we've referenced to be constructed to alleviate traffic there were also two additional comments on the the board's portal supporting the case. I'd be happy to answer any

[05:50:59] questions. Board members, are there any questions for staff? Is the applicant present? Is the applicant here? Yes. Would you like to make a presentation? Good evening. My name is Mike Lang. I'm the president of the Crescent Group and Vice President Hornstone Homes. We are the applicant. I just

[05:51:34] wanted to provide a little bit of intro since we haven't had a new case in Chesterfield in quite a a while, several years. We're a land developer and home builder. We've been around for over 25 years. We've completed at least 22 communities. We currently have three communities under development. We've built over 2,300 homes.

[05:51:54] We're based in Richmond area. We build throughout the state of Virginia. I have some of our team here tonight. Besides myself, I have Matt Glover, who's our land acquisition manager, has been working on the zoning case with me. Roger Glover is our founder and principal owner. Kim Lacy is our land use council, which she'll be speaking here in a second. We also have the property owner, Mrs. Crow, who's been a great partner on this project.

[05:52:23] We recently, just as far as Chesterfield's concerned, we've recently completed three projects in Chesterfield over the last several years. One was the grove at Lux Lane. It's a 62 unit project on Lux Lane just east of 288 another is the Cove at Magnolia Lakes and Magnolia Lakes has 195 unit development on Iron Bridge Road on Chester area and also the Villas at Ash Lake which was an 82 unit project off Ash Lake Parkway kind of right behind Hancock Village and our flagship

[05:52:57] community is Chicomany Falls that's in Hanover that's a larger scale project with 634 lots we're We're currently developing the last few sections of that. It's actually an agri-hood community, which it actually has a working farm as part of the project.

[05:53:13] And we've received multiple local, state, and national awards for that project. I'd like to just thank the staff for all the hard work they've put into it. We've been working on this for quite a while. It's been about 20 months when you go back to the pre-application process.

[05:53:31] We've been working with Harold Ellis, who's been very helpful, the case manager. been working with commissioner owens and supervisor carroll so i appreciate all the the help and input that we've received also want to thank the community around the project we spent a lot of time talking to the folks in and around there particularly with the willow creek subdivision spent a lot of conversations and meetings with hoa board members as well as individual residents kind of just trying to understand their concerns. They've been very helpful helping us kind of

[05:54:06] gather information as far as what they want to see. And also other neighbors, the Rudd Crump family who own a lot of property in the area. Of course, used to own the Crump store property. Mr. Patel, who's now the owner-operator of the Crump store, they've been involved too. And Mr.

[05:54:24] Downs, who owns the five-acre property that's on our western border between us and Winter Pop Road. So we appreciate all the help and input that we've tried to take in on this project. And just one thing I wanted to note, and then I'll turn it over to Kim, was that while the staff report is indicating it's not supportive of aspects of the case, primarily the Crump Store drive connection to that, to the right-of-way, we spent a lot of time discussing that, a lot of work on it, a lot of looking at a lot of different options. And we did put forth and presented to

[05:55:00] the county an option where we had the collector road going through our property and connecting to that right of way. But as we went through into the formal application process, we went out to the community and talked to all the stakeholders, the folks in that area, Mr. Carroll and Mr. Owens.

[05:55:23] And through that process is why we ended up where we are today with this proposal. So with that, I'm going to hang around to answer any questions that I can. And I'll let Kim handle some of the highlights. Thank you, Mike.

[05:55:43] Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Kim Lacey. I'm with the law firm Roth Jackson, and I'm here tonight on behalf of the applicant. As Mr. Ellis already described very well, we're here requesting a rezoning. This is going to be under the current Section 19.1 zoning ordinance.

[05:56:02] I did want to make that clear. It's an age-restricted community with significant trail network and amenities. A maximum of 79 homes for individuals aged 55 and over is proffered. The applicant has worked closely with staff, as Mike mentioned, to determine the appropriate density at 2.5 units per acre.

[05:56:24] This is based on the combination of the Comprehensive Plans Residential Neighborhood 4 and Residential Neighborhood 2 Land Use Plan designations, which most of the property is designated for residential use with the combination of those Neighborhood 4 and Neighborhood 2.

[05:56:43] The southern portion of the property is showing as light business designation, and we would put forward that this is a long, outdated designation, as also discussed over the course of the history of this case. That designation was based on the Southern and Western Area Plan that was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 1993, which included a detailed service center plan for the area, which is a retail service center that never gained support from the community and was not included in any subsequent comprehensive plan update after 1993.

[05:57:20] In support of the resigning request, there are portions of the staff report that highlight the development's high-quality design. It affirms that it meets the comprehensive plan's goals for strong and sustainable neighborhoods that are visually attractive, well-planned, and well-maintained.

[05:57:36] The development meets the purpose and intent of the zoning ordinance to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the public by creating a convenient, attractive, and harmonious community. And the proffered conditions include design and architectural elements that will complement the overall development character in the area. Staff supports applicants' requests for conditional use for neighborhood recreational facilities and the request for conditional use plan development for exceptions to ordinance requirements, affirming that the conditional use and these ordinance exceptions enable the applicant to provide a significant trail network

[05:58:14] with over 4 000 linear feet of walking trails and additional recreational amenities on the property we have multiple letters of support for the resonning and the planning commission unanimously approved this request for resonning the second request before you is the waiver to subdivision connectivity requirements for the connection to the unimproved right-of-way crump store drive and the future sub-road connection at the Downs property.

[05:58:45] The applicant's vehicular access on Winterpock Road provides a connection to the west. A second connection to the west of the Downs property is not feasible due to topography and wetlands. It's also not supported by Mr. Downs. He submitted a letter to the board stating his opposition to the connection and asserting that the rear of his property, which is adjacent to the subject property, is a wetland that should not be disturbed.

[05:59:11] A connection to the unimproved right-of-way Crump Store Drive should not be required because the 32-year-old vision for this road is not viable and hasn't been viable since 2017. The road was originally included in the 1993 Detailed Service Center plan. In 2002, the board approved adjacent Willow Creek subdivisions rezoning case with requirements for that developer to construct Crump Store Drive from Beach Road to their western property line.

[05:59:40] In 2017, that developer filed a rezoning amendment case to remove the requirement for construction of that road, and in the staff report for that case, the transportation department stated that the applicant would dedicate right-of-way, but not construct the road, and it was unlikely the county would construct the road because there were no public funds planned or programmed towards construction of that road.

[06:00:05] The 2017 Board of Supervisors approved the amendment case and removed the requirement for construction of Crump Store Drive. During the November Planning Commission public hearing on this case, Commissioner Sloan questioned Mr. Adams about funding and prioritization for construction of Crump Shore Drive, and Mr. Adams explained that construction of the road was unlikely to occur due to funding constraints and low prioritization for this road.

[06:00:30] The Planning Commission determined that the development's two major vehicular access points at Winter Park and Jordan's Ferris Road and the stub connection to the Rudd property provide sufficient connectivity with access and connection to the west, east, and south, the plan development also meets VDOT's secondary street acceptance requirements for multiple connections in multiple directions for connectivity. We have received multiple letters in strong opposition to construction of Crump Store Drive and in support of the applicant's concept plan. The Planning Commission

[06:01:05] also unanimously recommended approval of request 2 for the waiver for connectivity. We ask you to follow these recommendations of the Planning Commission and approve requests one and two this evening. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Any questions of the applicant?

[06:01:23] I have a couple. The original layout that was brought had 99, I think, units proposed with the road stub in it. Is that right? 96. 96. Pretty close. Okay. So if we had made you put the road in to nowhere, it would have actually added more density to the property, which would have been above what the comprehensive plan calls for for the parcels.

[06:01:53] Is that correct? Yes. Do we have a, in your slide deck, do you show Willow Creek, the adjacent neighborhood from a satellite view in your slide deck? Because if you don't, one of the things that I think people need to understand, the reason that road was intended to be put in in the bottom as a connector between Beach Road and And the subdivision was that it was supposed to be a southern exit for that neighborhood.

[06:02:27] But the developer got let off the hook when they took away the requirement for them to build it and pay for it. They kept the right-of-way in, but the county let them off, so it never got built. But if you live in one of those houses on the very bottom end of this, you have to go through a network of spiraled roads to get out of the neighborhood and to get in.

