Coraggio Consulting
Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Meeting - March 11, 2026, Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Place: Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 26m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/2022/media
Official agenda (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3916,plainText=false)
Official minutes (CivicClerk): https://chesterfieldcova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=3954,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.

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

[00:00:18] Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's nice to see all of you. Welcome to the afternoon session of the March 11th Board of Supervisors meeting. Madam Clerk, can I get a motion on that?

[00:00:35] Sure. And a second. Is there a second out there already? Second. All right. Well, thank you. I think we were tied. We were tied. All in favor. Tied. Okay.

[00:01:08] I think I'm live now. All right. Item two, 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. Chairman, members of the board, and the public that's here, and the public that is watching, as we have been doing for many years, we start each meeting with everyday excellence.

[00:01:31] And just to note, too, for the record prior to the meeting, that the board actually meets those that are being honored and takes a nice picture with them for a keepsake for really us and for them. Today is no different, so if I could have J.C. Poma come up to the front here. It's our sports visitation entertainment executive director, and he's going to share a little story with three of our exceptional employees from his division, which I think almost means the entire department is here, by the way.

[00:01:58] But I would want to just add to this is that this is an example of an entity that's recently formed, in essence, but is really just engaged in so many different manners with the public, with our leagues, with our visitors, and even was noted today that just the leagues themselves are just growing.

[00:02:16] exponentially with, again, I think Mr. Carroll was at a meeting recently where there's 18 new teams in the Matoica area around Mosley Elementary School. So all good things, but also all good things that need to be sorted out so that we can try and give everybody the access to the rectangles, diamonds, and hardwood floors. So with that said, Mr. Poma, please proceed.

[00:02:38] Thank you, Dr. Casey, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board. It's awesome to have three folks who I'm very excited to introduce you to. To my right is Ms. Ronnie Hopson and to my left is Mr. Matt Mullen and Ms. Shanna Howitt. I have the great pleasure to introduce these three superstars and as Dr. Casey referenced, they make up the sports and events function within SV&E. As you know and Dr. Casey alluded to, this division was created this past year after we made the strategic decision to transition local athletics from parks and recreation and thank you neil for all of your

[00:03:16] efforts the goal was simple provide seamless customer service to our local sports leagues and associations and ensure that when we say we pursue sports tourism for the benefit of our local sports we truly mean it one team one face one mission and since that transition other localities have taken notice and have already gone with the same structure in our direction And this transition would not have been successful if it weren't for each of these three folks.

[00:03:46] Not three folks, each of these three folks. I would be remiss if I also didn't mention Marianne Wilson-Widdell, who transitioned into this department with them and has since taken another role that truly benefits our team. One of this team's first major efforts was something that will guide local sports into the future here in Chesterfield.

[00:04:06] It was a complete overhaul of our local sports policy. In just three months, they researched other comparable jurisdictions, our top 10 counterparts across the Commonwealth. They surveyed all of our local leagues and associations and engaged with 37 of them throughout that process and held both internal meetings and community sessions.

[00:04:29] During that survey process, one thing became clear. They love Ronnie and they love Shanna and they don't always see Matt's behind the scenes efforts, but his leadership is invaluable. I'll add, and I've shared this stat with you before, we have over 450 organizations who rent 30,000 bookings from our team.

[00:04:50] I want to repeat that. Mr. Carroll, your point earlier, we are growing. We have over 450 organizations who book 30,000 plus times a year. And as we all know, sports bring out a lot of competitiveness. These three folks don't always hear thank you.

[00:05:07] They hear, can we have more? Can we have more? Can we have lots more? Can we have this? And they treat it almost as a challenge because when they answer that challenge, it means we're affecting more youth and more of our residents on these fields and courts. The result of that work was the policy you reviewed and approved, which went into effect on March 1st.

[00:05:27] It creates a transparent and equitable system for assigning fields and uses data to inform our decisions. It also does something you as a board can appreciate and has not done many other places across the country. It ensures that our majority resident local sports organizations do not pay a dime for our fields, with fees now primarily focused on tourism groups and our non-resident users.

[00:05:55] Again, our majority resident groups are not paying a dime for our fields, and these three folks coordinate all of that throughout the year. We know it won't always be perfect, and with this many bookings and this many teams and leagues, but I am confident under the direction of these three, we are set up for a bright and tremendous future here in that county.

[00:06:15] So it is my honor to present Ronnie, Matt, and Shana with this everyday excellence. I mean, they don't know this is coming, but I'd like for Michael to roll a short video for us. I'm Richard Griotti with Chesterfield Little League, and I just want to congratulate Ronnie, Shana, and Matt, and thank them for the incredible partnership they've shown our league over the years this past season especially as our program has experienced tremendous growth they've been right there with us responsive thoughtful and always focused on helping the community succeed their customer

[00:06:51] service and their willingness to work with us as new policies move forward has made a real difference for the families and kids we serve we're truly grateful for their partnership and proud to work alongside them. Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition. I am Tish Rock and I'm NCTL and we are from Richmond United.

[00:07:10] We are so excited to hear that Shona, Ronny, and Matt are receiving an award from the Board of Supervisors. We have worked with these amazing public servants for many, many years and cannot say enough how professional and responsive they have been. Both Chesterfield County, its partners, and citizens are lucky to have such dedicated staff.

[00:07:30] Congratulations Ronnie, Shauna, and Matt. Well deserved. Hi, I'm Sherman Litton, President of Chesterfield Basketball League. And we're proud to be able to work with the county, especially Ronnie, Matt, and Shauna.

[00:07:48] They do an excellent job. Ronnie is coordinating with us to get over 20 gyms on Saturdays and Sundays to play games. And with the snow and everything, she does an excellent job coordinating everything.

[00:08:05] They do a super, super job. Hi, my name is Betsy Ellis, and I run Panthers Field Hockey Club here in Richmond. We've been here for 20 years and have been working very closely with Chesterfield Parks and Recs for most of those 20 years. I am so happy to include that I have worked with Ronnie, mostly Ronnie, and Shana and Matt for many years now, and it's a class act.

[00:08:31] You can't get any better than that. They are prompt, they are polite, thoughtful, and always willing to help no matter what. So congratulations on your award. It's very well deserved. Hello, my name is Richard Duncan, the commissioner of CQL, the Chesterfield Quarterback League.

[00:08:47] And I just want to say thank you. Thank you to everybody at Chesterfield Parks and Rec. But in particularly, thank you to Matt and thank you to my girl, Ronnie. Listen, because of you, we are better. Because of you, our community is better. And listen, keep going, keep striving, and our best and brightest days in Chesterfield County are still ahead of us. With that, we'll take any remarks from you all, but I just want to say we couldn't do this. Parks hasn't been able to do this for this many years without, especially Ronnie and Shanna, and now having Matt's leadership to move us into the future, I'm really, really

[00:09:24] proud of. So thank you all for allowing us this space. Mr. Engel. All right, so I got a small request can i book a pickleball game on a baseball field to be played by a soccer team using a football while wearing field hockey gear well let us check the new policy just good coordinate coordinating that many fields and courts and i i don't know how you do it but i

[00:09:57] thank you so much for what you do um it's a huge huge task i can can only imagine um and i'm glad that we're now being more equitable at it and not allowing, you know, there to be some turf wars, should I say, about who should be where. So, but thank you so much for taking that on.

[00:10:22] Dr. Hillen. Yeah, just want to say thank you. I've attended a few of your meetings and it's good to see people excited about the new process, the new way to gain access to fields and facilities. So, you know just want to say thank you um you know we'll talk a little bit afterwards i've got some phone calls and um people are excited though you know um they really think that this is the right thing to do this happened before i got on the board uh and this is one of the first uh things you told me and we thought we're going to get a lot of pushback but there's been a lot of good

[00:11:01] positive feedback so i know we're doing the right thing and um fairness and equity is important to me. So it's good that we have a process that represents that now. Mr. Carl. Mr. Chair, I have to say that I've met with three of those leaders in the group, all very positive. And since we've made this change, I've not had any complaints from many of the ones in that group.

[00:11:29] And the fact that we got her to smile was really good. Because she looked like we were just torturing her up here a little while ago. Why do I have to be here? When people are asking you to be here to say thank you, that's actually a really good thing. And, you know, I hope that the citizens in the community would take the same opportunity to say thank you for all that you do.

[00:11:51] You know, just hearing the other night with just meeting with the Chesterfield Basketball League and how much growth they've seen, we know how big CQL is and we know how big the baseball is. I mean, and what that growth has been like is we've had meetings on that.

[00:12:07] And so, you know, we do the sports tourism thing so that the kids that live in our community can have the best opportunity to have great athletics, great fields, great everything. And you all help make that work. So I hope you're giving us some time off or something for this, you know, but they deserve it.

[00:12:30] Thank you. It's one of the things in that, one of the things I've noticed about Chesterfield County employees is how much we love to give. give of our hearts, give to the community. But it is hard to receive and to take it in when, we don't take this lightly when we're saying thank you, but to be able to take it in so the smile, you know, it can get a little uncomfortable. But at the same time, we're so grateful for what you all do. And so is the community. If those folks that were in that clip were, they didn't

[00:13:09] have to do that they could have just said no they could have said no i don't feel comfortable doing that if it wasn't coming from the heart so i'm going to invite you to just take it in and the gratitude that we all have for what you all do and we have everyday excellence what we're talking about is that's what you guys absolutely typify is everyday excellence for chesterfield so thank you for that mr jim one last comment yes sir and i think this is an important comment to make And it goes to Joe's leadership, okay?

[00:13:39] We didn't always do this. We didn't always have a highlight of the fantastic work that our people do every day in Chesterfield County. I was here for a long time, and we didn't do this. And I think this is a change that you brought with you. And I think it's really important to have this, number one, so we understand everything that's going on with the workforce, but the community gets to see it.

[00:14:03] And then the employees get to understand that we, from the top down, appreciate everything that everybody's doing. And I think that message is really important. And so I want to give Joe some credit for that because I've been here a long time and we didn't do this before.

[00:14:19] And many times the county was criticized for a lack of appreciation for its employees. And so this is an important thing to do, regardless of what anybody says, because you need to understand that we really do appreciate. And we're trying to relay that on behalf of the constituents as well.

[00:14:39] Any other comments from the board? One last, just kind of piggybacking off it. I think it's nice to be noticed. I do, because you go through this year after year after year, and it's like, is anybody noticing the work I'm doing? And the answer is an unqualified, you better believe it, we noticed.

[00:14:56] So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Item four, work sessions, A, VDOT update, Ms. Worley.

[00:15:21] Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey. Thank you for having me this afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to update you on VDOT's activities for coming out of the winter season into the spring maintenance.

[00:15:44] So to start off on my agenda, I'm planning to cover spring maintenance items that VDOT will be focusing on over the next few months, as well as our fiscal year 26 maintenance budget, which ends on June 30th, and finally the paving program for the 2026 season.

[00:16:05] So to highlight just a few of the maintenance services that VDOT offers for Chesterfield County, here's a list, but mowing, site distance improvements, drainage improvements like pipe replacements, ditching, concrete and sidewalk repair, sign and signal repair, tree trimming, and of course, snow removal, which we're all too familiar with recently.

[00:16:29] Oh, I'm sorry. That's a big one right now. Yeah, that's right. Ice removal as well. So I think I've shared this slide in previous presentations, but thought it was important to highlight again that in 2019, VDOT completed a comprehensive review of our maintenance and operations program.

[00:16:53] And as a result of that review, these maintenance metrics came forward. So these were established and approved by the Commonwealth Transportation Board of maintenance items that VDOT is measured on, that we have metrics annually that we strive to meet in terms of maintenance.

[00:17:12] So they chose 10 maintenance activities, and those are the ones that we focus on. Of course, we do many other things, but these are the ones that are specifically measured. So I'll go into a few of those that will be, oh, sorry, before I do that, let me talk about the fiscal year 26 maintenance budget. So wanted to touch a little bit since we're coming out of winter season and everyone knows we had this historic ice storm, what VDOT's annual maintenance budget was for this fiscal year for emergency response. So VDOT budgeted $225 million statewide

[00:17:49] to respond to emergency efforts. So that includes things like hurricanes and mostly snow removal this season. We are continuing to collect invoices from the storms that occurred in December through February of this year, but we do anticipate at this time that we will have a deficit.

[00:18:11] That's not to say that we won't continue to respond to emergencies. VDOT budgets that $225 million, but it's just for planning purposes, and we will continue to respond to any emergencies that come up for the remainder of the fiscal year, regardless of that budget item. We do anticipate that at the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting next week the board will be provided an update on where we stand for our expenditures in the emergency response budget and that adjustments to our planned work for the remainder of the fiscal year will need to be made to try to

[00:18:46] recoup some of that deficit. So to go into some of the items for spring maintenance and what our focus will be given that we have that reduced budget for the remainder of the fiscal year until june until july 1 asphalt so as mr carroll noted obviously we have a lot of asphalt issues coming out of the winter season potholes and other dig outs asphalt repairs that are needed this is a top focus of our area headquarters staff and they've patched over 5 000 potholes since

[00:19:23] January 1 of this year. And I will note that they patched 2,000 last week alone. So this is kind of our peak season right now in terms of pothole patching. We're using every effort possible. Wanted to highlight that previously when we didn't have favorable temperatures, we used a lot of cold patch when we couldn't obtain hot mix asphalt from plants. But now that asphalt plants are reopening and running, we'll be readdressing some of those locations with more permanent repairs with hot mix asphalt and asphalt digouts. Another item this spring of note, of course, is

[00:20:03] mowing. So our maintenance best practice, that metric that you saw for mowing was that we conduct mowing three times annually to ensure safety of the traveling public. In our residency, we typically start our mowing cycle, our first mowing cycle in late April. I will note that some limited access routes that are managed by our interstate partners in particular 288 they intend for their mowing to begin even a little later than that likely in June of this year we do conduct litter pickup in advance of all of those mowing cycles and in Chesterfield in particular you have a lot of more narrow urban

[00:20:42] areas where you have urban medians that are narrow and require more frequent mowing due to site distance concerns. So we do mow a lot of the primary routes in Chesterfield and high volume secondaries even more frequently than that three times per year metric just to address those site distance issues. Of note, we of course will address site distance concerns at any time outside of these regularly scheduled mowing cycles. If they're noted by our area headquarters or if they're reported through our customer service center. We want to make sure that we have safety

[00:21:20] in mind at intersections and other areas where site distance may be a problem. And then there are a few locations on our interstate system and limited access system where we have pollinator habitats. So 288 in particular, there's a lot of milkweed and other pollinators out there that you'll see left unmowed during the growing season. And then they'll be mowed at the end of the season once a year. And due to budgetary concerns, it's likely that we will be conducting our first round of mowing in our residency with state forces this year. We're still going to mow,

[00:21:59] but it'll be done with our own crews rather than contract crews. So just note that'll take their time away from some other maintenance activities as they're getting that much needed mowing done. Street sweeping. So we've put down a lot more material this winter season than we have in years past, especially with the ice storm, salt and sand to get traction on the roads. We are committed to removing this material from streets, but it will be in the new fiscal year starting July 1. So we have a contract in place for

[00:22:39] sweeping on higher volume roadways. So primaries in Chesterfield County, as well as high volume secondaries, we sweep 500, over 517 shoulder miles on that contract. And then our area headquarters, we will also be leasing a couple of sweeper trucks, similar to the one in the photo, where they will be addressing the lower volume roadways. So subdivisions and also spot locations at intersections and things that need to be done.

[00:23:07] We do still have the ability until the new fiscal year to do sweeping for safety issues with a broom attached to a tractor. So we can still respond to safety concerns that come up associated with sweeping issues on the roadways. And then kind of the final focus of our efforts for this spring will be preparing for the resurfacing season.

[00:23:32] So as we have paving planned for 2026, we want to make sure that we're getting out ahead of that and conducting any maintenance items on those roads in advance. So pipe replacements, asphalt patching, where we need to build up more of a pavement structure in advance of an asphalt overlay, as well as incidental concrete work. Our concrete specialty crew has been doing a lot of work in neighborhoods addressing settled curb and gutter, particularly in Brandermill this year, in advance of resurfacing schedules. So that will also be an item that our crews will be focused on this season.

[00:24:09] So transitioning into our paving program, I'll provide an update on where we stand in terms of our pavement management targets for each roadway network system, historical land mile accomplishments over the last few years, and then provide the public-facing paving map that's available.

[00:24:35] So this is a list of our pavement management targets. The column on the left shows our target sufficiency. These were targets that were established by the Commonwealth Transportation Board for each roadway network system from interstates all the way down to low volume secondaries with less than 3,500 average annual daily trips.

[00:24:58] And you can see the target percentages there. And then I've included the sufficiency rating for Richmond District as a whole over the last couple of years, as well as just Chesterfield County itself, so that you can see where the changes have been over the last couple of years. We do, as you'll see, we've in 2024 and 2025 have made an effort to do slightly less paving on the interstate to meet that target sufficiency of 82% in an effort to transfer some of that mileage to the much-needed low-volume secondary

[00:25:37] system in Chesterfield County. So that's reflected in the sufficiency ratings here. You'll kind of see that the interstate sufficiency rating has creeped down a little bit, while the low-volume secondary sufficiency rating is slowly creeping up over the last couple years. So this is the last five years, including this current season, of lane miles that we've accomplished in just Chesterfield County. So you can see 2026, we're doing more paving in Chesterfield County than we

[00:26:13] have in the last five years, with the vast majority of those lane miles being on the low-volume secondary system on subdivision. So 211 of the 287 total lane miles occurring on the low-volume secondary system in subdivision streets. Some of these resurfacing contracts in Chesterfield have already begun, even in late February, and we have pre-construction meetings upcoming for the remainder. But all of these contracts have fixed completion dates in mid-November, so all work

[00:26:45] should be completed on these 287 lane miles by that time. It's just a screenshot and a link to the statewide paving status map. This is for, it has been updated for 2026 and is available to the public through the virginaroads.org website. And citizens or board members, anyone can track our progress showing what roads are scheduled, currently being worked or completed on that 2026 resurfacing schedule. It also has additional layers where you can view the last five years

[00:27:22] worth of resurfacing that's been done across the state as well. And just a few final resources available to the board, including the Board of Supervisors manual, how to report a road problem to VDOT, and the statewide paving status map that I previously showed. And I will just include this slide right here on how to get in touch with us. So 1-800-4-ROAD, that number is available 24 7 through our VDOT Customer Service Center. And then the number listed for business hours is to

[00:27:58] my direct office in Chesterfield County. So you can reach us during business hours to report a road issue. And those are all the notes I have. I'm happy to take any questions that the board may have. Supervisors, Ms. Schneider. I was taking notes. Yes, ma'am. First off, how can we get more pollinator medians? That would be an awesome thing. I've thought about that. Can you not do them on like Hill Street or courthouse or because it's too tight? Does that... That's right. Yeah.

[00:28:32] It's typically a 50-foot wide median or greater is where we can do a pollinator habitat. So maybe in far west Chesterfield, we've got a couple medians on 360 that are wide enough, but the vast majority are on our interstate system.

[00:28:48] The street sweeping, we've been talking about that in our neighborhood because the sand and grossness. So you're saying that in the smaller neighborhoods that's going to be done later in the season, or it's going to be done by the state instead, is that correct?

[00:29:04] Yes, our area headquarters staff were leasing two sweeper trucks, and they'll rotate around the county, probably starting in late June or early July. Okay, because we were actually talking about even renting one in our neighborhood because it's so bad. We have no sidewalks. And I just wanted to double-check because I know I looked over the year, and I think Bexley might actually be on the schedule for next year, possibly, for a repaving.

[00:29:32] I don't want to speak out of turn. Let me confirm. I'm almost positive it was on the schedule, the three-year schedule finally. But yes. Stop. Just stop. Anyhow. No, thank you all for what you guys do. I know it was a rough year. This snowstorm was, yeah, hard for everybody.

[00:29:48] So thank you. Mr. Carroll, what is your budget for repaving in Chesterfield County? I can get you exact numbers on that. The total for the state is almost a billion dollars.

[00:30:04] In our district, I believe it's around $90 million for Richmond District. I can get you the amount of that $90 million that's spent in Chesterfield County. The reason I ask is we know that Chesterfield County has the second largest road network in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

[00:30:24] Yes, sir. I get calls all the time on, when are you going to repave this road? This road's in terrible shape. When are you going to repave that road? When are you going to repave my neighborhood? Yes, sir. And, of course, we forward all those calls to you and you say thank you.

[00:30:43] I can't do anything about it right now because I don't have any money or it's not on the paving schedule because we don't have the money. And I think it's important for the community to understand, you know, when we're bugging VDOT and saying that it's a VDOT issue, they're in charge of road maintenance, they need to understand that there are finite dollars that we get allocated from.

[00:31:04] Now, we will always continue to advocate at the state level for you to get more dollars to be able to accomplish the mission, but I'm not going to sit here and say I'm 100% accurate on this, but I might be close. My district's 207 square miles. I probably have more road mileage than everybody else. I might not, but maybe. I've got some real long roads, but I know that there are a lot of back roads and a lot of windy roads, and a lot of them right now, like the rest of the part of the state, are in rough shape because of the storms that we did.

[00:31:36] And so I bring this up because I think people need to have some patience and understand, unfortunately, that perhaps Chesterfield County is not getting enough money from the state and what you're being allocated to to actually repave the roads.

[00:31:54] And it also requires to have the manpower and people to do the work, right? Right. So we appreciate all that you do. I know I do. I know, like, many times when people call to complain about something and we get it to you all, it gets fixed pretty quick. And that, you know, it's not an easy task, especially when, you know, it's dangerous, quite frankly, on some of these roads to get out there and do the patchwork that needs to be done because there are a lot of more narrow lane roads.

[00:32:23] So I appreciate the efforts. But, again, I wanted to ask that question so that maybe I could throw a number to people and say, yeah, we're not getting enough money for this. But we have knocked on the state's door in the past, and we'll continue to do so if that's necessary. Thanks.

[00:32:38] Dr. Hilton. So good afternoon. Just want to say thank you, one, for your presentation today. I really appreciate the technology that you all have on the website.

[00:32:55] When citizens were asking when their streets were going to get clean from the snow, it was great to share the tracker that showed when I think you had two or more snow plows in the area. That was great.

[00:33:11] And then also the new part of the website where you can see where you all are working and doing pothole patching is great. And I got a report. I asked for a report last week when we were at Plan RVA of what is outstanding and what has been resolved in terms of anywhere between tort claims to street cleaning to potholes.

[00:33:41] And, you know, it looks like you all are really making some headway in it. So you probably don't get it all the time, but I just want to say thank you for what you're doing and keep up the good work that you all are doing. We'll try to explain what you all are doing, you know, in a way where citizens will give you some some breathing room to continue to work because it is a lot of potholes that are out there.

[00:34:11] And I know it just takes time. And so I just want to say thank you for what you're doing and thank you for the technology to keep everybody up to date. Just to be very specific, how many road miles are in Chesterfield County?

[00:34:30] Over 10,000 lane miles. Lane miles. Yes, sir. Okay. So I kind of want to communicate that to the community. It's a lot. And so when we were getting the phone calls for the ICE and everything like that, it's not going to happen overnight.

[00:34:47] You said historic. It really was a historic event, and a lot of the questions that got asked were, well, why didn't we prepare for this, and all those kind of questions, and, you know, ironically, what we were preparing for was 200,000 people being without electricity and worrying about that.

[00:35:05] This was an important issue, of course, and at the same time, you know, you were incredibly responsive and got out there as quickly as you possibly could. My understanding was I think that there are 7,000 plows in the state, and a lot of the folks don't understand.

[00:35:23] If there's 10,000 lane miles in Chesterfield County alone, it's going to take a while for it to happen. And it turned out it wasn't even a while. It was three days, but it was enough to get people going, and I get it because it could get very scary.

[00:35:40] And at the same time, I just want to hand it to you all and to VDOT for what to do. And what you're able to do. The other thing is that we're heading toward rainy season. And I want to really focus on mowing in that we're going to start getting a ton of emails and phone calls.

[00:35:57] And usually the tenor is something to the effect of, I don't understand what's happening. Henrico is able to do it very, very quickly. At Richmond, we don't understand that we don't own our roads. You're responsible for that. You do it three times a year. You do a great job. But it's going to take a while for you to be able to get into all those medians, cut them up.

[00:36:15] The only thing I'm going to ask is, please, prior to doing the cutting, please send someone to walk down and just pick up the trash. That way, that's not getting eaten up and then getting thrown all over the place. So that happens a lot. And then I get a bunch of phone calls saying, why didn't they take the time?

[00:36:32] So I am going to make that request of you all is at least walk someone down and pick up the trash before doing the cutting. But you guys do a great job. It's three times a year. And you do a great job. So thank you for that. We could coordinate them with the workforces, the sheriff's workforce.

[00:36:50] They do a lot of that work. Yeah, I believe community enhancement has already communicated that to VDOT, that they're going to try to do some of that work. Yeah, I mean, if they can coordinate effort, if they can get out there first, then you guys get in behind them. It makes it easier for more fishing, I think. Yeah, and I'll just say on that note, I greatly appreciate the partnership with Chesterfield County with transportation and community enhancement and also the board, because I know that you all are getting a lot of the same calls that I am, and everyone does a great job in responding to people and trying to pass those concerns along to us, especially in the snow.

[00:37:27] I know my team was in constant communication with the county, with schools, so appreciate the county's efforts in partnering on that as well. And just appreciation to you, because you end up being the lightning rod that gets all of that, and that's not lost on us, that you end up being called.

[00:37:46] We often are lightning rods on this also and then have to then pass it along to you. And you, as far as I know, you don't do it with a lot of complaint. You do it and you take care of it. And it takes a very special person to do your kind of work.

[00:38:03] So I appreciate that. Thank you. And you're doing it as a new mother also. So that's awesome. Thank you. B, schools FY 2027 proposed budget presentation.

[00:38:29] First up will be Mr. Harris, followed by Dr. Murray and Mr. Meister.

[00:38:41] I'll be very, very quick. Board members, you see we've got a very packed agenda for you for the rest of the afternoon. You see the topics up here. We'll start off with the superintendent and his team. Budget staff will join the table to kind of go through some of the high-level summary stuff.

[00:38:59] And then we do have about five individual folks who will talk about specific topics, and then we'll wrap that up. But we'll go as quickly as we can. Again, we've got over 100 slides, but it's a lot of good information, so we will try to get it all in by 5 o'clock.

[00:39:15] With that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Murray. And, Mr. Chair, while they're approaching, just to let you know, this is about two and a half hours worth of presentation, so I'll defer to the board if you feel like you need to take a break. It's somewhere in between. It's the Chair's discretion. Yeah, and I was going to just mention to the folks at home, you know, there's 133 slides here.

[00:39:36] It's a lot. And so get popcorn, a cup of coffee, whatever you need. But it also shows you the attention that we put to this. We're very, very careful and welcome.

[00:39:53] Well, and I'll say that 30 of the slides are ours. So we should move pretty expeditiously through that. But Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey, before we jump into that slide deck, I just would like to make a few acknowledgments, more for the community, because the folks around this table know this to be true.

[00:40:16] But we don't get to what we're about to present to you without a strong partnership, not just on the school side of the house, but with our county leadership. So I want to extend that gratitude to each of you, but also Dr. Casey and I enjoy a monthly meeting.

[00:40:37] Sometimes more therapy than business. But that's where a lot of the real work is happening throughout the year. This isn't just a one-month exercise. And I think it's important for the community members to also know that while you'll see a county contribution in the annual transfer, that is not where the contribution starts and finishes from the Board of Supervisors.

[00:41:07] and we realize that, and we're very appreciative, everything from electronic marquees, turf fields, mental health resources. We just talked about the wild winter that we had. There were significant resources pushed in to get our campuses ready and that ice broken up so that Chesterfield could be one of the first divisions back with our students.

[00:41:33] There are a host of other things that you all finance for us or fiscally provide, land acquisition, things that will illuminate in our CIP plan, and so I just wanted to say thank you there.

[00:41:50] And then finally, before jumping in proper, last year when Bob and I presented, you might recall that we had kind of three buckets. One was, you know, big priorities that we had to do and we had money for based on the state calc tool and the current iteration at the time of the governor's budget. Then we had a middle bucket of things that we also had to do or were required to do, but we didn't have line of sight to the money yet.

[00:42:28] And that made us very uncomfortable presenting last year. We eventually got to a good place to be able to reconcile those needs, but then we had a third bucket of kind of longer-term things that we should be doing and we desire to do, but we definitely did not have the funding resources to provide at the time.

[00:42:52] This year, we're pleased to share that that middle bucket of things that we absolutely have to do and don't have money for does not exist. As a retirement, early retirement gift to Joe, we're presenting a balanced budget today that accomplishes some pretty, or sets us on a path to fix some long-term issues while while also addressing some of our bigger goals that we intend to accomplish, some as early

[00:43:23] as next year because of how rebenchmarking a VRS employee or employer contribution reduction as well as the initial 2% raise presented in the outgoing governor's budget gave us line of sight to much more new dollars than last year.

[00:43:46] So with that, I'll jump right in. So there's just kind of a bird's eye view of the next 30-ish slides. At the top, you'll see that we're operating with a little over a $1.1 billion budget, but that includes being the purse strings for Appomattox Regional Governor's School.

[00:44:09] So we're operating minus ARGs at just a little north of a billion dollars, which represents almost a 5% increase from fiscal year '26 and allowed us to realize almost $48 million of new money.

[00:44:30] What we're hearing out of the General Assembly, we would expect to see some more new money realized and we'll kind of get into how we might spend that or what we would prioritize at a later slide.

[00:44:49] And then we'll share with you our CIP, some big projects out there. You can see the big one of them all is the West Area High School, which is coming along nicely. Hope you've been able to go take a peek, Mr. Carroll.

[00:45:05] The brick facade is on all around the building. It's pretty muddy, so wear your boots if you want to take a trip. And then as well, the $74 million that we intend to appropriate in our CIP for next year also sets a course to begin the Grange Hall replacement and a new Dale area elementary school that would also be home to a second early childhood learning center that would

[00:45:40] essentially whitewash all of the elementary trailers in the Dale district, as well as the early childhood wait list for many of our deserving three and four-year-olds. The remaining $43 million in that larger 117 balance would be appropriated toward major maintenance and then a bus financing and PAYGO really structure for bus replacements and Bob will talk through that on one of his slides.

[00:46:16] But all that to say, we had a Yunkin present a budget, we have Governor Spanberger now in office and they are wrestling with priorities and reconciliation between the House and the Senate of what dollars should be reinvested into schools, but a big caveat there and something we always hold our breath on is what unfunded or partially funded mandates are gonna come our direction.

[00:46:49] This is more for the public than you all, but as superintendent, I'm required to present a needs-based budget. you will see in here Bob and I feel does represent nothing frivolous definitely need in fact we have more but we're able to continue and enhance this year's level of service with next year's dollars and we know that families desire to send their children to Chesterfield schools they move here for a host of

[00:47:23] reasons, our parks, our public safety, but also our schools, and that's because of the great work that is being done in the trenches by our teaching and instructional staff, as well as our principals, and we're very proud of that. Just to kind of give an overall picture to the public, Chesterfield is a large district. I appreciate that Mr. Carroll was talking about how expansive Chesterfield is. We tend to kind of tuck away in our niche communities, our pockets

[00:48:00] within Chesterfield and we forget that or maybe don't even realize that we are home to 64,000 students across 68 schools and we'll open our 69th next year. We carry various designations and accolades, but we are 100% accredited. Chesterfield is one of the five largest school districts in the Commonwealth, making us one of the 65 largest in the country.

