Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Legislative Committee, Friday, February 3, 2023

Date: Friday, February 3, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 51m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2733
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the February 3rd, 2023 meeting of the Legislative Committee. Before we start on the agenda, one item that's not on the agenda, but wanted to make sure board members did get an update. You probably have read about the error related to school funding in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Ms. Arco is going to just give us an update on the status of that.

[00:00:31] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, yes, school divisions throughout the Commonwealth had a rude awakening this week when they discovered that the Virginia Department of Education had made an error in the calculation of school funding as a result of the grocery tax changes, the state grocery tax changes from the last legislative session.

[00:00:51] I think in some of the reporting, it's been a little bit confusing how the error was made and kind of what it means. What we've learned this week is that the funding distribution to the school divisions was correct. The issue is that the tool that the Virginia Department of Education gives to school divisions so that they can calculate the money that they can expect from the state was incorrect.

[00:01:18] So, the school divisions were given the correct amount of funding, but they were told that they were being given additional funding, and so that's what they were building their budgets on. Obviously, school divisions use that calculation tool regularly.

[00:01:34] They use it every year. It comes from the state, so they have every reason to trust it for some reason. The state didn't discover this error until a week or two ago. And so it puts school divisions in a really difficult position because, obviously, we're almost at the end of the current fiscal year, and then it's a problem for next fiscal year as well.

[00:01:54] It's a $200 million issue statewide. So the governor's made some comments in the press about, you know, asking the General Assembly to try to backfill this money and to try to remedy this for school divisions. as I think we talked about last week, the House and Senate money committees will come out with their budgets this coming Sunday, as luck would have it. But obviously, this doesn't give them a whole lot of time to come up with that amount of money. And so obviously, this is an ongoing budget process that the General Assembly will carry on with. And so whether they address it

[00:02:31] right at this time, or as the budget process goes forward is unclear. But this is certainly going to be an ongoing issue um that they're going to be talking about throughout the rest of the session um and so that's kind of the update on that front okay thank you if there are no questions on that uh we'll get right into the new bills on uh the first page of the first packet in your packet and the first bill is sb 1025 mr chairman members of the committee chris sigler assistant county

[00:03:04] attorney. SB 1025 patron by Senator Stewart deals with what we trial lawyers call the rule of exclusion. So during a trial you can exclude witnesses who are going to testify in the trial from the courtroom. This fixes an omission that's been in the code for a long, long time and it allows a government agency like us to also keep a representative of the government in the courtroom as well. So I think this is a good bill, makes some sense to add that, and we'd recommend that

[00:03:40] you support that. Okay, thank you. HB 2209. Mr. Chairman, HB 2209 is Delegate Trans Bill, and it would permit a locality to prohibit the sale and distribution of any pavement sealant that contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations. So these are sealants that folks used to pave their driveways this this compound that is in some of those sealants is carcinogenic to humans toxic to humans and they persist in the

[00:04:19] environment for a long time so this bill provides a local option to ban the certain products that contain what at least one percent by weight of that compound since it's a local option we recommend that you support that bill yes Supervisor Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This sounds a little bit like something that Montgomery County did within the last couple of years. But my question about this is, this is, okay, the retailer may continue to sell. So this is, you're going to Home Depot and you buy a jug

[00:04:54] to seal the cracks. Does this also apply to the folks who will, you hire to seal your whole driveway for you know five hundred dollars or something so I believe it does apply to both of those apply to every yeah delegate Tran certainly seemed to indicate that when she presented this bill in subcommittee so I think it does and I think our ordinance could deal with that so it's for the business or for the do-it-yourselfer yeah okay thank you the only question I would have about it and obviously a good local option to have is it does seem like a situation where

[00:05:30] having different standards and rules in different localities problematic, right? So the paving company that is based in Manassas and comes to seal driveways in Clifton is going to have to fault, potentially, follow a different set of rules and standards. So the opponents of the bill, this bill barely, Delegate Transit has been trying to get this through for a couple of years now, this bill barely squeaked out a subcommittee. I think it was Delegate Will switched party sides and got it out of subcommittee, but the opponents brought up a very similar issue.

[00:06:05] And I think the way the bill is written is that a local ordinance can prohibit the use and the purchase of. So one of the concerns the opponents had was what if Prince William, say, doesn't ban it, and I purchase it at a Home Depot there, and then I bring it to Fairfax that did ban it, let's say, and I use it.

[00:06:26] Well, we can prohibit the purchase and the use. So I guess it would be consistent within our jurisdiction. Did she not consider making it consistent, just banning it and planning District 8 or statewide, or that would be more difficult to get through?

[00:06:42] So I think last year her bill was a statewide ban, and she couldn't get that through. Okay. All right. SB 999. Mr. Chairman, SB 999, patron by Senator Mason, allows the DEPOR, the Department of Professional Occupational Regulation Department, issue reciprocal license for wastewater water works and wastewater treatment operators licensed in another state. I think there's an issue that public works folks have in getting some of these folks. There's a labor shortage. And so having reciprocal licenses would help

[00:07:19] that along and let them hire folks from other states. Seems like a good bill. We recommend to support that bill. Okay. SB 1091. SB 1091 is Senator Evans' bill. It would expand the allowable uses of grants from the local stormwater management fund to include joint flooding mitigation projects of condominium owners. That just broadens the type of uses that we can use that grant fund from, and it's consistent with the resilient Fairfax plan, so we recommend you

[00:07:56] support that bill as well. All right, HB 2282. So, Mr. Chairman, SB 2282 is Delegate Edmund's bill, and it deals with an exemption from Virginia's stormwater management program dealing with the harvesting of forest crops. That seems kind of innocuous. However, what this bill actually does um is that and especially the substitute which was offered this week what the

[00:08:33] substitute does is it'll create a new it'll create a new exemption in the code uh that would allow the removal of trees so long as they're sold harvested as a forest product uh when the site is not intended to be reforested so i can think of like what would it be intended for it might be intended for redevelopment and this would allow the trees to be cut down before any development plans are submitted and reviewed by the locality really this new exemption would would gut all of the attempts during the plan

[00:09:12] review process to preserve trees also it would exempt these lots as long as you're harvesting the timber it would exempt you from things like E&S management, erosion and sediment control plans and things like that. It's not a good bill.

[00:09:30] We recommend you oppose it. Okay. Well stated. SB 1365. Okay. So SB 1365 is a bill about material recovery facilities. And this was a tricky bill, especially for me. What the bill does is it puts a definition in the code that defines what a material recovery facility is which again seems innocuous but what it actually does is it removes local ability to regulate these facilities and

[00:10:08] that's a that's a that's going to be a problem for us these these we don't have actually have any in Fairfax County but conceivably some of the residue that's created from these from this process could be brought in could conceivably be brought into Fairfax County and and put in our landfill and that there would be concerns over water quality. They're not great material. The residues aren't great materials, as I understand it. What I ultimately learned was this bill is being filed. It's patroned by Senator Lewis. The bill's actually being filed as a result of a

[00:10:44] lawsuit that happened in Montgomery County. Senator Peterson represented the plaintiffs, which was a material recovery facility, a MRF, as our folks in public works call it. The MRF was represented by Senator Peterson, and he argued in that case that localities didn't have the ability to regulate these things.

[00:11:05] He lost at the circuit court level, ultimately lost at the Virginia Supreme Court level. This bill seeks to undo that. This flew under the radar. It's on the Senate floor. It'll be on third reading on Monday. I'm worried that if it gets to the House, it'll just fly through.

[00:11:22] So we're asking you to oppose this bill. Okay. Yeah, definitely will be important to raise the alarm about that. Mr. Chair. Supervisor Alcorn. Yeah, it looks like there is one in Alexandria, right across the border from Fairfax County.

[00:11:38] And I think we used to have one in Merrifield. I don't know if it's still there. Maybe it's not. Our public works people are probably here and maybe they know that. I don't know. But that's all right. I mean, opposing it is a good idea. you're here Mr. Harrington so tell us where they are Chris Harrington director of public works so we there are um material cover facilities in the county the problem is that the bill removes our ability to regulate the waste that comes out of them so we haul our recyclables to the MRFs MRFs process everything they can sell right and then what gets left over has to come back to be landfilled this says we can't regulate what gets left over so then it potentially creates the

[00:12:13] opportunity for someone to start landfilling waste in the county without any uh local authority over got it that makes sense thank you and sometimes they just leave it on site like they did in my district okay all right thank you mr errington okay uh hb 2449 firearms so mr chairman hb 2495 uh it limits an exception to the requirement that the state police withhold from public disclosure concealed handgun permittee information um and sometimes this information is submitted well

[00:12:52] through VEASAN. And the concern with this bill is that our police department, and really what the bill says is that it has to be, that information can be supplied to law enforcement, I think, when there's a felony investigation, I'm sorry, when it's related to a criminal investigation or a prosecution. So the concern from our police department is when they initiate a traffic stop, which is not a criminal investigation or a prosecution, they run this information through VEASAN so that they know whether the subject of the traffic stop has a concealed weapons permit.