[06:02:55] The connectivity would have made sense. But now the people who live in there have sent me, I couldn't even tell you how many emails, saying they don't want the road because they don't want the connectivity there. They don't mind the connectivity coming in through your neighborhood proposal, but they don't want that road for whatever reason.

[06:03:12] I think a lot of it has to do with the people who live right next to it. But if the developer had just built it when they built the neighborhood and the county had said, you've got to pay for it and do it, when this proposal came forward, we could require them to put the other road in because the other road would have been there.

[06:03:29] But they've got let off the hook. So am I correct? Is that basically what you just said? I want to make sure that people who are watching at home or people in the community understand what happened here. That's right. Which is why there was a different proposal brought forward. And the reason it has lower density now is because they can make it work without having to build a road to nowhere.

[06:03:52] Absolutely. And still meet the requirements for multiple connections in multiple directions. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions for the applicant? Is that like directly across from the church that's over there that's got christmas trees for sale right now is that kind of where it's coming out there's a little farther down okay yeah it's further north any other questions for the applicant yeah that exit meets the vdot um distance requirement from the intersection of winter park

[06:04:32] and uh and beach yes i think that's important to point out too it's 400 over 435 feet from the intersection which is the minimum requirement it's probably further but am i right on that yes Absolutely. I'm leaving the staff report too. It does have in the VDOT section that it is approved.

[06:04:52] All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 24 SN1334, Winter Park Meadows rezoning. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Chair Turner, you all can put a positive spin on this all you want to, but the

[06:05:29] bottom line is there was planning for that road to be put in there to bypass that intersection there where those where that church and store is what y'all are allowing to happen now can they can never do anything with that intersection because you you're definitely not going to be able to move that church and in the cemetery on one corner and the county can't afford to buy that uh at uh store

[06:06:01] so you got one i guess the south east section of that that intersection is the only place you've got to work with you're not going to be able to expand the road any that road that was supposed have been built would have relieved some of the the traffic on it what if y'all allow this to happen here that'll never happen so now all you're doing is just add more traffic to that one

[06:06:34] intersection during the these when they had the uh community meeting traffic never stopped at that intersection and i was told well after the meeting left traffic quit okay fine there's a lot of houses back in there that has a lot of houses that creates a lot of traffic and y'all are just adding more traffic to that intersection by what you're lying to do here. Now, yeah, this is not going to be a

[06:07:11] going to be an older generation going to live there, so they're not going to travel as much, maybe, but I kind of doubt it. But there again, the planning that was in the past to help that intersection, y'all are doing away with it. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Chairman

[06:07:47] members of the board and the county staff. My name is Sean Sellers. I run a local electrical company in Chesterfield. I just want to support my case on like supporting this case S24S1334 Winter Park Meadows. What stands out to me about this proposal is how it directly responds to a need we hear consistently, especially in Western Metoica, about the lack of choices for homes for older residents who want to stay in the community. The plan for a 79 single-family detached age-restricted homes offers an opportunity that's

[06:08:22] currently in a short supply here it gives the Chesterfield residents a chance that the older residents a chance that want to downsize and comfortably stay in the area that's already comfortable to them as a business owner I also see a broader economic value on a project like this many of my employees rely on steady work and responsible development brings that to us so these people they live here we raise families here we contribute every day to the county's economy projects like Winter Park Meadows help ensure that we can continue earning reliable income and provide food for the table when it comes

[06:09:02] to housing supply hold on Winter Park Meadows represents balanced growth that would benefit our community on multiple levels so I wish you guys would respectfully approve the zoning thank you thank you next speaker good evening My name is Vicki Stitzer. I'm a business owner here in Chesterfield County. I also live in the Matoaka District. I'm here tonight to respectfully ask for your support of this free zoning case.

[06:09:41] The proposal for these single-family detached, age-restricted homes addresses a real and growing need in western Matoaka. As you know, we have a shortage of housing options for older adults, and I think Sean took a little bit of my thunder there because that is absolutely the truth. And for our older adults who want to stay close to where they've been living.

[06:10:09] These homes would provide an important form of housing diversity, allowing long-time residents to downsize and stay in the area. As a business owner, the benefits extend even further. My employees, many of whom already live in Chesterfield, rely on healthy, stable development in the construction industry.

[06:10:32] Projects like Winter Park Meadows create opportunities to keep them working, earning a steady income and supporting their families. When housing supply increases especially in target areas where demand is high it sustains not only builders and trades people but the network of local businesses that depend on the economic activity. This case offers responsible growth and a thoughtful land use solution. It brings much needed housing to a part of the county that has clearly demonstrated demand and it does so with a product specifically designed for a population that is too often underserved in our current housing landscape.

[06:11:11] For these reasons, I respectfully urge you to approve this case. I thank you for your time. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing.

[06:11:27] This case is back before the board. In this case, actually, I'm going to give the applicant an opportunity if they want to make any statements. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to say that in response to Mr. Turner's comment, just again reiterate that really planning for the road was eliminated with that 2017 amendment case for that Crump Store Drive extension.

[06:11:53] And as the comments and support well said, this really is an opportunity to provide housing for the older citizens in our community who want to stay and live in Chesterfield County. Thank you. Thank you. This case is in the Matoka District. Mr. Chair, it's not lost on me that the intersection is a busy intersection there and that it needs to be improved in some way.

[06:12:17] There is a parcel directly adjacent to this across the street that's a commercial parcel which, you know, I was going to talk with staff and say, okay, well, what will we have to do to try in the future to plan some type of intersection improvement here that could work?

[06:12:38] There is some room in front of it, and Mr. Turner's right. The sticking point here is the church, the cemetery, and Crump's door. So it would take a little more work, but I can tell you that if we did the bypass that they were talking about, I don't know that that would have been even the best solution for here.

[06:13:02] I mean, we actually have to go back now and look at all of the secondary roads, certainly through the metoka district because we we have taken away the east west freeway and look where improvements need to be done to the secondary roads and we also when we look at the comprehensive plan next year as we discussed earlier today we need to look at change in some of these property densities um in the in through this area uh in southern part of metoka um to to reflect uh the change in um removal of the east west freeway and removal of these roads um i think we can come up

[06:13:38] a solution for the intersection that will be much better than what was proposed. I also believe that having connectivity to the neighborhood, for the people who have sent me, I couldn't even tell you how many emails, it's amazing. This case in the Courthouse Road case, I've gotten more emails about in favor of, in support of than I've gotten in any other zoning case in the entire time I've been on the board, which is unusual, quite frankly.

[06:14:08] So I do think we need to find a solution for the intersection and we're going to work on that but even if we required them to put this in to put the road in then you know we would have to go and change the density for the make them to do it and then we somehow would have to find the funding in the future to build the other section of road which we we currently have no no proposals whatsoever for so being said mr. chair based on the recommendations of the planning Commission and many people from the community who responded mr. makes it you

[06:14:46] you have a comment? Just before you start the vote this actually requires two votes one on the zoning and under your connectivity policy a separate vote on the connectivity waiver. Okay. And then the Planning Commission did recommend approval on both of the application. Okay so I will Mr. Chair make a recommendation on case number 24 SN 1334 to concur with the Planning Commission on both request 1 and request 2. And you would take a separate votes on those, and so there would be approval of the zoning with the conditions.

[06:15:25] Do we have to have a second motion, or can we just do it all in one motion, but vote on this? One second. Vote on one first. Yes. All right, so we'll vote on the subject. We need to get a second.

[06:15:42] Second. All right. All in favor of the first part of the motion. If I could, Mr. Chair. Oh, I'm sorry. um so i think it's important to note that um and it's already been highlighted but um i just want to highlight it again you know we have aging population um who really has challenges climbing the steps uh in their current homes my mom being one um it seemed like almost after every meeting planning commission wise uh when i first started she said hey what are you doing for seniors um

[06:16:20] for senior housing and um she was climbing the steps had a heart issue had some knee issues um you know it was pretty bad and um you know we ended up moving um to another house just so she would have somewhere to go we want to kind of prepare um and so it's really good to see um development like this happen um we we ended up getting her into a place where um she's all on

[06:16:50] one level um had to do some renovations there uh you know in order to to get um to get her um happy but um you know i know that this this case has some cognitive issues uh i i sympathize my mom lives in that that same kind of area um but to have this type of product on the market for seniors is going to be big. And we want to have this type of, in my opinion, we would like to have this type

[06:17:25] of growth all over the county where as people age, they can age gracefully in a place where they feel comfortable, they feel safe. And I know this case is difficult. I mean, we at the planning commission level, we turned it all different ways to see how we could best figure out the cognitive issue. Hats off to the planning department, too many names to name, but I would just say the entire planning department for what they did in this case. But as we

[06:18:01] weigh our pros and cons in regards to this, it's going to have a lot of benefit for a lot of people. But I would say it's not a lot of people because it is limited in terms of the lot size, but I just want to speak on behalf of that.