[00:48:31] Being a mostly bedroom community, I don't think people fully realize how large we are. This used to be our famous nine slide. We saw a dip in meal service last year, And we will, I guess, next year, too, because of the winters that we've had the past two years.

[00:48:53] But we serve a little over eight million meals to our students. We clean over nine and a half million square feet. We drive more than nine million miles. And if you squint a bit, you might be able to make out at the top infographic where we spend that a little more than one billion dollars.

[00:49:15] No surprises that the primary bucket is in instruction. In Chesterfield, we desire to meet our kids where they are and set them up on various pathways, ones that they may opt to choose that best meet their need, but also their plan for their future.

[00:49:34] As such, Chesterfield is proud to call home to the first K-8 virtual academy, as well as the Commonwealth's first recovery academy. And we also have a Chester Early Childhood Learning Academy that supports children at three and four years old.

[00:49:55] And then we have our award-winning CTC campuses, which we are renovating. The Hall Street Campus as we speak, and we look forward to expanding the programs and 650 new seats for students to explore career and technical education.

[00:50:13] And then for some of our secondary students, We serve over 3,000 students through CCPS online coursework. And then there's the big goal in all of this, and that is getting our kids across the graduation finish line.

[00:50:29] And we will shake a little more than 4,200 hands and go through a few bottles of sanitizer while we do it. But we'll be sending our kids off to big, bold, and bright futures because we've prepared many of them with any number of college credits, 26,000 plus, over 9,100 career and industry certifications, and then nearly 32,000 work-based learning experiences. But Bob and I don't sit in a room and throw darts at a wall, I think is what

[00:51:06] you like to say, and come up with this budget on our own. We seek out other opinions. We seek out other opportunities to grow, enhance, and be innovative in our approach. Not wanting to kind of rest on our laurels, so to speak, we ask our chiefs to go through an exercise where when they're presenting white papers of new initiatives that may call for new programming or new staffing, they're also looking at what is the return on previous

[00:51:39] investments? And could we be replacing or abandoning something such that the cost of the new ask is either zeroed out or less than, but all in the spirit of doing better? These are just some of the various groups that we engage along the way. Important to note that there are many mandates, and this isn't an exhaustive list by any means. That would be another 30-slide deck, Bob.

[00:52:11] But, you know, we are bound to certain teacher to pupil ratios, nursing staffs, counselor ratios, resource education, staffing that we provide, et cetera, et cetera, as well as any teacher pay mandates.

[00:52:31] Important to emphasize there that we receive roughly half of whatever the state proposes by way of a raise. Right now, it's 2% on the table. We would see 1% of that, and that's also against an SOQ number, which, as you'll see on the pink side, we staff above the minimum standard because, well, that's what our community expects.

[00:52:59] It's why they send their kids to our schools, and it's one of our core tenets. We should be providing an optimal opportunity for our kids or such that Chesterfield is lighting the way for how to do business in public education.

[00:53:23] And then I think it's my last slide. Bob gives me the easy ones and then tells me to buzz off so that I don't mess up the technical slides and the numbers of it all. And I know that Mr. Engle has been very in tune with this over the years, but Chesterfield used to see pretty decent spikes in enrollment.

[00:53:46] And we've had the luxury, I will say, of remaining pretty flat over the last two or so years, such that it's allowed our infrastructure to catch up with our capacity issues. And we're building beautiful schools, while many of our colleagues around the Commonwealth are struggling with the conversation of closing schools because they have had steep decline in their enrollment that Chesterfield hasn't seen.

[00:54:13] In fact, over the next handful of years, we project a modest growth of just under 2,000 new students to join us from our 64,000 mark currently. And I'll turn it over to Bob as the clicker.

[00:54:29] All right. Thank you, Dr. Murray. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you guys. The FY27 revenue here, you heard Dr. Murray talk about $47.9 million. I just want to reemphasize that this is based on the outgoing governor's budget this past December.

[00:54:46] I'm happy to say that this does seem to represent a floor. We've seen what the General Assemblies have put together, and we're still waiting for those outcomes, obviously, but every sign and indication suggests that there should be some more money. How that looks and what that comes in at is still very much to be determined, but happy to say that this seems to be a solid floor for this particular exercise.

[00:55:08] You can see within the state funding about $33.5 million of incremental money. The bulk of that from an exercise the state does every biennium called re-benchmarking, happy to say that this was a good news story for us, really driven by two factors. One, Dr. Murray just talked about, which was enrollment trends, continues to generally increase, albeit slightly and less than it was before, as well as some good news on our LCI, our local composite index, which stayed relatively flat. Other districts, especially around us, saw that creep up, which means less state money, more county money required. We were relatively

[00:55:47] flat on that dynamic. If you look across the state, the total re-benchmarking actually saved the state about $60 million. So the fact that we're getting about $27 million from that is really good news for Chesterfield and their residents. Dr. Murray already mentioned the 2% compensation supplement. That's about $7 million of additional money from that piece. The county contribution consistent with your long-term plan, $15 million. Thank you for the partnership with Mr. Harris and his team in the corner to ensure that we're able to count on that continued support from the county and making sure that moves forward. We're also happy to continue to reduce

[00:56:23] our reliance on one-time funding every year as part of our year-end opportunity. We need to set aside some money so that we can continue to fill that one-time gap. We're going to continue to work to reduce that over time, hopefully get that to zero in the next year or two. But as of now, we take it from just under nine down to seven with this plan. And lastly, some minor trend-based adjustments in our local funding contributes to the overall pie. Think about facilities, rentals, some Chromebook fees, things like that are what makes up the bulk of that. You put that all together, it's about $48 million of monies available for us. Where does

[00:56:59] this all come from? When you look at it from a total perspective, you can see the bulk of our funding for this operating plan either comes from the state or county transfers. Very little in terms of local federal money add up to this to get over that just slightly north of 1.0 billion in terms of operating funds.

[00:57:21] As Dr. Murray suggested, really happy to share with you a balanced budget this year. You can see the revenue contributions on the left for that $48 million. We'll spend a little bit more time on the expense side of the equation on the right, but we worked really hard to ensure that this proposal fits in not just within our budget, but within the county expectations and planning assumptions to make sure we maintain the level of service, quite frankly, that our community expects from our schools.

[00:57:47] You can see where that comes in. Dr. Murray alluded to a VRS savings here. You can see that as the first line. I'll talk about that here briefly. We won't see it much later, but it's really important to note that the required employer contribution to the VRS system did decrease by close to 200 basis points for Chesterfield County that freed up close to $13 million in available spend.

[00:58:12] That's expense. We as Chesterfield County do not need to contribute to VRS because they're essentially their balance sheet looks strong. And we're able to pass some of that good news onto the county, which opens up some ability to spend on our end. Mr. Carroll.

[00:58:28] I mean, for the community, what that means is that the investment pool that VRS has been utilizing for their funds has done very well. And because of that, they've met their actuary, and they're getting closer to where they need to be to be 100% funded.

[00:58:45] Because of that, they're able to lower what they're requiring from localities in order to meet the actuary on a yearly basis. Is that sum it up? 100% right. Yep. And no impact to any employee's VRS expectations as they enter retirement.

[00:59:02] Just to insert a statistic, I do think that actuaries view a fully funded pension plan anything over 80%. so it's never an exact science at 100%, but Virginia, when it was cutting itself short many years ago, was in essence cutting the teacher's pool short by the same breath. We as a county always, because we are told to pay the rate or we lose our sales tax, the county side of the shop, which has perhaps some other school officials, has always been in that 80 to 100% range.

[00:59:32] Well, we unfortunately at the state level, they robbed Peter to pay Paul on several occasions and took money from VRS to fund it in other ways or in some cases withheld, I know of two years, where they withheld actual deposits into VRS.

[00:59:47] And since then, the state has got their act together and required themselves to actually fund the way they're supposed to. We've always had to pay our share, but now they're doing their share the way they're supposed to, which is why, I mean, I have numbers that I could throw along with that where they unfunded by about $4.6 billion in VRS funding that they should have done over a 16-year period.

[01:00:10] I'll just be blunt, though. I think they brought Peter. I'm not sure who Paul was, though. Paul's a guy, where'd that come? I mean, bottom line, at the end of the day, this does help us this particular year. We hope to see some more improvements going forward. It does enable some of the good news you see on the expense side for what we're able to accomplish.

[01:00:28] So, Bob, let me interrupt for just a second. I just want to make sure that we're all paying attention to it. The contrary could potentially be also, meaning that if they don't have such a good year, then we could be on the hook for having to make that up. So I just wanted to make that point to this year, a good year.

[01:00:45] But that pendulum tends to swing sometimes. Yeah, definitely keep our eye on that for sure. There we go. As you can see here, where are we spending that money? You saw this on the previous slide. The bulk of this really goes to support our employees.

[01:01:04] Compensation makes up the largest piece of this pie. operating and student needs also contribute here. Not embedded in here is a lot of discretionary spending. This is primarily compensation for our employees, managing items that are in flight, whether it be inflation or new buildings or specific student needs, as you see here.

[01:01:24] I'll speak to compensation and a handful of the required items in the next couple slides, but the bottom, give or take, $6.5 million in that required increase is pretty much nothing more interesting than inflationary impacts on our contractual services and other items that you see. In the student support and other category, that $7 million includes things like tutoring, mental health support, special education support, and other things like technology replacement cycles that we need to continue to push the envelope forward for our classrooms to ensure that, quite frankly, those students have the experience that they need. But knowing compensation

[01:02:01] is the largest item in here. A little bit more on that. Happy to say that we're looking at about a 5% increase for employees across the gap. I say about as the teacher step scale is really a 4% scale adjustment plus a 1% step. Approximately different people get slightly different steps, so it comes in to be just a little bit north of 5. But on the step scale, that's about 25 million for our teacher and school administrators.

[01:02:29] The graded range, which is most of the folks that aren't essentially on that teacher scale, is a 5% increase. Two important numbers on both of those for the board to keep in mind is our teacher starting salary. You can see that moving up to $57,000, just a little bit north of that, up from $55,000.

[01:02:46] We have stated a long-term goal of getting that to $60,000. We're hoping to get to that number next year with another comparable increase next year. That's to be determined based on funding. obviously, but this is an important step towards that $60,000 goal. On the graded range, that puts us at about $15.28 per hour for our minimum wage, up from $14.70 this current year. So really excited to continue to make great progress on both step scale and our graded range. I forgot to mention our target there is $16 per hour. Again, hoping to make that jump next year as well. You can see some other small adjustments there, largely keeping in line with that 5% or inflation

[01:03:23] adjustments across the Board. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Where does that put us competitively in the range within the Richmond market for the starting salary? And then I know that there is an appreciation, I think, after four years where our step system competes better. But where does that put us? For a starting salary, Henrico, this current year is at just under $58,000. $57,925 is their step zero. So this would put us essentially flat with their step zero this year.

[01:03:53] They just announced a 3% increase. I don't know whether that's 2 plus 1 or 3 plus 1 as we go forward with their step. So they'll be somewhere around 59, 59, 5 next year. So it would put us slightly still behind, chasing at that step zero level for Henrico, at least.

[01:04:08] The reason I bring that up, when we first got elected back in 2019, 2020, the county's allocation to the schools was about $8.5 million. And then we did a pay study that the county paid for, actually, for the schools.

[01:04:25] um and we had to fund it and so our uh matt is in here somewhere hopefully he didn't run out the door um but uh he was blocked out by jeff he's probably ducking over there but the truth of the matter is we had to increase our allocations throughout the years we went i think the first year was 17 or 18 then 19 then 20 million dollars on the county allocation side uh and i matt i think it's it's been pretty close between those numbers ever since all right and but that's a cost

[01:05:01] of doing business to make sure that we can hire and retain school employees to provide an education for our children and in the course some of that also has to when you talk about these increases in the budget is the fact that we've added schools and newer schools bigger schools which all of that adds to the increase in your budget.

[01:05:25] And so I think it's important to say these things when we're talking about the budget for the people who sit at home or may come in the audience later and say, you need to cut the county budget and we're spending way too much money on schools or way too much money on something else. But the bulk of your budget is salary and compensation based on the amount of employees you just showed us, not to mention the amount of schools.

[01:05:50] But I don't think you're a waste of money. I think you're trying to be very efficient with what you're doing, but you're running a very large school system. But it is important to talk about these numbers in the long term because it's something that we as a county has had to do to help because the state doesn't completely fund schools the way they should.

[01:06:10] But, Joe, I just wanted to make sure we point that out somewhere in the conversation today. We appreciate that, Mr. Carroll. And just to throw a number out into the ether, it cost us roughly $7 million to apply a 1% pay raise. So when we start getting into 2%, 3%, 4%, that number, that bottom line is fairly big.

[01:06:37] I believe in Kim's presentation, U.S. regionally, proximate to Chesterfield, I think we're only ahead of Palatan right now. All of the school divisions that would be a point of reference to that have announced or intend to announce a pay raise that is in the 3% range, if not lower, which is a good thing for us because it allows us to narrow that gap

[01:07:10] and really allow people to choose a shining district to come and work for maybe just a smidge less, knowing that we're forecasting that we'll be able to fulfill our $60,000 base pay for next year.

[01:07:28] Thank you, Dr. Murray. I appreciate the comments as well, Mr. Carroll. It was Riggle. Oh, I'm sorry. I just had one more comment earlier. You were gracious to the state when you said that it's one-to-one because it's really 1.2 to Chesterfield to their .8. So on a 5% increase, it's 3% Chesterfield, 2% state.

[01:07:47] But they take credit for the whole 5%. And its teachers want to know what we're going to do for them because the state gave them 5%. So I just wish they understood that a little bit better, that we really are working together. But I definitely appreciate your comments to start the meeting.

[01:08:03] Dr. Casey. And this is important because, again, I think, you know, The high percentage that's going to salaries, as Mr. Carroll and Mr. Ingle alluded, is, you know, when we did the compensation study, all of that changed to get the teachers to a step system where every teacher is different based upon years of service.

[01:08:21] That's where we catch up, as you mentioned earlier, Mr. Carroll. So while we shadow the market to start, it doesn't take long and it should never take too long before we try and have the teacher have a career with us and really enjoy a salary and a good retirement with those last three years, ideally.

[01:08:39] So I just wanted to reiterate that because you're exactly right, Mr. Ingle. When we did the compensation study, that was 100% local funding, and the state doesn't know what we pay our teachers. The state is basing our teacher raises based upon what they think teachers should be paid, which is a number I'm not even going to utter.

[01:08:59] Mr. Ingle? No, I just think that the relationship has gone a long, long ways. And I appreciate the time spent, honestly, with Ian Coker originally and then with others on the school board and then that relationship that's been built as the last couple years have gone by.

[01:09:25] We want our teachers to be compensated well. We do believe that for a full career in Chesterfield County of, I believe, 30 years, At 30 years, you would retire from Chesterfield, having made more than you would in those other jurisdictions.

[01:09:41] We're just not quite at the same place in the first five years. I mean, as a former high school English teacher, those first five years are tough because you really are. You're learning the craft. Yes, I learned a lot when I was going through my student teaching, and at the same time, to be able to step up.

[01:10:02] So once the teachers have gotten through those five years, they should be, at that point, make more. And we want to see that curve there. So it's a tough job. I've done it.

[01:10:17] And so grateful to the teachers, what you do every day. We are doing the best we can to keep our teachers happy and supported. Because sometimes it's the support staff that makes all the difference. So, yeah. Thank you.

[01:10:32] for the Commerce, Mr. Chair, but I'll wait until they get to their 32 slides. We're making progress. Sliding forward, assuming this works. There we go. Another excellent example of our partnerships, and especially thanks to Mr. Harris behind me to helping brainstorm some of these items is on this page. It's called debt service major maintenance. That doesn't sound all that exciting, but there's so many fantastic things that are embedded underneath there. The first piece, the big piece, that $5 million increase to debt service. Really, that boils down to our mortgage on some of those great new building projects that we have on the other side.

[01:11:10] We're going to need to continue to increase this. High schools aren't cheap. We're going to need to continue to move forward with that, and this is our effort to continue to push our debt service fund where it needs to be long term. The other two on here represent two really important longer term aspects of this plan that we haven't necessarily addressed as holistically as we've had before. We'll talk about this once more again at the CIP portion. But school bus financing, this half million contribution to that piece really puts us on a sustainable cycle for school bus replacement. And similarly, on major maintenance, that extra million is traditionally

[01:11:46] what we tend to contribute. In addition, each year, this takes our ongoing contribution from 9 million to 10. But in partnering with Mr. Harris, the plan is to leverage that into a major maintenance bond that allows us to continue to essentially operate our major maintenance at at least the level we've been doing the last several years with some additional work to be foretold on where that needs to be long term. So a lot of really great partnership embedded on this slide as well. Six and a half million of debt service doesn't sound like the most exciting slide, but there's so much fundamental and structural issues that are being addressed with this one that I'm

[01:12:20] really excited to have shared with you. About three and a half million here. This is the output of some of these great new building projects that we see. They need to come with new staff to support them. Needless to say, we're opening Deep Creek Elementary School this year, 1.7.

[01:12:37] We're opening the new classroom space in CTC Hull this coming fall, about 1.2 million for instruction and admin staff there, as well as the planning for that West Area High School that opens. We need to make sure that that opens successfully.

[01:12:53] We have some planning staff on the horizon to ensure that that high school opens well the year following. We've announced our principal. We're really excited about that and really excited to continue to work towards the opening of that school. So with all that said, that $48 million, you can see, if you really squint, about 70% of this budget continues to go through and go to instruction where it should.

[01:13:19] The remaining dollars broke up pretty much as they have in years past, but we continue to allocate the bulk of our funds to instruction, which is where you would expect that to land. When you put this all together, Dr. Murray mentioned Argus and the $1.1 billion figure before. You can see here on this slide where that all comes from. Argus being a relatively small piece of that at about $6 million. The other big pieces that we don't talk about specifically here are both grants and food service. I will note for the board, the bulk of those are federally funded. We are aware of some of the, I'll just say, noise at the federal level over the last

[01:13:55] six, eight months. We're continuing to monitor that closely as it stands. We seem to see a line of sight for those funds to continue into next year, but that's always a question mark given some of the sound bites we've heard over the last several months with the current administration. So we're keeping our eye closely attuned to the federal picture and building contingency plans as we go for all of those funds as well. Dr. Murray has also mentioned other school needs. You can see them outlined here without specific dollars attached to them. I'll start at the bottom.

[01:14:27] We've mentioned the path to $60,000 and $16 an hour for our salary goals. That maintains a pretty strong focus. The other bucket, staff and student support and operations and technologies are always areas where we get a fair number of requests for, wouldn't it be great if we had another admin in this building, or wouldn't it be great if we could fix this piece of the building?

[01:14:47] You hear a lot of those requests too. We'd love to lean into those here as this budget stands. We don't have room to do it today, but as we see new money, those are areas where we'd love to continue to support our schools and support our students differently when and if additional funding becomes available. Which leads me to the schedule slide. I show this every year. Our funding is a bit backwards and our schedule is a bit backwards because we need to come through with our proposal in advance of your proposal and in advance of the state being done with theirs. So we're basing this on estimates from Mr. Harris, estimates from the outgoing governor. We're going to continue to

[01:15:26] monitor that. It's very common for us to come back to the boards with amendments after the fact when we see what those final numbers are. We're hopeful and every sign points to there being additional state monies this year. What that looks like is still very much to be determined, but we'll anxiously await those answers in the coming days and weeks and be looking to come back to you with additional amendments at that point in time. This slide ends the operating portion.

[01:15:53] Before I turn to the capital portion, I'll pause for any additional comments on this section, Mr. Chair. Perfect. Awesome. Then I will keep moving. The capital improvement plan here, really addressing those longer-term items. You heard a number of these items in Dr. Murray's preamble. Current construction, $74 million in appropriations, largely pointed towards the high school, Grange Hall, and the New Dale Elementary School, as well as some additional funding to support bus financing, major maintenance, and our ongoing Chromebook lease.

[01:16:31] This side is worth pausing on for a moment. This is our longer-term view of new projects and new construction. You can see Bensley, Deep Creek, and the CTC Hall renovation set to open this coming August. We haven't talked much about Bensley. We talked a little bit about Deep Creek Elementary.

[01:16:49] Keep in mind, the new Bensley, we're really excited to open in August as well. Those children are currently studying out of the old Falling Creek Middle Building. So as soon as that building opens, we'll be able to move those folks out of the old Falling Creek into their new shiny home at Bensley Elementary, which does also open up the other yellow box you see on the August 27, which is what's called Falling Creek Middle Phase 2, which is essentially demolition of that building and installation of the athletic fields. I've been partnering with Mr. Harris and others to ensure funding is available for that, I suspect, in April discussion on that as well,

[01:17:27] but really excited to see those kids in that new Bensley and be able to open up the opportunity for us to offer a full suite of athletic fields for our Falling Creek Middle kids at that point. And we spent a lot of time talking about West Area L. Looking forward, really excited with this CIP to comment on being able to put an August 29 date on the Grange Hall Elementary rebuild, as well as an August 30 date on the Dale District Elementary School project, which also does include that pre-K center that Dr. Murray mentioned earlier.

[01:18:01] You can see we still have a robust list of future projects off to the side that we're excited to both find land and funding to complete and put them in their own box as we go forward. Can I interrupt for just a quick second? Dr. Murray, I'm sorry.

[01:18:17] I just want to make the point on Midlothian Middle School, but all of them for future projects. That does not mean that it's been kicked off to 2032 or later. It just means I want to pick up on what Bob said, which is that we just need to figure out where they're going to put their box. But we don't know that yet because we haven't found land, so we don't have any kind of a schedule yet.

[01:18:36] But I just wanted to kind of communicate it to the community. That does not mean that things are getting pushed back that far. There's a lot that needs to be paid attention to, especially with what happens with the state and the 1% and what that's going to look like. Dr. Murray, I'm sorry. No, perhaps we highlight that column in blue.

[01:18:53] It would give more hope instead of stop with the red. So thank you for your point. Also, just want to say with the Falling Creek and, well, the Bensley opening, Colonel Carpenter will probably appreciate that it will free up a lot of traffic congestion on Hopkins Road.

[01:19:12] So we're excited about that. I know we're likely running short on time, so I won't spend a ton of time on these next several slides. Dr. Hilton. I am sorry. Dr. Hilton. I also just want to kind of point out, if you go back to that slide, some of those projects in red, we don't know how much they cost because you all are doing some analysis on your end to figure out how much those cost.

[01:19:38] And then, to Dr. Miller's point, we would put those in the appropriate timeline after we realize how much they cost. The projects that are in green or yellow are the projects that we know how much they cost, and they're already in the process of being funded.

[01:19:55] to some degree but the the projects may be in the in the red or pending final design in estimation so well with with respect to like midlothian middle school old hundred which is more of a geographical designation not a naming we have prototypes already would give or take whatever inflation may come we we know what those would cost those are tethered to land acquisition

[01:20:28] With Thomasdale expansion, there have been some conversations, and we do have a plan with a number attached to it. Matoaca Middle School, when we get to that point, would be built off of the Manchester Middle School prototype.

[01:20:50] So we would, again, have an understanding of what that would cost, give or take, appreciating that next year's cost may be slightly up, probably would be versus a previous year. And then the Byrd High School gym was costed based on a previous similar renovation, but we feel confident that that number is actually down.

[01:21:18] And so Reed has done some work to get a number within kind of a range there as well. I'm happy to share that with you afterwards. Yeah, absolutely. I just want to also just point out that we are working in that, you know, some of them, you know, we might have some other actions pending in order to move them into a more defined timeline or bucket. So just just wanted to highlight that. So we'd love for them to have dates. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:21:50] Mr. Chair. Yes. I think also is that some of those projects in yellow are part of a bond referendum that was passed before. Some of the other projects are not. And so we may have to look at, you know, how we're going to pay for it in the future, including, you know, as we continue to pay debt capacity off and debt capacity becomes freer, you know, it opens up opportunity for us to take on other projects.

[01:22:22] All right. Waiting for the appropriate awkward pause. No. A handful of pictures here. I won't spend a ton of time on these. You can see the project to date. You can see Bensley, Deep Creek L. These are as of January, so additional progress has been made, mostly under roof. A lot of this is being internal work at this point, which we're excited about. CTZ hull expansion, this is the second floor of that area where the additional capacity for those career and technical programs will be. And you can see this one probably looks the most different right now, which is the West area high. This was, again, about a month ago. A lot of great progress continues on the high school

[01:23:00] as we move forward. So excited to continue to see the progress on those particular projects. Next one is, next couple slides starts to deal with major maintenance. Start with a little bit of grounding for the board on what is the appropriate level of major maintenance spending for the school division. And I'll start by saying, you see a number on this page, but I'll say right now, we don't know. The $85 million here that you see under the current replacement value is really a benchmark-driven math off of our value and an industry benchmark. I would suffice it to

[01:23:37] say that that really sets a long-term target. That's not something we're going to reach anytime real soon, but it is an important number to keep in mind as it is a viable benchmark. It's something we are not necessarily targeting any time in the near term because what we're really looking to do and Reed, Dr. Wattica, has really stepped in and started to make fantastic progress on this. We're not at a point where we're able to share a comment directly, but a facility condition assessment really gets in and touches each of the buildings, touches each of the component parts of them and says, when does this particular component need to be replaced? What does that look like? And it

[01:24:15] builds up really from the ground level what that major maintenance needs are across the district. He's targeting having that work done some point in the summer. We look forward to sharing that with the board, with the public, as that's going to be completed. But that will really form the foundation of what our major maintenance needs are, not just over the next year or so as those projects that are deemed highest priority sort of get the funding, but also as the right longer term target as we go forward. So knowing that the ultimate goal is still being determined, we've partnered with, again, Mr. Harris, thank you again for looking at a way to ensure that we

[01:24:54] don't take a step back on major maintenance with this particular plan. We appreciate the board's work over the last several years with things like bond funding and support from ESSER funding to continue to help support our major maintenance funding. We contribute about $9 million in cash every year. The remaining funding comes from some of those lending sources to have enabled us to spend about $30 million in major maintenance over the last several years. So this year we're looking to partner with Matt again on creating a bond funding for major maintenance that will allow us to spend at least that amount this year as we work through our facility condition assessment

[01:25:32] and determine that right long-term level. More to come on this one for sure as we go through the year, but this sets the budget stakes at that $30 million target, which we've spent, give or take, within a few million in the last several years on our major maintenance. So excited to get this into a spot for some long-term stability as well. The other area, if this clicks forward, there we go, that we're really excited about making long-term progress is on school bus replacements. You can see here, we do have an aging fleet based on our current budgeted spend for bus replacement of

[01:26:07] about $3.5 million. That buys only about 22 buses annually. That replacement cycle would be just under 30 years, and that's not necessarily the right sustainable answer. Over the last several years, we've taken opportunity to leverage one-time funds, either schools or the counties, and we appreciate your contribution here to help get some of those buses that are most in need of being off the road, off the road, to ensure that we don't have 30-year-old buses on the road, I want to assure you we don't, but this would really create a hybrid plan for combining a little bit of cash funding, a little bit of hybrid funding to create a plan of 45 school buses a

[01:26:47] year. It's going to take us a couple of years to get to that, which would essentially create a 15 year replacement cycle by essentially financing half of our new fleet and purchasing with cash the other half, which really sets us up within a couple of years to target that 15 year replacement cycle. So really excited about that opportunity as well. So I'll conclude here with the CIP that I'm really excited to really address a lot of long-term structural problems. We spend a lot of time talking about new schools. You can see them listed here. I've talked about them a few different times, but really also leaning into the work we did last year with the Chromebook lease.

[01:27:23] We didn't talk about it a lot here, but really excited to have that program in place and continuing this major maintenance program and these bus replacements are really excited to PUT US ON A TRAJECTORY FOR A LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE CYCLE WITHIN OUR MAJOR MAINTENANCE FUNDING AS WE WAIT FOR WHATEVER MAY HAPPEN AT THE STATE LEVEL.

[01:27:42] WITH THAT, I WILL PERSONALLY THANK THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND OUR SCHOOL BOARD FOR THEIR SUPPORT THROUGH THIS PROCESS AS WELL AS THE COMMUNITY AS WELL. AND IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO CLOSE ON, OPEN TO OTHER QUESTIONS. MR. CARROLL.

[01:27:58] THE LAST THING. I TOLD YOU I WAIT TO THE END. YOU DID. THE LAST THING I THINK THAT DIDN'T TOUCH BASE ON, AND THIS IS THE FACT THAT WE ARE ALSO going to be helping with, address some of the other issues outside of the, inside the school, you know, such as that we've worked with, for example, tennis courts and other things that we are now putting an item, a line item in place to tackle these over the next five to 10 years to get a regular maintenance cycle in, you know, on replacement of some

[01:28:34] of these things, or field updates, you know, scoreboards, all the different types of things that we get particular requests for to fix, and also including signage outside the schools, you know, all digital signs now. So we're, you know, it's not indicated in your budget, it's kind of in our side, but it's something that we're allocating in addition to this to the schools, and I just thought it was worthy to mention it.

[01:29:01] Thank you. Yeah, Ms. Snyder. I know we talked about buses. Are we replacing with all diesels right now? Or do we have any electric ones?

[01:29:19] I know they're more expensive. I just didn't know if there were any grants or anything. I think most of those grants got taken away. We have a few electric buses that we obtain by way of a grant. So we're more in the traditional bus.

[01:29:37] Just to help you, the electric bus when we ventured into that was an experiment. We were early pioneers with it. There's still, we're having challenges with charging and recharging and certain things that we had not encountered. You know, we use actually a lot of the liquid propane gas for some vehicles, too, and that may be something more foreseeable in the future right now than buses.

[01:30:00] But the electric bus model, while it was tried to push out initially with Dominion's help with a lot of incentives, really, it's run into certain issues so that we pause as a county and a school, I believe, and waiting until some of those issues are resolved before venturing back into it.

[01:30:18] Well, and also worth mentioning on the topic, while we referenced a 15-year replacement cycle, the intent is for the bus life on the road proper, running a daily route would be 12 years, the first 12, and then we would cycle those buses to the back end for substitute buses, loaner buses, or trainer buses before sending them off to bus heaven.

[01:30:48] I just wanted to add that I want to appreciate this board for the support you all gave to the telehealth program. And there's just no way that I would, Dr. Hyde, there's no way you're getting away with at least sending some appreciation your way to setting up that program.

[01:31:10] And I'm hearing really good things. I just got an update from Shab, and the individual who is heading that up is doing a great job. So Dr. Carmen, right? She's doing great.

[01:31:27] So I just want to appreciate the board. Look, the truth is, capital T, is if our students show up, the telehealth program is for sixth grade through 12th grade. And if they're dealing with a mental health issue and we're not paying attention to whatever that is, By having the telehealth program, it just helps to, I look at it from Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

[01:31:47] If that, if they're dealing with something that's going on with their mental health, if it's anxiety or whatever that is, we need to be taking care of that. Otherwise, it's much more difficult to learn. And so I'm just grateful to this board. I'm grateful to Dr. Hyde, to Dr. Murray for all of that and that being implemented.

[01:32:03] Well, if I may, Dr. Miller, we've seen students really exercise their opportunity to use those services. And I've been very impressed, probably equal parts surprised that our children are becoming much more comfortable in expressing a need to address their mental health and then seeking out the services where, you know, not too long ago, that was a bit more taboo to acknowledge that you're struggling.

[01:32:38] so we appreciate the board of supervisors financial support for hazel health yeah and thank you matt for the support also for your team to find the money to do that any other comments from the board well thank you all for what you're doing and uh it's a lot ton of work and um what you guys do every day and uh it's for our for our generations ahead so thank you i just want to check in with

[01:33:15] the board how are y'all doing holding up do we need to take a break are we good you want coffee Okay, all right. So let's go ahead and do just a five-minute break, and we'll go from there.