[00:13:27] The concern is they might not be able to get this information as a result of this bill. That's an officer safety issue, potentially, so we recommend that you oppose the bill. Okay. HB 1428. HB 1428 is one of Delegate LaRock's firearm bills, and it deals with carrying – it repeals the prohibition on carrying certain loaded shotguns and semi-automatic center – fire rifles and pistols in certain localities in the Commonwealth. One of those localities is

[00:13:59] Fairfax County. So we recommend you oppose that. All right. HB 1462. HB 1462 is another firearms bill, Delegate Wiley's bill. And basically in Virginia, if you go to a firearms dealer to buy a firearm, you have to present a photo ID. If that photo ID is a driver's license that's a newly issued driver's license, you have to wait 30 days or from the date it was issued or you can't take the firearm home, this would repeal that and allow you to take it home right away. That's a loosening

[00:14:33] of photo ID requirements, and we recommend you oppose that too. Okay, HB 1671, land use. Okay, so the next couple of bills we're going to, I think, yeah, the next couple of bills we're going to talk about are reporting bills, transparency bills that I think the development community is largely behind. The first one, this HB 1671, is Delegate Wyatt's bill, and it's going to require localities to submit an annual report containing the total fee revenue collected by the locality over the

[00:15:09] preceding calendar year in connection with processing, reviewing, and permitting applications for residential land development and construction activities. Again, the recommendation here is to monitor this bill. It's busy, I'd call it busy work for our staff.

[00:15:26] This is something that we could provide in a report. I always worry about sort of what they're going to use that information for. This is information that's available currently. It would be available currently, yes. But we recommend that you monitor the bill, make sure it doesn't balloon into something more onerous.

[00:15:45] OK. Supervisor Gross. OK. HB 2494 is the same. It's similar. And let me discuss it briefly. This is delegate where's bill. And it requires the substitute actually requires more information and a little bit different kind of information.

[00:16:13] It's going to require us to report annually to DHCD some information that, again, revolves around the development process.

[00:16:29] But things like we'd have to report the adoption or amendment of any ordinances, incentives, or policies designed to encourage the development, redevelopment, or construction of housing, including accessory dwelling units, ordinances, changes to local fees.

[00:16:45] any studies and reports conducted about the local housing market, any revisions to the comprehensive plan affecting location density or character of single family or multiple. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that this requires us to report on.

[00:17:01] And the developers are behind this. I'm currently working with VML and VACO to try to work on something that maybe is less onerous. So the recommendation is that we monitor it, and I'll continue to work with those stakeholders to see if we can't narrow this.

[00:17:21] I think what the development community wants is they want to be able to put together some nice, shiny database where they can compare what's going on in Fairfax to what's going on in Rico County or Smith County or whatever, and that they'll have this information available.

[00:17:36] Yeah, it might be worth just mildly suggesting to them, the development community, is this really what they want our staff to spend their time doing as opposed to working on their rezoning?

[00:17:54] Mr. Chairman, if I may, I've more than mildly suggested to them all day. Yeah, and I think it's important, you know, for them to know that if this legislation were to pass, significant staff time would be devoted to it, and we don't intend to create new positions to do this work.

[00:18:14] You know, people would have to be taking off things that they're working on now to do it. Yes, and I've also tried to emphasize to the development community that the amount of information that they're looking for here would be, from Fairfax County, such a great amount of information that it would be meaningless to them.

[00:18:34] And that, you know, if you want our ordinance changes and staff reports and things like that, there's a place you can go online right now and find that stuff. So I think we're trying to work with them to come up with something that makes some more sense.

[00:18:51] We'll see if we can do that, I guess. Okay. All right. Health and Human Services, HB 1874. Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, Arielle McAloon, Human Services Legislative Liaison. HB 1874 is patroned by Delegate Helmer, And it would prohibit the Board of Social Services and the Virginia Department of Health from requiring individuals applying or renewing applications for SNAP and WIC to appear in person.

[00:19:26] This would help make SNAP and WIC services more accessible and helping individuals access those services as well as supporting flexibility and efficiencies for the service delivery so we would recommend supporting. Okay, great. 2437. And HB 2437 is patroned by Delegate Rome.

[00:19:52] This bill is similar to a bill that the board supported last week and would direct the Department of Aging and Rehabilitative Services to develop and provide training for court-appointed guardians, and so we would recommend supporting that as well. All right. Moving on to elections, SJ223 and HJ520.

[00:20:13] Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Jennifer Vanney, Deputy Director of Legislation. So these are constitutional amendments that do – they're exactly the same, and they basically – there's two ways your right to vote can be abridged.

[00:20:29] One is if you're in jail and convicted of a felony, and the second is if you're ruled to be incapacitated by a court. This essentially takes – and right now, if someone is convicted of a felony and serving time, when they get out, they can have their right restored, but they must go through a process.

[00:20:46] They must end in paperwork and things like that. This constitutional amendment would make it automatic. You leave jail, your right to vote is restored. It also changes some wording with those who are adjudicated to lack capacity.

[00:21:03] But from my reading of it is really just wordsmithing. There's no major change to that one. You still have to have the court say that your capacity has been restored in order to vote again. So those are the two amendments with the enfranchisement.

[00:21:21] In testimony in the committee, a lot of people were saying people got out of jail, they don't know that they can get the right to vote or they think they have it back already or they're not sure what the process is. And so this would just streamline it for them and give them enfranchisement again.

[00:21:42] Okay. All right. Great. HB 2208 and HB 2208. So the next two bills are slightly different, but they get at the same concept.

[00:21:59] So last week we talked about the study out to study hate crimes and racially motivated violence against the AAPI community, and you asked about anti-Semitism bills. And so these are the two that are still alive, and we would recommend support.

[00:22:15] The first one, the House Bill 2208, is a little clunkier in its language. Essentially, any time there is the statement of that demonstration discrimination is based on either race, religion, or national origin, it adds in a sentence that essentially says this includes acts against a person of Jewish faith or ethnicity.

[00:22:38] So it adds that throughout code sections. The Senate Bill 1184 just adds an ethnic in front of national origin, so it would read ethnic or national origin, which is a lot more streamlined. Essentially, how it would read now is safeguard all individuals within the Commonwealth from unlawful discrimination based on race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, or disability in places of public accommodation,

[00:23:18] including educational institutions and in real estate transactions. So anytime that kind of list of those that discrimination is prohibited against, they add in that ethnic into the national origin section.

[00:23:36] Okay, and this Supervisor Palchuk last week asked us to take a look for bills like this. All right, I don't see any questions. So we'll move on to page 5, and SB 1151.

[00:23:53] So, Mr. Chairman, I put this on for board discussion because I wanted to sort of let you know about these bills, and who wouldn't want to talk about standardization of public notice requirements on a Friday?

[00:24:09] So these two bills, they're recommendations coming out of the Code Commission, And I tell you that because that's when people hear that in Richmond, that's like a seal of approval. They go, oh, the code commission. So what these bills do is they really do stand, and there was a work group that had members of the development community, members of local government.

[00:24:35] I think VACO and VML served on the work group, a wide variety of stakeholders. And what they looked to do was to standardize a lot of the public notice requirements that are throughout the code so that they could get them more consistent with one another.

[00:24:53] And I'm going to call up, while I'm setting the stage, I'll call up David Stoner and Tracy Strunk. So what the bill does is it does standardize a lot of those public notices, and it crosses a wide variety of public notices throughout the code.

[00:25:09] And there's a lot of good. There's a lot of good here. There is something that DPD is concerned about in the bills, and I wanted David Stoner and Tracy Strunk.

[00:25:25] Congratulations. Our initials are actually the same. So I wanted them to describe the issue that they're concerned about for you that's in this bill.

[00:25:42] David Stoner from the county attorney's office. That's Stoner, not Strunk. There are two principal aspects to the bill from a zoning perspective, one positive, one negative. The positive is that it would remove the descriptive summary requirement from ads for zoning amendments.

[00:26:05] That's a tremendous positive, I think, from a number of perspectives. The counterbalance to that is a negative, I don't think quite as negative as the positive of removal of the descriptive summary requirement, but for zoning amendments that affect more than 25 parcels, the revised version of the statute would require that the ad include

[00:26:39] the street address or tax map number of each affected parcel. So where it definitely reduces the descriptive summary, removes the descriptive summary requirement in most contexts, in this particular one, it would heighten it way beyond what it currently is. Currently, the requirement would be that you, in your descriptive summary, identify the affected parcel sufficiently that people who are affected would know. You could do that by geographic descriptions, a map. If it's

[00:27:14] affecting a particular zoning district, you have identified the zoning district. So this would definitely, in those limited instances, be a much more onerous requirement, probably affecting other localities more than Fairfax. But from a local government perspective, it's certainly a negative.

[00:27:34] So, Mr. Chairman, if I may, when we discussed this issue, I went back to some of the stakeholders on the work group and said, you know, what's going on? And what I was told was that the members of the work group actually knew about this and that a decision was made within the work group that everything local governments were getting that was positive was so good that it was worth giving that issue up.

[00:28:07] So, I wasn't on the workgroup, so no one asked my opinion, but I think the saving grace in all of this, and again, I don't think this is necessarily the end of the world, but the saving grace in this is that the bills both say that that workgroup's work continues.

[00:28:25] And I've, you know, sort of said to VML and VACO, as part of that work group, you should reopen that issue and discuss that and see if there's any way we can deal with that next year. And maybe there is a way that they can do that.

[00:28:42] But I wanted you all to be aware of that. I'm not quite understand. Go ahead, Mr. Mr. Chairman, one clarification. I think I might have omitted a key component of this. This heightened notice requirement would apply where the effect is on more than 25 parcels and it is a reduction in residential density.