[06:18:20] I think it's important that we look out for our aging citizens and that we advocate for places for them to get older and grace. So I support you, Mr. Carroll, in your motion for this, and I appreciate you for your hard work in this case and also your planning commissioner because he did do a lot of work.

[06:18:49] in regards to this case. I'm sorry, I have a question also. With regard to the connectivity waiver, so I thought that we just discussed that it was already changed in 2017. It wasn't removed for the other parcel, so this is basically doing the same thing that they did? Is that what you're saying, the connectivity waiver? Yeah, I think maybe the transportation people can actually explain. We're talking about just a connectivity waiver that would otherwise have occurred on this under the policy waiving that for this particular property.

[06:19:29] But the genesis of how it is that they are considering the waiver might be something the transportation people can better address or Mr. Carroll. Sorry, I wasn't made aware that there was two separate. So to go back to the other development next to it in 2017, when that development was originally approved, they were supposed to pay, if you look at that diagram, for the green line.

[06:19:54] They were supposed to put it in. And then in 2017, they brought a case back and said, well, we don't want to do that. So we'll give you the right-of-way, and you guys can build it later, but we're not paying for it. And so that's what happened. They didn't have to build it, and they didn't have to pay for it.

[06:20:11] If they had, we wouldn't be having this discussion because we would be easily requiring them to put the other road in. I'm still not sure that this solution that they came up with in 1993 even would be sufficient.

[06:20:26] And I guess I can ask transportation for that, but I don't know if it would be sufficient based on the amount of units that have come out of the ground. And not in this area, but in other parts of Matoka that people travel through this area to get to Hull Street.

[06:20:45] That's why we had to put a three-way stop in at Beach and Riverway, because when VDOT did the traffic study, they realized how many cars were coming up Riverway Road from River Road to come up Winnipeg Road. I guess one could argue that the bypass would help, but we really need to redesign that the intersection is what really needs to happen, in my opinion.

[06:21:09] Chair, there's one other thing I need to clarify, because in looking at the case, the proper concept plan does have the correct 55-foot minimum, and staff did speak to that, which is included in the summary table on the concept plan. However, the textual statement incorrectly references 50 feet.

[06:21:28] So I want to make sure, and when we approve it, that is, that the lot width will be stated, as it is in the summary table, that it will be 55 feet as a minimum lot width, minimum lot width. Now, I'm not sure if I need...

[06:21:46] Is this a CUPD? It is. Do you want to impose it as a condition? That way, there's no question. Regardless. Excuse me. Regardless of what may be in the statement. There's conflict in the statement. I want it to be clear, so I'll impose it to make sure that it's 55.

[06:22:04] part of my motion. And the applicant accepts that? Yes, we accept that. Do you want to restate your motion? Sure. I guess I should have wrote it down.

[06:22:20] So this is the motion dealing with the zoning. With the zoning itself. So I made a motion to approve case number 24 SN 1334 and part of that motion to impose that the minimum lot width will be a minimum of 55.

[06:22:36] And subject to the other conditions in the staff report. Subject to the other conditions that are stated in the staff report. Okay. remains. Okay. All right. All in favor of part one of the motion. Aye. Aye. All in favor of part two of the motion. I'll make the motion to the exception to the connectivity in case number 24SN1334. Thank you. Second. All in favor. Aye. Next is 25SN1050, Courthouse Road Rezoning, Ms. Hatch.

[06:23:16] All right. Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Dr. Cleese. Case 25 SN1050 in the Clover Hill Magisterial District, Courthouse Road Rezoning and Exceptions, is a request for rezoning from Agricultural A and Residential R7 to Residential Townhouse, plus a Conditional Use Plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements.

[06:23:40] A residential development with up to 149 townhomes and associated amenities is proposed. The project area contains 26.44 acres and is zoned a mix of agricultural and residential R7.

[06:23:55] Property to the south and east is zoned R7. Across North Courthouse Road to the west, development is zoned residential townhouse and residential R15. Property bordering to the north is zoned agricultural. The property is outlined in white in the images above.

[06:24:15] The property borders the single-family community of Hilton Park to the east and Village Church to the north. the villas at ashford hill a 55 and older community is located across north courthouse road to the west the aerial imagery illustrates that the site is largely wooded with four single family dwellings at front north courthouse road the comprehensive plan designates the property for residential neighborhood eight which suggests the property is appropriate for residential development at a maximum density of eight dwellings per acre appropriate residential uses in the residential neighborhood 8 designation include townhomes single-family dwellings two

[06:24:52] family dwellings and zero lot line dwellings chapter 10 the land use plan of the comprehensive plan includes a site-specific note note 33 in which the property is located this note recommends senior developments with up to six dwelling units per acre that are designed and scaled to fit in with the surrounding single-family residential development noting that those would be appropriate in addition note 33 also recommends building heights be limited to two and a half stories the applicant is requesting to rezone the 26.44 acres to rth with the conditional use

[06:25:29] plan development to permit exceptions to ordinance requirements that are relative to townhouse standards and uses residential density would be limited to a maximum of 149 townhouse dwelling units equating to approximately 5.6 dwelling units per acre the proposed residential development will contain active and residential opportunities for residents program common areas and a trail network are provided across the development including a centralized green area improved with the pavilion commitment to provide at least two more amenities within the common area include including a grill area tot lot fire pit area dog park community garden or

[06:26:09] another similar amenity is outlined in the proper language of the case sidewalks along both sides of all internal streets have been proffered with this request as well as a sidewalk along the property's entire frontage of North Courthouse Road. The applicant has proffered a package of conceptual elevations shown in Exhibit B of the staff report, a portion of which is shown above.

[06:26:30] The conceptual plan calls for a mix of front-loaded three-story townhome units and front-loaded two-and-a-half-story twin townhome units at front North Courthouse Road and border the adjacent neighborhood of Hilton Park. In addition, the proffered language includes commitment to the design and quality of the units through use of high-quality building materials, including siting, foundation treatments, and roof treatments.

[06:26:55] To further enhance units with higher visibility, the applicant has proffered that any rear elevation adjacent to North Courthouse Road or adjacent to the central common recreational area include additional architectural treatment similar to the front elevations of the units. Modified lot and setback requirements, a use modification to provide for a shared parking lot, and modifications to common area requirements have been requested with the proposal and are further outlined in the textual statement. Exceptions to lot standards include lot width, side yard setbacks, rear yard setbacks, and variation between units. An exception to uses

[06:27:32] permitted within the RTH district is requested to permit a church use relative to the proposed shared parking lot between the residential development and the neighboring church. An exception to the overall minimum common area requirement is requested, as well as an exception from the requirements to construct a community building an exception to street to street tree requirements relative to the minimum spacing is requested to account not just for overhead utilities but for conflicts such as underground utilities easements and driveways as part of the proposed development the applicant is providing commitment to attainable housing through

[06:28:08] partnership with a third party non-profit housing development organization as defined in the proffered language attainable units shall be attainable to households earning from 60% to 120% of the area median income within the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area. The proffered language notes that the applicant will provide a $1 million contribution to the Maggie Walker Land Trust or another third-party non-profit housing development organization that would be approved by the county for the purpose of providing attainable housing within the proposed development.

[06:28:41] The proffer language further contemplates in the event in which attainable housing units are not able to be acquired within the proposed development. The Maggie Walker Land Trust or other non-profit housing development organization may use a remaining portion of the contributed funds for acquisition of land or purchase of attainable units elsewhere in the county.

[06:29:04] Planning Commission and staff both recommend approval. The proposed development includes a site layout that provides for transition between the project's unit types and the surrounding single-family development with quality amenity space that is centralized in the development. The comprehensive plan's land use designation is residential neighborhood 8 with up to 8 dwelling units per acre, and also supports townhouse uses and the proposed project density.