[01:36:57] So we'll go ahead and get started again.

[01:40:27] Lesson to the chair, next time I know, if we're going to take a break, I'm going to say what time we're coming back, make life easier, but lesson learned. So, Madam Clerk, do we need to connect with you? Sure. Okay. See County's FY2027 proposed budget presentation, Mr. Harris, Mr. Durkin, and Mr. Hill.

[01:40:49] Mr. Chair, we'll jump right in. All the materials that we're going through today are up on the county website, as well as the full budget document has been completed. So that's out there for the public to reference over the next couple of weeks ahead of the public hearing.

[01:41:05] And as we'll touch on the very last thing, the community meetings do begin in earnest tomorrow night at A.M. Davis at 630. This sort of summary slide, just only point here. Cost pressures are certainly a factor in when we get to budget time, but it's not the sole determinant of what we present to you.

[01:41:29] You've heard some of that already from your school friends. You heard in the utility presentation last month, and you see kind of lurking there below the water line a variety of other factors, all of which that we have to wrestle with when considering all the needs of the broad community when we're putting this plan together.

[01:41:46] I won't read all of those to you, but just suffice to say that there is a lot of pressures, a lot of forces that come to bear at this time of year. And hopefully this proposal before you deals with all of those things. And I think the presentation is styled in a way, particularly for the folks that will come and talk about a few specific issues to really talk about these issues, how they manifest themselves in the budget, and then some innovative strategies that we're deploying for FY27 to deal with many of those topics. So I got to start in a big picture. We're talking

[01:42:22] general fund. Just for a quick reminder, that's the county's main operating fund. It does include our portion of the school budget that you just saw referenced up here. It's a 4.7% increase proposed budget year over year. I just want to point out a couple of things because a lot of focus is put on sort of these long-term trends. This is, these are nominal general fund budget increases over time. So a couple of points. It's hard to make much of a trend over this particular number over the long run because there have been so many different things going on from structural

[01:42:57] changes in the general fund to the COVID phenomenon from a couple of years ago. But I think one thing that you can kind of see towards the more recent end of the trend is those larger increases coming in and out of COVID have been digested. And we've been in a fairly level, predictable path in terms of budget growth the last few years. And really, if you look at it, even though, again, it's noisy over time, and you take out that COVID year, that first 11% number, because if you remember,

[01:43:33] if you were on the board or watching, we had a proposed budget. Seven days later, we had to recreate another one that pulled $50 million out of it just sort of preemptively. And we never went back and amended that budget. So that increase is really just on paper. So you've got one year out of this entire series that's far above sort of that long run average of two and a half to 5% in terms of total budget growth. So, you know, over the long run, we're just not seeing those kinds of increases, but it's been very steady and stable the last few years. How we prefer to look at it, and we have been using this particular chart, this particular series for as long as I

[01:44:11] can recall. So this takes the previous slide and controls for when there are adjustments to the contributions of the, or the components rather, of the general fund. So the mental health fund, for example, when we spun mental health out into its own fund, you know, this goes back and adjust for that over time. So you're looking at apples to apples in all of these years over this entire period of time. And the other thing we do here is we put it on a per capita basis. So we're looking at how much we're spending in general fund money over time on a per capita basis. And then we

[01:44:45] control for inflation. Again, we use the same inflationary measure every single year. We've done it for decades. And that's a specific inflation measure that is set aside for state and local government. So when you make those two adjustments, you can go back in any presentation and see this same chart. You can see from FY26 adopted to 27 proposed, the per capita cost of local government. So the real cost of government services in Chesterfield County is flat. It is unchanged, and it's up $1 from where it was in 2025, and it's on par, actually a few dollars

[01:45:21] less than where it was in 2012. So speaking long run, controlling for those sort of those ins and outs, controlling for population growth and inflation. You strip all those things away. The cost of local government services in this county is absolutely unchanged.

[01:45:38] Looking at it from a staffing perspective, again, this is a nominal. This is just, if you open up the budget document, these are the totals that you will see. So you do see some position growth since 2008, but you'll see almost three quarters of that total growth occurs in the public safety space. We are still a people business.

[01:45:56] In Hot 9-1-1, we're still going to send people to your door to address whatever might be going on. So we are going to continue to do that. We leverage technology as much as possible. We hear some of that today, but that tends to be sort of more in the support back office areas. So our position growth has been predominantly in the public safety space.

[01:46:14] But again, if you control for population growth, we tend to have to add folks in those frontline areas as population grows. So if you control for that over time, like we did on total cost, You can see the staffing profile for Chesterfield County actually declines over time, you know, pretty steadily.

[01:46:32] And for FY27 proposed, it's down just a touch from where it was last year at just slightly over eight positions. Back in 2008, that was at nine. So we have continued to find efficiencies over time, relying on technology and other measures to do that, all the while still adding all of those public safety positions that I just referenced.

[01:46:54] Thanks, Chair. Matt, even with that, even with those increases, we're still not where we should be for staffing levels. Yeah, that's true. And you will see some of those examples when we get into some of our special guest speakers here in a few minutes. Okay. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Durkin. Good afternoon. I'm just going to run through some quick slides here. You know, Matt's just referenced in all our historical internal statistics, but the real yardstick is how do we stack up to our peers? Because it's quite easy for a locality to say that, you know, Over time, we've improved efficiencies, but you may be out of step with your peer group.

[01:47:32] So we typically look at the 10 most populous jurisdictions of Virginia, of which we are one. And what you see here, we presented it in Audit and Finance a few weeks ago. Local revenue per capita, that's primarily made up of revenue generated from citizens, primarily through property taxes. You see there the red line, that's Chesterfield.

[01:47:49] The blue line is the average of the peer group, with all of the rest in that shaded grey, so you don't have all those nine squiggly lines on that chart up there. Main message is, though, that since 1997, we have had the lowest local revenue per capita in that peer group.

[01:48:05] When you move to the operating side, it's the exact same story. We are below the peer group. We've had the lowest operating per capita cost since 1998, and that does include spending on education as well. And then finally, on a net debt per capita basis, we are continuing on with the referendum plan.

[01:48:24] But even by that yardstick, you can see it right there, a little over $5,000 across the entire organization compared to Richmond's over $11,000, and I will say that was the 2024 figure because they've not even released their 2025 ACFA yet. But between that peer group, again, by that very metric, we are the lowest in the grouping as well.

[01:48:43] One area that we talk about every year, I know that this time of year you get a lot of attention on the real estate tax rate, but our utility system, our rates are the lowest in the region. Even with the proposed FY 2027 rates, you see there are Hanover, Henrico and Richmond's for the last year. We are still lower on those. When you compare that on an annual basis, that's anywhere from about $120 per year to upwards of $800 a year in savings and utility rates.

[01:49:13] I will quickly touch on the revenue and economic slides before I turn it over to Mr Hill. There's a lot of uncertainty going on right now. I'm sure by the time we finish this presentation, I'll probably have some more news alerts about what's going on in the world. But, you know, locally, the consumer is holding up pretty strong.

[01:49:32] Year-to-date fiscal local sales tax collections, one of the largest revenue sources that we have. We are actually outpacing our peers. We're about 8.9% fiscal year-to-date. The one thing that we have brought multiple times, multiple locations, is the labour market is one thing that we watch very, very closely.

[01:49:49] It is the engine horse of the national economy as well as the regional economy here in Chesterfield. You can see there's more red appearing in that chart. And the latest reading that we have from February was actually a decline in the job market, about 92,000 jobs.

[01:50:06] So this is, as I say, it's the power horse of the economy. And it's certainly something that we are watching as we move through the rest of this year and into fiscal year 27. But I will say, you know, even with all of that uncertainty, what you will see here today is some very innovative strategies that will be able to chart us through that course.

[01:50:24] I saw an interesting slide this morning at the CVTA Finance Committee. We're looking at the funds coming in to Chesterfield County and the other jurisdictions related. And, of course, we're three months behind on the reporting that we get.

[01:50:40] What was interesting when you talk about the sales tax, for the first time, we were within $70,000 of what Henrico took in, and it's been consistently creeping.

[01:50:56] That gap between what Henrico brings in and what we bring in has been coming closer and closer and closer together, and it's just a matter of time before we overtake them, I believe. And a lot of that, I think, has to do with our population growth, but it's consistent with what you're pointing out with the sales and use tax.

[01:51:13] Because we've seen those numbers stay pretty steady now. Again, we're three months behind. But it was interesting when I saw it this morning. So if you could go back to the slide where you talk about the peer groups. Who are in our peer groups when you mention that?

[01:51:34] So it's the... There it is, right? Okay, got you. Yeah, I think that's important to highlight, too. Because it's not just talking about peer groups in terms of our geographic peer groups. but also our peer groups across the state.

[01:51:50] So I just wanted to highlight that. And as we have an increase in population, we have an increase for calls for service from public safety, and that's one of the reasons why we have to add to the workforce in terms of our public safety because we have more residents that are moving into the area, and those calls for service have to be covered.

[01:52:10] And, you know, you just can't do it with the amount of people that you already have. So I just want to highlight those two pieces. Yep. So moving on, you know, we have that little mixed bag economy that we're seeing float throughout the entire nation. But also, you know, here in Chesterfield as well, just kind of a little process slide. We've shown the slide a lot in the past, but it's good to reshare out that we are budgeting on a conservative basis, just based on the timing of our fiscal year and our major revenue collections. So that top little light blue chart, you can see your timeline

[01:52:46] per se is our real estate tax collections. We are headway into our budget development and we're here presenting that today here in March. For the public, the proposed budget that you all ultimately vote on in April, that real estate tax rate will be effective for both the June and December bills. Along the same line, personal property, you guys will hear some updates on that as well. That rate that you vote on in April will be applicable to June, but also we are tasked with finding out, using our crystal ball or whatever you may, over the next 18 months, how those two kind of key revenue factors are going to play out into our revenue projections.

[01:53:25] So you guys have seen this before. Our real estate re-evaluations that have happened, we presented this back to the board in March with Mr. Bloomfield and his team, or excuse me, back in January with Mr. Bloomfield and his team, that our residential re-evaluations are continuing towards that long-term trend, as Mr. Harris mentioned. We take a longer-term view of the budget. We just don't view it in a vacuum. But we've had the ups and downs, as you will, during the Great Recession, about those five periods of negative growth, as you will, kind of coming out of that with a more conservative growth in the housing market.

[01:54:00] But more importantly, too, to mention is the commercial re-evaluations that have increased significantly, per se, over the last year at 6%. So again, we're seeing some movement in regards to our residential revaluations coming back towards that long-term trend with the commercial reval side as well. So again, the proposed budget is presenting that real estate rate at 89 cents per year. Again, as I go back to that slide real fast, it's kind of good to point out during those high growth abnormal times, you can see towards the right side of the chart, the board was able to

[01:54:38] drop that real estate rate significantly to offset some of those increases with the largest chunk of that being five out of the last 10 years being the real estate rate dropped. Again, we've shown this before, some recent emphasis on broad tax relief. Again, we can't just view this one budget in a vacuum. Over the last few years, this board specifically has done a lot when it comes to not just homeowners, but across the tax base, whether you own a vehicle, a business, or you're in the seniors and elderly veterans tax program. Again, just more so that emphasis in our conservative

[01:55:16] budgeting posture, that there are a lot of things that we take into account, not just revenue growth, but also tax relief when we're able to do it. Yeah. So I think Shane makes a good point and, you know, talk about tax relief. Real estate rate is one of those levers we can pull, but we have many, many tools and toolkit that we can rely on. And over the last, you know, five to six years, We've certainly done everything we can, you know, in terms of we looked at fees and all the different rates.

[01:55:46] So for FY27, there's no change in terms of the way we approach it. We continue to look for balancing all of the service needs that you're going to hear about today and have already heard about, you know, against this sort of affordability backdrop that we're certainly very tuned to.

[01:56:04] We know that you all hear about. So I just wanted to highlight a few specific measures in this proposal to continue that real emphasis for the last several years on tax relief and affordability. Looking to add a new tier to our senior tax relief program that would take it from the current level.

[01:56:24] It stops at $65,400 and add a tier from there up to $80,000. So as you recall, the board has a policy where you adjust those tiers already by the Social Security income increase each January 1st.

[01:56:41] So we're not suggesting to change that. That piece of the policy remains in place. All we're looking to do is add a tier that captures some of those folks that are just outside of the existing program, but still perhaps struggling to make ends meet from time to time.

[01:56:57] are recognizing that a lot of the feedback that you all have heard and passed along to us we certainly appreciate that so this is the design the the one caveat here is if approved this would be for tax year to 2027 so we're going to affect january of next year we would need that approval from you through the budget process it up in april and then we turn to really some immediate subsequent administrative steps for you all to approve that via the ordinance structure and make all that happen in partnership with the commissioner of revenue give them enough time to there's some system things they would need to do to have this all set up advertise it obviously

[01:57:36] folks that didn't know this existed so all that work leads up to inclusive including this for the the program that that goes into effect January of next year so this sort of the lead time that's that's required but I think that's a big step that would be one of the broadest expansions of this program in recent history. In addition to that, we are proposing a 10 cent cut to the personal property rate. We did cut that 25 cents a couple of years ago as his car values have bounced around, you know, coming in and out of COVID and all of the supply chain issues that were

[01:58:12] going on there. $3.25 would be the new rate. If approved, that would be the lowest in the region. And again, we're just looking at all of these levers, what makes the most sense in a given year. So we'll have an example here in a minute, just kind of give you some context of what that means.

[01:58:30] But looking to lower those rates. Again, that's a little broader measure. It does hit everybody, whether or not you own real property or not. So, you know, renters, you own your own home, whatever it might be, you do benefit from that measure. And then lastly, as we have done pretty consistently over the last five plus years or so, looking at small businesses, we have that BPOL threshold, such as if their gross receipts are below a certain level, they just pay a fee.

[01:58:58] If they're above that, then they're paying on an actual rate schedule. So we would propose to take that threshold from the current level of 550 all the way up to $750,000 to really not only keep up with some of the inflationary pressures that they're feeling on the gross receipts.

[01:59:13] They may get a gross receipts increase that doesn't really, you know, ultimately hit their bottom line because they're facing it on the expense side as well. But this would be one of the largest increases in that threshold in the county's history. And again, we're not only keep folks in the program from that perspective, but add some small businesses that are currently on the rate schedule.

[01:59:33] So those are really the three pieces of our tax relief proposal for FY 2027. So, Matt, how do you get the information for us to make the decision on the B-Poll? Where does that information come from?

[01:59:49] So the B-Poll and the tax relief for the elderly and disabled are our partnership programs with the commissioner's office. They have this information, and they work with us as best they're able to. We'll give them more or less scenarios, and they can test them with the information that they have.

[02:00:07] And they've been good partners in doing that over the last several years. I think it's important for the community to understand that. And so when we look at this to increase it from $5.50 to $7.50, we're basing that on a report coming from the Commission of Revenue on what gross sales essentially have been, or reported sales, I guess from businesses to see where they fall and what they have to pay.

[02:00:31] Is that how that works? More or less, yes, sir. And on the beautiful, just like it would be on a tax relief, that would be for tax year 2027. So, again, there's ordinance amendments that would have to happen And all of that action would begin for you all sort of that April, May, give them plenty of time in that office to make the appropriate changes and get the word out to businesses or seniors, depending on the audience.

[02:00:53] I mean, I think we've increased this every year I've been on the board. Yes, sir. I think it was $200,000 at one point, and we've bumped it up almost every year. Yes, sir. And to follow up on Mr. Carroll's point, too, I think what we're trying to also illustrate is the philosophy that small businesses need this ramp, if you will.

[02:01:08] We eventually want all small businesses to be bigger businesses. And so whatever we can do to get them through their expense side of the equation, meaning lower taxes, to cross over to that threshold is a good thing. So some of this is just as much of an incentive for them to just perfect their business model while they're small and not have an anchor of us attached to them.

[02:01:31] Mr. Harris, what is the price or the cost to the county with regard to the elderly and disabled tax breaks? What is that running? So we'll have a slide in just a few minutes when we sort of break down all the pieces and parts of the budget. We'll come back to that topic. Just wanted to tie this into sort of the revenue piece as we're considering revenue. We also consider these offsets at this time. Yeah. All right. I'm going to jump two slides and come back because this one tends to the story that Mr. Harris was alluding to. So this is a good example of that property, personal property tax decrease on a new

[02:02:08] car through Kelly Blue Book. As last year, they would have paid about $1,400. And this year, seeing about a $42 reduction in that tax relief bill for a new car. So again, just putting into perspective for the public, not everybody owns a home, but most people do own a car. So again, providing that extra relief for possible. Going back one slide, again, just hitting on that conservative forecasting approach. We do it every year. It is part of our financial discipline as the county, but we are more so formalizing that through our FY27 financial policy review.

[02:02:43] We just saw the residential reassessments coming back towards that historical trend. We do project that out in the out years as well, about 3% to 4%. So again, not banking on those abnormal growth years that we had during when the housing market was hot. Commercial new construction contributed about $400 million to the land book itself. It was about 3%. Again, Legos coming out of the ground. Partial reassessments on that, but we are not banking on those growth as you will until it is actually realized. So in our forecasted five-year plan, having that about one to two and a half percent over the five-year horizon. Personal property, Mr. Harris just touched on

[02:03:22] that. So I'm not going to dwell on that one too much. Local sales tax as well. Mr. Durkin gave us the good news story that our consumer spending is healthy. However, again, we don't bank on that going into the future. We do try to temper that towards more historical trends to really buttress ourselves against any economic shifts with consumer spending.

[02:03:44] Last one, as you all are aware of, the SNAP admin, the federal reimbursement changes at the federal level, shifting that 50-50 share for Fed and state down to 75-25, putting more of that burden on the locality. There does seem to be some good news possibly at the General Assembly with some state picking up the tab. However, again, we are being a conservative approach with our revenues.

[02:04:07] And again, that's about a $1.2 million revenue reduction that we would see on social services for that. And it's probably worth noting that as a general practice, as part of that conservative approach, anything that's coming from the state that might have some upside, and we hear there are some of those things, I guess, but we don't bake those in at this time. And you'll hear an update from Natalie tonight it looks like the state budget could drag again into May so nothing in what you're seeing on the revenue piece is you know expecting so a comp board reimbursement

[02:04:42] whether it be small or large so anything that happens there we consider just to sort of be you know upside risk and that does give us a little bit of flexibility particularly in those constitutional officer agencies as we go throughout the course of the year but you know we we hold a very tight line as the general assembly is putting their final deliberations on the budget every year. And this year is no different. So our fee review, we do this again every year. It is part of our financial policies that every department go through and look at their fee structure and how they are charging. One of the big proposals this year, excuse me, is the convenience center

[02:05:22] fee, upping that from $7, that baseline gate fee to $9. A lot of what you'll see here in the few slides on the expenditure side of things is we are continuing to see those contractual increases far outpacing the headline CPI number that gets thrown around. So part of this user-based fee increase would be to help offset some of those costs that we're seeing. Very important to mention that the recycling service lanes will remain free. We are not proposing any changes to that.

[02:05:51] So those are still free as well. Sports visitation and entertainment, you heard from Mr. Poma earlier about them modernizing their fee structure. Again, all the help from local organizations to be able to incorporate them into our process and give them better customer service throughout the countywide sphere. And then lastly, as a result of the General Assembly last year, there are some state increases to the stormwater development fees. Those would also be included as part of this budget proposal before you today. And just procedurally, when you all approved the budget in April, any fee modifications that we're mentioning here are

[02:06:30] embedded as part of that approval. So these do not come back as a separate piece. Unless they're tied to an ordinance somehow, these would just be, again, part of the budget. You approve the budget. These come forward with that overall action. So all of that put together, the FY27 proposed revenue side of things, as Mr. Harris mentioned, that is about 4.7% up from last year at about $1.09 billion. On the left side, you can see what kind of makes up the base of our revenue sources. As every other locality in Virginia, we are a very property tax-driven

[02:07:06] locality. But a good thing to mention is that property taxes is not just homeowners. It's personal property. That's real estate on public service corporations such as Dominion, but also business personal property as well as machinery and tools. So again, not just the residential side of things in that big blue box, but the commercial side as well. On the right, again, us being a very property-driven tax locality, most of those increases or changes, as you will, from year to year are generally dealt with real and personal property.

[02:07:41] Other local sources, as Mr. Durkin mentioned earlier with our healthy consumer base, we are projecting a little bit of increase in local sales tax, but again, going back to that conservative posture we are not you know betting on you know super substantial increases in this fiscal year's budget and with that i'll turn it back over to mr harris so with the gate fees i was just thinking about that for the convenience center i know there's different prices for different things or is it is it only the trash that's going to be changed not the yard waste

[02:08:20] fees or it's just that the main gate fee that can come in going from from seven to nine yes ma'am okay thank you so at this point really shift gears to the expenditure side this is the the dirkin hierarchy of needs um and so we'll kind of peel this back layer yeah mr i did that dr miller that was for you i was waiting for the yeah all right um anyway so this you see where we kind of started off with fy 26 and then we will layer on and kind of walk through pieces of this we won't spend a whole lot on schools but again it's a full accounting of how we get from your current

[02:08:56] adopted level to where we are proposing. This was all covered in well by Dr. Murray and his team so this is 15 million dollars of and just want to touch on that one point because it is 15 million dollars of new money that the deduct is sort of the reduction in that one-time source that schools provides through their year-to-year savings and you've already heard about all the the good things really is a very, very strong education budget, something that we should all be very proud of.

[02:09:29] Next layer of that pyramid, compensation topics. So I'll touch on a couple of key things here. The base merit for county folks outside of public safety, outside of the public safety pay plans would be two and a quarter percent. That is mirrored by what the pay step is inside the public safety pay plan. So two and a quarter is kind of the magic number as we sit here today.

[02:09:56] Obviously, as we did last year, we started off with a little lower number on the county merit side. The good news is we switched that to a January 1 date. So as conditions change, if they get better or if they go the other way, it does give you a nice management tool over the first six months of the year to evaluate that. But it's proposed here at two and a quarter with that decision point looming in January.

[02:10:23] In addition, we are suggesting or proposing an actual formal amendment to the public safety pay plan that has an auto-adjust every year. Also in January, even though the public safety steps stay July 1, an auto-adjust January 1st of every year, a minimum of 0.75 to the starting salaries and then that compression adjustment up throughout the ranks of the public safety pay plan.

[02:10:49] So we have, as you've seen, even though you all installed the public safety pay plan a number of years ago, we've had to come back and make subsequent adjustments to the plan as the market moves around. We certainly recognize that. So this is an effort to try to stay a little bit more closer to the market for these particular key jobs.

[02:11:11] So, again, 0.75 would happen every January. But as with the general government merit, if something were to happen, market conditions, you know, in the first six months of the year, sometimes we learn information. Even after you adopt the budget, you do have that ability in January to make a potential augmentation to that 0.75.

[02:11:30] But again, this would be put into the plan. It would be something that's predictable, but always have the option to do more if market conditions warrant that. We also, as you heard with schools, we had a reduction in VRS rates for general government.

[02:11:47] So that's provided some nice headroom on the compensation side. Again, you have an expected increase in health care costs. I think just a good example here. So we're at 5% is our expected increase there.

[02:12:03] Last year, when those come back to us, we get the information back from the consultant in terms of what the expected increase would be in premiums for county and school employees. Again, we're self-insured. That first number was almost 12%. So we worked very hard.

[02:12:18] We did make some plan modifications for this current year. So we took it from 12% to less than 6% this prior year. So those are the kinds of reductions and strategies working with Ms. Selby and her team each year to try to, again, maintain a competitive space in terms of benefits, but also recognize it's got to fit into the overall cost structure.

[02:12:42] I am a happy report that we've been working through an RFP for a new healthcare consultant I think is going to bring us a more comprehensive and sort of unified expert to take a look at not only healthcare, but compensation, sort of where we are in the marketplace.

[02:12:59] I think that'll bring some more innovative solutions, particularly in the healthcare space, because healthcare inflation is not going away at any time. So we've really got to continue to stay on top of that. So we're bringing some extra resources to the table to take a look at that. Dr. Miller, to your question, so we're proposing an additional $5 million to the overall tax relief program, but just to be fair, so that takes it to, if approved, almost $30 million of the general fund budget would be set aside for this purpose, but 70% of it is really the veterans piece.

[02:13:37] You want to talk about unfunded mandates, that was one of the pieces of the iceberg at the beginning of the presentation. You know, one of those things that we don't, I'm glad Dr. Murray touched on in his presentation, but this is a $20 million unfunded mandate. We are pro-veterans, love to see the benefits, but this was something that the state, you know, saw it fit to put on a ballot and to pass to us, although it came with zero revenue.

[02:14:03] So to put this in Mr. Engel terms, that's three cents of your real estate rate that is dedicated to this unfunded mandate alone. So yes, and it is, as Dr. Casey has pointed out many times, this is, if not the one of the most fastest growing portions of our overall budget.

[02:14:24] So that $5 million is a blended number. its services not only increase cost of the veterans piece, sort of that SSI adjustment you make in January, but also what is anticipated for that additional tier of the program if approved. Yes, sir.

[02:14:41] Capital, we'll touch more on this. We get to the CIP highlights in just a second, but I think the key thing we always have been talking about, and it's been touched on several times here today, we are very policy-driven when it comes to building your budget. It is not just our opinions that shape much of this.

[02:14:58] we're very, very structured in the way we do it. There's no place where that's more true than in your debt space. So these are, we've touched on these at Audient Finance, but it's worth bearing again here. You've heard some borrowing strategies related to schools. We've got a little bit on our side, but this shows you a snapshot of where we are in terms of our long-term borrowing and how it lays on top of our policy framework. And we are well below all of our debt, you know, limits and policies, almost to the degree, to Mr. Carroll's point about public safety staffing, maybe a little bit too low on some of these. But certainly as we look into a next budget,

[02:15:36] we want to make sure that we are in full compliance with our existing debt policy framework, and we absolutely are. I get the fun stuff. I was waiting for Gerard to kind of kick in there. Really quickly, you know, we have this every year. It's no surprise we have contractual increases. Ms. Brown and her staff do a fantastic job renegotiating contracts, but we still do face pressures on that front.

[02:16:01] In the IST sphere, you'll hear from Mr. Furman later, critical IT services, the market for those are way above normal inflation metrics. One of the things I will point out is that, you know, Mr. Hill is IST's analyst, and he worked with them to build from the ground up all of their existing contracts and found efficiencies within their line item budgets.

[02:16:22] The rest of the budget team do the exact same with their departments as well. They go through all of the contracts. They get all of the information. ask follow-up questions. A couple of points on these ones. The sheriff, I know he's watching, so I have to point this out. He faces a lot of pressure in the pharmaceutical space. You know, we face that as well as Matt's talking about the health insurance plans. And then, you know, Mr. Hur does a great job in outlining to us the pressures that he faces in the waste and resource sphere as well. Some other baseline adjustments. You'll see this as a common theme before we add to the budget, we look for the efficiencies within the existing appropriations. And you

[02:16:59] see that on this slide as well when we talk about risk and fleet. You see the parts coming back to some workload inflationary measures. Those are the cost changes for some of the most common fleet parts since 2019, all up by double digits at a minimum, some in the triple digit range as well. One of the things that we have done, you know, like risk management is an example. They have to keep a certain reserve level for their claims experience.

[02:17:22] They earn interest on that. One of the things that we haven't done in the last few years is appropriate some of that interest in a conservative fashion to be able to offset the direct charges that are made, not just to the county, but the school system as well. And then the airport policy compliance, you know, that's a legacy of Mr. Holland, if you will, reinvesting the five-year average of that aircraft personal property for capital maintenance.

[02:17:47] We got the revised figure. This was the fifth year. That is an increase of about $259,000. And then, you know, one of the things that we thought would be good to highlight this year is, you know, the workload measures. To explain the context as to why these costs are going up, you can see there it's across the entire organization.

[02:18:07] You see the circuit court clerk and the number of filings just in one year going up by anywhere from 24 to 42 percent. In the mental health sphere, you see increases for substance use disorders up by 20% in mental health cases in general, up about 21% just in the one year. So with the increases that you're seeing in this budget, with as lean as we can possibly be, we are facing some significant workload pressures that we have to address as an organization for the community.

[02:18:36] Looking to that, you know, we've made reference to the pay plans that have been implemented over the last few years. A component of that are the part-time staff that we have as an organisation. Mr Hill touched on the policies that have been updated for fiscal year 2027. We did do a review of those part-time positions. As a result of that, 261 part-time vacant positions were eliminated as part of this budget. However, we do have some supplements in much needed areas of the organisation. Again, the Sheriff's Office and the Libraries being two of those case departments, as well as some other areas, circuit court clerks, circuit court judges,

[02:19:13] and then finally environmental engineering, which I do want to point out due to the fee adjustments that Shane had mentioned earlier is a net neutral cost to the organization. And just very quickly, I think the part-time and the contract slot, I know those are not the most exciting topics you're going to hear about in 2026. I get that. But I think there are great examples of how Mr. Durk and his team, which are sitting over here quietly trying to hide. That's the work that happens down on the fourth floor. They go through every single line of these departmental budgets. They're looking for anywhere where a request comes in for one of

[02:19:48] those items, and we want to do our best to try to fund whatever that request is. But if we can identify existing sort of unused appropriation in one of those areas, that's the first dollar that we want to spend before we put new dollars in. So departments have been very receptive to to that approach, but that's a lot of just going through line item by line item from all the folks that are in this room to make that happen. How did we cut 261 part-time positions? Yeah, so this is really, again, a historical topic. If you go back, we went through probably a decade where adding a

[02:20:26] full-time position was nearly impossible for a variety of reasons, and so you had, there was the emergence of part-time positions, A, the labor market was different then, too, because you could get a lot of interest for those. So they were added over time. They didn't always come with a full appropriation. So we've just had a lot of miscellaneous part-time position numbers sitting out there, not necessarily filled. So when we say eliminating 261, that's the key. You're not getting 261 emails tomorrow from those folks. But that was really Mr. Durkin's hard work going through,

[02:21:04] looking at every single one of those, and, you know, libraries has been a very good partner in that exercise, right-sizing our part-time group, working with HR to flag all those, pull them out of the system such that if the department fills a part-time position today, we know that there is a full backing of appropriation sitting there. So this has just been a cleanup exercise, and I think something that's, you know, is a good control moving forward. Dr. Miller, just a simple math, You could have had one 30-hour part-time position, but then they said, maybe let's break into three 10s.

[02:21:37] And then you break into three 10s, two stay vacant, one goes back up to 30 hours. And so you have two vacant part-time positions sitting on the book. So it's just cleaning up. It's not necessarily changing really the total hours per se. It's just getting it focused to who's sitting in what chairs, and let's only count them.

[02:21:55] And if there's permissibilities going forward, let's start anew. A big part of this budget, as with every budget, is public safety, maintaining the service standards that the community expect. I won't go through all of these because we have the two chiefs as well as Deputy Chief Wilkerson.

[02:22:12] But one of the things I would like to say is we appreciate their partnership throughout this budget cycle. They have employed some very innovative strategies as part of that. They don't always necessarily come asking for more. They look at their internal operations and how they can make them more efficient. So I just want to point out their close collaboration and appreciation for that as we move through this budget cycle.

[02:22:34] Looking at our mobility services access on demand program, we brought this to you a few months ago. This budget does include about $1.75 million for this program. The number of riders over the last few years has increased significantly. We have made some program modifications to temper that cost growth, increasing the fees from the $6 base to either $10 or $15, depending on where the trip destination occurs.