[00:29:04] Dwelling unit density is how the bill is framed. So it's definitely a narrower class of amendments than just anything affecting more than 25 parcels. Got it. Okay. And Tracy Strunk, not Stoner, Department of Planning and Development.

[00:29:25] So if it was a rezoning application that had more than 25 parcels, we would be noticing, we would include the tax maps numbers anyway as practice. The issue comes in if we were changing the regulations on a particular residential zoning district that obviously affects the entire county.

[00:29:41] That's where it becomes a problem. And the other piece of this I'd like to just bring to your attention is currently when we put our advertisements in the newspaper, we advertise at three weeks and two weeks, which gives us a little bit of flexibility. It's a little bit additional time for folks to have the notice if they're getting their notice from the newspaper. And it gives us a little time that if we need to make an adjustment, we then can advertise at two weeks and one week. This bill would also require us to do it at two weeks and one week. So we would have to change our practice

[00:30:16] somewhat on that and lose a little flexibility. But in terms of the piece where you would have to list, in theory, every tax map parcel or address in the county, that would only apply in the context of downzoning, is it? Right. Okay. Supervisor Alcorn. Mr. Stoner, could you explain why removing the descriptive summary is a good thing? It's a good thing because that requirement

[00:30:47] has been since in the early 2000s, the Supreme Court issued a couple of opinions elaborating on what that requirement was because it doesn't really tell you very much in and of itself. And since those decisions, which both invalidated legislative acts taken by local governments. That has been an Achilles heel, a key point of attack for anyone trying to challenge

[00:31:24] a local government action. It didn't matter how detailed the ad was. You could guarantee that if somebody wanted to challenge it, they would fly spec that ad and come up with some aspect in which they could at least claim it was not sufficiently descriptive, didn't put people on sufficient notice of the potential impacts of the action. And so by removing that requirement from the statute, it doesn't mean that there wouldn't necessarily be a descriptive summary of some

[00:31:57] sort in the ad or referenced in the ad or access to the proposed amendment, but you would remove that line of attack. Okay, that's very hopeful. It wouldn't prevent us, if we chose, to include a description. Absolutely not. Right. I think that's a very important point because, you know, sometimes our notices, you know, whether it's the yellow boards or something, I would say they're not in traditional English. You know, they're kind of in zoning English, if you will. So I think to a lot of folks, they would say, well, of course there should be a descriptive summary. So I'm not

[00:32:33] saying this should be a legal requirement, but I think we should be making it clear that we still would be noticing in general what the proposed change is in understandable English. And it might be the case that without the requirement and the kind of legal threat, you could write descriptions that are more readable to the average person without, no offense to the lawyers in the room, you know, lawyers wordsmithing it to protect us in court.

[00:32:59] No, that's absolutely right. And I can say the drafting of ads takes up a tremendous amount of time. So, I mean, to me, it feels like for us, hello, the benefits seem to outweigh the potential, I would say, remote potential that we could be in this 25-plus downzoning situation, maybe different for other localities in the Commonwealth, although it seems probably pretty rare for them, too.

[00:33:31] Mr. Chairman, that's my sense of where we are, but I wanted to bring this to you so you could hear that explanation. Good. so that you were aware that it was out there. Mr. Chairman, I just ask so we don't get crossways misunderstanding with any of our residents that if this does pass, then I would ask that maybe DPD or somebody quickly put out some sort of a memo or policy director, so bring something to the board that says, okay, you know, going forward, this is how we're going to explain to our residents when a rezoning, you know, this is how we're going to do notice because I wouldn't want anybody to think that our support of this is because we're trying to hide

[00:34:09] anything because we're not but we need to make that clear certainly and I would also say that probably wouldn't change much much practice on the actual rezonings that's that's a pretty basic description where we do think that there would be a huge benefit is in the comprehensive plan and in the zoning ordinance amendment where the detail where you really sort of get into the was that part of the advertisement or not. If we're saying rezone from R1 to R2, you know, that's pretty easy, but it's the other part of it that would be a savings. Okay. Just out of curiosity,

[00:34:43] I mean, we kind of jumped over. Is there a specific instance that the Senator is trying to address here? I mean, it just seems to me like while there's more good in here than bad, limiting it the way it did, it almost sounds like there was a rezoning that downzoned someone's property, and they didn't know it, and they're mad about it. Did somebody say what it was they were trying to actually fix? Not that I'm aware of, and I don't think this bill, I mean, this bill isn't just a zoning bill. It has notice provisions across the code that are changed.

[00:35:18] What we tried to do was highlight here the problem that staff had identified. I think overall, it's a it's a good bill but it came out of the Code Commission with this with this idea that if you can standardize notices throughout the code that's ultimately a good thing because then localities aren't having to say okay I got to do a week here and I got to do 14 days here and it can be confusing sometimes so I think the idea was to just make it easier for everyone and have a standard set of times where you put these notices in the paper and I think

[00:35:54] that was the goal. And I would just add, Mr. Chairman, that it could be that these provisions with respect to the larger downzonings is simply a replacement for the descriptive summary requirement that's currently in the code. Right. And I would just, you know, suggest at the very end of this, we didn't really talk about the convening the work group in great detail. But, you know, to me, that's something we should be supporting and providing input on. I mean, I kind of the same reaction that Supervisor Alcorn did. I mean, if at the end of the day here, we get some uniform requirements on notice, that's a good thing. That's transparency. But if we could also get flexibility in how we describe things so that we can be putting things

[00:36:33] in terms that people can understand, that's good for transparency too. And so I think we need to be thinking about that piece of this bill too and what type of input we want to provide and then how that input gets accepted or discussed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand. Okay. All right. Let's move on to SB 1470. Mr. Chairman, these bills are the ones that reorganize sort of workforce development, and the board had asked us to bring them back last week. Michael Beckett is here,

[00:37:09] and he's going to talk us through some of these bills. And so, Michael, if you want to come up to the table. Good afternoon. Michael Beckett is the director for the Department of Family Services. So Senate Bill 1470 and House Bill 2195 really sits to create the Department of Workforce Development and Advancement to serve as the administrator and fiscal agent for the Commonwealth's workforce development programs.

[00:37:41] I think what's important here is that what's different than what's written in the packet is that there have been substitute or alternative language that has been presented that actually takes out some things that we were sort of largely concerned about. Specifically, there was transfer of Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act funds from the State Department of Education to the Virginia Community College System has been removed from this language.

[00:38:15] That's really important because it really took away from locals, especially school boards, to be able to exact sort of education for adults GED programs and was going to take it out of the local school board and put it into the hands of the state school board in relationship to the community college system the the other thing that the Virginia the northern the the career the workforce development board for the northern region was very concerned about was the creation of a sort of unmitigated line of credit for the governor of five million dollars

[00:38:52] to sort of affect change in moving this, creating this one department. With these provisions being removed, the local workforce board is no longer in opposition to the creation of this department.

[00:39:10] But not only is the workforce board not in opposition, but we're all concerned about what happens through change, that the creation of a new department inevitably comes with an amount of sort of chaos and confusion.

[00:39:27] And what we're all interested in making sure doesn't happen is that the people who are in need of these particular services that we offer don't get lost. And so the workforce board as well as the department through other advocacy organizations will be watching the implementation and the development of this department over the next year or so.

[00:39:49] Okay, questions from the board? Okay, thank you, Mr. Beckett. Becketts, we'll count on you to stay on top of this one for us. Certainly. All right. HB 2207. Mr. Chairman, this is a bill brought by Delegate Tran, and it makes numerous organizational changes to Information Technology Access Act.

[00:40:18] So essentially that's disability accessibility for any web type or digital technology. So we wanted to bring this up to your attention. Obviously, accessibility is something that's really important for us, but it would come with a variety of changes, things that, and I will invite staff up to help me talk through it because it's a highly technical bill, but changes to our platforms as well as our procurement process.

[00:40:48] So it was more expansive when it was first introduced. It was going to require a position, a position to organize and write policy and do training on this change. And she stripped out the requirement for a position.

[00:41:04] Our staff do feel like it will still require a position, given the amount of work. The other thing we really want to emphasize is our staff is already doing this work. This essentially would be reinforcing that we already do this work and maybe speed up our timeline, because the delegate was admirable to a date pushback, but that pushback is January 1, 2024, which it was originally July 1.

[00:41:29] So she pushed back some, she got rid of the position, and she also made it only for new procurement. So it's not for stuff in-house, it's not for if we're doing any in-house purchases or things like that. So it's gotten narrowed, it's something we generally support, but it will affect the county in different ways.

[00:41:48] And the covered entities include state agencies? State, everyone. Anyone, I mean, I think... So obviously there's a fiscal impact. There's a fiscal impact, and there is not a budget amendment for it.

[00:42:04] So that's the negative of the bill. Okay. Mr. Washington, welcome. Greg Scott, Director of IT. Mr. Scott, I'm sorry. We've done a lot in this area. Federal government, Section 508 requires us to meet a lot of this accessibility, which right now we're at a level two, which is a AA standard.

[00:42:27] This actually will push us into a more advanced standards, which we will have to meet both state and federal code. So with that, it would require probably additional staff to support this initiative because of our digital footprint in Fairfax County and also looking at additional tools to help to augment staff to do this process.

[00:42:48] Okay. We do support the bill. It's too early to put a dollar figure on what it would take. Yes, yes. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good thing to do in general. I do have a question, though, on the covered entities.