[06:29:30] Additional recommendations outlined in note 33 of the plan relative to the limited density, development type, and unit height to ensure compatibility with development are also addressed. Incorporation of two-and-a-half-story twin townhome units adjacent to Hilton Park and along North Courthouse Road will provide an appropriate transition by limiting the building height of this unit type next to single-family dwellings and reducing the scale of the project swellings around the project boundary.

[06:30:05] While not proposed as a senior development, the proposal considers the guidance included in Note 33 through the overall design of the community, transition and building height relative to surrounding development, and overall density. The proposed development will provide an additional housing option in the surrounding vicinity, adding to existing single-family development and nearby age-restricted development.

[06:30:26] The exceptions requested to ordinance requirements and development standards are consistent with similar projects that have provided a high-quality building design as well as an integrated development design. So in addition to the public comment that was provided to the Planning Commission and noted in the board's report this evening, the board did receive 24 comments through the portal, both in support and opposition of the application.

[06:30:51] Comments and oppositions noted concerns regarding impacted character, increased traffic, and the proposed RCUT improvements at the Ashford Hill Loop crossover. That's the end of my presentation. Staff's available for any questions. Are there any questions for staff? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[06:31:08] The roads. I'm having difficulty finding it in the case. What are the widths of the roads? 32 feet. 32 feet. And then being able to get in and out of Courthouse Road, you mentioned an ARCUP, but I'm kind of curious, is there going to be a light at those folks when they're making a left-hand turn coming out?

[06:31:32] Are there lights there? There will be no light. The applicant had a traffic signal warrant analysis that was prepared in response to community concerns regarding the proposed changes to the crossover. So based on that 2030 traffic forecast, with a full build-out, a traffic signal did not meet the warrants.

[06:31:53] Didn't meet the warrant. It did not. On both of the exits, right? Correct. And when was that done? Oh, I believe, wait a moment. Right only.

[06:32:20] Okay, okay. I don't have an exact date. It's July. Right, but you're coming out of there, they can only make right-hand turns, and then they'll have to make a U-turn to go the other way. Correct. It would restrict it to only left-turn movements. Okay. Okay. I'm with you. Thank you. Okay.

[06:32:38] All right. Is the applicant present? Would you like to make a presentation? Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey.

[06:32:56] My name is Anne Miller. I'm a planner with Baldwin Associates, a Westwood company, representing the applicant this evening. I do want to thank Betsy Hatch for her presentation and all the work that she and other staff members have put into this case this year. We are pleased to bring it forward this evening with both staffs and the Planning Commission's recommendation for approval.

[06:33:14] So I'll try not to rehash the information you just heard and the questions already. But I just want to touch on a few key points. This case was originally submitted in February of this year. Since then, we've gone through several reviews with staff as well as two community meetings.

[06:33:30] And all of that has resulted in good feedback and many changes that have happened since February. So just a couple of those, since the original is the middle, the overall density was decreased from 6.5 dwelling units to the acre to 5.6.

[06:33:46] The second connection to Courthouse Road was made. That was originally not part of the case, but having two connections to North Courthouse. And with that second connection to the north, it allowed us to have the shared parking lot with the church to provide adequate parking for the townhouses, because we know that's a concern throughout the county, and also provide some additional overflow parking for the church as they need it. The previously proposed connection to Oak Cliff Avenue through the Hilton Park Subdivision was removed after opposition from the Hilton Park Subdivision residents not wanting additional traffic through their neighborhood and being able to provide that

[06:34:22] second connection to North Courthouse Road allowed us to remove that connection. The buffer along North Courthouse Road, it's a 50-foot buffer, is required, but we have increased it to 75 feet to provide some additional landscaping and transition between North Courthouse Road and the proposed residential development so that landscaping will have to meet the zoning ordinance requirements and then as Ms. Hatch indicated we do have a what we're calling the two-unit townhems along North Courthouse Road and this Hilton Park subdivision limited to 30 feet which is two or two and a half stories depending on the design but that's to provide a

[06:35:01] better transition for those areas. And as required by ordinance, as shown on the concept plan, we also have a 50-foot buffer between the two-unit townhomes in the development in the Hilton Park subdivision. In addition, the applicants have committed to the off-site road improvements previously mentioned, which is what's called an R-cut at the intersection of our proposed second access at Village Church Drive and Ashford Hill Loop to the point made earlier that is because of the VDOT STAR study which was finalized in the fall of 2024 before this application was

[06:35:40] even filed and so as noted a traffic study was done in July of 20 or July of this year after our first community meeting when the traffic signal was asked if it would be warranted that study was concluded that it would not be warranted that's been shared with cdot and vdot who agreed with that study and that's why we have the r cut as part of our case because we're just sort of going with the recommendation of the vdot star study of vdot and cdot both recommending that that r cut and then this application was filed earlier this year under and is under 19.1 before

[06:36:18] 19.2 zomod was approved but we have been working closely with staff especially the last couple months to make sure that you know the proper conditions and textual statement before you do align closely with 19.2 to your point about the road widths being 32 feet face a curb face a curb parking standards additional parking with the parking lot and other other points so we do agree with staff's analysis of the proposal especially how it considers the guidance of the comprehensive plan some other changes have been made throughout the life of the project as always but we do believe that what is before you is a high-quality development that allows for a common area

[06:36:58] and community space for future residents, provides adequate transitions along the road and adjacent properties through buffering and varying heights, and integrates design elements as recommended by the comp plan and the new zoning ordinance. So we feel that we really did that not only by receiving feedback from the community and staff, but also integrating that feedback to the best of our ability.

[06:37:22] so with that I will reserve the rest of my time to answer any questions you may have good and I have a question for you in that for this particular case something unusual occurred I'm trying to get a feel for what that is when I receive duplicative emails I know where they're coming from so I know that when they're asking for fully funding schools it could be coming from the PTA or something like that but I've received the same email over and over and over over again do you have a sense of who is behind all these emails who wrote it with the organization

[06:37:58] portal do you have a sense of that they're not coming from from me directly but I think there is a grassroots campaign to kind of help with affordable housing and allowing a housing development in the area but it's not coming from like directly the applicant or anything like so So you don't know who initially penned it or put it together.

[06:38:22] You're just saying that it's a... Yes, I believe that a grassroots campaign is called Yes to Homes RVA. That is, you know, doing this kind of grassroots for email campaign to get support for communities in this area. So again, I want to ask you, because I may have missed it.

[06:38:39] The organization is who? Yes to Homes RVA. Yes to Homes RVA. Okay, that's what I wanted to know. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. Mr. Chair, we've had a, you and I and others have had a long discussion about the components of this case, one being the proffer that's included to donate a million dollars to Maggie Walker Land Trust.

[06:39:04] My understanding, and I'm saying it now because it may save some speakers from coming up who want to address that issue, but there is going to be a motion, I believe, made to remove that from the case. Is that correct? Yes, if that is desired from the board, we completely understand and agree with that.

[06:39:21] And look, if a private developer wants to enter a degree with Maggie Walker Land Trust, I got no problem with that. If they want to make, I think it's great, as a matter of fact. But it should not be, in my opinion, a proper condition in the zoning case. And that's my only opposition.

[06:39:39] Everything else, including one of the things that you didn't even talk about what this does, there's a stormwater issue up in this part of the county. And this large piece of property right here, when it rains, water runs off of it. But when all of those other neighborhoods were built up there, many of them don't have the same stormwater runoff requirements that this one does.

[06:40:00] This one actually, this development actually reduced stormwater runoff in the area. Whereas if you look at some of the other ones, when it rains heavy, the creek up there that floods across Arch Road, and this actually feeds that way. So this is actually, from a stormwater runoff standpoint, it's a good development.

[06:40:21] Thank you. Any other questions of the applicant? I've, oh, I'll wait. All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing on case 25SN1050, Courthouse Road Rezoning.

[06:40:38] Is there anyone here who would like to speak to this case? If so, please come forward and state your name. Good evening again. I'm Vicki Stitzer.

[06:40:54] This particular property is very close to where my business is located. I drive past it every single day. This proposal would be a huge improvement over what is currently and has been that way for quite some time.

[06:41:12] There are two abandoned homes on that property, and they've been there for a very long time. I've been a resident of Chesterfield County for 38 years. My livelihood is absolutely tied to the home building industry, and the fact of my business being located near this property, to have employees have that opportunity, for young families to have an opportunity to live close to where they work, because that is certainly something that is a struggle for the county right now in that area.