[02:23:02] And then we are, every few years, I think it's every two years, we will come back and look to see if there's any auto adjustments we have to make to that program as well to ensure the kind of long-term sustainability of that program. And then we thought this would be a very good visual to share, even if it is on the smaller side on that screen up there.

[02:23:22] You know, the election cycle, if you will, is, as you can see in this chart, is almost continuous now. This is an area where the state, again, does not necessarily chip in its fair share. We've had to put funds in as part of this budget.

[02:23:38] It's about $630,000 in fiscal year 27 and then an additional $200,000 on top of that in fiscal year 28. It's just the cost of doing business. We want to make sure that the elections occur, they occur safely, and they occur timely. Another great example of this has nothing to do with CPI or any of those kind of measures of inflation.

[02:24:01] This is not necessarily doing anything or getting into any new lines of business. It's just a more active calendar. This was a slide that Ms. Vera shared at an electoral board meeting. I think we had a couple of board members there. I thought it was just a good illustration of just how active it is throughout the course of the year.

[02:24:18] So these dollars that are in your proposed budget really are just paying for additional hours for electoral workers to go out there at the polls with early voting, with special elections, with all the things that come along, additional costs to print ballots and other materials that go along with that.

[02:24:36] So those things have real costs. And like Mr. Durkin said, we don't necessarily see those dollars come through for the state. So it's just, when we say maintaining service standards, we want to make sure when people go vote in Chesterfield County that, you know, the lines are manageable, the service standards are what they've used to the last couple years.

[02:24:53] We've made great strides. We don't want to lose any of that ground just because the calendar has become, you know, busier than it was, you know, three, four years ago. So the next block, go back.

[02:25:12] So this is a nice statistic that 99.8% of the proposed resources are really just focused on absolutely strengthening and fortifying what we really already have on the ground. You've heard some great examples of that here in the last little bit.

[02:25:27] There are a number of initiatives, just a handful, some of which are tied to CIP items like your animal shelter. You know, we know this is coming when we approve the project. We've got the expanded footprint. You'll hear some more about that here in just a second, so I won't get into it too much.

[02:25:45] But there's a half-year operating cost for seven full-time positions. Again, have a more robust service profile in our animal space. But this decision, although it's showing up in FY27, was really made several years prior to. I think this is, again, another really good example, another good story that's worth touching on.

[02:26:05] So we did this a number of years ago. We added another parks field crew. Again, if you go back to this is one of the unfortunate legacies, perhaps, of the Great Recession. We outsourced a lot of this activity to private groups.

[02:26:21] It worked in some instances. It did not work in others. We brought it back in-house a few years ago under Mr. Luther's leadership. They have been very, very successful and a great partner with SV&E to make sure that the fields that we have are maintained at a standard that the community expects.

[02:26:40] But I think what we have heard, you've heard some testimony here today already about CBL and some of these other groups, certainly true in the diamond space, the demand for fields in Chesterfield County far outstrips our ability to really provide them with adequate places to play.

[02:26:59] um, as we sit here today, but what we've done a very, um, thorough review of the fields that already exist in the County of which we have, you know, a good stock, but they just are not maintained in a way where we can use them, particularly, you know, starting this time of year when literally, you know, fires up, it requires a pretty intensive maintenance to, to go out there and take care of those facilities. So the, the request is part of this budget is to add a secondary field crew to bring some of these assets that already exist.

[02:27:30] You're going to hear this theme in just a minute from Mr. Bowles to maximize asset we already have in hand before we come back to you and say, well, we're just going to go build another field complex. No, we've identified the ones that make the most sense where we can get the most utility out of. And so that's what this request is to really build on that momentum from a few years ago. You see down there the Rockwood image that is getting ready to to reopen up here. I think another great example of getting more utility, more hours out of the fields that we already have. And certainly Mr. Poem and Mr. Luther have done a good job of

[02:28:05] spearheading this effort for proposal, considered proposal for FY27. Just a couple other things we'll touch on. Cybersecurity, going to hear more from Mr. Furman. But again, another example of something that has just come to bear on the budget over the last few years. You've seen it with some of the geopolitical stuff in the last week, the additional threats that pop up. This is something that we have to address. We've got to be on top of it. We talked to rating agencies within the first two or three questions, every single agency, they want to know about how we are addressing this part

[02:28:41] of who we are. It's absolutely public safety. It's absolutely financial integrity. It has to be addressed. And so that is a pressure on the budget. A smaller amount, but we thought we'd put it in here to highlight it because it has been a topic. Some additional analytical resources for Mr.

[02:28:59] Bloomfield's team to really help deal with the valuing of those commercial properties. Very different business from the residential side. So this is really a sort of a subscription to a data and analytics service that will help give them some more data points to use as they do that annual process, and then looking to add a financial position in the economic development space. We've got this worked out to be a net cost of zero with some internal savings that have been identified. We've used this model in the transportation space. It's been very, very successful and helped sort of, you know, be a partner to the budget space, budget department on

[02:29:35] sort of complex transportation topics. We would do that same thing in the economic development department. So building, again, on a business model that has proven to be very useful. We do have a couple of reorganizations to mention. Again, net zero cost here. You've already heard about one today, Everyday Excellence. We paired that on purpose. I won't go back through that, but bringing folks over from parks, aligning that in a more uniform and sort of linear customer service model that obviously you saw from the video and the other testimonies has

[02:30:10] been very successful. And then in addition to that, looking to consolidate some of our performance evaluation functions in the budget management shop. Again, net zero from a position total. But I think we've got some pressure from our professional standards, the GFOA, sort of the national agency that looks at this, looking to make sure that the proper emphasis being placed on some of these things. You all have obviously shared that same vision with us. So we are looking to, again, consolidate and create a new business unit within the budget office that is solely

[02:30:45] focused on performance management and lining that up with the resource allocation process all under Mr. Durkin's leadership. So we are excited about that. Again, I think this is an area where we've done a lot of these things over time, but this really is just sort of consolidation of that expertise under one umbrella and the closer connection to the resource allocation work that's done in budget management.

[02:31:08] Mr. Harris, I know it's net zero on positions. Yes, sir. But as far as the budget goes, reorganization of local sports administration operations from under parks to its new home actually gets paid for out of hotel tax, not out of the general fund.

[02:31:30] So there is an actual net benefit to the citizen, even though there's no new employees. In this instance, Mr. Engel, the overwhelming majority of Mr. Prima's budget is paid for by the source that you referenced. We take the legal charge associated with that very seriously.

[02:31:48] So we are still offering the general fund supplement to his office for these pieces. For this part of this. We want to make sure that there's that absolute nexus to what is spelled out in the code. We are able to do this more efficiently, as you heard, because it was three people.

[02:32:03] Now it's two, and then they've been able to transition another person into an administrative role that was needed. So they have, you know, worked out, basically saved a position by doing so, but it still does have on paper that general fund transfer. Okay. Yes, sir. And then just wrap it up before we bring some guests up to the table.

[02:32:21] You've seen this chart before, but over 83%, right around 83% of all proposed resources going to education, public safety, and infrastructure. Those continue to be the longstanding hallmarks of the county. And we want to make sure we are investing in those areas appropriately.

[02:32:38] So with that, if there aren't any questions, we have, again, we will run through this as quickly as we can. But I thought that highlighting not the full departmental budgets in any of these particular instances, but these stories are better told by the folks that are closer to them.

[02:32:55] So we won't, you know, bring them up here with big announcements, but police. And then we will transit to the sheriff's office, fire department. We have some quick slides from our IST folks really touching on in more depth some of the things that Gerard Chan and I just mentioned.

[02:33:12] So with that, no further ado, I will turn it over to Chief Carpenter. Mr. Chair, while we're transitioning, just as a time check, there's about 50 slides left to go amongst them. So I think their goal is to take less than a minute per slide. And again, we don't have many other informational highlights to cover, so we should be in good shape.

[02:33:33] But just, it's more of a, I should be looking at them when I say less than a minute per slide, not at, not at you. You're welcome to ask any questions you want. In other words, hurry up, right? All right. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, Board of Supervisors, Dr. Casey.

[02:33:53] Thank you guys for giving us an opportunity to kind of share some of the innovative approaches to how we can continue to provide excellent customer service to the community of Chesterfield County. You know, we appreciate, you know, down through the years, all the work that's been done in the public safety space.

[02:34:12] We recognize the .75 that is being proposed, and we really appreciate it. We know that, you know, this is a competitive market, and I think it's not uncommon or not unknown by you that in the police arena, we struggle with hiring staffing.

[02:34:30] So we have leaned into, you know, an innovative approach to really look at how we can maximize our services in the community. And what we need to do is focus on where we've been and where we're at.

[02:34:46] And let's go to where we've been. The one thing that I would like to share with the group is as we leaned into how we can provide this service, We realized as a law enforcement agency that a large majority of the work that we do isn't always enforcement.

[02:35:07] So the introduction of the police service aid program really allowed us to extend opportunities to the youth of Chesterfield County community in the space of public service to be able to answer those calls for service that don't necessarily require law enforcement intervention per se.

[02:35:27] And as you can see in the slide before you, 34 former PSAs have become police officers or police recruits. And currently, 82% still are employed with the Chesterfield County Police Department.

[02:35:42] So we've really seen the value of this program as an opportunity to give young people a perspective on public safety, to really understand and attach themselves to the culture of CCPD.

[02:35:58] And what we have found is individuals who originally weren't sure what they wanted to do in life, this provided that perspective and opportunity for them to decide that they want to serve in the official capacity of a police officer. In 2025, our PSAs averaged and accounted for handling 10% of the calls for service and 17% of the incident reports, which is a game changer when you look at the fact that that could tie up a sworn resource for extended amounts of time.

[02:36:30] I say that to say that, you know, Matt Harris and his team has done a really good job, provided some additional positional opportunities because we have found that the transition from police service aid to police recruit has been beneficial.

[02:36:49] So if we can have more young people in this space experiencing this employment, then the yield in our basic academies can increase. And we've seen those increases in the basic academy classes. All right. So when we talk about an innovative approach to public safety and looking at areas where we can maximize our efforts, the police department has done a great job of putting police officers in positions that aren't necessarily police positions.

[02:37:23] What we have done, me and my staff, we've looked at areas within the police department to determine if we can incorporate a professional staff person into those positions. And what we've done is looked at messaging media, which is our comms section, and we had two sworn police officers in those positions.

[02:37:43] We were able to hire two new professional staff individuals to be able to ramp up our social media presence, our messaging to the community, and reallocate those sworn positions to operational areas. We did a very similar thing with the supervisor in the forensics space.

[02:38:01] We had two sworn supervisors in forensics. We were able to take one of those individuals and transition them into an operational position. But not only that, it provided a career development opportunity for our professional staff people as well.

[02:38:17] We looked at our training academy, and one of the things that we have found, and if you know anything about the police space, we tend to move around a little bit, and institutional knowledge was extremely important that we maintain. So one of our most critical areas is our training division.

[02:38:34] We looked at the assistant academy director position, and we leaned into the fact that we could bring in a professional staff person that would provide consistency, institutional knowledge, training objectives, maintaining that standard.

[02:38:50] And when we made transitions at the captain and sergeant level, it wasn't devastating to the actual training program. So we were able to transition a lieutenant from out of that position and put a professional staff person into that position, and then we took it a step further. We leaned into our actual personnel division, and we found an opportunity where we took a captain's position.

[02:39:12] We reallocated that to an operational position, and the thought is that, again, institutional knowledge is extremely important. We want to make sure that we continue to have that wealth of information maintained in those areas and we were able to create a chief of HR position.

[02:39:32] So, again, thinking outside the box, looking for opportunities as we continue to grow the agency when it comes to basic recruits, how we can maximize and continue to provide that exceptional service. You saw on Mr. Harris's slide specifically as it relates to technology, and if you look at the top right picture, that's our messaging media group.

[02:39:53] The two new hires are the young lady to the left and the young man in the middle. But if you look down in the bottom left corner, we talk about drone first responder program. This is a joint venture among all public safety, and it is truly a game changer.

[02:40:09] Those of you that know when it comes to aerial assets, sometimes we're kind of limited by the response of those assets, but they're extremely critical and important in serious situations. By implementing this drone first responder program, we're able to be able to provide aerial assets and resources to critical incidences, and we're not hampered by some of the challenges associated with weather, with time of day, etc.

[02:40:37] And we have looked at it in partnership with our fire department, as well as our sheriff's office. And we're looking forward to launching this drone first responder program. When you think about it from the standpoint of overwatch and having an eye in the sky, it's a game changer.

[02:40:53] You think about it from the standpoint of the fact that, you know, there's vulnerable populations within our community that we can then deploy a resource with each signature capability and locate them quickly. Again, another game changer. The ASOC, which is our Analytic Strategic Operations Center, has been a force multiplier on many levels.

[02:41:15] We have solved a tremendous amount of heinous crimes that have occurred in Chesterfield County in a matter of 24 to 48 hours. And that is because of the advent of this technology. A lot of professional staff, people work in this area. They are truly committed to public safety, and we appreciate the tool and resource that has been made available to us.

[02:41:35] Thank you, Colonel. Deputy Chief Mike Young, Dr. Miller, board members, Dr. Casey, thank you for having us. Just wanted to touch on that top item, if we could drill down. I've got about 30 minutes for you, but we're going to cut it down to three here.

[02:41:52] Looking at that top item, there's a story to that, right, as we're looking to optimize and efficiency enhance, as DCA Harris pointed out. So about two years ago, I had an opportunity as the major for patrol services to partner alongside the district captains and talk to about 250 downline personnel, lieutenants, sergeants, and officers, and really lean into the workforce about how things are going for them.

[02:42:15] And in these two-in-one conversations, we know we talked about the good things, what's going good in their lives, what's going good in the department, and then we got to where are we missing the mark? What could we be doing differently or better? And, you know, universally, 99% of the time, the first answer was staffing, and then the second answer was TDOs, which informs number one.

[02:42:33] And what they're talking about with TDOs, we recognize by code that is our responsibility. But when staffing is a little tight, and maybe you've got a shift of 10 people, and then four of them get sent off to a hospital to sit with a consumer, it really eats into the manpower for that night. And it really wears on them.

[02:42:50] And so we try to get creative, and we have been creative over the last few years on how we can manage that. Kudos to the supervisory group for getting flexible. We've done overtime signups. We've rotated our people frequently while they're there at the hospital, but we needed something else.

[02:43:07] We have the core team who does a good job of deferring things before maybe they get to the ECO, TDO space. But ultimately, what we got was a presentation from one of our supervisors who recommended part-time positions. You know, let's have retirees with all the institutional knowledge in the world and know our culture and know how to work in these spaces, come back part-time and, you know, allay this pressure on the staff.

[02:43:33] As you can see in that graphic, what it works out to be per month, that's about nine calls per day with a mental health nexus. I see former Sergeant Carroll there, right? Let's go back 15 years ago to 2011. You might have two calls a day is kind of what we pulled this morning.

[02:43:49] So you can see, and this echoes what the slide, a few slides back, they said an increase of 21 percent in mental health services. So we're seeing that across multiple departments. But through agility and being nimble, this is how we think we can really address this and maybe take that piece away from some of the officers and keep them in the streets to do higher priority calls for service, traffic enforcement, community engagement, and deter the criminal element. Next slide. The colonel has already hit on DFR. I'll just give some fun facts about it. There's a Lakewood PD, Lakewood, Colorado district chief who talked about

[02:44:29] just in a 22 week run, they had 41% of their calls for service. They didn't even need to send an officer. So, you know, if it's a higher party court, we're always going to start our officers. But if it's one of those where we've got resources already deployed and the call is pending, we can shoot one of these drones out there. They get up and running in 20 seconds, so they can get to the seen in 90 seconds, they could probably let us know, you know, is it something we need to respond to? Drill down on some of our 111,000 calls for service from last year, under about 20% of those were cleared on arrival. We get there and there's nothing to be seen. It's unfounded.

[02:45:08] So that'll be really interesting to see if we can, you know, we're going to start with three, but as we push this out throughout the county, it would be really interesting to know that 20% of the calls for service we're sending folks to now, a drone might be able to get there in a few minutes and say, it's clear. The drone will actually see more than an officer can see from the ground in their vehicle too. So that's pretty cool. You guys have heard about the automatic crash notifications. Nationally, there's a range between 70 to 95% of false positive, false alarms for us here in Chesterfield. It's about 80%. That'll save some mileage on his ladder trucks

[02:45:43] If we're not going out to these presumed crash genes that turn out to have no one there because it was a false positive reference, a cell phone or a vehicle malfunction. So that will be an extremely beneficial force multiplier. The last item we touched on in previous slides, but our new first class animal shelter is coming soon.

[02:46:04] If you guys haven't been by it, as they said earlier, the facade is up. The brick and mortar is up. I talked to manager Carrie Jones this morning. She is absolutely excited to see that progress. And she wanted to extend her thanks to the board. This was really going to allow us to go from that more ominous dog pound, is what they maybe historically referred to, to the much more comfortable and inviting animal shelter.

[02:46:28] So with its tripling in size, the seven FTEs they mentioned earlier will certainly augment that and set us in the right direction. But I'll turn it over to the colonel. Well, again, I just want to thank this board, the county administration, and, you know, the community as a whole for the support of public safety.

[02:46:48] Specifically, you know, we know that there's capital projects that specifically align with our police stations, and we appreciate that now we're moving from a space of renting to owning, and we know that comes with a price. I hope the presentation that we provided to you is something that we have really thought about and considered to be physically responsible and to make sure that we're providing the exceptional customer service.

[02:47:15] Make no mistake about it, we will continue to hire more police officers. So please, if you know of anybody who would like to be a police officer, my shameless plug, join ccpd.org. Thank you. Any questions?

[02:47:32] Normally, yes, but we don't have time. Hit you up later. Good afternoon.

[02:47:49] Obviously, I'm not Sheriff Leonard, but Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, thank you for allowing us a few minutes to speak here. I do have it on good authority that Sheriff Leonard may be streaming this, and no doubt he is in vacay casual while he is doing that. You know, to start out, we started out with a deficit, not so much in our manning, our staffing, although our staffing is our deficit.

[02:48:15] We did a manning survey last year, which the board paid for, of course, and sponsored that. We found out we were 51 positions short of what we should be based on this survey. And most of that was related to relief factors for operational areas, the jail, the courts, and other areas.

[02:48:34] So we start out with that. And, of course, we get our external factors impacting internal operations, those unfunded mandates. We have a pretty good authority that General Assembly is going to announce two new judgeships in General District and Juvenile Courts, which with those new judges comes four new deputies, which, of course, is not funded or anything like that.

[02:48:58] So we have to find the personnel to work those as well. And as you can see, again, we got increases in our contract. It's already been discussed in our health care, our pharmaceutical costs, our nursing contract. Mr. Harris and his team already went over these.

[02:49:16] Those are year-over-year increases that really are out of our control, but they're necessities for our operation. Again, more internal factors, evictions. I'm sorry. We have evictions that are up 14% over last year.

[02:49:37] Civil process input papers up, criminal papers up. These are all services we provide. Not only are evictions up, but the complexity of those evictions have become increased. Last December, we had an eviction right here on Bradley Bridge Road.

[02:49:54] It took nine officers with assistance from the police department and fire department. It was an all-day event. We arrested two people, and we had to call in Child Protective Services because there were small children on the ground. We recovered 17 long guns, rifles, shotguns, 11 pistols, crystal meth paraphernalia.

[02:50:16] It just took all day to clear, and those are becoming more common, not to that extreme, but to the point where we need extra security just to execute an eviction. We have one set up for Friday that has some concerning trends in it as well.

[02:50:31] So not only is it increasing, but it's also a little bit more danger for our staff to come out and work. Some other factors in operations, you know, a warrant, our ECO area, TDOs, those are up as already been mentioned.

[02:50:49] Our criminal information unit, they track all this. They 24-7, 365, they're on duty as an officer pulls someone over. they they find out they're wanted or some paper is on them we respond to them we have a 10 minute response time on average we have about 3 500 of these unserved warrants in our files and they had to be maintained and and cared for and you can't make a mistake with these as well making sure you got the right person with the right paper and things of that nature so it's it's a lot to take on and those those uh demands those increases just continue to happen

[02:51:26] year over year um again these our court demands has already been mentioned from uh mr harris's slide as court proceedings go up of course more people are in the courthouse we have to screen more people you know one of our core missions is to provide a safe and secure environment environment for people to conduct their business in the courthouse and as those crowds get bigger and more people come through our doors it's a it's a challenge for our staff to keep up with And again, we're not increasing our manpower.

[02:52:00] We're just increasing our efforts on that. But, you know, it's all without, you know, similar to the public service aid. We have a security tech specialist program we started actually 10 years ago. We looked at how can we offset what our sworn people are doing with non-sworn people.

[02:52:18] So we started our security tech initiative in 2015. And I actually have two of my security techs in the room now, if they could just stand. This is Mr. Maurice Fortune. He was a hire back in August of 2015, one of our original hires.

[02:52:35] And Ms. Robinson came shortly thereafter in November of 2015. Now, she's been all over the place. Security tech, warrant specialist, back to security tech. She actually was recently named our non-sworn employer of the year. So their team, we started out with three or four.

[02:52:51] We're up to 10 now. And our three-year plan is to add 12 more to that. And I think in this budget cycle, five of those are getting approved, which would be a huge benefit. But they provide such a valuable service. And they started out working the front magno screening visitors, but they've expanded that to working on control rooms, monitoring cameras, sending out deputies for responses to alarms.

[02:53:14] They're at the jail and transportation and quartermaster in our front lobby. So their roads just continue to expand. So we're looking forward to those other 12 positions over a period of time to help augment that and, again, give us those sworn positions back into our operation.

[02:53:32] Thank you all both for coming. I appreciate you. You know, and I mentioned about a deficit, and we saw the mental health calls as well that are up. We are really, for a while there, our mental health things had kind of come leveled.

[02:53:50] But as of late, they have really hit us hard at the jail. we're getting a lot of addiction in a lot of mental health issue problems in so that unit is just getting even more busier with with that traffic that they got coming in so we started with the deficit and hey you know what we're making progress we uh the five security techs that y'all approved uh they're going to get plugged into us now the two courtrooms that come will take four of those positions but we are a net one so we are definitely moving in the right direction so we appreciate the board's efforts on that the conversations with mr mr harris and gerald and and shane they instrumental those back and forth conversations to get us where we need to

[02:54:30] be and we we appreciate all their assistance in this and i'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any thank you so much thank you dr hilton as you leave and we change speakers uh you know we had a community meeting yesterday and so i had a citizen come up and ask what's the difference between the police department and sheriff's department, and I started explaining all the differences.

[02:54:53] And Teddy was there, and he said I did a good job. But, you know, you start thinking about everything that the departments do, from the police department to the sheriff's department, from animal control to servant warrants to, you know, pulling behind someone when they need to change a tire to keep them safe.

[02:55:12] You know, I just want to just say that I'm grateful for everything that you all do. And Chief, over to you, but just wanted just a point of gratitude. So thank you. Well, thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey. I'll try to move this along fairly quickly.

[02:55:28] We'll jump right into the topic that's near and dear to my heart, which is fire apparatus. And so if you look at the last five years, the fire service has endured the perfect storm. We've seen 50% increases, almost double increases on the purchase price of fire apparatus.

[02:55:47] And delivery times have gotten extended out to almost four years. And there's a number of reasons for that, and I'll be happy to talk to you offline for those reasons. But essentially what we're faced with today is that we have about eight units right now that are on order through our manufacturer.

[02:56:04] And we're expecting delivery anywhere from several months to some units and then up to four years for others. And so that creates a real challenge for us because we're having to keep units in service much longer than we would anticipate. And so maintenance costs go up, downtime goes up, and it creates a real problem for us.

[02:56:21] And so if we look at the funding levels that we've had over a period of years, we've done a very good job over the years of replacing our fleet at 15-year intervals. But the current funding that we have had available on average at about $2.4 million per year is insufficient to replace the numbers of units that we need to replace to get to that 15-year interval.

[02:56:40] To complicate matters, the wear and tear on these vehicles, the increased utilization because of the call volume increases that we have, requires to look at a 12-year replacement cycle at the urging of the fleet manager. And so in the budget for next year, we're looking at an increase of about $3 million over a two-year period in the budget, and that will get us to about a $5.5 million level that will allow us to replace up to five units per year and get to that point where we're replacing units at the 12-year interval.

[02:57:16] And that'll be a good thing. It will take us time. We'll continue to work with budget on that and get to that point where we need to be. But this is good news for us. So far as incident growth is concerned, there's a lot of pressures that we're feeling. Certainly the one takeaway that I want you to have here is that our call volume is increasing at three and a half times the rate of population growth.

[02:57:37] And so that's going to continue in the future years. We're going to see call volume go up to probably in the next four years to over 73,000 incidents. And so that's going to require us to continue to add staff and be ready to meet those challenges in the future. Our programs that we've been very proactive with to reduce the reliance on the 911 system has been our mobile integrated health program as well as our peak demand ambulance program.

[02:58:06] Each of those programs are reducing volume. We've had probably the elimination of up to 2,000 potential 911 calls annually with the MIH program, and we've handled over 2,000 low-acuity calls with the Peak Demand Ambulance Program.

[02:58:22] Some other initiatives that we have, we continue to advocate for construction of new hospitals and freestanding EDs in the community. We're hopeful we'll get some good news from the Health Commissioner next week. And then we're continuing to seek funding for EMS-only positions to expand our Peak Demand Ambulance Program and to better cover sporting and special events.

[02:58:42] Finally, will we continue to advocate for Medicare coverage, for treat and release strategies that Congress is considering right now that will be a game changer for us in dealing with a lot of the low-acuity patients? Our volunteer emergency services organizations, just like those nationwide, are continuing to struggle with declines in membership.

[02:59:03] And so the training requirements continue to increase. The call volume keeps going up, and the risk to first responders continues to increase. And so we've seen precipitous declines in our volunteer EMS coverage. There's two specific areas that we are most concerned about. One is the area in central Chesterfield that's covered by the Manchester Volunteer Rescue Squad, and then to the north, the area that's covered by the Forest View Volunteer Rescue Squad.

[02:59:28] This is not sustainable. We are having to pick up the coverage areas with career staff. It's very much unbudgeted, and we're using additional staff to do that. So it increases overtime costs, and it increases the likelihood of mandatory overtime. In the proposed budget for next year, we have positions over the next two years.

[02:59:50] There will be four positions each in the budget to get us to the eight positions that we need to cover the Manchester volunteer need, which would be a county-owned ambulance, Medic 224, at that EMS station. Right now, again, we believe we're going to have to take that to 24-hour status with existing resources until such time that we can get these eight positions.

[03:00:13] And so I would ask the board to consider if there's any way possible if we could hire all eight of those positions at the beginning of next fiscal year. We're in a good position where we can add staff to the next recruit academy that starts in July, and then we would have them on the street by December.

[03:00:31] Otherwise, we're going to be facing increasing overtime costs mandatory overtime. I know I'll be back to you over the next two years asking for additional staff for Medic 209 at the Buford Road fire station and then eventually for the Ettrick fire station to cover the demands in that area. So that concludes my presentation, my part in the presentation, and I'll turn it back to you, Dr. Casey.

[03:00:55] Hey, Chief, I just wanted to mention I heard you, okay? Thank you. And I want to make sure that Mr. Harris, that you hear that also. You're looking for eight new positions starting with the training starting in July.

[03:01:11] Correct. Can I hear you? That's correct. And then they would be on the street by December. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Mr. Harris heard that. Okay. I'll let you finish questions with the chief, though, first. I don't need to show you some comment.

[03:01:27] Mr. Yeah, Mr. Mr. Yes. I've already been, you know, pushing Mr. Harris on that for a while. So, yes, it's in my area, so I'm very aware, and I've talked to the folks at 24 about that. So we're working.

[03:01:44] Thank you. Just a quick thank you. That's it. Thank you all for your continued support in so many ways. Thank you. Mr. Chair, the IST presentation, and I think they've been prompted, is with Scott and James over there.

[03:02:02] It's a good informational update. Matt covered a lot of the inflationary pressures upon cybersecurity and things of that nature. This is a good information session that I think is worthy of the board's full attention, and we'll invite them back in April so that we can stay timely with the remaining presentations that are focused on budget. But they get extra credit for sitting here.

[03:02:18] I was just going to say, sorry you had to sit there this long. Just to close the loop on the fire position, the four positions are sitting in there, I think January 1st. As we've done before, there's numerous instances where we've been able to increase that amount of folks we've been able to hire.

[03:02:38] They did the 48 positions, as you'll recall. A few years ago, we were able to leverage some of those accelerations. Putting it January 1st gives you all the ability to do that. That's sort of the nice thing, as we touched on with some of the merit topics. So it's a decision point. You get through the audit.

[03:02:53] We can come back and have that conversation. but at least it puts a place marker down there for that conversation. So we will run back through this. I'm going to go through some CIP highlights and turn it over to Mr. Bowles. I think that story is really important. It sort of underscores the innovative nature of what we're trying to do on some of these topics for fiscal 27.

[03:03:13] Referendum timeline, so we do not, we're not anticipating selling any general government referendum bonds. This upcoming year, we didn't do it last year. You saw the debt service number actually decreasing. So some of the ability for us to accommodate the expenditure choices that are being proposed to you today are a direct result of taking a little pause on that sale.

[03:03:35] We came out of the gate very strong. You can see in the middle block here all of the referendum projects that have been funded through sales already coming out of that 22 referendum. So we struck while the market was in a particularly good place. We put a lot of cash into those accounts.

[03:03:52] Those projects are moving forward. We still have some projects on the far right-hand side of the screen to come back and sell, but we feel like there is a lot going on. You all saw that this week, broke ground on the police station. Just some highlights of things that we sold right out of the gates that are expected to open up very soon, Falling Creek Police Station, Chester Fire Station.

[03:04:16] You see that activity starting down there, Enon Library. And then this summer, the park inside of River City should be completed. So that first wave of projects that you already have authorized and then the citizens authorized via the referendum are coming to fruition.

[03:04:33] But we feel like we can take another 12 months off of that debt part of that, come back in 28, 29, and finish up with what else is remaining. So the referendum on our side moves, continues to move along. That also provides some capacity to deal with some of the school topics you heard about.

[03:04:50] The Dale Elementary School, we're able to fit that within our, you know, sort of debt plans partially because we're able to take this pause on the general government side. I think this is always key. So this is looking at the five-year total. So this is not a single budget.

[03:05:06] This is five years for the county. An overwhelming majority, nearly 80% of the projects that are proposed as part of this plan are funded with cash. Not all general fund, not all local dollars were able to leverage CVTA, federal dollars in terms of the airport, lots of other sources brought to bear.

[03:05:24] But the point is, we're spending quite a large amount of money, but in the grand scheme of things, by leveraging and not putting it all on the credit card, really make sure that our long-term liabilities in this space are in a very manageable way. And that's what gives us the flexibility to accommodate those products that pop up here and there as we've touched on here today.

[03:05:45] So to look at overall CIP, there's much more information, of course, in the document, but you'll see a very similar theme from the previous years. Transportation continues to be the dominant topic. You heard Dr. Murray and his group talk about major maintenance. It continues to be a heavy emphasis on our side as well, the referendum projects we just touched on.

[03:06:06] The black box up there is the top on the right-hand side, facilities modernization. That's what I'm going to have Mr. Bowles come up and talk about because I think this is something we have been doing for quite a while. We just haven't talked about it as publicly as perhaps we should have. So with no further ado, I'm going to have Clay come up and walk through, again, sort of a practice that we've been in the last couple of years, but certainly has a large role in this FY27 CIP.

[03:06:32] Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey. Again, thanks for the opportunity to go through a couple of these projects.