[00:43:05] It's just government, right? It's everybody. My understanding, and experts are down there, but my understanding was it's hospitals. It's people, if you have a website. Anybody buying, anybody putting up a website. It has a carve-out for localities under 50,000, but that's the only carve-out.

[00:43:25] Okay, well, I guess we'll let Delegate Trant work that part out, but for us. I mean, I guess, you know, is it worthwhile, maybe we're too late in the process for Delegate Tran to meet with Mr. Scott and hear what our intentions are, what we've been doing on this issue?

[00:43:43] So, both VML and VACO have had continuous conversations with it. They both were cautious and concerned at the beginning, especially with essentially a new mandate without funding. They both feel like this is as good as it gets.

[00:44:04] I would say, and are supportive of the bill as it stands now. So I'm happy to continue conversations and schedule any meetings, but that is what our partners have been saying. Okay. So, Mr. Scott, you are comfortable supporting the bill?

[00:44:20] Yes. All right. No other questions from the board? We'll join that chorus in support of the bill and obviously encourage Delegate Tran to consider a budget amendment to support implementation.

[00:44:39] Okay. HB 1976, thank you all.

[00:44:52] So the next section of bills are all around temporary detention orders. So both Arielle and myself will be doing kind of trading off, talking about them. We wanted to group them all together. Some we don't necessarily have a recommendation.

[00:45:08] We wanted to discuss it. Some we have recommendations on. So we just wanted to get, we didn't want to talk about some of them at the beginning of the meeting and some of them now.

[00:45:15] So, if we start with HB 1976, this bill essentially allows, so with the current bed crisis that's going on where there's not enough beds at the state hospitals, essentially what this bill would do would, if someone has been TDO'd and they are waiting for their commitment hearing, which is required within 72 hours, but their acuity has gone down so that they no longer meet criteria.

[00:45:48] The facility, so a doctor at the ER, could, in consultation with the CSB, have them released early. So you wouldn't have to wait that 72 hours to be released by the judge. This, I think, in committee, they talked a large portion of that this is kind of aimed at the problem of those who may have become suicidal or expressed that because of substance use.

[00:46:17] And that as the substances leave your system, those kind of thoughts and things go away. And so the three to four days that the 72 hours require isn't always necessary in those cases. And so we would, the staff seem to be in support of this.

[00:46:37] VA CSB worked with them to have CSB included. There is some conversation about liability going on between staff. So I would invite staff up if they're here as we go throughout all these bills.

[00:46:53] But in general, that's what this bill does. And it's very similar to one REL has. Here's Mr. Washington. You know, I guess the only, and maybe this is a question that came up in the committee conversation.

[00:47:13] I mean, is there concern that this maybe could create an incentive for an ER doctor to release somebody who maybe shouldn't be? Does the 72 hours provide some guarantee that they get the full treatment that they need?

[00:47:30] What's the response to that argument? So I know that there is some risk and worry to that in other parts of the state. SB 1299 does have in their language about the CSB being in collaboration with the hospital system to help with that evaluation process so that we would have kind of a seat at the table, if you will, as they make those decisions.

[00:47:52] So the House bill doesn't have that language, and the Senate bill does, or they both do? I know 1299 does. I think that they've, at this point, the House and both HB 1976 and SB 1299 have been amended to include language about the CSBs involving them in the process of releasing someone before the 72 hours.

[00:48:16] Great. I cut you off, Mr. Washington. No, no problem. I forgot to introduce myself, Darrell Washington, Executive Director at the Fairfax Falls Church CSB. The other positive thing that's unique kind of to our area as well is I do know that Inova, because of the hospital bed crisis and so many people, you know, languishing in their ER for days at a time, have hired additional nurse practitioners.

[00:48:41] So they're actually prescribing psychiatric meds to a number of folks that are in the ERs. So it will be really some folks that sometimes have been on psychiatric medications for two, three, maybe even four days after we do this re-evaluation in collaboration with the hospital system.

[00:49:00] Okay, great. It seems like progress. Okay, so I think we can support both, right? One clarifying question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. So both of these were, I think, $12.99 was just amended this morning, correct?

[00:49:20] so if that one so there's a difference in language and so i guess i would ask the board which one you would prefer of um sb 1299 seems to give a little bit more control to the csb and um the the house bill 1976 doesn't necessarily bring up it says in consultation that they'll like work together but it doesn't say who has final call so would just um in that language differences since with crossover there so the senate bill says that the csb makes the final determination and

[00:49:55] the house bill says that it's made in consultation with that would be the reading of them again um the they've been amended very recently but that's that seems to be okay well i think if i see disagree mr washington our position is we want the strongest possible role for the for the csb in that decision making process that that's okay so whichever bill that is that's i think that's what we need to support.

[00:50:24] Perfect. Okay. All right. And you have two more in similar, same category, or at least one more? So, SB 1512 is another related bill, well, another bill that addresses temporary detention orders, and I think that there's actually a bill on the next page that ties in as well, although a different angle of TDOs, 1474 is a separate concept altogether.

[00:50:57] Okay, so let's do SB 1512. Yes, so SB 1512 is patroned by Senator Mason, and that bill started out as a pilot, only affected specifically for a hospital in Planning District 21.

[00:51:16] It's now been amended to be much broader, and so essentially what it's doing is allowing a CSB or a certified evaluator to screen someone for a TDO, and I'll probably let staff explain this event, Daryl, I think. Okay, so yeah, 1512 is different than 1976 and 1299 in that it is

[00:51:52] specifically for a new service that the state is trying to stand up, and it's really called a psychiatric ER, and the way that concept works is instead of having an emergency room attached to a hospital, you would have a separate sort of emergency room that's specifically for individuals in a psychiatric crisis. So at face value, that is a great thing. They've did this in other states.

[00:52:16] It's been very successful. The challenge with 1512 is it essentially cuts the CSB out of the assessment process and leaves the private hospital system in the driver's seat. So you could have someone in a psychiatric crisis that would be assessed by the private hospital system, would not touch the CSB at all, would not have an input evaluation, and that private hospital system would then decide if they would then be hospitalized at one of their own private psychiatric hospital beds, or whether they would need to wait and stay there for until a state hospital bed opens up, or maybe they don't need a hospitalization and they can just be released to

[00:52:56] the strait. And we would not know any of those moving pieces that are going on. So conceptually, a psychiatric ER is good, but the way they're having it spelled out here in 1512, I think would be not a process that we would like to go through. They can meet the need by doing 1299 and standing up a psychiatric ER where we would still have a seat at the table and be able to still slide in with that independent evaluation function. Okay, Supervisor Alcorn? I may have missed this. Planning

[00:53:31] District 21? Where's that? Tidewater area. Tidewater, okay. But they've now expanded it to statewide, according to the new language. So it kind of puts us in play. Okay, so it sounds like this is not fixable, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, the only question, if I'm reading this right, these were reported out of different committees. Why? Why weren't they, like, we're sitting here comparing the two of them. They were done in isolation in different committees. Is that right? Or am I reading that wrong. That is correct. And really, all three of these bills have been in different

[00:54:07] committees. In the House, it's been in the courts committee, in the Senate. One of the bills is in ed and health. The other was in rehab and social services. I'm not entirely sure the reason for that. Yeah. I mean, the only reason I bring it up is because Mr. Washington has smartly, you know, compared the two and said, if you do one, you don't need the other. And I'm not sure that, you know those things come full circle the way they should and the type of fluid conversation like this because of the structure system down there it just seems to me like they need to talk to each other and understand that one's better than the other and would supersede and theoretically

[00:54:48] in the process these things should get reconciled and so you shouldn't have bills that get passed that are completely at odds with each other by the end of the process but yeah sometimes when things are working their way through the process they go to different committees and they don't sort of marry up. It should happen by the end of the process, but it takes a little while.

[00:55:08] This one I think quite clearly we need to oppose, and unless there's other comments or thoughts on that, let's flip to page seven while we have the TDO team here and do HB 2410. Supervisor Gross.

[00:55:27] As I'm reading this, it says that there's a lot of data that they're asking for also to go to the chairs of the Senate Committee on Education and Health, the House Committee on Health Welfare, and the Behavioral Health Commission. They're leaving out the State Department of Health or whatever. I'm trying to figure out why this data should go to a political entity instead of a state, a department of the state. So oftentimes they will ask that chairs of General Assembly committees or joint committees get reports back or information back in the off session or in advance of the next general assembly session so that they can decide if they're going to do you

[00:56:07] know some kind of follow-on legislation so it's not unusual that they do that sometimes they'll ask state um state departments to be the ones who pull that information together or gather that information oh I do that reporting so it's kind of a way of uh sort of requiring a study um if you will but yes it I mean all of it really should be reconciled um and sometimes house and senate committees match well and sometimes they don't. The way that bills are assigned in the House is different than the way it's assigned in the Senate. The Speaker assigns them in the House and the Senate is done by staff. And so it doesn't always... It seems a little choppy here. That's why I

[00:56:45] wondered. Sometimes it is, yeah. You're going to do this data and then this one's going to do this data and where does it go? Where does it meld together? All right, thank you. Okay, HB 2410. Mr. Chairman, HB 2410 fixes what they call the seven-hour loophole where someone is detained between the hours of midnight Thursday night or 12 a.m. Friday morning and 7 a.m. Friday.

[00:57:18] and the TDO has been executed, because of the 72 hours would fall when the court is not open, they have to hurry up and get that hearing done that same day currently. Or if they don't get it done that same day, then if the TDO expires before the court opens at 7 on Monday again, and that person just gets released.