[06:41:47] It helps address one of the county's most pressing needs, which is additional housing supply. The demand for housing continues to outpace what's available, and that drives up prices and makes it harder for working families, including many of my employees. It also aligns with Chesterfield County's comprehensive plan, our community's roadmap for thoughtful, balanced development.

[06:42:10] The plan calls for growth in areas where infrastructure already exists. This site is a textbook example of that principle in action. The Courthouse Road Rezoning is an infill redevelopment. It's non-expansion. The property is surrounded by existing roads, utilities, public services, and amenities.

[06:42:31] It makes smart use of the investment Chesterfield taxpayers have already made and represents the most efficient use of public resources. As a business owner who depends on the health of construction and housing, I can confidently say that this project supports not only my business, but hundreds of others that are connected to the industry.

[06:42:50] Suppliers, contractors, tradespeople, transportation companies, and more. But beyond the business benefits, there's simply good planning. It's responsible, efficient, and responsive to the needs of Chesterfield residents. For these reasons, I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you for your time.

[06:43:08] Thank you. Next speaker. Jerry Turner, I'm not against what you're doing here or what they're trying to do.

[06:43:28] What I am concerned about is the million dollars. That shouldn't even be in the program. Y'all need to send this back to planning, tell them to take all that verbiage out of it so there's no indication that because y'all are going to approve this, they can give a million dollars to Maggie Walker.

[06:43:54] Because if y'all approve this like it sits right now, to me, and it's already out there on social media, you're being bribed by a million dollars. My suggestion would be send it back to planning, tell them to take all that stuff out of it, and then bring it back with no, whatever you call it, where they're going to give a million dollars to. And the other thing is, because somebody didn't like the connection in the back of this, I wish that you would have lied in our neighborhood.

[06:44:33] We didn't want that connection in our neighborhood either. But the county said, no, you're going to connect so we're connected whether we wanted it there or not there again and I hate to say this as far as I'm concerned you're showing favoritism the county doesn't like that word but if you're going to do it to one neighborhood you got to do it to every neighborhood you just can't pick and choose as which one you're going to let connect to what but the big thing is the million dollars

[06:45:07] y'all need to take that out of there thank you next speaker Catherine Coffey Clover Hill um this shouldn't be approved so i know there was a previous comment that the meeting the public meeting that was attended by about 100 people was a positive meeting it was not there was nobody there that wanted this nobody wanted it at all i'm not really sure where the whole like oh this is a great meeting it really wasn't um during previous emails that i had exchanged with ms schneider like you had said this was going to be a single family you would advocate for single

[06:45:44] family housing that is not what this is and despite the whole comment about this is in compliance with note 33 it really isn't no 33 is for 55 plus that's not what this is there are actually teachers and firefighters in attendance of that community meeting that do not want this this community here either this isn't even about attainable housing at all this is about preserving our community the way that it looks now it's about maintaining the traffic along courthouse road where we've had people clocked at 88 miles an hour and there's racing every single evening this is about the traffic concerns with the not being able to make a right and left turn because It's not just going to be the community across the street from this proposed development.

[06:46:24] It's going to be Edenbury as well, because anybody who's coming out of that community is going to have to make a right. If they want to go to Poway, they're going to have to turn around at Edenbury. People are making a right-hand turn out of Edenbury to come south on courthouse. If you've ever driven north on courthouse and sat at that light to make a left just to go into Stonehenge, you can't see straight over because people are driving 60 miles an hour south.

[06:46:46] So it's just an accident waiting to happen. We've already had pedestrian fatalities which aren't in any of the data 'cause they're still currently under investigation. So when you even add a sidewalk there with the purpose of trying to connect it to Midlothian Turnpike or Hall Street, we've already had people killed walking across the street.

[06:47:02] There was actually a car flipped on Courthouse just last week, I think it was on Saturday 'cause it actually conflicted with we were having a party and people were late because there was a car flipped. This whole thing is a bad idea and this isn't about attainable housing.

[06:47:17] This is about listening to the community that showed up at the public meeting, myself included, the people that have emailed you, and I know there have been a slew of emails, not just the ones in support, but also in opposition. Elizabeth Hardin received 28 emails the day of the Planning Commission meeting, which I attended as well.

[06:47:35] And I have also been incredibly engaged with communicating not just with the developer, but also with the Planning Commissioner, as well as Ms. Schneider with regard to this. This is not a good idea, And this is completely out of characteristic of what the community looks like around there.

[06:47:50] You're sticking in townhouses. It's not consistent with what is a long courthouse road. If you're going to do anything, do the single-family houses. Do attainable housing, single-family, like the Ettrick Landing that just went in. Do something else, but don't do this.

[06:48:07] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Chairman and the rest of the board members, a lot of the ground was covered.

[06:48:22] I will say that I've been kind of following the progress of this. Sorry, my name is Carl Smith, and I am a resident of the Hilton Park Development. I've been at the community meetings as well. And to reiterate what the previous speaker said, the tone was definitely not positive.

[06:48:43] There was a very much outspoken protest and disapproval of the plans. I'm glad to see some of the considerations taken into consideration, particularly leaving the stub road out of it and leaving this as a self-contained development.

[06:49:01] I'm glad to hear that considerations were made to the water runoff because I there's a lot of issues surrounding the runoff and I lost two or three feet of property to some some water running through that creek, which will rise from a quarter of an inch to about four or five feet and like rapids.

[06:49:27] So I'm glad to hear I am going to take that with a grain of salt, and we're not going to really know the outcome of this development until if and when it comes to fruition. My main priority here is to reiterate what the previous speaker said, and this is not within character of the development of the surrounding areas and neighborhoods.

[06:49:53] Traffic aside, I personally am confused as to why this is even being considered at all. It's zoned for residential. Accommodations could be made, as mentioned, for more affordable housing, smaller units. I know that ZOMOD is coming out, reducing the property guidelines to 8,000 square feet.

[06:50:15] That's going to offer a lot of opportunity for smaller homes and allow new families to move in, is predominantly what's happening in Hilton Park a lot of older people are moving out a lot of new families are moving in and so just maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood I think is going to be of the utmost importance I think moving forward for Chester not only for our community built for Chesterfield as a whole and taking I'm not against development I know that that's where the future is going to go I think intelligent and responsible

[06:50:49] development is kind of lacking in this particular plan. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Let's see. Board members. Administrator Casey and the most honorable attorney links. I really didn't want to stand up here, but I'm going to. I've exchanged emails with two of you folks on

[06:51:24] this board. I'll look at all five of you. They don't know which ones they are. I had the same issue with the rest of them, the proffer. A million dollars, maybe Tony Minx, he's a much smarter than me, much smarter man than me. He could probably talk.

[06:51:44] I don't know if you want to call this a bribe, extortion, a pay-for-play. Do I go out to the Chesterfield Financial Transparency site? Is there a calculator there where I can plug in how many homes, single-family homes, how many townhouses?

[06:52:02] I can hit a button that will tell me how much I got to pay. I just, again, it's like everyone else said, and I think you said, Mr. Carroll, I just don't believe this should be part of this case. You just can't see how you folks could be giving money to a private entity where last month you had your pictures taken there at the 10 new houses.

[06:52:28] Everyone was all happy about it. According to Richmond Buzz said, since those 10 houses had like a 58% overrun on how much they thought they were going to cost. what kind of financial planning is that if they don't even know how much a house is going to cost them to build those 10 houses? I mean, that's worse than our school board. The cost of a run on a school. And I was told that some of the families that have bought those houses are teachers.

[06:53:05] Where's all the money going the school's paying? That's the school's spending if they're not paying their teachers enough money that they can afford a house. Our priorities have to be screwed up Pretty damn bad. Sorry, folks, that we spent all this money and they can't afford a house.

[06:53:25] Not only the teachers, but police, fire people, fire personnel, emergency personnel. We're not paying them enough money that they could buy a house without having to go through attainable or affordable housing.

[06:53:41] We've got an issue here. And I don't know if Maggie Walker's a place to go. If they can't, they don't know how much a house is going to cost. I think maybe we should go with somebody else. Do you have any questions for me about that? No?

[06:53:57] Okay. Maybe Mr. Means could tell us what the official verbiage is for that million dollars, what it should be called, because I sure as hell don't have a good word for it. Thank you.