[03:06:51] John and I have been spending a lot of time in this space. And just quickly before I do that, a lot of kudos here to John's team, Capital Projects, Buildings, and Grounds that have done a lot of heavy lifts in this area, but also, quite frankly, the staff in a lot of departments who have been displaced and inconvenienced, and there's a lot of partnership there.

[03:07:18] So I'll turn it over to John. He'll cover some completed projects, and then I'll pick up with some future items. All right. Thank you, Clay. We'll start out with the Sports Visitors Entertainment Office. They came to us and said, hey, we're growing. We need space.

[03:07:33] We want a place to meet for our team to be and also a space to meet with clients. They wanted to be accessible and centrally located. And around this time, the auditor's team, they were migrating to more of a remote work area.

[03:07:50] So there's space available that we all agreed that could be used. And our Buildings and Grounds team did the outfit for this space. And you see the outcome there. They have a great conference room where they can meet potential clients and great office space for their team to work out of.

[03:08:07] So we see it as a win-win utilizing space that was becoming underutilized. So our next one ties in with audit. As they were transitioning to more of a remote workspace, they said what they need was just a place for them to come work, a secure place for them to come work as a hoteling type option.

[03:08:30] And the fifth floor conference room next to Clay's office or two doors down from Clay's office became available and was suggested that we do that. We outfitted it with our Buildings and Grounds team, made a couple of, replaced the carpet, painted the walls, gave them a new space to work as a hoteling type operation.

[03:08:51] So that was a win also. Our remote work center was done as part of the Real Estate Assessor's Office project a couple years ago. Again, just utilizing space that was vacated by the extension office. This space includes cubicles, offices, and a meeting area.

[03:09:10] And it's available to be scheduled through a reservation system that we manage in general services. FIRE has been our most recent client in that space, and I think they thoroughly enjoyed it, the use of that space. so it's available for anyone to use and be reserved.

[03:09:28] We also have our communications and media. We renovated their space by using cable franchise fees. They had a need for a revamped office space and modernized their studio. And we had our capital projects manage this project with a contractor.

[03:09:45] Great outcome. I believe Teresa's pleased with the product, so she's smiling back there. That's a good thing. The last one I want to touch on before handing it over to Clay is our IST building. We are looking at that project to be advertised this month and be completed in 2027.

[03:10:04] And what we're doing is really consolidating the footprint in IST where the IST staff will occupy the left side of the building, which is on this drawing here. And then on the right side that will become vacated will be our employee medical center.

[03:10:23] And with that center, we're increasing the footprint and the capacity of employee medical center by creating more exam rooms, more testing rooms available. And they will be on the right hand side of that drawing. And it also eliminates a lease where they are currently of about $70,000 a year.

[03:10:43] So we see it as, again, maximizing available space. IST is currently working out of the old school board building, so that gives the contractor better access to do the entire building at one time. It gives us a shorter construction duration.

[03:10:59] So, again, just maximizing available space. And I will turn it over to Clay. Okay. So a couple other projects that are activating. First in the human services area, yeah, this is one we're very excited to see moving over at the juvenile detention for quite a while.

[03:11:23] We've been looking at how to best utilize space over there. So we'll be renovating an older section of that building to house the Adolescent Resource Pathways Program, which will allow ultimately for them to vacate the space that's in the bottom picture, formerly known as the Youth Group Home, and that'll be the forever home for the domestic violence shelter here on campus.

[03:11:51] So this one is kind of a two-step, but again, all under the theme of utilizing what we have to the greatest extent possible. Children's Advocacy Center, this is a program that provides multidisciplinary services to children who are victims of trauma and abuse.

[03:12:11] They currently operate out of a lease space as well, to the tune, a little over $61,000 a year, but are really busting at the seams down there. So this will give us an opportunity to get them into the former credit union building here on campus, but also, too, some nice efficiencies for them in terms of putting them closer to the people they regularly work with, police, child protective services.

[03:12:46] So, again, this design will start with this FY27 budget so we can commence with construction next fiscal year. But also just, again, trying to squeeze everything we can out of these, the project that I mentioned previously for CARP and domestic violence.

[03:13:06] We'll use this building as a swing space for that project while that one is in design. So, again, trying to make use of it for as much time as possible. Just last one I'll mention, this is a future out years project.

[03:13:24] But, again, once we do these ones that are more short-term, we will be looking at the former schools headquarters building as, again, a forever home for the registrar. They currently operate out of two lease spaces.

[03:13:40] Again, we'll eliminate some pretty expensive leases there, over $200,000 annually. to get them out of those two into one consolidated headquarters. That's all we had.

[03:13:56] Happy to take any questions. One last quick thing I wanted to mention.

[03:14:16] This is not something we typically cover at these work sessions, but doing something a little bit different in this space, our community development block grant, community contract program, we've really started to manage those collectively with our friends at Community Enhancement. They've been great partners this year.

[03:14:32] So we continue to get lots of requests in community contract space. We do have that bounce down to the $2.3 million you see here. But the real emphasis on this chart is recognizing all of the conversations, sort of needs that have emerged in the housing space over the course of the last couple of years.

[03:14:52] Worked with community enhancement to develop a pilot program where we would make a general fund contribution to the CDBG program for FY27. That's the proposal that's before you. There are a lot of partner agencies they feel like would fit well in their overall spectrum of services that they offer, but maybe they're not great candidates for CDBG with all of the rules and regulations and sort of red tape.

[03:15:23] It's a very regulated, highly complex environment. So what's up, Pierre? you would see it's a $598,000 general fund supplement to CDBG program that's on top of the community contracts program. Some of these used to be community contract items, so it's actually freeing up some capacity within community contracts to extend partnership to some nonprofits we previously haven't been able to work with. The concept here would be able to use some one-time dollars in fiscal year 26 that we've identified, set those aside at year end, and then

[03:15:58] reappropriate those into FY27, into this life today and arrangement with community enhancement to you see the proposed list of groups. It's everything from emergency home repair to emergency housing services and counseling with first-time homeowners. It really runs the gamut.

[03:16:20] It's a nice mix of housing services to see if we can really expand our reach into this space, Again, more as a pilot for FY27, but we worked on this list collaboratively with them. So this would be something that's part of FY27.

[03:16:37] Again, it's got that little twist with 26 to set it up on a one-time basis. And if we find groups in here that we want to expand our relationship with moving forward, we can. Or if there's others that don't fit as well, we can come back next year and sort of provide that feedback. But it's really a recognition that the housing space in general, more demands coming your way and trying to be responsive to that as we possibly can.

[03:17:02] So that really wraps it up for us. Again, tomorrow night we'll be back together in AM Davis at 630. All the town halls are 630 to 8. We start and pick that up even more so next week, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th.

[03:17:19] We do have the Facebook Live, which has been a very popular event the last couple of years on the 19th. All of that culminates on March 25th for the public hearings. Those are set by specific times. You see the various, there's five public hearings. We take each one of those individually.

[03:17:35] You all know that process by now. Budget adoption on April 8th. And as we mentioned earlier, just bears noting again that there are some actions that would be spun out of the budget process around tax relief and BPOL, we would come back and take those ordinance modifications if approved on April the 8th.

[03:17:54] And with that, I'm happy to take any questions you might have. Any questions from the board? Thank you. We knew it was going to be a heavy lift. I want to appreciate your team. Thank you all for the hard work that you all are doing. It is incredibly grateful for that.

[03:18:10] And we'll move on. I just want to pay attention to the A.M. Davis for tomorrow evening. For my constituents, that is a change. It was going to be at Midlothian Library, but we wanted more space. We're going to be doing that at A.M. Davis tomorrow evening, 6 to 30 at 8 o'clock.

[03:18:25] You all are welcome to come on out. Thank you. Madam Clerk. Item D, consent agenda highlights. Mr. Smith. As you know, you have a brief agenda this evening, so it's really just the, there it is, just the retirees.

[03:18:46] We have two, firefighter Kenneth Reed, 25 years, and Kathy Van Horn in the treasurer's office at 23 years. Madam Clerk.

[03:19:07] Mr. Chair, you want to move on to reports? Yeah. All right, we have item five, reports. Are there any questions regarding the reports that we just had? Seeing no questions, the reports are approved. Item six, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters.

[03:19:24] We have no speakers. Mr. Chair, we need a motion to recess for dinner in room 502. Mr. Carroll. I think we missed one of the retirees on the highlights for tonight. I mean, I know they're going to be recognized, but Pete Simbel will be on. Two on consent.

[03:19:40] Yep. Okay. Oh, they're the consent. Okay. Right. Right for this evening. Yeah. Motion to adjourn for dinner. So moved. All in favor? Aye. We are staying adjourned.

[03:19:53] I want to wish everyone a good evening and welcome to the evening session of the March 11th

[03:21:24] Board of Supervisors meeting. I have verified that all board members have received copies of the comments posted on the online portal on 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, and please know we read every one. In addition, for those members of the public here for the public hearing to consider the exercise of eminent domain for the River Road, Hickory Road to Brick House Drive sidewalk project, the property owners have signed the

[03:22:00] necessary agreement accordingly. No action is needed on this item, and the public hearing will not go forward. At this point, I'd like to give an invocation. I need to share with you all that we really have heavy hearts. We've lost some incredible faithful servants over the past couple of weeks. They include Kendra Rice, who began her career with the county in 2022, working in the residential program of mental health support services department. Chesterfield Fire and EMS

[03:22:39] retired Lieutenant Robert Dean Clary, who passed away from what I'm told, surrounded by his family at the VCU Medical Center following a valiant battle with cancer. Lieutenant Clary was a paramedic and received several unit citations and life-saving awards in service to the community.

[03:23:01] He retired in April 2024 after 28 years of faithful service for Chesterfield County. Former Parks and Rec Advisory Committee appointee Bob Terrell of the Dale District, after serving in the National Guard, the Air National Guard, and working at the Virginia Department of Transportation for over 30 years. Bob stayed actively involved in the community.

[03:23:28] He served faithfully at the Emanuel Baptist Church, Meals on Wheels, Henning Athletics Association, Chesterfield Basketball League, Chesterfield Baseball Club, and Chesterfield Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. Also want to mention the Community Transportation and Advisory Committee appointee, Herbert Richwine. I'm at the Metoica District. Mr.

[03:23:58] Richwine had served on the SeaTac since 1988. The assistance he provided during his tenure will certainly have a lasting impact on our community. And finally, we lost one of our horses, Scooter, who is the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office first horse to be part of the Mounted Officers Unit. He passed away after a long battle with health issues, a 15-year veteran of law enforcement mounted service, four with the Chesterfield Sheriff's Office, and Scooter was known for

[03:24:33] his calm demeanor. We know that because we just saw Scooter at the Jack and Jill, and just a wonderful horse who was just, you know, so patient with the kids there. He was a trusted partner to his mounted deputies, performing with excellence and pride while on patrol and providing a level security for court campuses. Scooter was always brought a smile to faces and adults and children alike. So when I think about this invocation, I was thinking about the folks that, and the servants

[03:25:11] the past, and I was reminded of Robert, John F. Kennedy would say, that's not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. It's not a big leap to say what, that's not what your county can do for you but what can you do for your county and so with that idea in mind this board we're always working toward and so we're asking our higher power spirit to guide us

[03:25:45] as we're going through the budget process to guide us to follow our hearts to guide us to figure out and navigate these waters in a good way so that we can best serve our community it's not easy what any of us do when we're working with so many constituents who deeply care. Not always do we know what the right path is, but I'm praying that we'll continue to listen to our higher selves,

[03:26:21] our higher angels, figure out where the North Star is, and then move forward. May it be so. Madam Clerk. We would like to call forward Deputy County Administrator Matt Harris to lead the pledge of allegiance. 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.

[03:27:00] Item 10, county administration update. A, state legislative update. Ms. Spillman.

[03:27:13] Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Casey, Mr. Minx. We're just finishing up day 57 of 60 in this long session year. Since the last meeting, I just want to provide a couple of development updates, while there's still a lot that remains in flux. So SB 454, HB 816, that's the multifamily mixed-use by right bills. They were defeated last week. I'd like to recognize the leadership from our board, Dr. Miller, Ms. Snyder, Dr. Casey, for the testifying that you brought downtown and what was heard in front of that House CCT committee. So the bill failed on

[03:27:50] the Senate floor last week with a vote that was 17 to 22. And then the Senate bill failed in the House where it was originally passed by for the day, brought back up to reconsider, and then sent from the floor back out to committee, which is another way to kill a bill. And so both bills are officially defeated. The collective bargaining bills, SB 378 and HB 1263, were taken up this afternoon in the floor on each body and they are have been rejected for the amendment forms that were presented in both the house and senate versions therefore sending them into conference

[03:28:25] the conferees had not been announced as of about i don't know 3 30 this afternoon so we're still waiting to find out who those individuals will be we've been in touch with the governor's office regarding our position which is to preserve the current statute and most importantly local authority. As a reminder on this bill, in 2020, lawmakers repealed the prohibition on collective bargaining for localities, but of particular note, they exempted themselves and state employees from the same framework. So while there's varying perspectives across the state on the policy itself, there is very broad agreement on the core principle that local decision making must be

[03:29:00] preserved with this bill. And so again, I want to appreciate and thank the board's leadership on this important topic. The budget remains one of the most contentious outstanding items. And so from what we're hearing, reading from the press, reading on X, folks are saying that conferees may have met this morning with the governor. It's not quite sure how productive that meeting may or may not have been. As of yesterday, the budget conferees had not met. And so the House and Senate budgets remain still about a billion dollars apart. And there's some real fundamental differences in what's being funded in each version. The driver on the Senate side for any additional revenue, it was

[03:29:39] reflected in eliminating the data center tax incentive. So Senator Lucas really continues to vocalize very strongly her support for eliminating that tax incentive, while Delegate Torian and the governor's office have indicated support to keep the incentive in play that would honor a commitment that was previously made. Regardless, there's a lot to still figure out, And so finding an agreement on what the total revenues will be is really the starting point for where budget discussions are going to move.

[03:30:07] The local option 1% sales tax for school construction is now wrapped up in the budget that's in the Senate version. The House bill that was the vehicle remaining on a code provision has been defeated. And so the language that's in the Senate budget is very restrictive.

[03:30:23] And the current language does not permit the revenue source to be used for any existing debt service. And so we've communicated to budget folks, and Delegate McQuinn is one of our conferees on the budget, the desire to see the expanded use of those funds as it had been presented in previous years and as it was presented in the House budget that would have allowed for the use of this money to go towards previously identified debt service and to be used for future debt service.

[03:30:51] the budget is expected um well for sorry for them to consider the budget during this regular session time they would have to come to an agreement by midnight tonight and have that uh in order published tomorrow maybe noon i think by six o'clock they could extend the rules in order to have meet be meeting the 48-hour house rule that allows for it to be published and seen and open to the public. But they can waive the rule like they do with other things. And so considering that the conference may or may not have met, it feels unlikely that we're going to have a budget. There's rumors that are circulating around the General Assembly that they could

[03:31:31] possibly extend this session into next week. Not sure that's going to happen. There's also rumors that it could extend into a special session that would be maybe in the end of May. So it's uncertain as to where this is going to stand and where this is going to fall out. But as a reminder, This is the beginning of a biennium budget, and so the budget does have to be adopted before July 1.

[03:31:51] We do not have the same privileges as the federal government with a continuing resolution, and so there is some conclusion that will come hopefully before June 30. This session, there have been 3,485 bills and resolutions introduced.

[03:32:07] As of this afternoon, 1,846 bills had passed both of the bodies that are moving on to the governor's desk, and there's 1,117 or 17 bills that have failed or continue to next session. So as of this afternoon, there are about 90 bills still in conference. We have two and a half days left.

[03:32:25] So we'll see where all of that shakes out. Keep everybody posted, of course, where things are landing, particularly on collective bargaining and the budget. Reconvene and veto session scheduled for April 22nd. Is that any questions? So they have not named the conferees yet? For the budget?

[03:32:41] Yeah. Yes, they have. For collective bargaining. Or all these pieces of legislation they have to figure out? Yeah, they have. Collective bargaining just hit the floor this afternoon, and so the conferees hadn't been named yet, but they could be there this evening. Dr. Hilton.

[03:32:59] Hey, Nally, just want to take a moment to say thank you. I know we kind of have been down from day to day with you, you know, as you have followed what's been going on, but I just want to just say thank you for the reports that you've sent, the conversations that we've had.

[03:33:18] And I feel like I've been kept up to date, day to day on what's going on. So I just want to just say thank you for what you've done. And it's really important work. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. All right, Mr. Rickel. I'd just like to add again, thank you to all our citizens, because as much as this board reached out to kill House Bill 454, our Senate Bill 454, thank you.

[03:33:48] As much as we reached out to do that, there was a lot of other citizen input. There was a lot of other advocacy from the community. And I don't think we could have gotten across the finish line if it wasn't for this community. And we ask you to help us again, regardless of whether you are for or against collective bargaining, to help us to keep that decision-making process at the local level.

[03:34:13] I believe they are looking at exempting higher education from the bill because it will cost the colleges too much money, but it will cost Chesterfield County $200 million a year.

[03:34:29] I mean, if that's not too much money, I don't know what is. Thank you. Ms. Snyder. The bill that you were talking about that McQuinn was carrying, that's the one with the one-cent tax, correct, that we could use?

[03:34:45] No, she's a budget conferee, so we have been in conversation with her regarding the position on ensuring that the language gets cleaned up so that if the sales tax 1% local option were enacted, that we would have flexibility on the use of funds.

[03:35:01] Flexibility and use it for debt services as well as building new... Existing debt service or potentially future debt service. Thank you. Mr. Carroll. Thank you. I want to first say thank you for your hard work. It's not easy, and it's probably been a very frustrating General Assembly session.

[03:35:20] But for the community, what Ms. Dangle just talked about is very important, because some people believe that once a piece of legislation is drafted and starts along its way, and quite frankly, if it passes the House, and if it's a House version, and then passes the Senate, and it's a Senate version, and it goes a crossover, generally speaking, most people think it's a done deal.

[03:35:40] But because of your work, and the people from this board that went down and spoke against that piece of legislation, the community and the coalition built within this regional area within RICO and the Capital Region and the Crater PDC and many others, getting to the legislators to let them understand the consequences of what these pieces of legislation would do to the community, we were able to change the minds of some legislators who originally voted yes for this in the Senate to now vote no.

[03:36:14] And so I think it's important for people to understand that your voice can be heard and it's not a waste of time and of course if you can certainly during the General Assembly session if you really want if you're really bored and you just want to get entertained come down there for a session and sit there and watch the sausage making because it but your voice is important so thank you for everything you did in your team I know you didn't do it alone any other comments Natalie I just would appreciate you and Casey for what you all have done folks we've already said how hard you work but understand the the day starts at six

[03:36:53] a.m. and ends about 10 p.m. There are long days, and there's a lot going on. And I kind of want to make the point that, in a way, the process works. From the perspective is that there are enough people that say, wait a minute, have you considered what the unintended consequences are of your so-called great idea and i'm talking about the delegates and the senators and um we provide an opportunity to educate we provide an opportunity to take a look at what's going on but it takes a community

[03:37:31] to do that so how important it is that we're all paying attention and frankly how talented you are at what you do you are so talented and you're so good at explaining very carefully why it is a good idea or not a good idea and so i just want to appreciate you for all that thank you is your son here we just want to thank your family as well because we know sometimes uh in the fall there may be some hunting widows but we know that uh your family suffered with the uh lobbying widow

[03:38:10] so thank you and thank you to your family all of team chesterfield participates in that so So we're all here to get it done. So now you know how much your mom is loved, not just by you. Thank you. Well, as Ms. Spillman, I have to also chime in, too. And for the public's benefit, while this is an update before the board in the evening session, basically at 2 o'clock, once the assembly comes into session, we do an afternoon update.

[03:38:35] Today's afternoon was consumed by a budget presentation, so she's here now. But more importantly for the public, too, is the board in the fall sets a legislative agenda, which is really the sandbox and guardrails that Ms. Spillman then advocates for. And primarily it's a very simple legislative agenda and that's basically telling the state we may not need your help as much as you think you want to help us.

[03:38:56] And local governing and you being closest to the citizens of Chesterfield and again given the flexibility of choosing yes or no should be at least your business whether the topic is something that you believe in or not. It's still a local decision with local people who can then be part of the process and if it's an ordinance, we would have local public hearings.

[03:39:15] The public hearing process of the state, as Dr. Miller and Ms. Schneider and I recognized, is, you know, you can have 30 people line up and the chair of a committee says, okay, all 30 of you, we're only going to give you five or ten minutes for all of you to talk. And it is not the three minutes that we give to the people of Chesterfield.

[03:39:33] So, again, Ms. Billman takes your legislative agenda and goes down there and carries it with pride. And it's not just our state delegation that I get compliments from. I do get compliments from the executive office, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general's office, as well as many people in the General Assembly who are not just our representatives.

[03:39:52] So thank you. Go home with your son. I only have one other update, and it's really just calling J.C. Poma. And again, his team, members of his team were recognized this afternoon for everyday excellence. And, again, many of the things he's going to be espousing now are topics we never even talked about four years ago or so.

[03:40:13] So, Mr. Poma. Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, thanks for having me back today. Today's focus up to this point has largely been on the play Chesterfield side in our various meetings and recognizing our local athletics function earlier today.

[03:40:29] We're going to switch right now to the experience Chesterfield side of what we do. And there's, as Ms. Spillman said, a lot of people that help us with all of these things. So this is something we're very proud of as a county, and I appreciate everyone's support. And, Wesley, if you're still here, I have an Experience Chesterfield shirt to cover your Virginia Tech shirt in my office right around the corner.

[03:40:51] Guess what? It's Restaurant Week time again. What I love about Restaurant Week, it's a quality-life benefit for our residents, but we have a thriving food and beverage destination.

[03:41:19] And I've told you before, we are, as you all know better than anyone, we are a very spread out county. Our restaurants are not always in one central place. So we don't always get the accolades and the things for our restaurant community. But we are a thriving restaurant community. And this event is not just for our residents, but it's to showcase all the efforts that go in to this restaurant community.

[03:41:42] So we're excited again to start that April 3rd through April 12th. Again, over 40 restaurants participating. So very excited for all of you to continue your traditions of eating out and very much appreciate the support you've shown. For members of the community, ChesterfieldRestaurantWeek.com has all the information.

[03:42:01] As it's rolling in day by day, Ms. Hart is fulfilling all of their menus and those things every hour of the day, it feels like. So looking forward to that. Mr. Carroll, thank you for the inspiration behind what you see on the screen. The DECA partnership with CCPS has been a really, really fun partnership for Ms. Hart on our team.

[03:42:24] These are just two examples. They've created social media channels for us. They've created flyers. There will be a flyer going home in every student's backpack. They've done a ton of different things as class projects. So this has been one fun instance where we've been able to include students from CCPS.

[03:42:42] So again, a really fun partnership. Mr. Carroll, thank you very much for really pushing us in that direction. This year, every year, we're going to start adding things. These are just the little things that affect experience when you're there. These are kids' stickers that will be going out at the restaurant.

[03:42:58] So again, just the fun elements about Chesapeake and Chesapeake Bank Restaurant Week, all while benefiting, again, the Chesapeake Bank Outreach Center. And thank you to our partner, Chesapeake Bank, for coming forward and really helping underwrite this week in particular so that we can do these things, you know, at a very minimal cost.

[03:43:18] The next event is, I really ought to thank Ms. Spillman again. Natalie has been really inspirational with Mr. Harris in moving us forward in the arts community. This new event we are starting on April 26th this year at Rockwood Park is going to be a really fun day of collaboration with CCPS.

[03:43:40] I want to thank Jimmy Hurd, who is their director over there. He has brought together a ton of collaborations. Ms. Hardell on my team is bringing together the professional art aspect and professional entertainment aspect. So we're beginning to pair students and the professional arts organizations together at one park.

[03:44:03] And Dr. Casey, we got this off the ground very quick because when you announced your retirement, It threw us a little bit off guard because this has been an event that, you know, you've really wanted. So, again, thank you for the inspiration to get this going.

[03:44:18] Complimentary event, Rockwood Park, April 26th from 1 to 4 p.m. And I must add, Ms. Schneider, you know Mr. Lively, we will be unveiling a two-piece mural over there at Rockwood, a permanent mural along the concession stand building there.

[03:44:34] We will unveil that at 2.30 that afternoon. So we will get that on your calendars here shortly. I can't take any credit for this, but Mr. Luther is on vacation this week. And again, very similar to what our intentions are in promoting not just a quality of life and a destination, but Neal's and Marley's team on their events team has added another very fun element to their annual series of events.

[03:45:01] It is a youth talent showcase. We have signed all of you up for cameos, so be thinking about your talent, And we'll let you know your time to go on stage. I'm just kidding. But we really do hope you'll come out March 26th from 5 to 8 p.m.

[03:45:19] Again, another one of these free events. They always have great food trucks and partnerships. So, again, please thank Mr. Luther and his team for those efforts that combine into not just what we do, what Parks and Rec does, but what Spillman does. Everyone you see is making the experiential aspect of how you experience Chesterfield as a resident.

[03:45:39] and as a visitor. So thank you for your time. Oh, one more. Chesterfield Sports Hall of Fame and the inaugural Play Chesterfield Scholar Athlete Program will be unveiled on April 17th. We are excited for that again, moving to the spring to better coincide with CCPS. Dr. Murray's been extremely supportive of all of these events. So thank them for what they mean to us as a county and the partnerships we've been able to create any questions yes sir we will make sure we'll get it on the calendars

[03:46:17] parks will get it on your calendars or we'll get with the team just i have a couple questions with regard to restaurant week or at least a comment um i remember in past years for restaurant week that um to make it that much more special that each restaurant was doing a special meal are they doing that again this year yeah so the reason if you may remember we went from like 60 restaurants down to 40 is we very much again free to participate but we put in some parameters to make sure our restaurants were following through on what they're supposed to be doing unique dishes

[03:46:56] as opposed to just saying here's a menu item that's on our menu every day and we just put it on a piece of paper and so the intent again is to highlight some creative some do a great job and do three four-course meals. Some create a special drink for that week. Some create a special dessert for that week. So again, the intention is to highlight the creativity of our food and beverage community. And yes, sir, you're correct, Dr. Miller. I just want to make a comment, a reminder to everyone that there is no meals tax in Chesterfield. And that means that you have an opportunity

[03:47:28] to go and bring folks from other counties, other areas to, there's an opportunity here to just see what we're able to do and without the 5% push. You have to do, if you want to and you're called to, maybe that's something you can give to the food bank.

[03:47:45] Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Mr. Carroll. I couldn't agree with you more. One of the things that I've always done is shop Chesterfield. Other jurisdictions might not like to hear me say this, but I don't go to Enrico to eat. I don't go to Richmond to eat. I shop Chesterfield and I usually shop mom and pop locations, small businesses that open up and I I could name a ton of them because I've probably been to every Italian restaurant in Chesterfield County at least twice but we learned something during COVID that most people probably have already forgotten but people stayed in Chesterfield County for breakfast lunch and dinner they weren't

[03:48:23] going out of the county to work and what we saw as besides pivoting to make it so that we can make all this work for our small businesses but we actually saw more revenue stay within our community here because we saw an increase in tax sales in food and beverage. And so it's always best for me.

[03:48:42] The reason I want to reimburse back in the community is because, quite frankly, I owe everything I have to Chesterfield County. They gave me a job in the police department. The taxpayers paid that salary. I wanted to reinvest it back in the community. And so if you're doing this, you're supporting your mom and pop, your small businesses here that are unique to Chesterfield County and supporting your own community. Instead of, believe it or not, taking money out of your own economy, you're keeping it in. So I think this is great, and there's a lot of great restaurants that participate in this.

[03:49:12] Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Poehler. Item 11, board member reports. All right, we're switching gears, and I think we're starting with Mr. Engel, right? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My board colleagues and I, alongside with the General Assembly members that represent Chesterfield County came together as the General Assembly honored Dr. Casey with the resolution, acknowledging his remarkable accomplishments and his leadership. The joint resolution praises Dr. Casey upon his

[03:49:51] retirement as county administrator, celebrating his decades of service and significant contributions both to the county and to the Commonwealth of Virginia, while also reflecting the General Assembly's respect for his integrity, compassion, and dedication. Congratulations, Dr. Casey. And you know it hurts me to say all that, right? And this concludes my board report. Ms. Schneider.

[03:50:18] So, let's see. First, we don't have a picture of this, but Dr. Miller and I did our annual presentation. Well, it's an overview with the Midlothian Business Alliance of what's happening in our districts, and that was last, was that last Thursday?

[03:50:39] Yeah, I think so, last Thursday. It's always a good group of folks that we sit down, and they're business owners and developers and all sorts of folks that are invested in the communities and just want to hear what's going on, and so we always go there once a year and give them an update.

[03:50:58] Next. I attended the 7th Annual Interfaith Ramadan Potluck IFTAR supporting ANERA, which is the American Near East Refugee Aid. And Dr. Miller was there as well. This is at the Bonaire Presbyterian Church. It's a free event that provides a fantastic opportunity for community to unite and share a meal with both familiar and new faces. Support

[03:51:35] a meaningful cause this year's funds raised support for an era programs to feed folks in Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine. One of the, it's always a great thing to bring along. It's a potluck and everybody brings something. One of the gentlemen that I was on, he was one of the hosts for it. He made a whole lamb, a roast of the lamb. It was, it was amazing. So it's, it's always a great night. So next, I joined nearly 200 regional civic and business leaders at the Chesterfield

[03:52:14] Chamber of Commerce's fundraiser, Diamonds and Denim. It's a signature business celebration of chambers and membership. There were actually two people that were kind of, were honored in this for Ashley. Ashley Hall from RCIS received an award for their work that they do for CIS.

[03:52:43] And I think that the new partner of the year was Google, actually. So we had some folks represented there that night. And that is the end of my report. Thank you, Ms. Schneider. Dr. Hilton.

[03:52:58] Thank you, Dr. Miller. So my board colleagues and I had the pleasure of attending the RVA Sports Awards. It was televised live, I think, on Channel 6. A very nice event. Brought together athletes, coaches, team members, and community champions from across the region. It was a great time to meet high school stars and also professional legends from our community.

[03:53:33] So that concludes my board report. Well, actually, I have one more. Yeah, before you go there, I just wanted to mention, I don't know if Mr. Pum is still here. I think there were 11 awards that were given out that evening, and I think five of them, four or five were for Chesterfield. So it was quite a night for Chesterfield.

[03:53:50] So next up, we had the last beam placed at the VCU Health Pavilion. It's a 100,000-square-foot building that will be in my district.

[03:54:06] I'm looking forward to not traveling far now to get medical assistance and for medical appointments. I know my constituents are going to be excited to have VCU as a partner in a community also. That concludes my board report.

[03:54:26] Thank you, Dr. Hilton. Mr. Carroll. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I couldn't go to the Diamond and Denim event. Mr. Engel and I had to go down to the Crater PDC meeting that night to try and get them all to join us against those Senate bills, which they all did.

[03:54:43] So it was a great meeting. Monday evening, I had the privilege of attending the Chesterfield Basketball League annual banquet here at Antonio's Restaurant. Just on the street from here, mom and pop place, good food. The gathering was held to recognize the contributions of the Chesterfield Basketball League members and commissioners to celebrate the success of the season and show the appreciation to everyone involved in the league's accomplishments.

[03:55:06] It really is unbelievable the amount of youth that we have participating in this. And they told me that just with Moseley Elementary School, they had 18 new girls' teams join the basketball league this year, 18 teams. That was absolutely amazing.

[03:55:23] So it was an honor to be there to represent the board and listen to all the accomplishments that they were able to do for our children in Chesterfield County this year. And that includes my board report. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Book vending machine.