[00:57:43] And so it's fixing this kind of seven-hour weird hole that we have in the system. And so this is one we would recommend you support. Okay. Mr. Washington, any concerns? So from my aspect, I think it is a bill.

[00:58:00] This impacts us, I think, more than any other locality in the state because of the number of detention hearings we have here, and they have very long days, often 12 hours, and especially after a three-day weekend. That is pretty much the sort of course rather than the exception when they have real long days like that where they're having multiple detention hearings.

[00:58:21] My partner beside me here might feel different because it does have an impact on law enforcement, and that's kind of one of the big things. Eric Ivancic for the police department. I'll actually agree with Director of Washington.

[00:58:37] I think it's a good bill. It'll ensure that we didn't sit with someone for 72 hours for not we can get that consumer to a hearing and ensure that they get the care they need. It also makes it consistent with the way they compute time for other code sections across the code.

[00:58:53] Okay. All right. Great. we can support that. And I did just want to mention one thing. On the two bills you brought up earlier between the House and the Senate, being one in courts and one in a health committee, I do know Delegate Bell and Senator Dietz have been coordinating and moving these bills together.

[00:59:14] All right. So it'll just be important for us to stress our position that the CSP have the strongest possible role in the process. Okay. So let's go back to page, thank you all, to page 6 and SB 1474? Yes. So SB 1474 is patron by Senator Obenshain, and I'm going to have staff come up to help explain some of the concerns about the bill, but essentially what the bill is doing is directing the Department of Health to amend its regulations and also for local health

[00:59:52] departments and health districts to amend their regulations to allow food trucks to have allow up to 20 percent of their sanitation and food preparation to occur within a 50-foot radius of the food truck so they so that they can prepare the food outside is that is that what it Um, great.

[01:00:21] Okay. If I may. Uh, Chris Revere, the, uh, Deputy Director for Innovation and Planning at the Health Department. Uh, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. Uh, the crux of the matter here is that we have a local food code, uh, that the Board has adopted, that the Health Department enforces.

[01:00:41] Um, and as we just heard, uh, this bill imposes state requirements, uh, that would direct us to amend our food code, uh, and thereby encroach on our local authority to regulate food. regulate food as Fairfax County sees fit. As you were just saying, you know, taking a step further, these state-imposed requirements have no basis in the FDA food code, which we follow very closely.

[01:01:06] The requirements are arbitrary and vague, 20 percent, 21 percent, 50 feet, 51 feet, and would make them very difficult to implement. And truly, they serve no useful purpose in the regulation of food and safety in our community, which ultimately is the goal of our food code. So we've marked this bill as adverse. We recommend the board oppose it, and in doing so, you would be joining Arlington County. And this bill has been moving rapidly in the Senate. It passed out of subcommittee and committee this week. So hopefully our team in

[01:01:42] Richmond can be down there expressing our concerns. Thank you. Supervisor Alcorn, Supervisor Faust. Yeah, so Mr. Chairman, this means that we could do this now if we wanted to, is that correct? But this would take away our ability to do it, so it would require us.

[01:01:58] We would be directed to put this language in our food code, have to enforce it, have to provide guidance to our regulated community. Yeah, I'm comfortable with your recommendation. Thank you. But would it be a relaxation of the existing requirements?

[01:02:15] Right now, the only approval that we allow our food truck operators to be able to prepare food outside of their food truck is simply to grill or cook the food. The food is prepared at a commissary location, which is permitted by our health department.

[01:02:35] So it is already pre-approved. We already know that the food truck operator is going to be at that location preparing food, loading up their truck, taking it to the location, and they're simply just going to cook it outside, typically under a tent, and then bring it back into the truck and serve it to patrons.

[01:02:53] Okay, Supervisor Faust. Thank you. I just, I don't understand what they're trying to accomplish. If you could explain that to me, I could, sure. Sure. Well, this bill has an interesting history, as most bills do.

[01:03:10] It arose from a specific situation in the patron's district with a brewery, and the health department staff there went in and inspected and found out that they were preparing food outside of the premises, which was in violation of their permit. So the brewery wasn't happy about that.

[01:03:27] that they were going to have to take all this food prep inside, which I guess they didn't have a lot of room to do in their kitchen. So they went to their senator and asked that a piece of legislation be introduced to allow them to be able to prepare their food outside in a matter of which, you know, this bill and its language, I guess, would satisfy them.

[01:03:47] And, Mr. Chairman, if I may, the Richmond team's been looking into this bill, and Mr. Revere is right. That is the genesis of the bill. This bill is a Section 1 bill, so ultimately whatever passes won't end up in the code.

[01:04:04] It's just directory to the health departments like was described. I think one of the things that the board might want to consider is that this bill has been flying through. It sounds like such a reasonable thing, I think, to other legislators, and it's been flying through the process and not really generating any opposition.

[01:04:24] And I think one of the things that we might be able to do is to go to Senator Obenshain with some ideas of, I mean, we're concerned about, we haven't even touched the transportation issues yet. We've got some agreements with VDOT. They maintain our roads.

[01:04:41] And, you know, when you think about a 50-foot radius and you're next to a sidewalk, you know, obviously we don't want people grilling their chicken in the middle of the road. So we may be able to go to the patron. i'm sure he hasn't considered that um so we may be able to go to the patron and talk to him about these sorts of issues and exempt sort of v v dot things but we also may be able to suggest some alternative that might be more palatable to him like a reduced a 50-foot radius is a large radius maybe a reduced radius maybe we may be able to do some other things as well it just may be a very

[01:05:17] difficult bill to oppose at this point in the process yeah okay uh were there other board members So, Mr. Chairman, I mean, I realize that this just confuses everybody more, and I support everything that's been said here. But is there a reason why we just can't go to them and say, make it local option altogether, the whole thing?

[01:05:38] Like, this arbitrary of kind of rewriting all this stuff on the fly because of one incident and affecting everyone in the state. I mean, I don't know if that's a simpler way to approach him or not. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I always get nervous when we start legislating based on one example.

[01:05:57] And so we certainly could do that, too, whether that's palatable to Senator Obachain, I don't know. But that's certainly a reasonable. I mean, it seems to me like if it's soaring through, it may be our last-ditched effort to say, if this doesn't work in Fairfax, we just won't take that local option if it gets to that point. Yeah, that's kind of the status quo, is that we could do it now if we wanted to.

[01:06:20] Is that correct? That's correct. that's correct and and i would just add that we're we're one of at least a dozen jurisdictions in the commonwealth that have adopted their own local food code so this isn't just a fairfax issue or an arlington issue there's other jurisdictions that would be impacted by this right um so to to the extent that the the patron may recognize that there are luke local food codes in existence uh that you know wouldn't necessarily have to come under the aegis of of this legislation yeah okay Well, I think, I mean, to Mr. Sigler's point, I'm going to get to Supervisor Smith.

[01:06:53] Obviously, philosophically, our view is we have a local food code and it's working and we don't need changes based on one-off experiences that one senator had. But appreciating the point Mr. Sigler made that if this is moving and we can be part of the dialogue in a constructive way, we should try to do that and maybe offer a meeting to express some of the specific concerns and ways to potentially address it, Supervisor Smith.

[01:07:22] Does this address any of the health and safety and sanitary concerns, like if they could do this in that 50-foot radius? I mean, that's the first thing I think. Is it safe and it's outside and concerns? Is that addressed? I think that would have to be addressed through the regulatory process.

[01:07:40] So we would take direction from VDH in terms of safety of preparation and sanitation issues and things like that. Okay. So I think we can impose the bill, but if we need to engage in a dialogue with Senator Shane to, it's going to happen to try to make it less bad, we can, all right, HB 1649.

[01:08:08] Mr. Chairman, Noel Dominguez with the Department of Transportation. HB 1649 deals with towing. It's one of the bills I somewhat talked with you all a couple of weeks ago. If you all may recall, Senator Marsden had a bill to address private toes, and then this, 1649, was the companion.

[01:08:27] So Senator Marsden, and you all had suggested we go back and try to work with the patron to see about consumer protections and retaining local options, those sort of things. Senator Marsden decided this week that, understanding this complexity, he asked that his own bill be passed by for the year, passed by indefinitely, along with Senator Favola's SB90 that also was passed by indefinitely.

[01:08:50] That also had to do with the consumer protection section of this. And they are going to be sending a letter to the Secretary of Transportation and the AG's office to convene a work group to try to figure out how to address the private tow situation. However, in the Senate, SB1649 has changed.

[01:09:09] It initially started off with requiring all localities, including ours, to increase our base tow as well as the ancillary additional charges you can charge on nights and weekends and holidays. Now what it does is it allows towing and recovery operators to charge a fuel surcharge fee of no more than $30 for each vehicle towed or removed from private property.

[01:09:31] It prohibits local governing bodies from limiting or prohibiting this fee, and this would expire on July 1, 2024. So it lets the operators charge up to $30 per tow at their own discretion for the next year. Staff has looked at this. We did want to note a couple of numbers for you all to be aware of. Based on the average number of tows that we've had, I believe, in the past year or so, that could end up being about $1.2 million in additional fees if you look at the number of tows we've had times the $30 surcharge. I think, additionally, staff tried to

[01:10:08] to gather data on the amount of fuel used annually per tow, and they think because gas and diesel has been expensive, they think it's less than $10 would be required per tow, but this allows up to $30. So some jurisdictions are opposing this. It got out this week out of house transportation, 17 to 5, so it was not unanimous. There was quite a bit of discussion in both the subcommittee and the full committee.