[06:54:12] Next speaker. I wanted to thank y'all for being here and listening to us. My name's Grant. We live in Hilton Park.

[06:54:30] I'm glad to hear that the roads are not going to be coming through Hilton Park and running the traffic through our neighborhood. The neighborhood's been there for a bit of 50 years. People walk in there constantly. That traffic would have hindered that a lot. I think the water easement, if you're going to be helping arch roads flooding, that's a good thing, but I don't think that putting another 190 houses, townhomes there, adding two vehicles per house, it's 400 vehicles that are going to be adding, to not need a light there is incredible.

[06:55:03] Keithwood comes out there to go left to the courthouse toward Hall Street, to go toward Polite. You've got to cross six lanes of traffic. You've got to cross a turn lane when you get in the middle to try to sit there. you can't see what's coming you know there's been a lot of deaths like she had said earlier um the intersections right in front of you know ace and all that right there in midlothian those those two miles right there is like some of the worst miles in chesterfield um as far as traffic and danger and if you're going to put older people there elderly trying to cross that intersection without a light that's just an accident waiting to happen you're going to affect older people

[06:55:42] younger people I think two exits adding to courthouse road is extremely dangerous and they need to really think about the lights at courthouse road I don't know how they I don't know how they put them they'd be so close you know that it would affect traffic in the morning just as much as it's affected now without them but I hope something can happen and thank y'all for listening thank you

[06:56:08] next speaker Renee Eldred um earlier y'all were talking about how people are always accused and Dr. Hilton, you probably haven't had it much yet.

[06:56:26] You're new. Accusing y'all of doing things that you know good and well you haven't done. A little piece of advice, stop listening to them. Stop responding to them. It just feeds them.

[06:56:41] The only ones that are listening to these people are the ones that are also doing the same thing. The praffer in here, I'm glad y'all are considering taking it out because that would be fuel to the fire for them.

[06:57:00] it's it's a great idea granted it's only probably gonna give you three maybe four homes but if a developer wants to do that on their own on the side more power to them let them roll um i did have one question that i i will say i did not look at this with all eyes but so one thing i was kind of confused about was the parking with the church i could not tell whether that was required parking

[06:57:37] or if that's additional parking that the church and the developer have come to an agreement with. If it is required parking, it might still be a good idea, but somewhere in the process it needs to be stated as exactly what it was.

[06:57:57] And I don't know whether I saw that or not. But again, stop listening to the people who are accusing you of everything under the sun because they'll never stop, they'll never listen to anything, and they're going to believe what they're going to believe.

[06:58:12] Just stop feeding them. Thank you. Any other speakers? Seeing none, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Does the applicant want to have any time to come up and share anything based on what they heard?

[06:58:37] Thank you. I'll just touch on a few things. The contribution was simply the applicant's effort to support a solution to what they see as an issue in today's housing market. With that said, we clearly understand the concerns raised at the Planning Commission as well as tonight in conversations we've had since the Planning Commission.

[06:58:58] And so if it's a desire by the board, okay with removing that proffer, they would move forward with the contribution through a private agreement. So I just wanted to make that clear. In terms of the transportation improvements, we understand the concerns. I won't rehash what we've already talked about, but I'll have to defer to CDOT and BDOT on why the RCUT is the best solution at this location.

[06:59:21] But, you know, they were just trying to adhere to the VDOT STAR study that's already been finalized with the recommendations in that. To the last point about parking, so in the textual statement about the shared parking lot, it does say that at least 32 parking spaces will be allocated for just the townhouses.

[06:59:43] So those would be signed and dedicated for the townhouse development, and then any other parking within that could be shared between the church and the townhouses. But also there would be on-lot parking for each townhouse per requirements of the zoning ordinance and there would also be on-street parking with the 32 face-to-curve, face-to-curve.

[07:00:07] So, you know, we do agree with staff's analysis, like I said, about the comprehensive plan. You know, we're at 5.6 dwelling units to the acre, which is, you know, underneath the 8. recommend by the overall as well as note 33 with the six and then i also want to note that townhouses are single family attached dwellings on individual lots designed to be sold as individual units on each lot so this is an appropriate product type for this area as outlined in the comprehensive plan they will be for sale lots on individual lots for sale homes on individual lots that people will

[07:00:43] own their own lot much like any other residential subdivision and then as even supervisor Carol noted you know the applicants have proper condition to adjust drainage concerns that has been reviewed by environmental engineering and as shown on the concept plan we already do have you know two areas in this northern part reserved for stormwater management and once it goes through the subdivision process will be reviewed and approved by environmental engineering to meet

[07:01:16] all local and state requirements for drainage. So if there are any other questions or things I can clarify, please let me know. Board members, are there any questions for the applicant? Thank you.

[07:01:34] This case is in the Clover Hill District. Ms. Snyder, can I speak before you for a second? So I just want to, one, commend you for your work that you're trying to do with affordable housing.

[07:01:56] And I know this is like the second project you try to get through with some type of affordability in it. And I know you're doing the right thing. I know your heart is in it. I know it's difficult, but we're really, I can say this, I'm behind you on affordable housing.

[07:02:24] And I sat down with firefighters on Thanksgiving Day and said, hey, you know, I want our kids to go to the same school district. I want them to be in the same class. And what that means is they got to live in my neighborhood. You know, I tell the PD the same thing.

[07:02:43] Sheriffs, you know, I say the same thing. I want our kids to all go to the same school, and that means that we have to allow them in some place in our community, and so your efforts are very heartfelt, and in the words of Renee, I hope that the criticism that you've gotten from it doesn't turn you away from affordable housing, that you will continue to fight with me shoulder to shoulder, and, you know, other board members here, too.

[07:03:20] You know, it was a difficult situation to try to explain, even at the planning commission level, you know, what you were trying to do. But I get it. I think we got it there, and I think we get it here.

[07:03:36] But, you know, just keep fighting, and we're going to find a solution so all our kids can go to school together. You know, we can live in an inclusive area. where we have affordable housing and where people are not ostracized because they live in houses maybe in a little different area. You don't want to just put them over here. You want it in an area where everybody can have dignity and respect and affordability. So just please,

[07:04:11] please continue to fight. I actually have a question. I apologize for the applicant. So, Dr. Hilton has spoken about affordable housing.

[07:04:32] What are we expecting these properties to sell for? A builder hasn't been chosen, so I'm not sure the end price yet. But I think in talking with the developers, you know, the mid-300s, 400s is probably a starting price just with today's market, quite honestly.

[07:04:53] Thank you. Yeah, of course. I'll make a comment once she makes a motion. Well, before I, I, I just have some follow-up and some things.

[07:05:11] And, and again, just so we're clear, I did have written up a statement to remove the proper, which for the attainable housing, which really, again, Dave, to your point, the, the etric landing project.

[07:05:40] So that was owned by, and the amount of projects on there was dictated a lot by Maggie Walker as well as the Friends of Ettrick, what they wanted to see there because they were the ones that were working with them.

[07:05:57] With Maggie Walker owning the land underneath there, a house is going to cost as much as a house is going to cost to build. There's nothing that the builders can do to change that. So what Maggie Walker does, or what we have done, is if you're trying to create attainable or cost whatever you want to call it, attainable affordable housing, we bought down the price of what it cost to build that.

[07:06:29] We paid the builder some so that they could sell the houses at a lesser, at a better price. That's how it works. the million dollars that they're proposing would be given to Maggie Walker would use that to buy down the cost of the house of what the person is going to buy it for so they're basically paying half of or they're basically half paying half of it so that million dollars if that's what she's saying is 300 it might buy like like Renee had said four or five houses maybe of that million

[07:07:06] dollars would go towards that so that's what that that's about it's not about what the house costs i just wanted to give you some clarification on that right the the public hearing is closed i i'm sorry this the public hearing is closed so that being said again i never had any intentions

[07:07:41] of doing anything nefarious or untoward my intention is to create housing that people can afford to live in so i just want to get that straight i understand and i drive reams road every day and i understood why the con the neighborhood neighbors were concerned about the connection to hilton park so i worked with staff they removed that they they have put that in a separate completely separate parcel and eventually that will be um i believe it's just going to be

[07:08:20] an individual parcel that's going to be sitting there the point of the matter is is that i listened to community and i i understood exactly what you're saying um i can't control what vdot does do i think that an r cut is the best solution for that no but i'm not a a traffic consultant or engineer and um and i guess that's where we have to trust the people that are in charge of that. I see this, that building up to the top to the north, that's super radiator

[07:08:58] coils. That's how close we are to the South Lake Business Park. This is a perfect area in my mind to build workforce housing. There's only one section of sidewalk that will not be completed after this. So it'll be completely sidewalked all the way up except for the portion in front of the church. I think that we can find a way of getting that completed and actually have a walkable sidewalk all the way up to Midlothian Turnpike if people want to take a bus to go

[07:09:34] somewhere. These are things that I think about that I, and I've been talking with GRTC about possibly having, you know, when we bring in another bus, maybe connecting Midlothian Turnpike and Hall Street on Courthouse Road. We've been talking about that. And I know that you've talked to vote a gym on your board for GRTC.