[03:55:40] This was actually a suggestion of you, Mr. Carroll, to do this. I had the pleasure of visiting A.M. Davis to see their new book vending machine. 40 elementary schools and one middle school in Chisterville County now feature vending machines just completely stocked with books.

[03:55:57] This initiative aims to inspire both reluctant and enthusiastic readers. It also provides students who may lack access to books at home the opportunity to create their own personal library. And I just want to mention the reading specialist said how important it was when you get to self-select.

[03:56:13] When the kids get to self-select their books, it makes it that much more special. And it's just watching the students, the kids, selecting their own books. You're right, Mr. Carroll, it's quite an experience. So thank you for that suggestion. And they don't pay for it.

[03:56:28] It's a vending machine, but they earn a token to get a free book. It's not a cost to buy a book. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you for mentioning that. And there's usually a line down the corridor of kids waiting to get that coin, get a book.

[03:56:44] It's really amazing. And we have nonprofits that stock the machines. And that's Ms. Meyer over there on the right in that picture. I think she won Teacher of the Year recently. So her enthusiasm is quite infectious.

[03:57:01] The kids just love her. And then also, Dr. Casey, Dr. Hilton, and I took a formal opportunity called Experience Ramadan with Muslims at the Islamic Center of Richmond. Activities included Arabic calligraphy and henna demonstrations, as well as a Koran reading and Islam 101 and question and answers and an iftar fast after sunset, or I should say break fast.

[03:57:26] Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar is celebrated by Muslims around the globe. It is a time dedicated to fasting, communal prayer, reflection, studying Quran, engaging in charity, fostering community connections. It was also an opportunity to honor you, Dr. Casey, for all the work that you've done.

[03:57:45] You were presented with a very, very sweet award. So congratulations to you as you've wandered around the community, just all the appreciation that's been coming out for your career here and after the 10 years, not just here in Justville County, but for Hanover and Henrico.

[03:58:03] This was in Henrico, and the community there, the Muslim community especially, it's just, oh my gosh, they just love you. So it's really very, very nice. And then do I have one more? Fantastic. I'm talking about retirement for you, Dr. Casey.

[03:58:22] I wanted to take a moment and appreciate what we had a variety of county administrator input meetings, and you see them there. Matoaca, Bermuda, of course, Facebook, Midlothian, Clover Hill. I mean, we've had a couple in a couple of the magisterial districts.

[03:58:41] Hey, look, I want to appreciate the community for coming out, for talking and helping us to understand what you all are looking for in a new county administrator. We don't do this alone. And let me tell you something. Listening to everyone's input from the community, we did a Facebook Live event, which was Mr. Carroll's suggestion.

[03:59:01] It really helps us a lot as we're going through this process. And so I just wanted to take a moment. And then also a lot of folks, there was a survey that was out there and there were a lot of respondents to that also. So for everyone who took the time and the energy to provide that feedback, we're going to be sitting down in the next week or so to begin the process.

[03:59:26] None of us know who has applied and it'll be the first time we're going to sit down with the consultant and go through that process. It's going to be a difficult shoes to fill. We're going to do the best we can. But as you said, Dr. Casey, and I really appreciated what you said, is you trust this board.

[03:59:47] And that means a lot. So again, thank you for all those folks that came out. You can see there were a lot of opportunities for input and very, very helpful. And I think that concludes my report. Oh, also, this is, you'll notice that we took a suggestion of the community.

[04:00:06] We have so much that we're doing in the community. And we could spend a lot of time talking about it. If you want to learn more about what we're doing in the community, please go out to that QR code and just see all the things we're doing. This is not a job where we just sit here once a month or twice a month.

[04:00:24] We're in the community every day doing things, if it's a ribbon cutting or if it's just getting out and figuring out what's going on or the different events that are going on. It's one of our favorite parts of the job, and that's why we're so excited to share that all with you.

[04:00:41] And at the same time, we wanted to figure out where the balance point was. So please go out to the board reports web page and see what's out there. It just shows the highlights, community development, and then recent accomplishments. And that's concluding my report.

[04:00:56] Madam Clerk. Item 12, resolutions and special recognitions. A, resolution recognizing Ms. Sharon Entzminger, Parks and Recreation, upon her retirement. Will Ms. Entzminger and her guests please join the board on the stage?

[04:01:13] We'll have to do this a little while longer.

[04:01:48] Somebody. Madam Clerk, will you read the resolution, please? Yes, sir. Whereas Ms. Sharon Ensminger retired from Chesterfield County on March 1, 2026, after providing over 42 years of dedicated service to the citizens of Chesterfield County.

[04:02:05] And whereas Ms. Ensminger began working with the Parks and Recreation Department on August 23, 1982, and was promoted through the Department to Automation, Communications, and Events Manager for Parks and Recreation in April 2023, having worked alongside every director except the first.

[04:02:23] And whereas Ms. Entzminger was a strong advocate for services for persons with disabilities and was instrumental in introducing inclusion and accessibility initiatives throughout the department and county and sharing her expertise by teaching sign language classes for staff.

[04:02:40] And whereas Ms. Entzminger mentored numerous student interns from universities across Virginia, providing quality training and meaningful professional experiences. And whereas Ms. Entzminger helped facilitate the county's quality improvement initiative as a team member and instructor, helping to advance organizational excellence.

[04:03:00] And whereas Ms. Entzminger served on the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism, earning the Outstanding Service Award in 2001 for her contributions to education and the profession. And whereas Ms. Ensminger enhanced community engagement through creative outreach strategies, including the introduction of social media, e-newsletters, and enhanced website content.

[04:03:27] And whereas Ms. Ensminger successfully planned and hosted numerous milestone events, such as groundbreaking ceremonies, ribbon cuttings, and the department's 50th anniversary celebration. And whereas Ms. Ensminger's outstanding performance was recognized when she was named Parks and Recreation Employee of the Year in 1990. And whereas Ms. Ensminger has devoted countless hours of volunteer service which impacted the lives of hundreds of youths while serving as a cheerleading coach, swim team volunteer, and elementary classroom assistant in

[04:04:01] Chesterfield. And whereas Ms. Ensminger has maintained her certified park and recreation professional credential throughout her career demonstrating her commitment to ongoing professional development. And whereas Ms. Ensminger has been an active and influential member of the Virginia Recreation and Park Society since 1981 serving in a multitude of roles and her exceptional service earned her three presidential awards and the distinguished service award in 2003. Now therefore be resolved that the chesterfield county board of supervisors this 11th day of march 2026

[04:04:39] publicly recognizes miss sharon insminger and extends on behalf of its members and the constituents of chesterfield county appreciation for her extraordinary service leadership and dedication to the county congratulations upon her retirement and best wishes for a long and happy retirement and be a further resolve that a copy of this resolution be presented to miss insminger and that this resolution be permanently recorded among the papers of this board of supervisors of chesterfield county virginia now before i ask for a motion um can you read the first line how

[04:05:14] long she's been with us again 42 years 42 years are you sure you don't want to make it an even 45 no luck all right then i'll ask all right then i'll go ahead and ask for that motion to pass this resolution in honor of you oh man that was fast all in favor thank you um so i'm going to ask Marlee to provide some remarks. It is very difficult to sum up 42 years. Sharon started with with us in the department back in 1982. She has been with us through so many evolutions of our

[04:05:50] department and our leadership. She has held a steadfast hand with her leadership and in her roles. She's been a true pleasure to work alongside these past five years and she's left a lasting impact. I will say Sharon has always put people first. She shaped future professionals and held countless roles with state and national agencies. She made inclusion and belonging a value, not just a project. That's simply who she is. And true to form, she even renewed her CPRP

[04:06:23] credentials during her pending retirement. She just doesn't stop. Sharon, your impact runs far deeper than any list of these achievements. You've helped shape a culture rooted in service, compassion, quality, and community. You've left fingerprints on parks, programs, policies, events, and most importantly, on people. On behalf of all of us, thank you for everything you've

[04:06:50] given to Chesterfield, and we wish you the best. Congratulations. Dr. Casey. Well, you're a pioneer in many ways, because I always thought you were full-time since 1982 until you announced your retirement because you seem like you're there all the time. And, you know, you pioneered us because we're recognizing the value of someone who worked full-time and has also worked part-time to have that long of a career. So you've actually paved the way for many others going forward and hopefully even backwards in that we can find some others who have served the county in the way that

[04:07:29] you have served us. You've also, and not to give a tip away, but to the audience, we actually know now what to do as part of these presentations with the little cheat sheet here, which has been very helpful, by the way. That was a surprise. So, you know, anyhow, I just want to get back on track and saying we have a brick for you. It's inscribed with your tenure of service. It's for you to hold and keep at your home, but just as important, another brick with the same inscription will be placed in front of our historic courthouse with many others who have served the county real well.

[04:08:05] And thankfully, we don't put them in chronological order because if 1982, we'd have to dig up many other bricks to push him to push him to the side and reposition them so on behalf of Chesterfield County I mean you were hired before we had something called the internet you were hired before we had something called email I think you're probably hired in 1982 before Chesterfield Parks I even had a computer if I had to guess so you have seen it all but you have been able to adapt and and change us and push us to embrace it all and I think even just some of the presentations you saw earlier about what parks and rec is to the people of chesterfield county uh it has evolved

[04:08:45] and it's evolved because of people like yourself so thank you mr engel oh actually let's um yeah okay so first off i think you also hired before child labor laws were put into place you must have been what eight um i think i've seen you at just about every parks and recs event that i've been to since i've been on the board and um i know you're retired and you've earned the right to do whatever you want but i expect to see you at the rest of them in the future

[04:09:19] thank you enjoy your retirement i just want to take a moment to to say thank you um for your service your years of service and for the impact um it's inspiring and i just want to say thank you so much it means a lot i almost didn't want to say i approve because i don't approve of this at all. You have been a beacon. Any event that I'm at, you are always a smiley, friendly face that I

[04:09:56] hang out with and learn so much from. And I'm going to miss it. And you and Marley sent me the schedule options for the opening of my new park. And I'm just like, okay, Sharon's not going to be there um so hopefully you'll come and visit uh at the park and enjoy the opening with us um but this is also this is a challenge going from chesterfield but i'm going to miss you terribly so thank you so much before i do any closing comments i'm going to give you all an opportunity

[04:10:31] mr carroll this is what happens when you're on the end you get left out um you know retirement can be whatever you want it to be and what you've probably figured out already is that they took where you need a no card you're not in the know of what's going on anymore um you're probably going to find out and maybe your department's better but what you probably will find out there's a lot of people you had interaction with every day you're not going to have interaction anymore um but any relationship no matter what it is you get out of it what you put into it and you've put

[04:11:07] into it a lot here for many many years and i expect that you will continue to do so to keep contact with the people that are your second family that mean a lot to you you've done a tremendous job for our community i'm going to miss seeing you at the events too because i see you at all my events as well um i don't know who gave you permission to retire but it's okay but i but i wish you all of the best of luck uh and look forward to seeing you when you can come and just instead of having to do something you can come and just enjoy yourself so congratulations

[04:11:39] thank you carol hard to say anything um i've said some of this to our department and staff when you spend that much time you've spent your life and it's your life's work and it's an investment as you said but it was been totally my pleasure and I certainly would never have spent this much time in any position working for any department or county if you weren't good to me

[04:12:14] and so it was it was definitely a great ride I've seen tremendous changes and I've seen them through the eyes of the Parks and Recreation Department, and it's been wonderful. So thank you all for the opportunity and for the accolades and the resolution.

[04:12:31] I appreciate it very much. This is my husband, Gary Fox, and he also spent some time working for the county earlier in his career as well. So I, too, am going to miss you.

[04:12:51] What is so amazing about you is how welcoming you are, and you have that sweet smile, And that has been just an earmark of who you are. And I know that Parks and Rec is going to miss you very, very much.

[04:13:08] And it's going to be impossible you don't replace someone like you. You just don't. You've been there a long time, 42 years, B.C., before cell phones, before computers.

[04:13:25] But it also stands for you have been brilliantly Chesterfield. You've been brilliantly Chesterfield. And so thank you for all the work and everything that you've done. And this county is really very, very grateful. So thank you.

[04:13:41] You're here.

[04:13:53] Don't leave us. See you on the trails.

[04:14:09] I look forward to it. Yes. You take care. Congratulations. Good luck with everything with your surgery. Oh, thank you. And definitely connect with Kevin. I'm sorry. I only have interrupted.

[04:14:26] I'm so busy looking at that, it's like lucid.

[04:14:56] B, resolution recognizing Mr. Dwayne Scruggs, Department of General Services Fleet Division, upon his retirement. Will Mr. Scruggs and his guests please join the board on the stage?

[04:15:26] Madam Clerk, will you read the resolution, please? Yes, sir.

[04:15:36] Whereas Mr. Dwayne P. Scruggs retired from Chesterfield County Department of General Services Fleet Division on March 1, 2026, after providing over 25 years of service to the residents of Chesterfield County, and whereas Mr. Scruggs began his career in Chesterfield County government on August 8, 1988, through December 31, 1994, as a vehicle mechanic, and whereas after a break in service, Mr. Scruggs was rehired on September 25, 2006, as an automotive technician in the light vehicle shop and whereas Mr. Scruggs consistently

[04:16:13] demonstrated a strong commitment to high quality service and customer satisfaction utilizing customer interactions and feedback tools to ensure expectations were met or exceeded throughout his tenure and whereas Mr. Scruggs set a positive example for others through his exceptional work ethic and a customer first mindset and whereas Mr. Scruggs completed all requirements for the level one automotive technician career development plan in November 2007 and earned the quality generalist certificate. And whereas Mr. Scruggs became a lead technician within fleet services

[04:16:49] due to his extensive knowledge, strong communication skills, dependability, and continuous efforts to improve daily operations. And whereas Mr. Scruggs could be relied upon to assist co-workers and customers in the absence of the shop supervisor, further displaying early leadership potential and preparing himself for future leadership roles. And whereas in October 2018, Mr. Scruggs was promoted to automotive maintenance supervisor on the evening shift. And whereas in this supervisory role, Mr. Scruggs successfully oversaw night shift operations across two shops, adapting to staffing

[04:17:27] needs, training employees, supporting fellow supervisors, and performing hands-on vehicle repairs when necessary. And whereas Mr. Scruggs' dedication and leadership have been instrumental in supporting both evening and day shift operations, contributing significantly to fleet services being recognized as one of the best 100 fleets in the public fleet industry for seven consecutive years.

[04:17:53] And whereas Mr. Scruggs is commended for his outstanding service, leadership, and contributions to fleet services and for the positive impact he has made on the organization and its customers. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors this 11th day of March 2026 publicly recognizes Mr. Dwayne P. Scruggs and extends on behalf of its members and the residents of Chesterfield County appreciation for over 25 years of exceptional service to the county. And be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be presented to Mr. Scruggs

[04:18:28] and that this resolution be permanently recorded among the papers of this Board of Supervisors of Chesterfield County, Virginia. So with that, I'd like to get a motion to honor you and for your retirement, and it looks like I got a motion. Second. And got two seconds. All in favor? Aye.

[04:18:47] Motion passes. I wasn't worried. Yeah. Dwayne, congratulations on your retirement. congratulations on 25 years. You have built a legacy during your time here of respect, excellence, and success. If you take a look out here, this legacy that you built is represented by all those that are here to support you. So if y'all could raise your hands. So Dr. Casey, they are not here to speak on any agenda item. They're here to support Duane. So put your mind

[04:19:25] at ease with that. But just want to appreciate what you've done and particularly with the bus shop and the excellence in expanding the maintenance program of the bus shop and being that first supervisor to work on the evening shift. That is a tremendous undertaking and it has proven great results. So your legacy continues afterwards and I appreciate you for your time here and your dedication and your commitment and to your family thank you all for sharing him with us for these 25 years we do appreciate it well again another good

[04:20:02] example of someone who came here late 1980s and and then came back to us and I'm sure when you came back to us you probably said I thought they would have gotten rid of that vehicle by now but that's but that's just me talking and a lot of people don't appreciate what a fleet management program is because basically when you have that vehicle in and then you're checking it out you're really given comfort and peace of mind to the driver of that vehicle and anyone who may be in it students in this case for school bus that this this is safe to drive until the next p.m. checkup which is what we know scheduled ahead of time so it's much different than just having your car repaired you're really a testing with your professional expertise and all of those in the audience that

[04:20:42] this is a safe vehicle to do and I wish you were there during this afternoon because we're buying a bunch of new buses to make your job easier you know because I think there's still some buses from 1988 in the fleet, or it seems like that. But on behalf of Chesterfield County, you're representative of everything we dream about, having an employee working hard, working their way up, keeping certified.

[04:21:06] The technologies and tools, as we mentioned earlier, have completely changed to what you may have seen and known and been trained for in 1988. So this isn't a job where you learn it once. You really learn it almost every year that new vehicles come out. So for you to stay on top of it and ideally serve as a mentor to others, and just to have all of you here, by the way, is a powerful testimonial to what Chesterfield is and what fleet management is, because, again, that is, that's just, it's powerful to be appreciated by people you've worked with for so long.

[04:21:38] So what I have for you is a brick that has your name and tenure on it. Again, just like as I mentioned before, another brick will be placed in front of our historic courthouse forever for all to see. And really just to pay homage to what you have given to for safe passage for so many for so long.

[04:21:59] So on behalf of Chesville County, I couldn't be more proud. Thank you. Before, Mr. Ingo, I want to make sure that Mr. Carroll goes first. Guilted him into that one. I don't know if you did but it's very well possible that at some point you serviced one of my police cars back in the day when you were turning a wrench so thank you, what Joe said a minute ago about knowing that once our vehicles were serviced because you know how bad the cops push those cars and quite frankly and to your technicians that are here as well, people

[04:22:38] probably realize when they get in their car the car today has more bells and whistles than it did years ago but they have to realize that the people who have to fix those cars have to keep up with all of that technology and learn how to fix all of those cars.

[04:22:53] And the difference between an 85 Chevy Caprice and a 2026 vehicle now is night and day, especially from the electronics. So having to keep up with all of that, I think sometimes people take that for granted. They just say, well, I'm going to get my car fixed. But turning a wrench is not an easy job either to do for as many years as you did.

[04:23:13] It's a lot of work. congratulations on the wonderful career. I hope you don't have to turn too many wrenches now once you're retired. But at least you know you can fix your own car. So, you know, that's a big bonus. The number of people out here speaks to how valued you are to us and to the county and to your shop.

[04:23:36] When I saw the fleet managers here, I said to Clay, I'm just like, is there something going on? Because I didn't, he said, yeah, very seldom do you people show, do they show up because they like to work in the back scenes but thank you all for coming out and honoring him and um it just speaks volumes so thank you you know when we think about um people that move the county forward we think about you and i mean that's that's really the truth because the county wouldn't be able to move vehicle wise if it wasn't for what you and your fellow workers

[04:24:13] do so thank you all so much for keeping our kids safe our officers our fire trucks everything that you all are doing to make sure that we can get to where we need to be as a county thank you so much for that and i hope that your retirement is happy and brings you many uh years of joy so thank you so much for your service again thank you for your service and um i think you're the first person that's gotten up here that uh can say they got under the hood of somebody that's now on the board supervisors and seeing what was going on in there so thank you for that

[04:24:49] well I brought with me today my two daughters Diana and Derricka they know I've put in a lot of time at the county and been here I just like to thank all the leadership and all my co-workers that you know without them it just you know I couldn't have made the 25 years so thank you all

[04:25:14] and thank you for a great place to work at thank you I too want to thank you for all the work that you've done. Hey, folks, you don't know what you have until you're missing it. And there's a truth in that some things we take for granted until a vehicle's not working or a firefighter can't get to where they need to be, or a police officer for that matter. Again, I want to thank you for

[04:25:53] everything that you've done for us. And I know your daughters have got to be so proud. So again, Thank you.

[04:26:21] Yeah, Madam Clerk.

[04:26:46] C, resolution recognizing Captain Peter Simbel, Police Department, upon his retirement. Will Captain Simbel and his guests please join the board on the stage?

[04:27:19] Yes, sir. Whereas Captain Peter J. Simbel retired from the Chesterfield County Police Department on February 1st, 2026, after providing over 28 years of outstanding quality service to the residents of Chesterfield County. And whereas, Captain Simbel began his career as a recruit in 1997 and continued to faithfully serve as a police officer, senior police officer, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain.

[04:27:45] And whereas, during his tenure, Captain Simbel also served as a field training officer, evidence technician, police emergency response team member for negotiations, and the police emergency response team coordinator. And whereas Captain Symbal earned a life-saving award for his successful effort saving a female who was attempting to jump from an expressway bridge.

[04:28:08] And whereas Captain Symbal was recognized with a meritorious service award for his contributions to the Centennial Committee celebrating the police department's 100-year anniversary. And whereas Captain Semble received the Chief's Excellence Award and two Chief's Commendations for his tireless efforts at planning, managing, organizing, and directing nearly all activities dealing with the COVID pandemic, creating work guidelines focused on protection of officers, civilian employees, and residents with whom the police interacted.

[04:28:41] And whereas Captain Semble received a unit citation for his significant contributions to the success of the police emergency response team and the state and national recognition the unit received because of its unique working relationship with the Chesterfield Mental Health Department.

[04:29:00] And whereas Captain Semble received two unit citations for his dedicated work with the crimes against persons and vice and narcotics units, which resulted in an extraordinarily high number of cases being cleared and drug and cast seizures worth over $2 million.

[04:29:18] And whereas Captain Semble received the National Service Award for his two-week deployment to Mississippi to assist fellow law enforcement officers and the citizens of Mississippi while under extreme conditions following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

[04:29:35] And whereas Captain Semble received another National Service Award as a member of the Police Emergency Response Team for his participation in support of U.S. Capitol Police to provide security for the electoral college certification in 2025 and presidential inauguration and whereas chesterfield county and the board of supervisors will miss captain symbol's diligent service now therefore be it resolved that the chesterfield county board of supervisors this 11th day of march 2026 publicly recognizes captain peter j symbol and extends on behalf of its members and the citizens of chesterfield county appreciation for his service to the county congratulations upon his

[04:30:15] retirement and best wishes for a long and happy retirement and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be presented to captain symbol and that this resolution be permanently recorded among the papers of this board of supervisors of chesterfield county virginia mr carroll i wonder if you would make this motion motion to approve mr chair second all in favor all right thank you colonel thank you sir pete wow what amazing career you know when i look back and listen to all the accomplishments you've had within the Chesterfield County Police

[04:30:51] Department it makes me proud the fact that you were committed to service and the sacrifices that you made for this agency just speaks volume I know that the sacrifices impacted your family and a lot of people don't realize the work that goes on behind the scenes I want to thank your family for supporting you because it would not be possible if they weren't there for you during those challenging times and I got to be quite honest with you man when we stepped into to the COVID pandemic, man, nobody knew how to negotiate that, but you took the lead on that. You ushered us through that process, and it means a lot because you not only care

[04:31:29] about the agency, you care about the community. So I just want to thank you for the many years of service. Thank you for your commitment to the men and women of this department. Thank you for your commitment to the community, and I wish you much success in the next chapter of life. Well, first, I apologize. I didn't recognize you when I walked in because you're undercover. I've only known you 10 years wearing the uniform, so I was like, who's that person here in the second row, you know, and what, you know, why'd they bring their family out to this, but anyhow, so I, anyhow, it's good to see you, it's good to see you in civilian clothes, sir. I'll tell

[04:32:06] you, you know, amongst the hundreds of sworn officers I've interacted with over the 10 years I've been here, I probably have interacted, or you've been in the same room with you, you know, top ten amongst all of them because you do two things you're given tasks that others aren't given you're given tasks to keep our community safe and go out into things that we haven't done before and so you're on the front lines of that but then you're also tasked with trying to keep your fellow officers safe and productive and always advancing so I don't know how you were able to do that you might ride a unicycle and juggle on the side but but I just on behalf of

[04:32:44] Chesterfield County. I do have a brick, again, that has your tenure. I don't know if you want to hold both things. You're going to be holding a microphone soon, too. It has your name, tenure, and as I said before, the historic courthouse will forevermore have that. I'll be honest, there's not a sticker with your name on the front of it. It's a little cheat sheet, so if it's someone's different name in years of service, it's nothing personal. Just let me know. We'll exchange it back out, but having said that, you know, you have to be proud of what you've done. You have to be proud of all the men and women uh that that are in the ranks at and below you i've just seen them develop but you

[04:33:21] have to be even more proud just driving around chesterfield county saying you know i remember doing something here or doing something there that made somebody's life better somebody's life safer someone's life alive so i i just can't thank you anymore on behalf of chesterfield county thank you sir mr ingle well i'd just like to uh echo a few things that the chief said thank you for your service and thank you for your service to to the county and to our citizens um we can't

[04:33:57] thank our public safety enough for what you do to make sure that our citizens each and every day feel comfortable and going about their lives and they probably don't think about it but if we didn't have people like you they would be scared to go out so thank you for what you've done yes so i tell the story often that when when people uh talk to me about buying a house and uh they're not from this area they always say well it's just to feel a clean safe community and hire the schools and

[04:34:30] i'm like well just do some research um and they'll find out that chesterfield is safe um and one of the reasons why we're safe is because of people like you that uh allow us to sleep at night and And Dr. Miller will say, too, as we wake up in the morning and we get those sex messages about what happened at night while we were asleep, we know that it was taken care of because of people like you.

[04:34:55] And so we're grateful for that. And I wish you well in your retirement. Thank you so much. So I will definitely miss you and our good conversations we had. I think the first time that I met you was when a young girl was missing in the district, and you and Tim were in charge of the call center or the organizing center.

[04:35:23] And I just really appreciated, you know, I was kind of new. You guys giving me the time to explain what you're doing, and you've continued to do that. And I greatly appreciate your time that you spend in the community. I think that's one of the things I enjoy the most is, again, being in the community and helping wherever I can.

[04:35:43] And so that's, thank you so much, and thank you for all your time alone. But I know that it's a really hard thing sometimes, but hopefully you guys have some great things planned for your retirement. So you worked for me a long time ago.

[04:36:04] The resolution that they read is really a highlight reel of what you've done throughout your career. but it barely scratches the surface of all of the impact you've had. You know, when I was a sergeant and he worked for me, and then as many I've seen go up the ranks, and Gluten-Franco worked for me when he got hired, right?

[04:36:28] There's nothing prouder for a person who was in supervision to see someone not only succeed but excel in what they were able to do. And you have that same thing that you can say, right? So even when you were sergeant or lieutenant in your role as a captain, you've helped mentor and bring others along, and you've seen what they've been able to do and what they've been able to do to serve the community.

[04:36:53] And part of everything they do is part of what you gave them to have those tools. So your legacy will continue here in Chesterfield County with all of those people that you have mentored and trained who will continue to do the tremendous work that needs to be done for our people.

[04:37:10] The hardest thing about retiring is unplugging and not being in the know anymore and not being in the decision-making process and not getting the information and not getting the phone call in the middle of the night or the bad news or the good news. That's the hard part. The other hard part is, but maybe perhaps you won't experience it as much because I saw how many people came out to love you at your retirement party.

[04:37:33] So we have a retirees association. You're more than welcome to come to it. We have a breakfast on the second Tuesday at Cracker Barrel on Hull Street. Give it up with Hank Holland. He'll get you signed up. It's a bunch of old farts having breakfast, but it's a lot of fun. But congratulations to you, brother.

[04:37:50] You've had a tremendous career. I want to give you this Chester County Challenge coin to add to your collection, because I'm sure you have a big collection. And I'm going to hand this over to Mark. Actually, to him. Because I think you should go last. Thank God for Captain Peter J. Semple, for the work that you've done, for keeping us safe, for the support.

[04:38:16] It's a family endeavor. It really is. And so I just want to appreciate you. For all your love that you've given to the county, again, it's a county that couldn't be more grateful. I did bring my wife, Sophie, with me and our youngest daughter, Paige.

[04:38:38] So I think all of the things mentioned to this, it is just a snapshot of a 28-year career. But it's a 28-year career in Chesterfield County, which has been a locality that has pushed me far beyond what I ever expected that I would accomplish.

[04:38:56] you know in law enforcement but i also think that it's kind of a sign of all of the prior boards the current board the current leadership of the county that have supported public safety which really allow you know careers um you know to flourish here you know if you look at it's not just serving chesterfield but it's been serving our nation uh in a lot of ways a lot of the things that i've done um so again i just just want to thank chesterfield you know as a whole you all as a board and all the prior boards and executives of the county, because it has been a great place to work and a good 28-plus years.

[04:39:34] Thank you. Thank you. I'm an instructional designer, so I'm with the APs.

[04:39:58] Item 13, new business, A, claim of Bridgman Underground Inc regarding contract for Hopkins

[04:41:00] Road to Route 1 waterline improvements. Mr. Minx. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, this is a claim that's been filed by Bridgman Underground Inc. Again, this is on a water project, waterline project from Route 1 to Hopkins Road.

[04:41:18] There were a number of components to this particular contract, and one was the installation of a SCADA system, and the boards dealt with that in some other contexts, but this was part of this contract. When the contract ended, the contractor made a claim that they did not believe that they were, supposed to provide the subcontractor for the SCADA system, even though the contract, at least in our estimation, clearly states that that was to be part of the contract. So Bridgman Underground is

[04:41:56] seeking $292,000 from the county. We've looked at the claim, and we do not believe that it's meritorious, and we would ask the board to deny it after the presentation is made. And counsel for Bridgman is here to present this claim to the board. Board members, are there any questions

[04:42:19] for staff for Mr. Minx? All right. To make a presentation. Board members, thank you for your time this evening. I respect the time, and I want to first start by thanking you for your public service. I know it's a sacrifice. I worked at the attorney general's office for 11 years

[04:42:53] and I've represented VDOT as an in-house counsel to help them resolve construction claims. And so I'm sensitive to where you sit tonight. You're stewards of public funds and you have to make sure that those funds are stewarded correctly. So thank you for your time and thank you for the opportunity. So I'm here on behalf of Bridgman Underground and this claim arises from a construction contract and by all accounts this was a very successful project that Chesterfield was

[04:43:26] very happy with. Bridgman performed all of the contract work. There's no there's no question if the work was performed. The question here is is there work that was performed that wasn't paid for. And this is a matter that is really ripe for a decision by the board because it really just boils down to a matter of contract interpretation. What does the contract say? It either required Bridgman to perform this work or it was outside of its scope and it's a change and therefore there's additional compensation that's owed. So I'm going to, for the sake

[04:44:06] of time, I'm going to just skip over a lot of these slides. There's some background information about the project in the binder that I provided you at the very back there's a copy of the PowerPoint slide so if you want to follow along make notes on there you can so I have some information about the what the project is about I'm going to skip over that but what I will show you are some great pictures so this is Bridgman Underground's bread and butter they're they're pipe layers they do underground excavations and so they laid they did a ton of work on this job They laid over 10,000 square feet of 16-inch linear feet of 16-inch pipe.

[04:44:42] That's just some of the work that they did. That's what you see in the picture. These are some project highlights that I think underscore that this was a good relationship between, a good partnership between Chesterfield County and Bridgman. So there were no contractor calls, delays.

[04:44:59] There were some change orders, but these were all amicable. This is just underruns and overruns, unforeseen conditions. And the biggest change order was like a $350,000 change order where Richmond did such a good job installing two vaults and vaults for water flow control that the county asked for another one, a third vault.

[04:45:27] So, you know, you don't give a $350,000 change order for extra work unless contractors doing a good job. So this case is about the SCADA control system. Who is responsible to install it?

[04:45:42] Was it part of Bridgman's scope, or was this the work of the county that they were going to perform via another contractor? Our position is when you read the contract, the owner performs the SCADA control system work through another contractor, and Bridgman is to coordinate its work with the SCADA contractor.