[01:10:41] So we wanted to bring this back knowing that we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Don't believe this is the best posture that a bill could end up in. It is only for a year, but we did want to bring it back and see. One option may be to suggest that this go the same way that the other bill did, that it, you know, worked towards a study to figure out everything as a whole as Senator Marston is intending to do, or if there's any other options the board would like us to take forward.

[01:11:09] Yeah, I think this study makes sense. I mean, I will say, obviously, $30 seems very high. Gas would have to be quite expensive to justify that. It doesn't, to me, seem unreasonable that there could be a surcharge when gas prices or diesel prices are high.

[01:11:30] We do do that with taxi cabs, but it's, I believe, local option. Um, Ms. Makeley can correct me if I'm wrong about that. Um, you're in place with the mics too, if you can't work it.

[01:11:53] That's bad. Rebecca Makeley, Department of Cable and Consumer Services, and that is correct. With the most recent taxicab fuel surcharge, it gives the discretion to the drivers to charge up to $1 per trip on the surcharge.

[01:12:09] particular bill for the trespass towing operators would prohibit local authority from restricting that charge. And while the other difference here is the tow operators would be collecting the surcharge because they pay the fuel, where in the taxicab industry the drivers pay for their own fuel, and so that surcharge was going 100 percent to the drivers.

[01:12:33] So that is one kind of difference here in this surcharge as well. Okay. So, I mean, I think my, if I were writing this bill, it would be a local option for local governments to allow a fuel surcharge for towing at, you know, when gas or diesel prices are high, capped at some level, probably not $30.

[01:12:55] But it may be at this point, given that the work group and study is taking place, that makes more sense. We'll start at the end. Supervisor Palcic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the information. Yeah, I mean, I think my concern with this bill is the impact on rental communities or on renters in condominiums.

[01:13:13] I can tell you my old condominium community changed the sticker system from one year to the next, and people who had just moved in had not heard. They were towed. The towing was already quite expensive to go only maybe a couple miles. And so I do just want to be careful in a place where we're having tighter and tighter parking and more of more communities using tow companies than to be able to help with the parking situation.

[01:13:42] I think $30 kind of free reign, I have a lot of concern with, in addition to places where maybe in business communities they change towing companies. It becomes unclear sometimes with signage. So I think before we, if we were ever to approve this, I think we'd have to be a lot more clear.

[01:14:03] I feel more comfortable having local authority to kind of be able to address any additional issues that arise that maybe aren't helpful, but just increasing fees and impacting community numbers. So that's where I stand. Supervisor Gross. My question would be about our police program that you can, somebody complains about a dead car in somebody's driveway and the police will go out, take a look, tag the car.

[01:14:35] Would this also apply to that? Because I think while the police go through the process, they don't actually tow. They arranged for the tow by a private company. So would this be, would this affect that same, that kind of towing?

[01:14:52] Supervisor Gross, no, it would not. This bill is on the enabling authority at the state level for the trespass towing code only. So for trespass towing only, so it's not the code base. Not our public safety toes or any other toes. All right, thank you. Supervisor Alcorn. So this is just talking about the surcharge or a potential surcharge.

[01:15:11] There's currently a cap on what can be charged without a surcharge. Is that correct? That's correct. And we actually have local authority right now for our other rates. You might recall that we actually just raised our trespass towing rates in Fairfax County in October of 2021. The way the authority is at the local level right now is we could charge no less than $135 for that initial hookup fee and no more than $150.

[01:15:34] And so in October of 2021, the county did an analysis based on a recommendation from the county's Trespass Toe and Advisory Board, and we raised our rates to the maximum allowable limit right now at the state limit. So to kind of sum a supervisor, it's $150, so we're charging $150 right now, which is a recent increase in our tow rates.

[01:15:54] Yeah, I think $150 is plenty, I mean, personally, but, you know, we're right now. Okay. So, you know, I think we can communicate that the pending study and work group is a good place for this, and in our position on issues related to towing is a local option is the best path. Okay. That takes us through legislation provided for discussion. We do have a few position changes to review in the legislative summary, but before that, there was a recent,

[01:16:32] Very, very recent, as of today, development related to undergrounding of utilities that Ms. Arco is going to just give us a quick update on. So, Mr. Chairman, if the board will look in their packet that is entitled Legislation Requiring Further Review, Staff Watch List, and Legislation Provided for Information, and I really, really apologize because this packet also does not have page numbers.

[01:16:57] We will correct this for the next time, I promise. But it would be on page 23, if that helps you at all. On the bottom of what would be page 23, there's a bill SB 1370. There's a companion bill, House bill, but this late-breaking news did not happen on the House bill.

[01:17:20] It's under transportation. Yes, that's true. So there is a bill, and the reason that these bills were in the staff watch section the last couple of weeks is because they related to undergrounding of utility lines. And obviously that's been an issue that the board has discussed a lot at length in the last few sessions. So we've kind of had our eye on them, but these bills did not pertain to Fairfax County. Last night as Noel and I sat in the Senate Finance Committee at eight o'clock at night, the very last bill on their docket for the entire session pre-crossover was a bill by Senator Vogel. And suddenly she described

[01:18:00] verbally an amendment that didn't appear anywhere that added the Route 1 undergrounding to her legislation. The amendment wasn't printed anywhere. She only described it verbally. And in fact, when we asked the Senate Finance staff for a copy of the amendment, they also did not have it. So we didn't actually see the amendment until this morning, I think 5.30 in the morning when it was posted. So staff hasn't had a whole lot of time to look at it. Tom is going to talk to the board a little bit about what we've been able to sort of glean

[01:18:35] from it, but we really just wanted to give you all a little bit of an update on what we know at this point, and obviously we'll have to kind of watch this and come back to you all with more information, but that's why it's in this section now, and we just wanted to share the late-breaking news from today. So, Mr. Chairman, Tom Bishadny with the Department of Transportation. What I'll do is just kind of describe the differences, the change that was made.

[01:19:03] As Claudia mentioned, we have not had a chance to discuss it internally today across a variety of agencies which have been involved in the underground discussion. So we don't have any recommendation for you. We will be continuing that discussion.

[01:19:18] So the original bill by Senator Vogel amended an existing program that had two pilot projects to underground transmission lines. So these are not the local service lines that go to individual houses or businesses, but that carry electricity across long distances.

[01:19:40] So the original bill just added a third pilot. It allowed, the previous legislation allowed two pilots for this undergrounding, one of which was in Tyson's. It added a third pilot. So what the amendment does, or the substitute does, actually, is it allows for a pilot of a distribution line undergrounding, and it ties it to a transportation project valued at more than $250 million,

[01:20:10] which is intended to address the Richmond Highway BRT project in Fairfax County. It does say that the undergrounding should not exceed $40 million, However, there is a process that says if it does exceed $40 million, it can't be more than two and a half times the cost of relocating lines above ground.

[01:20:40] So that's what the bill does, according to the text of the bill. And as I mentioned, we need to do some more review before we can give you any kind of a recommendation on it. Okay, so Supervisor Faust?

[01:20:58] I just the cost is being paid by the state as part of a so the cost of the the undergrounding under this scenario would be paid by the entire all rate payers so it's it's not being paid by the state it would be allocated to all rate payers all dominion in this case to me all rate payers of where all all the rate payers that are dominion customers oh so everybody across the state would

[01:21:29] be paying for it? That's correct. Supervisor Stork. I'm sorry, go ahead, Supervisor Ross. Jeff, your big concern in the past was the additional costs this would add to the project.

[01:21:48] Would this be considered project costs that could impact the federal funding? I think that's in the category of things that staff still needs to review and figure out, because we just learned this today. Am I, Mr. President? That's correct. Supervisor Stork? Yeah, I heard about it this afternoon. Senator Solveig called me. I think there's potential for this to work and can make a difference and get undergrounding in those major corridors that I know long-term we're going to want

[01:22:22] and need undergrounding. I don't know much more than what's been expressed here, but I see it as an opportunity to do something that I know is a long-term good, something that would make a difference for the highway and something that wouldn't um wouldn't have any significant cost to the county well it would ultimately address what i know most of you know is a long-term need for us to figure out how to do undergrounding in major quarters and obviously when you have a situation like richmond highway where you're totally rebuilding the highway it's it's a natural

[01:22:58] place to do that so i think what i would ask for is that us to learn more and to be open to seeing this as an opportunity to do something for us. Whether it works exactly or not, I think that's what we need to take a look at, but I think it's an opportunity for us to see if this can fit in with our long-term objectives on the Richmond Highway Quarter.

[01:23:19] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll agree with Supervisor Stork on the point that we should review it, but we have to be clear that the impacts to the project aren't such that we're not able to go forward with it.

[01:23:36] So I think the issue here is that we've got to be clear that there's no adverse impacts caused by allowing us to move forward with this option. And then I know, too, and Mr. Chairman and I were just talking about this, the $40 million kind of number, I think we understand that our number, if we were to do the underground and along the Richmond Highway corridor, is significantly larger than that.

[01:24:00] And I see there's a caveat for it, but I'm not sure exactly how that would work out. So I guess we'll have to see in your analysis, Tom, how that would play out. But clearly, open to looking at it, but I can see that there might be a couple questions that we have to ask first and answer.