[07:09:53] I just think that these are things that we have to think about. This is not an inappropriate, yes, I understand there's residential to one side, but you're backed up against a business park. That's where, and there's woods behind the church that they said they have no intention of building on.

[07:10:11] So there's plenty of buffer there also. So this is where I'm at with this. And I hear people, and I think sometimes It just is one of those things that there's only so many things we can control.

[07:10:32] And I had just as many positive comments about this case as I did negative comments. And I know you don't think that I'm telling you the truth, but that's just the way it is. And so I make the motion to approve case 25SN1050 with the proffered conditions, except for proffered condition 24, attainable contribution.

[07:10:59] Second. Any further discussion? I have a comment, Mr. Chair. I want to make it perfectly clear I'm not against affordable housing. I'm not against trying different ways to come up with affordable housing.

[07:11:16] I know because we did it with Maggie Walker at Ettrick Landing. And I applaud the developer who's going to make a million-dollar contribution to Maggie Walker Land Trust to help with this. I think it's a good solution for that.

[07:11:32] I'd like to find other ways that we could work with the development community, quite frankly, to find ways that we could cut costs to make it so that they can build houses in a much more affordable way. There are many things that attribute to the cost, some being, in this case, believe it or not, when you look at the Chesapeake Bay Act and what's required of developers now when it comes to regrading land in order to retain 20% more water on the property, that

[07:12:07] cost money for them to regrade and make that work, which adds to the cost of the lots, adds to the cost of the road networks. So my point about the million dollars was not against affordability.

[07:12:24] I know that, but I don't think that that should be in a zoning case. That is a private agreement between a corporation and a non-profit, and I think that's where it needs to stay. And the reason, and I'll make it perfectly clear, if for some reason the developer of this property all of a sudden said, we can't do it, and they have to sell it, they have a proffer sitting in there that someone's going to make a million-dollar donation, and that makes it more difficult maybe for them to sell, and if, quite frankly, if what happened in '08, for whatever reason, the market tanks, and the property value drops, it just makes

[07:13:03] it untenable in the future, and I think that's a private contractual thing, and that's all I wanted to say, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a comment on this. Just to clarify, that money was not coming to the county in any way, shape, or form.

[07:13:21] It wasn't coming to us. It wasn't coming to Chesterfield. It would have been donated directly to Maggie Walker, which is a nonprofit that we don't control. I know the motion's on the floor, so I'll defer to our parliamentarian, but I'd like to ask the applicant another question.

[07:13:40] Is that okay? Yeah, you can. Okay. okay um did the county tell your applicant or tell your client that they had to do this or did your client tell the county that they wanted to do this on their own beforehand the latter i mean it came up in a conversation with staff during one of our reviews with them and they mentioned that they were planning on doing this privately and we kind of talked through it and they said you know if you want to add it to the case we could try that and so we went through the proper

[07:14:19] channels and it was that's kind of how it started but that's my understanding as well so i want to make it clear that the applicant was already working on this outside of the county with no influence from the county on whether or not they wanted to do this is that correct correct i think that's very important number one number two i think that anybody um in the community that wants to be a part of helping to make sure that there is housing for our workforce, that's fantastic.

[07:15:01] But when I was first approached about this, my response was, well, I think it's wonderful if somebody wants to do that, but I'm not going to make a judgment on this case based on a proffer that has anything to do with making a donation.

[07:15:21] the case is going to have to stand on its own and if it's a good case and it passes and they do this that's fantastic if it's not a good case even though they're willing to do this it shouldn't be passed and I just think all those points are important number one it was not the county's idea it was just a conversation that came up I happen to know that the applicant has been trying to figure out how to be a part of dealing with making some more affordable opportunities for our

[07:16:00] workforce in the past. So I've had conversations with them. I've also had conversations that said that we shouldn't put all affordable or attainable or workforce housing in one place and densify it all in one place. We need to spread it out throughout the county so that everybody has an opportunity to attend schools in a good school zone, that they have a place that they can live that doesn't hurt the community, but it also gives them an opportunity that they wouldn't

[07:16:33] otherwise have. But in no way, shape, or form should that be a condition for a project to get approved, because it does have some people that will look at that and say, oh, what's the magic number how do i get to um an outcome in my case that i get approved and that that that is not what i want to see happen in the future but i do think that anybody that can help in this area to spread

[07:17:07] out um opportunities for people to live in an area that they wouldn't otherwise be able to live is greatly appreciated and everybody that has that ability to help with that I appreciate that opportunity so my vote tonight will be solely based on the information that I've received outside of that proffer that's all the comments that I have motion and a second all in favor

[07:17:42] Mr. Chairman, it is 1037, so we're coming up on 11 o'clock, so you may want to make a motion to suspend the rules to be able to continue past 11.

[07:18:03] We got 22 minutes in the next case. I don't think we need to have a full presentation. I think if we can just, I recused myself from it, but as I preside over it, I would ask the board member that is handling this case for the Bermuda District, if all he needs to know is what they've come up with, because this case has been discussed several times.

[07:18:30] So he had, I think, a public hearing where we discussed this before, if I'm correct. No, I believe that was just on the deferral. Okay. That was just on the deferral. I don't mind having a public hearing, but do we need a whole presentation of the case or just what is being amended?

[07:18:47] All he needs to do is come forward and let us see what the adjustments are to the commercial component for this, industrial component for this. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey. I'll be quick. So this is a rezoning of Raymond Road, Raymond Road rezoning from A to I3.

[07:19:10] And what, if we advance to that, to the next slide, please, the request allows for I3 uses with the exception of the data centers and a number of other intense industrial uses that were identified and specifically proffered out of this particular case.

[07:19:28] It makes it more appropriate, given that we do have some residential loss neighboring the property. But what we do have is a 200-foot buffer that is intended to protect those properties on the western side of the project. So if we go to the next side, please.

[07:19:45] We also have another condition that came directly from conversations with the community, which sets a prohibition to having access from this site directly to the residential roads, which would be Riverside Drive and Gene Court, and Gene Drive actually just to the west of the property.

[07:20:04] Access to the site will be from Raymond Road. So next slide. So Planning Commission recommended approval, staff does as well, but the request implements the comprehensive plan. As I mentioned, we've got an enhanced buffer and access prohibitions, which comes from, again, conversation we have with the community, and then the conditions really do allow for a good transition of a use that is, a use that's compatible with the comprehensive plan, but also provide some safety or protection, let's say, for the adjacent residential development.

[07:20:33] So staff recommends approval. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? And if I'm not mistaken, those changes in the properties were made before the advertisement of this case. That's correct. Correct. To make it easy, what was added is all uses, all permitted or restricted uses in I-3 districts shall be permitted with the exception of the following uses.

[07:21:01] slaughterhouse, meat manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, automobile storage lot, glass furnace, chemical and allied products, manufacturing, crematorium, data centers, electric power transformer stations, foundry, non-ferrous, other primary metal industry, fuel storage and distribution, gas production plants, gas storage and distribution, iron foundry, leather tanning, mass transportation station, terminal, trolling, refining, and allied industries, coal products, manufacturing, electric power plant producing, electricity, others, and seafood canning and preserving to include product preparation and packaging.