[04:46:05] So these pictures really drive, really help to understand what we're talking about here. So this first slide shows what Bridgman contends is its scope of work, right? Bridgman is to install the vault. See, that concrete slab there is a vault.

[04:46:23] And the vault is going to house a flow control valve. That's the blue valve that you see there. And what Bridgman is going to do is connect utilities to that that run outside the vault. And then outside the vault is the SCADA control system.

[04:46:43] And inside of this housing, this cabinet, are the controls. And the controls are a combination of hardware, software, programming. And what the SCADA controls do is they allow the county to regulate the flow of water that's passing through that blue valve there, the rate of flow.

[04:47:04] And it allows the county to do that remotely. So the issue here for the board to decide is Bridgman did not include the cost of installing the SCADA controls, what you see in that cabinet there, in its bid price.

[04:47:24] And it didn't include it in its bid price because the contract plainly states that the owner is to perform the SCADA control work through hiring another contractor, and Bridgman, the contractor is going to coordinate its work with this other contractor.

[04:47:45] So on this project, Dewberry, the project engineer, who's the agent of Chesterfield, surprisingly told Bridgman that it was responsible to install the SCADA controls and not the owner, not Chesterfield, through another contractor.

[04:48:04] So the issue here is that what I have here is just a slide. don't want to get into the weeds too much here, but on this slide here, there's some general rules of contract interpretation, right? So if God forbid we're not able to resolve this here and we go to court, the judge is going to apply these basic rules of interpretation to the contract. And the issue is that Dewberry's interpretation, where they say that the SCADA control system work is

[04:48:39] in Bridgman's scope, it violates these rules. And this is ripe for a decision because all the board has to do is look at these rules, ask yourself, okay, look at the two interpretations of the contract. Who's following these rules in light of what the contract says? So I argue that Dewberry violated definitely number three. There are certain words that they just ignore that are meaningless, and they don't harmonize different provisions governing SCADA. So let's take a look at the different provisions that govern SCADA. They're all listed here on this slide, and I'm going to walk you through the way that Bridgman interpreted these at bid time and why it didn't include the

[04:49:18] SCADA work in its proposal, in its bid, rather. So this is really the operative clause here that really directly addresses the issue. So this is additional technical spec 1700.

[04:49:36] And in this spec, what the spec means is that when you read it and interpret it, is that the owner is going to perform the work identified in paragraph C. And what's identified in paragraph C is the SCADA control system.

[04:49:54] That's what it is. It talks about the control systems right there. And then in the next sentence, after it talks about the owner's responsibility to perform the work in paragraph C, it says the contractor-- that's Bridgman-- is going to coordinate with the SCADA contractor, coordinate to ensure this complete functional system.

[04:50:12] So when we look at this, it does say the owner shall perform the work identified in paragraph C. It says below, but that's obviously a typo, because paragraph C is above, and paragraph C has to be what the second paragraph is talking about, because if you look at the last sentence, it's very clear that the system that's being contemplated in that last highlighted sentence is the system referred to above in paragraph C.

[04:50:39] So this right here says, owner performs SCADA through another contractor, and Bridgman coordinates its work that's in its scope with the SCADA contractor that Chesterfield is going to hire. Now, there are other provisions that reinforce what I just said.

[04:50:58] So this is page D1 of the contract. This is a very important part of the contract because it describes the work. This is like page 1 of the contract, the work. And what it says here is that Bridgman is going to-- what it means is Bridgman is going to do what's in paragraph 4.

[04:51:19] It's going to install the new vault, that concrete slab I just showed you. And in the vault, it's going to install the valves and the piping and the electrical. But then paragraph 5, this is the only reference to SCADA in the work section.

[04:51:36] The integrators are the specialty contractors that do the specialty SCADA work. The pipe layer doesn't do SCADA. It's the integrators. And this says that the contractor, Bridgman, is going to coordinate its work with the integrators in their installation of their scope.

[04:51:54] So it's a different scope. It's not Bridgman's scope. So this reinforces what we just looked at in 1700, that the owner is going to perform the SCADA through other contractors. And then Bridgman is going to coordinate its work with those contractors.

[04:52:12] So this is another very important provision of the contract that reinforces Bridgman's interpretation. So this provision of the contract is defining the pay items. So when I say pay items, I'm talking about these two pay items. So you guys are probably very familiar with government contracts.

[04:52:28] They have pay items. pay items, this is what you're getting paid to do. And there are definitions of the pay items. This goes directly to what's in your scope, what you're getting paid for. So these two pay items, 51 and 52, are defined by general conditions 53. And it says the only reference to SCADA in here at all is coordination with the integrator. All right. So we're getting paid to integrate our work with theirs, cooperate with them. We're not getting paid, Richmond's not getting paid to actually perform the SCADA work. I'll also point out that if you read these, they say that those

[04:53:08] two pay items are paying Bridgman to perform work in the new valve vault area. The SCADA is outside of the vault area. It's in those cabinets that I just showed you. So it's clearly excluded. It's not in Bridgman's scope. So this is an interesting provision that we have to factor into the analysis. This is the general clause that says that the contractor has to coordinate all of the work. The work is capitalized. It's the contractor's work. All right, so why do we have, that begs the question, why do we have these other provisions specifically calling out coordination with the

[04:53:48] integrator, the one which we just looked at, if we already have a general provision that governs coordination of our own work? It's because this is confirmation that the work of the SCADA of integrators is separate. It's apart from Bridgman's work. And instead, it's the work of another contractor that the county is supposed to hire under the provision that I showed you earlier, $1,700. So this is another part of the contract that confirms Bridgman's reading of the agreement, the reasonable reading it had at the time it placed its bid, which explains why it

[04:54:27] didn't include this work in its price. If you look at the appendix G, which has the proposal from the SCADA integrators attached to the contract, all those proposals are addressed either to Dewberry, the project engineer, or to the county directly.

[04:54:45] And this is an example of CAPS, the integrator's proposal. This makes it very clear that it is intending to contract with the county directly, not with the contractor.

[04:55:02] So I will say DuBerry points to one spec to justify its decision that the county during the project adopted, and I'm hoping that you won't adopt as well. They looked at subsection 1710, parts 2, 2.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, to say, well, when you look at these provisions, This requires Bridgman to hire all the SCADA integrators, and that's where the analysis begins and ends.

[04:55:38] But the way that Bridgman read this is, if you read this in light of all the other provisions that we just went through, this is just additional confirmation of the owner is clarifying for us who is the SCADA system contractor that they've selected, that they're going to hire, and who is the SCADA system contractor that we have to coordinate with.

[04:56:01] Now, there's a curious word here. It says the contractor is going to obtain the services of the SCADA system contractor. Obtain is not procure. It can't mean procure or perform because we have Section 1700, which we looked at earlier, which says, no, the owner is going to do that.

[04:56:22] The owner is going to perform the work, right? And we have to read 1,700 alongside 1,710, because 1,710 is a subsection of 1,700. You can't read these in isolation of each other.

[04:56:39] And that's what DuBerry does. So we're asking the board to just apply the rules of contract interpretation, just read the contract. And if you do that, I think you'll find that DuBerry's analysis is wanting.

[04:57:00] They don't enforce the contract as written. They ignore the pay items. They ignore all the other provisions that we just walked through. They don't try to harmonize these provisions. They just cherry-pick one, and they render these other provisions meaningless. And the big thing that their interpretation does is it creates a conflict or an ambiguity in the contract where one doesn't exist.

[04:57:22] I just walked you through all these provisions, and I harmonize them. But they say, no, that provision, 1710, requires you, Bridgman, to perform this work. It's in your scope. It's your problem that wasn't included in your bid. OK, that's clear conflict or it's an ambiguity that they've created.

[04:57:41] Now, I will say we don't agree there's an ambiguity. But if that's their interpretation, it creates one. So if there's an ambiguity, there's a whole different set of rules that apply. I have them on the PowerPoint here. And all these rules are violated or favor payment, interpreting the contract in a way that favors Bridgman.

[04:58:00] Sir, your 15 minutes are up. Can I just get two more minutes? That would be up to the chair. thank you so much. So the first rule when there's an ambiguity in the contract is that this is black letter law is that the contract the ambiguity is interpreted against the drafter. Bridgman didn't draft the contract. Dewberry did and Dewberry is an agent of the county. So if there is an ambiguity it should be resolved in Bridgman's favor which would mean that that you interpret it so that

[04:58:36] it's not in Bridgman's scope. This is also a fair result here, given the responsibilities that the owner took on in the contract. The owner says they're examining all the specs in the divisions.

[04:58:52] That includes the division dealing with the SCADA. And it says that they have a duty to report any discrepancies, conflicts, or omissions. And they didn't report this conflict to the bidders and to Bridgman when it placed its bid. So it's fair that this ambiguity is resolved against the owner because they had a duty to find it and get rid of it or flag it. I also will say that the rules of contract interpretation when it comes to ambiguity also favor Bridgman because when there's a conflict, the specific clause that resolves the dispute is going to trump, is going to govern over

[04:59:31] the general clause. And so what we have here is all the other clauses I showed you, they're specific to Bridgman's scope. The pay items, the description of the work, the coordination. And 1710 is just a subsection of 1700 that's just dealing with the work that's specifically an integrator's scope.

[04:59:53] So I also will say this. This is a very important point. If there's any ambiguity, we get to look outside the four corners of the document. So we get to look at what we call extrinsic evidence to figure out what was the real intent of the parties. If you look at Chesterfield's other procurements, Chesterfield knows how to require the contractor to perform SCADA when it wants to.

[05:00:15] Specifically, I have excerpts here from the Iron Bridge Road Waterline Procurement Project. And if you compare that contract with this one, it doesn't include the same language. In the Iron Bridge Road Project, it shows a lump sum pay item that specifically talks about the it specifically references the integrators and says you know I'm going to ask you to go ahead and wrap up okay yes I'm almost done thank you so much you're welcome forgive me for cutting off I have some questions I don't know if the board has questions yeah I would I'd love to

[05:00:54] answer your question so I'll just end this part of the discussion by saying if you just take a look at those ambiguity rules and apply them to the contract here and the interpretation. I do think they favor Bridgman.

[05:01:09] And so I would just, and the nice thing about this case, because there are no facts in dispute, we can, I think you guys can come to a fair decision and we can avoid unnecessary litigation because there's no expert witnesses here. There's no avalanche of documents.

[05:01:27] So I hope that you just come with a, yes, just, so I thank you. I thank you for your consideration. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time. Does the board have any questions? I know I do. So does the board have any questions? I do. Yes, sir, Mr. Engel. Who installed the SCADA?

[05:01:46] Yes, there are three different contractors that worked on the SCADA. So one of them is that CAPS, that's how I'm pronouncing it. It might be pronounced differently, CAPS. and then um the other the other one was uh e e um it's it's actually specified in who these contractors are uh in spec 1710 because that's another issue this is like almost like a sole source procurement did you did your company that you're representing install scada in any way

[05:02:24] uh so yes so my understanding is that bridgeman you know they lay pipe but they don't specialize in SCADA, and that makes sense because SCADA is... I'm not asking that. I'm asking if they actually put it in. No, they hired the three contractors that the county said we had to hire to perform those work. Okay, so SCADA hired the contractors. No, no, we... I'm sorry. Bridge, your company hired the contractors, and you didn't ask who was paying them? No, no. No, I'm sorry. So, and

[05:03:02] I have a slide here. But you hired them, right? Yes, we hired them, but we didn't hire them until until after we submitted an RFI. But I'm just asking who hired them, and it sounds like you hired them, and I'm asking when you hire somebody, you're the one responsible to pay them. You didn't ask anybody else how you're going to get reimbursed or how much you're going to get reimbursed or if you can get reimbursed to hold them out? Yeah, no, we asked Dewberry. So when it came time to do this work, Dewberry informed us that we were obligated to hire the SCADA contractors, which

[05:03:40] was a surprise to us and we said we don't read the contract that way so they said submit an rfi so we can resolve it for you we submitted an rfi they created they provided us with their misinterpretation of the contract that we were obligated to hire them so we responded by filing a notice of intent to file a claim saying we'll do it but we'll do it under protest because this is a change okay and the ones that and the folks that we hired were the three contractors that the the owner identified in the contract that we argue that they uh that chesterfield was um

[05:04:14] obligated to hire not us if you believe that though why did you hire them well because there's i mean there's a there's a there's a government contract you can't just this isn't like a private contract where you can just walk off and default if you have a disagreement there's a claims process and if there's a disagreement you have to file an noi and keep working that's exactly what we did. That's a question. Mr. Carroll. This is a question for staff. As part of a process for this,

[05:04:52] which I think was just explained, if a dispute comes up during the process, right, did they come to us, to the county attorney's office, or to anybody within the county, and ask for a resolution as the dispute? Well, we did review the dispute, and we reviewed the contract language. And the one part that you're not hearing about is how the contract specifies that these three people are subcontractors and there's only one way that you are a subcontractor under a job and that is if you are working for the contractor and

[05:05:30] that is something that you have not heard in this presentation so in this particular instance the it was specified that these three businesses would be involved in the SCADA like we do on a lot of contracts we specify who the contractor is going to hire as their subcontractors because there's certain ones that we believe can get the job done and it's not unusual for our contracts to provide that either we approve your subcontractors or we actually tell you which subcontractors you need to hire and in this case we

[05:06:06] actually told them that so how they could have missed then that as as their obligation under the contract and under the contract language that they had to hire these people as subcontractors, which then, I think, as Mr. Engel's point was, if you hire them as subcontractors, they are your contractors. So they're the contractors of the contractor, and that contractor is obligated to pay them. And that is our reading of the contract. Yes, we have analyzed it. We've analyzed all the contract language, and we believe that there is no basis

[05:06:44] for this claim. Did this question come up at the time of consideration of when this piece of equipment had to be installed? Did it happen prior to the work even starting? When did this dispute start? I'm not sure that I know exactly when it started. Was there work being done already? I'll ask the complaint.

[05:07:06] Was there work being done already? Yes, there was. There was work being done already. A fair amount of work, I think, was done. I have a slide that I skipped, but there's a slide that has some of the relevant facts on it, and it lays out the timeline. And it's very clear that we did not start working on this work until we filed an RFI that DuBerry told us to request.

[05:07:30] And we got an interpretation of the contract that we thought was wrong, and we filed a notice of intent to file a claim, which is basically you do the work under protests and you reserve your rights at the end of the project to pursue a claim.

[05:07:46] If we hadn't have filed the NOI, then we wouldn't be standing here today because we wouldn't have preserved any rights. So that's the process, that's the legal process under state law to be able to do this. Right, and it was analyzed at the time and we disagreed with their interpretation.

[05:08:02] We agreed with the engineer's interpretation and our own reading of the contract. Right, and also the engineer is skinning the game because they wrote the spec, So I don't think they're going to admit that there's, you know, anything's wrong with them. And I respect, you know, everyone's... Hold on.

[05:08:18] Your 15 minutes are talking. If we ask you a question, you can answer it. But your 15 minutes is up. Fair, sir. Mr. Chair, do you have questions? I do. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. We have in front of us a portfolio. Did you...

[05:08:34] Was this something that came from you? Oh, yes, yes. That's something that we produced, yes. Okay. So you gave this to us, and did you review every page of this when you gave it to us? Yes. You reviewed every page?

[05:08:50] Yes, it should be the claim that we originally filed. Can you explain to me or just provide for me the reason why you included something from autologic engineering? What is that? Yes, I can. So if you read Appendix G of the contract, it has proposals from different SCADA contractors included in Appendix G, and Autologic is one of those SCADA contractors.

[05:09:25] So why did you include it? I think it's included in the claim because it's part of Appendix G, and when you read appendix g like that proposal and the other two that are in there there's nothing in there that says attention bidders um and it's not it does nothing in this that signals that the that bridgman the contractor is going to be expected to contract with autologic or caps and in fact caps the other

[05:10:03] proposal that's attached makes it very clear that chest they're contemplating chest they're going contract directly with Chesterfield. So I can make the argument that the information that you gave me for autologic engineering is an integral part. That's why you included it, correct, in this portfolio that you gave us, correct? It's a part of the contract, and it's part of, yes, it's part of Appendix G, and it's relevant, yes. It's relevant, and so it's important for us as we're going through this to be able to read it and understand it, and you feel it's a really important part is that accurate uh yes it is important yeah it is important uh sheriff can

[05:10:43] you do me a favor um would you mind giving this to the attorney and have him read it to us from my copy oh yes okay so thank you for letting me take a look at it because i can clarify now um so this is oh yeah it's a great question yes can you ask me why why would be asking that

[05:11:17] question can you clarify why am i asking the question for you to read it to me you want me read this to you because this is a letter from Autologic that is addressed to Bridgman. Is it readable? What you gave me, is it even readable? Oh, I'm sorry. You know, I should have provided you with a cleaner copy. I can do that. But you checked every single page when you gave it to us.

[05:11:39] You said that you did. Yes, I do think that it's important for me to add a little bit of context though because the answer I gave you originally was wrong. I'm sorry? The answer that I gave you originally was wrong and based on my review of the document I should have reviewed it first before I give you an answer can I explain to you what what this is this document is not as important now okay you just told me it was important yes because I thought it was an exhibit to the contract but it's actually an exhibit to a change order that was processed during the project and this change order actually underscores one of the points that I made

[05:12:16] earlier, which is the... Do you understand? I'm asking a very simple question. How many pages are there that are unreadable? Can you count them for me? I mean, I guess I can read these, but maybe it's, you know, but yeah, I apologize. I can supplement these unreadable pages. I didn't mean any... I understand, but my question is, or my frustration, is that you're coming here to this Board of Supervisors, you're giving us information, and then a big part of it that you've characterized as important is unreadable. That's the only point I'm making.

[05:12:52] Yeah, and I want to apologize for that. I didn't mean any offense, and I also want to retract that those specific pages are really that important because all they are are attachments to a change order, and the change order is change order number one, and this is a change order that Chesterfield approved that provided escalation.

[05:13:12] I just wanted to make a point. So you weren't happy to give it back to the sheriff, but I just wanted to make that point. Any other questions from the board? okay thank you so much mr carroll did you want to make a motion okay you can go ahead and make that motion i'll make a motion to deny the bridgman claim before us okay um we have a second uh any

[05:13:45] discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed madam clerk b consent items mr chair there have been no requests from board members to remove items from the consent agenda for public comment do any of Do the board members have any items that they wish to remove?

[05:14:08] Motion to approve consent agenda. All right. So I have a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Madam Clerk. Item 14, 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. This time is designated for citizens to talk to the Board of Supervisors.

[05:14:24] 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.

[05:14:44] We have five speakers, if they'll please come forward and speak in this order: Earl Rogers, Ian Richards Karamarkovic, Thomas Curl, Lauren Dixon, and Wendy Little. First up is Earl Rogers.

[05:15:01] Welcome, Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to thank Susan Wilson for her kindness and help. As a first-time caller, she represents you well. She really does.

[05:15:16] And as a person that labored through your first hour and a half for the first meeting at 2 o'clock, raced home, read my emails, and raced back just in time to see you all come here to the second meeting, you're grossly underpaid. We need to increase your day. My name is Earl Rogers.

[05:15:34] I live in Smoketree Subdivision, home of Monacan High School and Gordon Elementary School. I've lived there since 1979. The subdivision was built in the late 1970s and 1980s when there was no code for sidewalks and before Lux Lane was extended to provide access to 288.

[05:15:52] The extension of Lux Lane and construction of Highway 288 greatly increased the traffic in our neighborhood as a cut-through for Highway 288. Old Carrollton Road has had no sidewalks and has no sidewalks and serves as a bus stop for three of the high schools, three stops for the two high schools.

[05:16:14] And several students walk to school using Old Carrollton Road to travel to and from these schools. At this scene, we have several neighbors, myself included, who walk, run, jog, push strollers along Old Carrollton Road and have to walk in the road with no sidewalks.

[05:16:31] This presents a real safety hazard. There's been a plan for some time now to construct sidewalks along Old Carrollton Road between Smoketree Drive and Glenmont Road. I am told this project has been put on hold due to funding. Now February 20th, I'm sorry, February 10, 2025, Chesterfield County memo stating that Chesterfield County has allocated funds to construct sidewalks along Old Carrollton Road and Glenmont Road.

[05:16:56] The contract has been on hold due to FY26 Community Connectivity Sidewalk Funds, CCSF, funding pause. Should funding recommence as programmed in the FY26-30 Adopted Capital Improvement Program, CIP, the project will resume in FY27.

[05:17:16] I'm seeking your assistance in getting an explanation of the Community Connectivity Sidewalk Fund, CCSF, and the status of the FY26-26-30 Capital Improvement Program, CIP, that when adopted, this project will resume.

[05:17:35] Thank you for the opportunity to address you and await your response. Respectfully, Earl M. Rogers, Steelbrook Road of Smoke Tree Subdivision. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. Jesse, I think you're here, right? Mr. Rogers, if you look over your left shoulder, you're going to see... Oh, okay, very cool.

[05:17:54] Okay, so if you can connect with him, and we'll take a look at that. Thank you. So thank you. Did you want anything? Welcome.

[05:18:11] Hi, thank you. My name is Ian Richards-Karamarkovich, and I'm one of a growing number of citizens with great concerns about Chesterfield's use of Flock Safety Automated License Plate Readers, a term often abbreviated to ALPRs. For those in the audience who don't know what they look like, if you see a black pole mounted with a solar panel and a small camera alongside roadways at major intersections in your schools and other sensitive sites, you're probably looking at an ALPR.

[05:18:36] These artificial intelligence-powered cameras serve a much different purpose than the more conventional traffic cameras many of us are familiar with. Whereas speeding cameras and red light cameras are event-driven, ALPRs record traffic 24-7 and can take thousands of photographs per minute in dragnet fashion.

[05:18:51] They create a detailed fingerprint of our vehicles, including data ranging from license plate numbers, make, model, color, dents and imperfections, tire type, and even bumper sticker characteristics. That fingerprint is then recognized whenever we drive by another Flock camera, effectively stitching together a record of the daily movements of bad actors and the ordinary law-abiding citizens sitting in this room alike.

[05:19:15] Our data is stored in Flock's county-managed database for 21 days. It is accessible without a warrant, available to law enforcement agencies throughout Virginia. And has already been documented being abused and misused throughout the country, including instances of tracking protesters, following ex-girlfriends, and failing to comply with state ALPR laws.

[05:19:34] I've painted this picture because many of the people I've spoken to have no idea what flat cameras are, or the fact that there are somewhere between 80 and 100 of them in Chesterfield County. At minimum, this is a huge transparency issue that CCPD and the Board of Supervisors has a responsibility to address in a balanced way.

[05:19:50] It's concerning that the public has had so little input into the installation of cameras that many people believe constitutes government overreach, an erosion of civil liberties, and a form of mass surveillance. With that in mind, a group of concerned Chesterfield citizens has started a petition asking you to turn off and remove these cameras, cancel the flock safety contract, ban the use of ALPRs, and create meaningful opportunities for public feedback on other forms of camera surveillance in Chesterfield County going forward.

[05:20:17] As of yesterday, we have 173 signatures, and we are continuing our outreach efforts to ensure that citizens across the county are aware of ALPRs and have a chance to voice their opposition to them. I appreciate your time and consideration and look forward to further dialogue on a nuanced issue that affects everyone in Chesterfield County.

[05:20:34] Thank you.

[05:20:44] Welcome. In case you don't know, I'm Thomas Carroll. I represent Chesterfield Citizens for Responsible Government.

[05:21:00] Thank you for this opportunity. My discussion this evening is around selection of the county administrator search. Perfect timing, Mark. Our county is at a crossroads. We've got high taxes, rapid growth is here to stay, and a community that doesn't always trust the government and demands more than a routine personnel decision that you're going to be making.

[05:21:23] Who we hire as a county administrator will determine whether we restore competence and change the course or stay on the course that we're on. In fact, this may be the most important decision that all of you make during this tenure. I think there are five criteria you need to look at, in my opinion, and in the working group that we've developed.

[05:21:42] Number one, fiscal discipline and taxpayer value. We need a new administrator who treats every taxpayer dollar as their own, someone who can lower our tax burden by cutting waste, not essential services. They must be able to take a complex budget and make it plain.

[05:21:58] Why we fund it, why it matters, and what it costs each taxpayer. You're getting better at it, but we're not there yet. Criteria two, smart growth and real returns. Growth is coming whether we're ready or not. It's here. Drive around. Our next administrator must align development with infrastructure, public safety, and quality of life so it pays for self.

[05:22:19] Economic development can't just be headlines. It has to deliver stronger base growth, good jobs, and less pressure on taxes. EDA must show real returns with real transparency. Real transparency.

[05:22:35] Number three, radical transparency. Trust through roads when decisions are made in the dark. We've been in front of you and called out several decisions that we didn't like, and we will continue to do so. We cannot allow that to happen. That's your responsibility. We need a leader who makes our finances, our deals, and our decisions understandable to residents, employees, and this board in very simple, plain language. Number four, operational excellence. County government is a services business as you know. Residents judge us by response times, permitting experiences, and response times for police and fire. Our next administrator must be a proven manager who can

[05:23:14] modernize processes, break down silos, and use technology to do with the same or fewer dollars. Number five, integrity and the right search. Character and experience aren't a bonus at this level. They are the job. After an honest assessment of our current bench, no one internally comes to mind with this experience, growth management, fiscal discipline, and trust building this moment requires. This isn't criticism of our staff. It's a recognition of how big this challenge is.

[05:23:46] We owe it to the taxpayers and employees to run a broad external search and find the best talent available in the country. I urge the board to focus this search on five attributes, to look at these own walls and beyond our own walls to find someone. If we hire right and don't just fill a position. We'll give our county a leader who can lower the tax burden, protect essential services, and make economic development pay off and rebuild public trust. Thank you. And oh, by the way, we heard you loud and clear on SB 454 and SB 378. We appreciate your outreach. We listened,

[05:24:26] we mobilized, and we did everything we could to go after the legislators and the governor. And we thank you for pointing us to Natalie. She is absolutely outstanding. So thank you for that.

[05:24:53] welcome hello I feel reassured that if I go over my three minutes no one's dragging me out of here so that's that's good um hi I'm Lauren I am a homeowner in Mr. Ingle's district and I am a graduate of the L. Douglas Wilder School with a degree in criminal justice I am also a data professional and a nerd and I'm here to talk today about concerns about automatic license plate readers and their expansion across our county. I'm short. I just see those. Okay. As somebody

[05:25:30] also has already said, these are scanning every license plate that drives by them. Doesn't matter if you're guilty or innocent of any type of crime. And this data is stored in that searchable database that citizens such as myself have no idea who's accessing them, how much of our data is in there. And what I do know from a Freedom of Information Act request through our contract with this contractor is that they have the right to use our data to train their AI for their products. So we don't know what that data is being used for, but we do know that we're paying for

[05:26:08] them to take our data to make more money off of us. Now, proponents of Flock are championing the subscription as a way to address crimes, such as motor vehicle thefts. And so I went into the uniform crime report data, which our county submits monthly to the FBI, and just took a look at the numbers that we have for our county. And I'm actually really impressed that Chesterfield County Police are doing pretty well. However, comparing the data from before we started this FLOC contract to now, I'm not really seeing a payoff. For example, motor vehicle thefts are at

[05:26:47] lowest that they have been since 2022. In 2022, we had 467. In 2025, we only had 431. The clearance rate in 2022 was 32%. In 2025, it was 35%. That is only a 3% increase. Now, some people may drive some not so great cars. So I also looked at larceny. Maybe that would see a difference.

[05:27:16] We're actually at a five-year low, lower even than 2021. In 2021, before the cameras were here, the clearance rate was 25%. In 2025, we only see an 8% increase. I'm sure that many residents would agree that we don't want to sacrifice our privacy rights for less than a 10% increase in a clearance rate, especially in a place where the crime rate is falling. Thank you. Item 15, deferred items from,

[05:27:55] i'm sorry miss little madam clerk yeah i don't believe miss little is here miss little okay okay so item 15 deferred minute items from previous meetings we have none item 16 public hearings a to consider readoption of ordinance to amend county code section 7-4 satellite absentee voting locations to establish north courthouse road library as satellite absentee voting location for

[05:28:29] April 21st, 2026 special election, which was adopted by the board on an emergency basis on February 25th, 2026. Mr. Minx. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, this is a consideration of a readoption of an ordinance which you adopted on an emergency basis to establish a satellite absentee voting location.

[05:28:52] North Courthouse Library is a satellite voting location for the special election. By law, you have got to re-adopt that within 60 days of its adoption for it to continue beyond that 60-day period. So this is a public hearing to consider that ordinance and re-adoption of it.

[05:29:11] Thank you, Mr. Minks. Board members, are there any questions for staff? I'll have some comments later. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider re-adoption of the ordinance to amend county code section 7-4, satellite absentee voting locations to establish North Courthouse Road Library as a satellite absentee voting location for the April 21st, 2026 special election, which was adopted by the board on the emergency basis on February 25th, 2026. Is there anyone who would like to speak to this

[05:29:46] issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing no one, I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing, and it's back before the board. Is there any discussion? I'll let Mr. Engel go first.

[05:30:01] Mr. Engel. Well, I voted no on this last month, not because I thought we shouldn't open up the second satellite location, but because I still, honestly, even to this day, think that the court should have ruled on this and that this is ridiculous, but we should never have been put in a position where we had to make the decision under a state of emergency to be able to make it work.

[05:30:32] But the courts have ruled that it's going to happen, and it's actually already started as of last Friday. And I do agree that we need to take a look not only for this, but for future to allow.

[05:30:49] I've asked the county attorney to see if we can put language in that allows the registrar in these types of elections to add early polling places at established early polling places for normal election cycles as needed by the registrar.

[05:31:09] So not necessarily forcing the registrar to open up, say, five locations when maybe they think we need to, but to allow the registrar to do that without having to have another action of this board. But at this point, even though I don't believe the courts have ruled satisfactorily on the issue it's going forward and we need the location so i will be changing my vote tonight thank you mr carroll um i i think um i made it pretty clear last time that

[05:31:44] i agree with everything mr engel just said that we should not have been put in this position in the first place but you know you you talk about a waste of money so what happens if the court comes back after all this is done and rules it as an invalid election and it shouldn't happen anyway.