[01:24:18] We will look into that as well as Supervisor Stork's comments and be able to come back and talk. Chairman, this is highly technical, so I definitely appreciate the fact that staff needs to look at this.

[01:24:33] I mean, we've been working on this now for how many years? A lot. we suggested a lot of changes to pass legislation they weren't done and in the darkness of the night in a bill unrelated to the subject at hand all of a sudden this language appears that was written by who knows who and so i've got a lot of questions i don't disagree with the fact that if there's an opening here that benefits the county we should go after it but i would consider myself highly suspect given the surprise nature of what is in front of us and

[01:25:11] frankly I'm kind of disturbed that this is how business enrichment seems to get done but by the time it gets here next week do we expect this bill to have traveled anywhere or I mean I I want to give staff the time but I also want to be cognizant of the fact that if there's fatal flaws in this that, you know, no one wastes time pointing those out. And to us and to the General Assembly, before we end up with something that, again, is declared as success, we've given the county everything they need, only to find out after the General Assembly comes home that they've

[01:25:47] actually given us nothing to help us. So, Mr. Chairman, the bill was reported out of Senate Finance last night, as we mentioned. It'll head to the Senate floor. Tuesday is crossover, so by Tuesday. It has to be out of the Senate or it'll die. There is a House companion. The House companion is just the original version of the bill. It doesn't have this language about Fairfax County's project in it. I did talk to Senator Shoroville this morning. I believe he is talking to the House patron and trying to work with him on that language. I don't know whether that will be successful or not. And I don't know that the House bill would have a problem on its own, whether it would have a problem if this language were added. It might be a different story.

[01:26:27] And so, obviously, also the House bill will have to get out of the House before crossover to survive as well. And so those bills are sort of on that path, and that's sort of the timing of it. But we'll obviously keep a close eye on it and be – Yeah, and so we're going to know a lot more by the time of our reception.

[01:26:46] That's right. And I just want to be clear here. I think it was suggested, but I just want to be clear. At no point in time has Senator Suravelle come to our county staff and asked them for any input, guidance, or advice on this language.

[01:27:03] We were not aware of this language, no. Okay, thank you. Okay, we'll do Supervisor Smith, Alcorn, Faust, and move on from there. I would be interested to know if you know what the effect would be to rate payers. You're saying this would be statewide to Old Dominion customers, but it would not affect NOVAC customers.

[01:27:27] And it would only be projects in these certain couple of locations that everyone in the state would be expected to pay for. You don't have to answer me now, but that's what I'm interested in. Thank you. Supervisor Alcorn. Yeah, I do have a question for Mr. Bishadny. It's been a few months since we saw the analysis of the undergrounding and what it was going to do on the BRT project.

[01:27:49] I believe, what was the total, what was the estimate? Because I know it was going to include delaying the project as well as maybe some additional land act. Do you recall? Yes, Supervisor Alcorn. At the time that we talked to the board about this back in July, we estimated that the undergrounding could be a range from $264 million to $400 million.

[01:28:16] Yeah, I remember that $200-something. I couldn't remember the exact number. Well, that's quite a bit more than $40 million. Okay. All right. Well, I think it would be useful to at least make sure folks in Richmond understand that, you know, the price tag here is likely to be substantially higher.

[01:28:34] So thank you. Okay, Supervisor Faust, and then we'll move on. Tom, that number was the 264 to 400. That was just the cost of undergrinding, or does that include the inflationary cost for the project?

[01:28:51] That includes the inflationary cost for the project. Okay. So that is going to be a big number, And I would just make sure that this statute, this law, is clear that it includes the complete, the total cost of underground, this project, because it's the underground cost and it's the overall cost of the project that somebody's going to have to pay.

[01:29:25] The way the borough is structured right now, it is only the cost of the Dominion underground. This is what I'm saying. We need to make sure that everybody who's voting to do this to us knows that they're also going to be expected to pay for the impacts of delaying a project for multiple years to redesign that underground.

[01:29:48] And it's not just multiple years to redesign. The delays will be dramatic, having experienced underground. So the costs are going to be significant.

[01:30:04] I suspect we'll be discussing underground anymore at a future committee. Supervisor Stork, I'll give you the last quick word because we do need to move on. I think we can speculate about a lot of things, but I don't think we know, and I think we need to find out more. And I think there's been a lot of comments made that I don't fully agree with, of course.

[01:30:21] But what the cost will actually be is one of the things really still to be determined. And whether or not the inflation rate is 10 percent or 2 percent or what these costs are, whether it's $100 million or $250 million, I think those are things that will ultimately would be part of the conversation, part of the discussion, part of the consideration that this board would have.

[01:30:43] But I think what I'm looking for is the opportunity. And if without the opportunity, then frankly we could stop talking now, right? So the opportunity is what needs to be looked at and weighed and given us the same choice and discretion and consideration that we would want for any project or anything that the state would approve.

[01:31:02] That's what I think – that's what I'm looking for. That's what I'm hoping to understand better. Yep, and that's exactly what you're going to get. That's what we're going to do. Staff is going to do the analysis that they haven't had a chance to do yet on the legislation, continue to track it. I'm sure there will be conversations, hopefully, with Senator Suravell.

[01:31:20] And if it survives the Senate and moves on, we'll discuss it again next week. Okay. All right, let's move on. We do have some, I think, position changes to discuss in your legislative summary. Ms. Arco, where do we want to start?

[01:31:37] So, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to go through the pages that I know about. If anybody wants to call out pages that I miss, feel free. But I think our first position change is on page six. Mr. Chairman, the first position change is House Bill 1485, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed implementation plan effective date. If you'll all recall, we talked about this a week or so ago, and this is the bill that lets the ag community slide on its WIP-3 obligations. And the House

[01:32:14] bill is carried by Delegate Weber. The Senate bill companion is carried by Senator Hanger and think appears on page 44. Senator Hanger is a, I would say, is a pretty good friend of the environment and works hard in bills like this, so he was a good patron to have this bill and he, I think I had indicated when we talked about this bill before, that there were discussions between the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the ag community and Senator Hanger was negotiating those discussions. VAMSA were involved and I was sort of in the background

[01:32:52] keeping track of what was going on, the stakeholders did reach an agreement, and what the substitute in that agreement does is that it does allow, if you'll recall, they were given, the original bill as introduced was giving them a five-year delay. This bill will give them a two-year delay. However, there's going to be work groups put together that are going to develop metrics, because right now there aren't any metrics that exist to see where the ag community is headed towards meeting these goals. So there's going to be put in place a series of metrics that can track what the ag

[01:33:30] community is doing and how they're doing and whether they need extensions in the future or whether they're actually turning things around to meet their WIP3 goals. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation came out in support of the substitute. All the stakeholders came out in support of the substitute. So it's sort of a middle ground reached here. And therefore, the recommendation is that we pull our opposition and now monitor both of those bills.

[01:34:03] Okay. All right. Agree. Next. Mr. Chairman, next on page 12, Noelle is going to give an update on one of our initiatives. Mr. Chairman, page 12, HB 1587, the bill that allows us to contract sign removal, passed to the House as part of a block unanimously this week.

[01:34:22] Great. Then on page 14, Chris will hopefully give an update on local land use approvals. So, Mr. Chairman, in the local, this is the House version of the COVID extension bill.

[01:34:49] It doesn't say COVID extension, because as you may recall, I told you that in House, counties, cities, and towns, they pulled COVID from the bill and started asking for an extension based on things that they think may happen in the future, like recession and bad economics.

[01:35:05] Although today's news on the economy seems to suggest they're going to have to come up with a different reason. Don't tell them that. So, and there's a Senate companion to this bill that Senator Lewis is carrying, and I can't tell you which page it's on because I don't remember. But so the House version took out COVID. And after our discussion where I told you where I gently nudged you towards opposing the bill, I started telling our legislators and anyone who had listened to me that taking COVID out was really, really bad because they could come back just for the reasons I told you. They could come back for

[01:35:45] any reason and ask for an extension. So in Senate local government on Monday when Senator Lewis's bill came up, the amendment wasn't offered. It was almost offered, but Senator Lewis shouted down the legal counsel who was offering the amendment and said, I'm not offering that amendment. So COVID stayed in the Senate version. And if you'll recall, I told you all that I was prepared to hold my nose and just accept a COVID extension because we've extended these approvals for COVID. And I think our extensions are still going in some circumstances. So because the Senate version

[01:36:25] still has COVID in it, I'm hearing that the House version is going, when it gets to the Senate side, is going to put COVID back in it. And once it does that, I'm not asking you to do anything right now, But once it does that, I'll probably be asking you to go back to monitoring it because it's sort of hard to fight the COVID one, although, anyway, I'll probably be asking you to monitor it.

[01:36:51] So that's the update on what happened. Okay. I mean, I think with or without the COVID language, you know, we still have the authority to do this now, right? Absolutely 100% correct. Okay. All right. Next.

[01:37:06] Next, on page 18, we have a position change. So House Bill 1847, we opposed. It was kind of an omnibus of awful, I think someone characterized it as, on voting reforms that we had supported.