[07:21:37] So they took a lot of the really bad ones out of the case that potentially could have been there. Well, again, I'm recusing myself, which I have done in the past. What I would ask the applicant is to, you have the right to make a statement, but I don't know that it's necessary, so I'd ask if you would wait until after the public hearing if you have any rebuttal then you're welcome to it um that being said um ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing on case 25 sn1055 raymond road rezoning is there anyone who'd

[07:22:14] like to speak to this case if so please come forward and state your name renee eldred i'm glad to see that they took all the hard um business yeah because these these people live right up this, and really nasty chemical places, manufacturing is not really what you want to live beside when you've had nothing but woods there all your life, and a lot of people have been there a long time, so I'm glad to see the use restriction, and with that, that was my main concern with the project at the beginning.

[07:22:53] With that restricted, I think it's a good thing. Thanks. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board, and I believe Mr. Carroll is handling this case. Yes, Mr. Chair.

[07:23:11] I will say that I am appreciative of the applicant making the concessions and changing what could be allowed here, and so I'm satisfied with that. I think with the buffer as well, I make a motion to approve case number 25, SN1055, subject to conditions in the staff report.

[07:23:33] Second. All in favor? Aye. Again, I recused myself. I did not. Yes, sir. Item 18, public hearings. A, to consider amendment to County Code Chapter 19.2 relative to auto sales, utility connections, and site plans.

[07:23:51] Mr. Jenkins. Good evening, Mr. Chair, board members, Dr. Casey. I'm here tonight to present on an amendment to the forthcoming zoning ordinance, Chapter 19.2, that was recently approved and will be effective January 1, 2026. This is a three-part amendment dealing with auto sales and related uses, required utility connections, and site plans.

[07:24:13] So the first part of the amendment deals with auto sales and related uses. Staff proposes to change auto sales so that it is a conditional use in the corridor, commercial, and warehouse and distribution districts. This means that it requires board approval. And also staff proposes that the related uses of motor vehicle sales, repair, rental, and leasing, And tractor-trailer sales, repair, rental, and leasing are also conditional uses in the warehouse and distribution district.

[07:24:41] And also in the new ordinance, section 19.2 contains a clause that preserves existing land uses for five years in the existing C5, I1, I2, and I3 zoning districts. And so accordingly, staff proposes that those existing 19.1 uses, auto sales, motor vehicle sales, and rental, and truck rental are ineligible for this five-year grace period.

[07:25:02] So, they would join data centers as the other ineligible use for the five-year grace period. So, that's it on auto sales. Any questions before I move on to utilities? Any questions? All right.

[07:25:17] So, on to utilities. The updated utilities ordinance, Chapter 18, was approved by the board in October of this year, a month after ZOMLOD. It also becomes effective January 1. Staff proposes an alignment to better align, staff proposes an amendment to better align the new ordinance with the final version of the utilities chapter.

[07:25:35] First off, the rural zoning districts, agriculture, rural community, and semi-rural are generally exempt from connecting to public utilities due to their low density. However, there are some mandatory connection requirements in Chapter 18 that still apply to these districts that need to be incorporated into Chapter 19.2.

[07:25:57] And so these three districts, A, RC, and SR, will be modified such that utilities are not required unless the connection criteria in the utilities ordinance applies. And second, the more denser residential districts, one of the options in SR and then SC and SU, are all required to connect to public water and sewer.

[07:26:18] And however, Chapter 18 still has a limited administrative exception process that can allow for well and septic in those neighborhoods if there are specific topographical constraints, physical conflicts, or capacity issues. And so we propose to amend SR, SC, and SU districts to allow for these administrative exceptions to exist within Chapter 18.

[07:26:40] And then lastly, for utilities, this section of the zoning ordinance, Section 19.2-72, deals with development under prior ordinance. and there's an exemption for connection to utilities for development that's already approved. So staff proposes an amendment to provide greater clarity on what constitutes development that's already approved, and you can see the four criteria listed here on the slide, which includes an unimproved lot within a recorded subdivision, expansion of a dwelling within a recorded subdivision, unimproved property with a valid site plan that was approved prior to the effective date

[07:27:16] and is not required to connect to utilities, and a minor expansion of a non-residential use, provided that the Health Department approves the continued use of private water and wastewater. So those four things would not be required to connect to utilities. Any questions there?

[07:27:37] All right, lastly, site plans. For site plans that were submitted this year under the existing zoning ordinance but haven't received approval as of January 1, we propose an amendment to allow those plans to continue to be reviewed under the development standards of the existing ordinance for up to one year.

[07:27:53] This grace period only extends to development standards. That includes things like setbacks, buffers, landscaping, parking, et cetera. Permitted uses, on the other hand, would be determined by the new zoning ordinance starting on January 1. And any application undergoing review under the existing ordinance with old rules can convert to review under the new zoning ordinance at any time.

[07:28:15] So that concludes the amendment. It would become effective January 1 like the rest of Chapter 19.2. I'll take any questions you have. Board members, any questions? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the amendment to County Code Chapter 19.2 relative to auto sales, utility connections, and site plans.

[07:28:38] Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Renee Eldred, I want to speak to the automotive section. Glad to see that change.

[07:28:57] The used car lot sales on all of the corridors is just they come in, they do what they want, and somewhere, somehow, we need to be able to say, you might actually sell a car if you make your property a little better by doing X, Y, or Z.

[07:29:20] Just saying. But I'm glad to see that because it will help. Like on Route 1, we don't need any more used car lots, quite frankly. saturated, and I don't want to see the other corridors get the same way.

[07:29:35] So, the utilities part, I'm leaving that up to the utilities department. It sounds good to me. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Can I get a motion? So moved.

[07:29:53] Second. All in favor? Aye. B, to consider a request to vacate a portion of a variable with drainage easement across the property owned by Courthouse Landing, VALLC, within Courthouse Road Extended, and dedication of variable-width drainage easement in the Dale District.

[07:30:15] Ms. Snow. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider the vacation of a portion of a variable-width drainage easement within Courthouse Road Extended and dedication of a variable-width drainage easement. The vacation of the portion of easement is needed to facilitate the courthouse landing development.

[07:30:32] Public hearing is required to vacate the portion of easement. The request has been reviewed by staff and approval is recommended after the public hearing. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a, oh, is there any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the request to vacate a portion of a variable with drainage easement across property owned by Courthouse Landing VA LLC within Courthouse Road Extension in dedication of variable with drainage easement.

[07:31:03] Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing nobody, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. To consider the vacation of an eight-foot easement across lot one, Halsley, section 21, a resubdivision of lots five and six and open space B in the Midlothian District, Ms. Snow.

[07:31:32] Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider the vacation of an eight-foot easement across Lot 1, Halsley, Section 21, a re-subdivision of Lots 5 and 6 in Open Space B. The owners of the lot have requested the vacation. The easement is no longer needed.

[07:31:48] Public hearing is required to vacate the easement. The request has been reviewed by county staff, Verizon, and Comcast, and approval is recommended after the public hearing. Any questions for staff? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the vacation of an 8-foot easement across Lot 1, Halsley, Section 21, a re-subdivision of Lots 5 and 6, and Open Space B.

[07:32:12] Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Item 19, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters.

[07:32:33] We have no speakers. Mr. Chair, we need a motion to adjourn to the Board of Supervisors' organizational meeting on January 7th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the public meeting room. So moved. Second. Before we vote, we've got a couple minutes.

[07:32:48] Does anybody have anything they'd like to say? Yes, Mr. Chair. I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of Leanne and I to wish everyone in the community a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope everyone has a very safe holiday.

[07:33:04] Thank you to staff for all that you've done tonight and what you always do every day. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I second that. I will also second. Third. I would just like to add, thank you for that comment.

[07:33:21] I'd like to also add that although Dr. Hilton, I'm really hoping next year the meetings aren't as long as the first two that you've been a part of. I knew y'all were going to blame me. I do want to say that it's been an honor and a privilege to serve as chair this year.

[07:33:41] and I want to thank you all for all the hard work put in by this board, by staff, by our citizens, and especially thank you to our citizens that truly do stick it out to the end. We appreciate that. Thank you for this year.

[07:33:58] I hope you enjoy your holiday season, and can we all in favor of adjourn? Wait. You did do an excellent job this year, Mr. Chair, and we appreciate your work as well. I mean, we forget, this is like the last meeting of the year, so I want to thank you for all your hard work, everything you've done to work collaboratively with all of us.

[07:34:22] It's been a pleasure. I'll echo that also. I'll second it. Thank you for all your hard work this year. You've heard me say that multiple times. Really appreciate you. Absolutely. All in favor? Aye. For the last time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com