[05:32:02] You talk about waste and fraud that people talk about in the budget that shouldn't have happened because, number one, the General Assembly didn't follow the rules that they should have followed, and number two, in my opinion, I agree with the judge that said it's unconstitutional on Article 12 that you should hold an election before 90 days passed. That's pretty clear language in Virginia's constitution but nevertheless here we are and i think it's important that we amend our ordinance in the future to allow so we don't ever have to go through an emergency activation for this so

[05:32:40] that's something we've learned we need to fix for the future but again i also want to make sure that people have an opportunity to vote and by adding in this additional location we can make sure that people have more opportunities to be able to vote within the community so i will be again voting yes because i want people to be able to have the opportunity to vote i guess i would say i'm voting yes on the protest how about that dr hilton snyder okay i'm going to go ahead and make the motion to amend the county code section 7-4 satellite absentee voting location to

[05:33:17] establish north courthouse library as a satellite absentee voting location for the april 21st 2026 special election do i have a second second is there any discussion all in favor aye all opposed madam clerk thank you b to consider the exercise of eminent domain for the metadale boulevard beulah road to dale book drive bike and pedestrian improvements project ms walker thank you good evening mr chair members of the board dr casey this is a public hearing to consider

[05:33:54] exercising eminent domain to acquire acquisition needed for the Meadowdale Boulevard bike and pedestrian improvement project. The scope of this project is to improve pedestrian bike and pedestrian accessibility in the corridor along Meadowdale Boulevard. The original scope had sidewalk and bike lanes to be installed on both sides of the corridor. We were actually able to coordinate with VDOT, and get the bike lanes installed back in 2023 when they repaved the

[05:34:29] road at no cost to the county. So instead of putting back the existing striping, they put down re-striping to include a bike lane. So that actually has been in for a couple of years. But the sidewalks will tie into existing sidewalks at both Termini, and so we're going to have pedestrian access from Bensley Elementary School, which is to the east. You have townhomes and apartments in the central and single family units and then you've got commercial on the western end where it ties in towards hopkins road we were successful in securing some federal dollars

[05:35:04] congestion mitigation air quality funds basically those are funds if you can take vehicle trips off the road and have people walking you're helping with air quality and the estimate is at four and a half million this is a quick concept sketch of the corridor the yellow quick reference shows the sidewalk on both sides. And we have been advancing the project. We're in the right-of-way stage. We've been in right-of-way negotiations since July of last year. We've been successful through our right-of-way agent to secure the needed right-of-way easements from four of the five impacted property

[05:35:43] owners on the corridor. The loan negotiations that we still have underway are with Meadowdale Town House Park Association. Parcel three shown on the graphic here. They have a homeowners association. We've actually been in good contact with their manager, their property manager, and they require, their bylaws require two-thirds vote in support of purchasing the property. So we need 76 of the 114. We've been working with the county manager. They've had a tough time getting

[05:36:17] participation she currently has worked with us and she has sent out uh letters to the 114 homeowners and called forward scheduled a meeting at the library there at hopkins for april my notes here i think it's april 16th and she even when she sent the letters out their bylaws allowed them to vote by proxy even so they can they can email their vote i mean mail their vote in or they can even send someone to the meeting on their behalf to vote so she's

[05:36:55] really trying to help us get this done and she even said their bylaws allow for if they don't if we don't get there they can call a second meeting which requires another 30-day notice to all of them and then the quorum only requires 50 percent so instead of 76 in support we would need 57. So it's an ongoing process. They're trying to work with us and trying to get folks out. So that's why we're recommending to proceed so that we can start to get to an advertisement this summer. Utilities are already underway. Fortunately, the utilities that are in conflict

[05:37:35] with the sidewalk are already in the right-of-way. So we didn't need to purchase right-of-way for utility relocation so that's good but once those utilities get moved we're going to be ready to roll for construction so we're recommending if the board is agreeable to start the eminent domain process so that we can gain access to certain easements and right away and I can show you this is the data information of what we actually need fee being fee right away purchasing

[05:38:10] property as well as a temporary construction easements on the quarter very minor 48 relatively speaking forty eight hundred dollars on for the whole project is our original offer and you can see the limited areas the red is right away the orange is temporary construction easement easements we need to the right away is to put the pieces of right away that extend beyond the public right away into right away so that vdot will maintain it and then the orange is to do things like be give the contractor additional area to be able to install the sidewalk to take out some trees

[05:38:50] tie in sidewalk into some of their existing sidewalk those little pieces of orange so it's a very minor impact it's just a time constraint we're under so that's our recommendation happy to take some questions board members you have any questions for staff ms schneider so the parcel image makes it look worse than it actually is because the parcel is all sorts of little pieces yeah okay got it yeah parts yeah most of it's in the right of way got it thank you mr rinkle is there anybody that's put in that said no we really don't want this

[05:39:30] no no we held so we may be doing them a favor if we do this because she's trying to herd cats right now yeah but we don't have any real opposition to it and it's not any individual's piece of property it's the homeowner association's common area right correct all right thank you that pretty much sums it up yeah i mean there's there's a good chance that the tender townhomes correct correct um so there's a possibility that they're renting out the townhomes could be and so now you got to track down the owners and they could be in indianapolis or wherever else so i understand yeah i agree that we're able to and we've been successful because we have times because we still

[05:40:09] have to advertise and construct in continuing to negotiate so we'll figure it out right i'm confident dr hilton yeah you know this is in my district and so this is important um is as we talk about and think about pedestrian safety putting in sidewalks uh in this area is very important we have a lot of People walking from their home to the shopping center, to restaurants that are up near Hopkins.

[05:40:42] So this is a big step in the right direction. So one of the first projects I saw coming on board, so I appreciate you bringing me up to speed on it. I see no reason to say no to the project.

[05:40:58] It really helps out citizens that are in that area. And a lot of times, you know, it's a very depressed economic area there. And so, people are having issues with transportation and GRTC needs are great there.

[05:41:18] This will help immensely in those areas. So, I just ask for, you know, the full board support. And I know staff is behind us on this project, but it would bring great benefit to my district and the citizens of my district. So, thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Hillen.

[05:41:35] Any other questions? Thank you, Chesa. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the exercise of eminent domain on the Meadowdale Boulevard or Beulah Road to Dale Brook Drive, Bike and Pedestrian Improvement Project.

[05:41:52] Is there anyone who would like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Hello, Renee Eldred. Hey, Renee. This project has been out there for quite some time, so people that might have actually wanted to say no have already had quite an opportunity to do so and i'm glad to see it coming because like you said they do walk to the shopping center and i've actually seen kids walking to bensley from over there so i'm glad the bridge now has a sidewalk for them to walk on too um my only problem is i

[05:42:30] actually rode by there on the way here and there are quite a few nice trees along the way that i'm hoping don't have to get taken down to to put the sidewalk in but maybe if if they do they can be something can be replanted somewhere along the lines but it's very needed um it'll be nice to have both sidewalks on both sides and i'm i haven't i don't remember the plans but i'm hoping that it continues all the way up past dalebrook to the shopping center too so go for it renee you

[05:43:06] said you rode past Rade? You said you rode past, was it on a bicycle? Do what? Did you, was it on a bicycle that you rode past? No. Okay. I'm not against what you're trying to do here, the way you're going about it. If I'm looking at this right, it's $850 an acre which I'll offer to pay

[05:43:40] these people. Y'all were willing to pay $105,000 an acre for this school that you were going to build. Somewhere your priorities are a little bit off. Also, this area has a lot similarities to what's going on in other parts of the county, where y'all are allowing these developers to build these complexes, and they say, well, we've got sidewalks internal. We don't need them on the

[05:44:15] road, the external roads. There's one going on right now on, I think it's on Woolridge. They've got sidewalks internal to that development, but they're not on Woolridge. These people have got sidewalks around their complex. So now the county is having to pay to put sidewalks down the side of the road. Like I said, I'm not against what you're trying to do here. It's just the way you're going about it, especially when you're using eminent domain. To me, that's taking a big hammer

[05:44:55] and telling you, you're going to sell me your property whether you want to or not. I'm definitely not for that. So anyway, $850 an acre, somebody needs adjusted numbers there. I would like to second for saving the trees. I have a good friend who is really excited to be able to walk to school with her kids to the new Bensley Elementary. But even her kids under the age of eight have recognized the difference during the summer when they come to visit my home with tree coverage

[05:45:34] versus their neighborhood, which is right across that bridge and how hot it is. So if we can save the trees and put the sidewalk, that would be a great bonus. Thank you. Anyone else? I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing. It's back before the board. Is there any discussion? Mr.

[05:46:02] Carroll. I agree that this is, you know, using eminent domain should be a last resort for us, and I'm hoping, as in most of the cases that we come across with this, like the one that we withdrew earlier tonight, that was going to be an eminent domain case, and once the parties were able to negotiate they came to a conclusion and it was removed so i would hope that we continue to negotiate and in that negotiation we come to an agreement where we don't have to do eminent domain um i would love to keep the trees next to the sidewalk as well but i will tell you um

[05:46:39] that i have a complaint right now in etric because of a large oak tree next to the sidewalk that has grown up and has caused and destroyed the sidewalk uh and the sidewalks in the vdot right away and says they won't cut the tree down. So the downside of leaving the trees in a close proximity with those root systems as they grow, they tend to destroy the sidewalks and then someone has to pay for them and fix them later again. I'd like to see if there was a way we could do it, negotiate around the trees and keep them if we could, but I'll leave that up to staff to figure that out,

[05:47:16] but and hopefully they'll figure out the eminent domain piece as well. Senator. To add on to that, and i'm the biggest tree hugger there is um you also will probably damage roots of trees which make them much less likely to survive anyway if you try to go around them um just by digging over the top of the roots um yeah okay um we'll see what happens with the eminent domain mr jimma i do agree about the safety issue we've had multiple people throughout the county pedestrians that have been struck in areas of the county

[05:47:56] where either it's not lighted right or we don't have sidewalks. And so I do agree that this is going to add a level of safety to the people in that community. Dr. Hilton? Jesse, could you, are we able to disclose how much, it's only a small sliver of, that we need. I think it's only we're only, it's like $4,500, right?

[05:48:25] $4,800. Yeah, $4,800. and the right-of-way purchase of right-of-way is 0.009 acres for purchasing of right-of-way and then the temporary construction easement the amount is 0.024 acres all of that totaling a $4,800 offer if we're able to get into conversation with the community they could certainly we could look at the plans and figure out if there are trees in the right-of-way that we're impacting or in the temporary construction easement and they could formulate a counter offer

[05:49:01] to our offer but we haven't been able to have that conversation so there could be a replanting you know negotiated with some we just need to be able to have the conversation which has been tough well you know i would i would just say that if there's any trees that'll be impacted you know let's let's just go ahead and factor in you know to to do that um but we also want to keep in mind of what my colleague said in terms of we want to we don't want to put something in and then have to go back and do rework because a tree root grew and cracked the sidewalk and we thought that we

[05:49:39] were doing something and we were doing something very good but the unintended consequence was that we created a tripping hazard and that sort of thing for someone so we just want to be mindful So, if we could maybe work around maybe replacing some vegetation there that would maybe not grow underneath the sidewalk and push it up.

[05:50:04] So, let me know how that works out and what the plan is and happy to work through any, you know, monetary compensation that we need to if it's outside of something that is in the project or able to be negotiated as part of the project. So, always happy to give, you know, district improvement funds up for things that we really need in our district.

[05:50:26] So, just let me know how that works out. And I certainly appreciate your help and your diligence in working through this. I think it's going to increase the walkability of that area. If you ride past there now, you'll see grass that is beaten down because people are walking on the grass.

[05:50:48] um and so um you know and i i know that you know i can envision kids out there riding their bikes and parents behind them uh and you know people in the community walking back and forth you know where they need to go and so this is a great project um and just appreciate everything that you and your staff are doing um to to see this through so thank you so much mr incle chessa can you speak to the difference in land values between, say, a commercial property versus a

[05:51:24] residential property versus a residential property that's out in a very rural area? Because I think there may be some confusion as to why one offer may be at a higher amount per acre than another offer. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I think it's, I was going to say it's intuitive but the highest and best use so if you have a site that could be developed and commercial property as commercial property would be that potential could would be valued higher

[05:52:02] and we would be asked to pay that unit cost if you will versus a residential or even more out in rural area type of acquisition. So what we're saying is that the value of the land is significantly different in all of those cases, and that was what determines what we offer, not that every single offer would need to be based on the same amount, because not every single piece of property has land that's valued at the same amount. Is that correct? Correct. Thank you. Any other questions

[05:52:39] for staff i have a quick question just i have a question about eminent domain and process okay um is it as simple as just we take this vote and then that's the end of it what happens next so next steps is our rural property office um i think by code has to wait 30 to 45 days we send a let they send a letter out to the owner to say that this is moving forward and then there's 30 to 45 five days to file certificate with the court that basically is the record that the county has the right to access those orange and red areas for the specific

[05:53:16] purposes that's documented and then we are required to cut a check for the offer amount that is held for that owner and then it goes on to kick it over to the attorney's office and then they kind of help us we still have our right-of-way agent proactively reach out and then we just take the next year or two that we're going to be you know during construction to get to construction and completion to continue to reach out and try

[05:53:47] to settle it. And we don't usually go to court. We rarely go to court. Virtually all of them get resolved. We've got very good people working in the right-of-way offices that are constantly trying to see is there a resolution possible and they they do very good work oftentimes it's it's it's not because we're in disagreement oftentimes it's because we've got unknown errors we've got in this case a homeowner's association there are other things that are getting in the way of

[05:54:22] actually getting to a resolution we're going to continue to work to get that resolution it's to it's to the county's benefit to avoid that that court proceeding if it can be done I mean, I'm loathe to ever do eminent domain, unless it's public safety.

[05:54:41] If it's public safety, then I have a very different view, and in this situation, we have public safety is the issue, and we're attempting to figure out a way to get people from point A to point B safely. Of course, if we are able to find a way to keep the trees, that's definitely a bonus, If we're able to do that, it sounds like you're going to be working with Dr. Hilton to see if it's possible to do that.

[05:55:07] I was in a situation just this week, Jesse was able to help me out, where we had some trees that were right up on the road that were planted, what, 150 years ago. And we needed to get a water line put in. And so we were able to sit down with the owners, they understood.

[05:55:26] And it was planted by their great-great-grandfather, who was just recently emancipated, and he planted those trees. And it meant an enormous amount to them. And at the same time, they realized that it was in the right-of-way, and it was right there, and there was nothing that could be done.

[05:55:46] It was sweet, because they were able to work it out with a developer that they're going to plant 10 trees. Each one is going to represent the grandchildren of each one. and they're each going to get to choose which one of the flowering trees. So there was a way to work it out. And so if there's a way to do this with the community, that could be a way to go.

[05:56:08] So, Dr. Casey. Just to assist in this, and not necessarily right now, but I did discuss what may be helpful for the board, the public, from a transparency perspective, is exactly what we're talking about. While it's advertised as an eminent domain, last meeting you had the request for public hearing of that that statistically you know that it looks like we're going to court the day after you approve this and and the fact of the matter is it's a very very low percentage and I think from a public perspective I almost would like to almost repeat that every time we go through this process and and we've had two months in a row right now

[05:56:44] that we've actually settled between board meetings because last month we had a request for public Caring for River Road, very similar case, if you will, for sidewalks. And just within two weeks of advertising that process, we were able to settle almost days later of the agenda going out.

[05:57:04] So to Ms. Walker's point is I think that when we present this, it almost looks like we're going to the court the next day. And I think we could probably offer that statistic up. Look back periods three, five, whatever years is worthwhile. And just a little, real quick, just some insight on us trying to time this and make the decision. The process to start eminent domain for us is a planning is a four-month process. So we're actively negotiating, but we have to send soft letters, hard letters, set the hearing, hold the hearing, then file the certificate.

[05:57:37] Well, there's a window where you want to put your advertisements out so contractors have time to plan and so your bid prices can severely be impacted. So there's a lot of timing to it, And that's why we try to start the process while we know we're still, if we're reaching an impasse, still negotiating along the way.

[05:58:00] Mr. Egal. I make the motion to approve the exercise of eminent domain, if necessary, for Meadowville Boulevard. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

[05:58:17] Madam Clerk. C, to consider the exercise of eminent domain for the Woolridge Road, Genito Road to laycock road widening project miss walker well another public hearing right away needed to support the woolwich widening project from genital to laycock road the importance of this project can't be understated this is uh going to provide regional capacity needed in the fastest growing part of the county being able to accommodate existing and projected traffic volumes as well

[05:58:51] as enhancing bike and pedestrian accommodations in the area this project along with the woolwich extension to the north, which is under construction, is actually going to complete Woolridge Road on our thoroughfare plan as a four-lane facility all the way from Midlothian and Route 60 down to Otterdale Road in Matoka. The board actually kicked us off in 2020 with CVTA funds. It was actually one of our first drops of CVTA funds since the authority was created, was put on this

[05:59:26] projects so that's pretty cool estimates 21 million local funds and again project scope it's about a mile and a quarter long it's a two lane to four lane divided widening we're going to have two hybrid roundabouts one at the watermill parkway intersection laycock road intersection we're going to be modifying the signal at genitoe road you will now have two through lanes northbound two three lanes southbound there's a pinch point there that intersection we're going to add pedestrian crossings on the north leg and the west leg to set up for future connections.

[06:00:02] There's some access management improvements. We're going to be restricting and reducing conflict points at some of the full accesses. And then again, shared use path will be on the west side, sidewalk on the east. And then we're actually, at the request of the residents who live in the communities, particularly Edgewater, really wanted to be able to cross Woolridge Road safely. So we're going to have our second pedestrian hybrid beacon at Fountain View Drive to get Edgewater, unite both sides of that community that's bisected by the road. And then there'll be rectangular rapid flashing beacons at each of the north and southbound approaches at

[06:00:40] the roundabouts. So this is just a quick shot of all of that in a graphic form. That's the project scope you see there. And again, we've been working on right away since last August. Was that seven months. We've been successful at clearing 15 of 18 from acquiring right away from 15 of 18 property owners. We still have six parcels owned by three property owners that we are trying to clear, but we do recommend moving forward so we can also get this out into construction. And

[06:01:16] something that I should note, there is a big project to the east of this, Polite Phase 1 extension to Woolridge Road that is on the heels of this project as well as the Woolridge extension project. And because of construction sequencing, this needs to keep moving because the Polite project is on the heels of this project. So some specifics about the remaining six parcels that we need to clear. Four of them, parcels 1, 8, 17, and 18, are controlled by Edgewater HOA. So very similar

[06:01:54] to some of the discussion we had on the prior one they also require two-thirds votes from the community they have been wonderful to work with they have a wonderful representative attorney that they've been using has worked with us on the offer we've come to verbal terms on the offer and we actually attended their meeting at the end of february where they called everyone in to try to secure the needed votes they need 259 votes as of today they were

[06:02:28] at 89 so they're going to be going around and doing door hangers and trying to get the word out their HOA board has recommended approval of the offer that they've negotiated with us but they have to get everyone to sign on so it's another one of those ongoing efforts to clear and then we have parcel three uh kibukas i believe is how you would pronounce and that's just been we haven't received a counter offer from them um we've had numerous emails phone calls our right away agents made cold visits had a conversation with the owner she said she would reach out but we haven't heard

[06:03:06] so we just continue to reach out i'm hopeful that once we can make contact that that one we'll be able to work out as well and then 19 is the 7-eleven at the corner there on Woolridge Road they are controlled by an out-of-state corporate structure they have been responsive it's just been slow going we've been they've been asking us questions about the design and their impacts and we've been responding but it's a big chunk of time in between each back and forth so those are kind of the summaries of the parcels and this is all of the offers on the far right

[06:03:44] the original offers where that we provided them and then all of the specifics acres that we need and what and i have all of the um plan sheets and all of the you know all of the information if you want to get into that further but that's basically the summary of this one i'm happy to thumb through the parcels if you want. It's up to you. Ms. Snyder. This might be a side. I was just talking

[06:04:17] to someone about that 7-Eleven and I did get a personal contact for the real estate manager. So I have his phone number. I was going to give it to you so we can figure out what's going on with that also. We've been in contact with them. We have a contact. They just haven't provided a counteroffer. They keep asking more and more questions. Well, I'm just saying this might be different person, so. Okay, we'll take it. Questions on this one? Were members there any questions or staff? No? Okay. All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to consider the exercise

[06:04:55] of eminent domain for the Woolridge Road to Genito to Lecoq Road widening project. Is there anyone who would like to speak to this issue? If so, please come forward and state your name. Jerry Turner, I have to get up when y'all start talking eminent domain. I'm not going to let y'all

[06:05:27] rubber stamp this but the biggest thing and all these properties are together they're not scattered all over the county they're pretty within probably a quarter mile maybe a half mile of each other per acre it ranges from 1600 to 60 000 per acre now i'm just going by the numbers that own this sheet of paper here i don't know who's coming up with these numbers and but everybody needs to be

[06:06:04] treated the same and i've said this before as long as you treat everybody the same i have no problem with it but i do have trouble a problem with eminent domain is there anyone else who would like to speak to this issue with that i'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing it's back before the board is there any discussion um can i have a motion oh i'm sorry mrs schneider chessa is one of the ones that's more expensive or for the valley because it wasn't one of these where

[06:06:43] their sign was or something for edgewater and that was going to be causing more is there more like oh okay we saved their sign oh the one at the corner of genito we're putting in a retaining wall so it won't be damaged okay so and what is the oh they have another one that is in the right of way correct yeah okay yeah but i think those is that possibly why the um the amount you're offering is more for some of these properties is because of um the impacts on there yeah yeah there There are other items due to impacts that are in the offer.

[06:07:19] So it's not just the land value itself that is in those offers. Sure, absolutely. But if it was right away that was just common land that nobody's ever going to build on, that land is going to be valued significantly less than if it's land directly in front of somebody's home affecting their residence, correct?

[06:07:39] Correct, and when we do appraisals, it's based on the market rate for similar homes in the area that have sold and then broken down by acreage that you need, so yeah. Any other questions for staff? Could I get a motion? So moved. Second. I want to be clear on what the motion is. What I want to make sure is that the motion is to exercise eminent domain on the Woolridge Road, Genitoe, and Lecoq Road widening project. That's the motion, and I think we have a second? Second. All right, all in favor?

[06:08:17] Aye. Anyone opposed? Madam Clerk. D to declare county property at 14351 Bermuda Orchard Lane surplus and for conveyance. Mr. Bowles. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Casey, this is a public hearing to consider declaring 14351 Bermuda Orchard Lane surplus and to approve conveyance of the property.

[06:08:41] This was a parcel that was donated to the county over 34 years ago for a possible school site but isn't suitable for that purpose certainly not a property we would consider today the site is heavily encumbered by wetlands over roughly half the acreage which were conserved by the county in 1998 but would remain conserved after the conveyance Dominion Energy has offered to purchase the parcel for 1.9 million for the purpose of citing a switching station to ensure energy needs in eastern Chesterfield are met, to include the Meadowville Technology Park,

[06:09:21] as well as to continue reliable electric service and maintain compliance with federal reliability standards. This project was approved by the SCC in 2025. So again, this is a public hearing. Thank you, Mr. Bowles. Board members, are there any questions for staff or Mr. Bowles?

[06:09:42] All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing to declare county property at 14351 Bermuda Orchard Lane surplus and for conveyance is there anyone who would like to speak to this issue if so please come forward state your name welcome thank you members of the board good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Adam Ridge I'm with Dominion Energy I'm a project manager working on several projects in the Meadowville area Mr. Bowles did a great job of explaining what

[06:10:18] the need is for this this parcel I'm here with a couple other members from our team, and if you guys have any questions, we're here to answer them. Appreciate the partnership as we move forward on the projects in this area. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this? With that, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. It's back before the board. Is there any discussion? Mr. Ingle. Can I make, well, go ahead, if you want to discuss, I was going to make a motion with my discussion, so. You make the motion, I'll second it, and we'll

[06:10:51] make the motion to declare uh 14351 the orchard lane surplus for and for conveyance second all right let's get some discussion going i just wanted to say that um this project is necessary at this time to help feed lego and it will help with the whole meadowville technology park area it is already surrounded by train tracks and power lines um there's very little if anything that ever be able to go on this property um other than this so it's a a perfect match

[06:11:31] in um that we have a property in the exact right spot that they need to put in a substation so that's why i made the motion any other discussion he took the words right out of my mouth no no need to say anything else okay i'm just going to add one thing in that um mr bolts i think what i heard correctly was this was a gift that um a previous owner gave to the county right all right so we didn't pay anything for it obviously all right and so this has been a true gift um uh to the community to the area to all of that so i just want to send gratitude um to whoever that was

[06:12:11] that gave um that gift it was a very sweet gift okay okay thank you um with that in mind all in favor aye aye all anyone opposed madam clerk e to consider a lease amendment for the baseball facility at james river high school mr bowls mr chairman members of the board dr casey this is a public hearing to consider an amendment extending the current lease with rapids baseball incorporated for use of the baseball facility at james river high school in 2021 the then board of supervisors approved the execution of this lease agreement, which includes fields, fields with lights,

[06:12:49] a restroom concession, and locker room building that was constructed by RBI and has been maintained by them since then. A three-year extension has been requested for RBI to complete its initial operational goals, and at the end of the extension, the facilities will become county property.

[06:13:09] Again, this is a public hearing. Any questions for Mr. Bowles? ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing to consider a lease amendment for the baseball facility at James River High School is there anyone who would like to speak to this issue if so please come forward and state your name seeing no one I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing it's before the board is there any discussion all right with that I'm going to go ahead and make the motion since it is in the Midlothian district to go ahead and move

[06:13:43] forward with the lease amendment of the baseball facility James River High School and at the end of that lease, then it becomes, I'm trying to figure out the right wording, ownership of Chesterfield County, Mr. Binksville would be the right.

[06:14:00] No, you said it. Yes. All right. So, can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed. Madam Clerk. F, to consider the exercise of eminent domain for the River Road, Hickory Road to Brickhouse Drive Sidewalk Project, Mr. Chair, at the February 25th Board of Supervisors, meeting. The board set this date to hold a public hearing on this exercise of eminent domain. The owners have since signed the necessary agreements, therefore

[06:14:35] no action is needed. Item 17 is 15-minute citizen comment period on unscheduled matters. This time is designated for citizens to talk to the board of supervisors. 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.

[06:14:56] 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. We have two speakers, if they'll please come forward and speak in this order, Jerry Turner and Tom McKnight.

[06:15:14] Welcome, Mr. Turner.

[06:15:35] Good evening. Jerry Turner again. Chesterfield County does a very good job of being first. Dr. Casey recognizes a lot of awards that the county gets for all their accomplishments that they have accomplished over the years.

[06:15:58] But there's one, a couple, that you don't need to be first in. And one of them came up last month with Watkins Center Circle Roundabout. That seemed to be the first one that was done in the county, and it's a fiasco.

[06:16:20] It's going to cost somebody $300,000 at least to fix it. Y'all turned the guy down that was offered to fix it for $300,000 because he was going to build several apartments. He probably was going to build those apartments anyway, especially if the stuff goes on downtown that they're trying to get done.

[06:16:45] And now the county is going to have to fix it for $300,000 out of the county property of money. The other thing is it's going to be a first because the VDOT just had a meeting about no left-hand turns on Hull Street and Courthouse.

[06:17:06] I didn't ask the question, but one of my neighbors did. Is there a place that we could go look to see where they have done this in the past? There's not one. So it would be the first in Chesterfield County. There again, we don't need to be the first on this deal because sooner or later, Chesterfield County is going to have to straighten it up.

[06:17:30] Whether they're using VDOT monies or county money, it's going to have to be fixed because that's not going to work. I don't care what they're saying about what they're going to do. And this really has nothing to do with what's going on in the county.

[06:17:51] but other than Dr. Casey is leaving, and I have encouraged him when Lego builds their plant, and they're going to offer you guys a walkthrough, see the property. As a former tool and dime maker, machinist, mold maker, I want to be part of it. So please keep that in mind when they invite y'all.

[06:18:14] I want to see that place because it's got to be a very clean, and I've watched some of their videos on their their facilities they don't show the tooling and that's what i want to see thank you very much thank you mr mr mr my name is thomas macknight with the chairman's permission i would like to make a statement uh kevin carroll and myself have been working for about a year year and a half about the roundabout it is scheduled to be built on the corner of ash

[06:18:54] Lake Commons and Ashley Parkway. Now, that's going to be way out here, but we came up with a temporary solution to put an all-way stop in there. Now, with Kevin's effort and everything else, the all-way stop was put in today. So that's the first part of the roundabout. Now, we've still got the second part that's going to have to be built now on behalf of the ash lake

[06:19:33] commons community and the ash lake community we want to show our appreciation to kevin for the effort that he made to speed this project up but we still got the ash lake roundabout now speaking on that i was in here about a year year and a half ago speaking on the subject that we just had Since then, we have had on the corner where this is going to be a 69-unit apartment house.

[06:20:07] Right across, we have had, there's about 11 or 12 units on the ground. Then you go on up around Bennett Funeral Home on Aslake Commons. There are, on the road, there's about 14 or 15 units.

[06:20:25] Every one but one has been sold. On the back, they start another section back there. I don't know how many that is, and we're already getting notices from the Planning Commission that we have a dead end at Ash Lake Parkway.

[06:20:45] They're going to go through that and build another 700. I forgot the number. It still got so high. The last number I heard was something like 729 units, and there are only going to be two ways to get in there. That's down Ash Lake Parkway. Now, and I'd like to ask the gentlelady, if you go out from Woodlake and you go out toward Magnolia Green out to Otterdale, you look over on the right before you get to Publix, and how many units every time I go out there, and they've still got a lot of land left that they can build on, how many units would you estimate being built in the last year?

[06:21:23] Mr. McNair, thank you, but it's not a back and forth. You can go ahead and just... Okay, I'm sorry. That's all right. It's not her district. Yeah, okay. I'm sorry. No worries.

[06:21:39] Okay. Getting back to why I'm here. It's a bunch. Traffic just on and on. So the two things that I'm out here for is when you come down 360 past Hancock Village, where the shopping center is, you come down and you're going to take a left on the Ash Lake partway.

[06:22:02] Now, you've got a medium strip. It's got a concrete. you got a sign that goes up and everything else so you're coming down there or what you hadn't got is a light now where that medium strip is down there you can't see absolutely so here i'm coming down through there and what am i scared of i'm scared i'm gonna hit that medium strip so i got two choices i can go close to it not get away from it but when i get away from it i'm gonna be over in that other lane where another car is mr mcnaught that's a safety hazard so i'm coming to the board and somehow figure out to put a light down there you can see where that medium strip

[06:22:41] if you could just wrap up your comments that'd be wonderful sure okay go ahead and wrap up your comments i want to make sure we've heard everything that you need to share with us anything else yes okay yes on the corner of mackinally and spring run you got the cars running out through there You'll be discussing this with Mr. Carroll, correct?

[06:23:10] Tom, can you stick around a little bit after the meeting? Sure. Can you stick around after the meeting? We'll be done in just a few minutes. Can you have a seat and I'll talk to you when we get done? Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. No, you're good.

[06:23:26] Sit right in the front, right there. Madam Clerk. 18 closing announcements, Mr. Chair. All right. Any closing comments for the Board? Board. Mr. Chair. Mr. Engel. We get used to just a few people being here until the end of the meeting when whatever they probably came for is over. Mr. McKnight, thank you for staying until 9 o'clock to share your concerns with us and to actually bring a thank you to the board. That's very appreciated. But there's several other new faces out there that stayed here until the end of the

[06:24:06] meeting, so I'd just like to say welcome to you, thank you for coming, and thank you for actually staying to the end, because most people make their comments and get up and leave, so we appreciate the citizens that stay to the end. I just wanted to acknowledge you and thank you for being here, and that's not to take away from Renee and Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who are always here, but it's to just recognize those that haven't been here that have stayed with us tonight. Thank you for that.

[06:24:34] yeah great point any other board members no you're fine don't leave yeah Mr. Carroll did you want to okay okay Mr. Carroll I agree most do adjourn before we get there I just want to make a couple of comments very quickly and then we'll move forward don't forget folks this afternoon we

[06:25:13] had a very long budget discussion. I really want to ensure that folks are watching that and encourage folks to watch it. We're going through the budget season right now. We want the community to be involved, and so please pay attention to when you can come on out.

[06:25:33] It'll help us as we're going through our processes. I got a motion. Let me get a second. Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. If you don't mind, may I read out the motion first before we... absolutely oh thank you so much sure mr chair we need a motion to adjourn to a closed session on march 18 2026 at 2 p.m in the public meeting room for the purpose of reviewing applications of candidates for the position of county administrator for the benefit of the public the board's intention is to go immediately into closed session to discuss applications the only business to be conducted in public will be the motion to go into closed session the certification of the closed

[06:26:13] session and the motion to adjourn the next regular board of supervisors meeting will be held on march 25th 2026 at 6 p.m right here in the public meeting room mr chair that's my motion that is thank you for keeping us on the straight and narrow second i got here a second all any discussion all in favor aye we stand adjourned

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com