[01:37:24] So the patron came forward on Tuesday and basically stripped everything but the repeal of preregistration for 16-year-olds and then put in there that localities can – so if locality wants to do a risk-limity audit of their election, they have to ask the state board, and it was allowing for a couple different types of risk-limity audits instead of the one. They only have one type they can do now. However, this morning at the full committee, the Patreon did

[01:37:59] not show up. So I think for all intents and purposes, this is now dead. But I had suggested monitoring it since they'd stripped out most of what we did not like but update obviously this morning it's most likely gone gone okay all right it's moot point and great work on getting elements stripped out i think i would say even if it the only thing it had was the um elimination of the pre-registration we want to oppose it on those grounds probably but It's moot at this point.

[01:38:37] Okay, next. Next, on page 26, Chris is going to update, let me tell Chris what he's going to update, HB 2100 accessory dwelling units.

[01:38:56] Yeah, if you'll recall, HB 2100 is Delegate Hudson's bill on mandatory provisions that localities would have to put in their zoning ordinance about accessory dwelling units. It was quite prescriptive. That came up in County, Cities, and Towns Subcommittee this week, and she had offered a substitute that would have turned this bill into a study. There was just a, not very long ago, within the last year or two, there was a study of

[01:39:29] this, and so the subcommittee did not agree with her substitute, and they laid that bill on the table, so that bill is dead. Okay. Next. Next, on page 29, we have two items. The first is a position change. Jennifer?

[01:39:49] Yep. So, HB 2266 was an election bill we talked about last week. It was the one that said we required us, we had recommended amend to allow for a deadline of the Friday after the election for the absentee ballots to be reported by precinct.

[01:40:09] The patron had actually already put that amendment in there and actually had a further one. We had asked by the Friday after election, she put in seven days. So, and that is passed out of committee. So I would recommend monitor since the bill had been amended to reflect those deadline concerns.

[01:40:28] Okay, great. And then the next bill on that page, Mr. Chairman, Chris is going to give an update on torture rentals. So, Mr. Chairman, you're looking at the House version of the short-term rental bill, this is the one that would allow realtors to have different rules than other people. The Senate version was heard first in Senate local government on Monday, and the patron, Senator Lewis, is also chair of Senate local government.

[01:40:56] And at the beginning of the meeting, he basically said that this bill had been a firestorm, that because of that firestorm, he recognizes a problem when he sees it, and that he was going to PBI his bill, pass by indefinitely his bill, with a letter to the Housing Commission to study this during the off-session.

[01:41:22] He then gave localities a stern warning that whatever, you know, came out of the Housing Commission wouldn't be the same as what we've got. So be prepared for that. So his bill was PBI'd in House, County, cities, and towns on Thursday.

[01:41:41] HB 2271 met the same fate with a less stern warning for locality. How many, obviously, don't need to know the exact number, but how common are local ordinances related to short-term rent? Ooh, that's, I think, I mean, a lot of jurisdictions have them in various forms, and they're very different from locality to locality.

[01:42:03] So it's not uncommon. it's not in common. All right, next. Next, Mr. Chairman, on page 43, Noelle has an update on another initiative. Mr. Chairman, on page 43, SB 1069, that's our stop for pedestrian bill. As you all may recall, last week I mentioned that the patron had sent it to the Senate Finance Committee because it had a fiscal impact of the term was indeterminate. So VDOT took an extra couple of days to go and look at what the impact would really be. And what they found was they'd only

[01:42:39] have to, on VDOT-maintained facilities, they would have to replace less than 100 signs, totaling only about $70,000, $80,000. So they worked with us. It made it out of Senate finance yesterday evening, 16 to 0. So it's moving forward again.

[01:42:56] Okay. Great. Next. It was a very entertaining hearing, listening to Senator Sasselow describe that bill. Yes, the committee enjoyed it quite a bit. Mr. Chairman, on page 49, Jennifer has an update on the wrap-back legislation.

[01:43:19] Mr. Chairman, so this is the one about the actual system going into code. It was brought to our attention between last meeting and this meeting that they had changed a $10 annual cap to a reasonable fee, To which we had concerns, and so I was working with Fairfax County Schools this week to talk with the patron, and he was amenable to bringing that back.

[01:43:45] Bringing back the $10. Cap. Cap. Yes, because what we expressed was we would prefer lower, we would prefer no, but the cap gives us an amount of security. He was amenable to doing that, but he's working with the state police on the initiative, and they said they had planned to charge everyone $12 so that the project could be economically feasible for them.

[01:44:16] So last night at finance, the $12 cap was presented. The patron took forward the $12 cap. The discussion was brought up by our delegates of, can we go back to the original 10?

[01:44:37] The state troopers made a case, and the finance committee decided to move forward with it. After the meeting, Fairfax County School and I met with the state troopers, who we had talked to early in the week, and they are, not state troopers, state police, so sorry about that.

[01:44:59] They are amenable to talking about what that fee could look like. and was suggested either a formal or informal work group between now and the next session to look at how we could do some cost sharing. And the patron who currently has this, Senator Reeves, had actually suggested that and said he'd be more than happy if he gets reelected to carry an amendment, a budget amendment, to help pay for some of that cost.

[01:45:25] So the House version still has the reasonable fee language in it. So there is going to have to be some discussion between the Senate and the House if this passes the house i mean the senate obviously this hasn't been voted through on the floor yet um so there is some room for consideration of uh the fee and things like what is the estimate from fcps on what uh ten dollar or twelve dollar fee would cost annually

[01:45:55] i think it's 77 000 um and that's without volunteers and without new hires so so it's going to be higher than that that's just every employee that they current that's a position so how many positions do we have and that we'll be paying fees on and that's that but that doesn't include volunteers doesn't include staffing changeover which we know happens it does include part-time positions and then I'm working with our departments to come up with a number of how many

[01:46:33] positions it affects for us I again the biggest concern about this is that because of the price a lot of localities will opt out and then the helpfulness of this will be less less yeah I think one of the one of the things that became clear to state police and to Senator Reeves yesterday in the discussion is that he's been approached by basically no one about this except for us and I think in large part it's because no one really has been paying attention to this and other localities just haven't really been involved in this process partly because

[01:47:12] they're just not focused on this right now and you know the program's not going into effect for a few years and so I think they kind of you know when Jennifer and Michael Malloy who's our counterpart at the school system we're talking to them after the meeting I think it sort of became clear to them oh you know this affects school divisions throughout the state it also affects child care it also affects you know nursing homes and other vulnerable populations and who's really been part of these discussions and and you know what kind of cost are we talking about and even when state police cites some of these numbers and what their cost would be, what is that cost based on? How many people are they assuming are going to be in this program? Because if nobody opts into it, does that change their

[01:47:51] cost calculation? And so I think that was compelling to them when they thought about, you know, what is this really going to look like? And since the program's not going into effect for a couple of years anyway, there's really not a rush to do all of this right now. Okay. Well, I think it's important for us to be on the record. Our position is that the Commonwealth should be funding this.

[01:48:12] Obviously, if we get down to negotiations, 10 is better than 12. But there's a principle here that the system is less effective if everyone's not bought in and not everyone's going to be able to afford to buy in.

[01:48:27] Right. Mr. Chairman. There's that, and there's also the idea that there's a real public safety issue here that we shouldn't be putting a price tag on. I mean, thankfully, we don't make decisions about public safety just based on the price tag. So, you know, I'm looking at this language, and there's a lot of shalls in here.

[01:48:45] And so if this does go the route of a study, I guess what I would suggest is maybe a further compromise, too, is that we try to change a lot of those to May because we're precluding the outcome of the study. You're going to have to go back there. We're going to have to go back and change this if it's not May.

[01:49:03] Because right now I'm seeing a lot of what they shall do, which is not debatable. And so if we don't know what the amount is and we don't know what's going to be charged or even if something is going to be charged, if this goes to a study committee, I would just be careful with the language that steers the committee to a conclusion before it even gets a chance to meet.

[01:49:22] So I do want to clarify one thing. The majority of the changes in the code are FBI-required language. So a lot of – I'm not exactly sure where the shalls are, but the only part that we're really talking about is the fee section, which is about one-tenth of it.

[01:49:40] And so I'm not sure – I definitely will bring this forward and everything like that, but some of this is – if we want to participate with the FBI's program, our code has to read a specific way. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. So I just wanted to make that clear.

[01:49:56] Definitely hearing what you're saying, but I did want to – the majority of this bill is FBI-required language. I'm only talking about the shells that I'm reading in here that are related to the actual funding and fees that will be charged. That's the only part I'm interested in. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify that. The rest of it I'm not interested in at all. What I'm concerned about is some of this language tells the committee what the outcome of their study should be.

[01:50:19] And I just want to make sure we've left the door wide open to the possibility that if we care about public safety in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we'll pay for it. And that'll mean including paying to protect our kids in schools. So I think we need to be adamant about that point because I'm far from giving up that this should be a state service provided to protect kids in the Commonwealth.

[01:50:39] It doesn't seem like it's a lot of money, but these are the kind of unfunded mandates. They pile up on schools and requirements of schools and payments that we have to make back. And, you know, this one may not be a huge one, but it is not debatable about this should be a statewide responsibility to protect kids in setting up this system.

[01:50:58] And so if there was ever a candidate for something we shouldn't have to be paying to use, this is it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, next. That was the last thing on my list, Mr. Chairman. That was the last. Your list. Okay, if there's nothing else from the board, you also have in your packet the watch list, legislation provided for information, and we'll see you next week.

[01:51:25] And actually, Wednesday. I hope we'll see most of you on Wednesday. What time? Give us the details on the reception. 5.30 at the Credit Union House on Wednesday. All right. We will see most board members there. We'll see you there. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

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