Coraggio Consulting
Hanover County Board of Supervisors Meeting - School Board Nominations Public Hearing (Mechanicsville), Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Place: Hanover County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 4h 15m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://hanovercova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1578/media
Official agenda (CivicClerk): https://hanovercova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=5526,plainText=false)
Official minutes (CivicClerk): https://hanovercova.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=5559,plainText=false)

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-24. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:03:41] We now call the April 8, 2026 Hanover County Board of Supervisors meeting to order. As is customary, we'll open with an invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Ms. Pritchard. I'll offer the invocation. Let us pray. Almighty God, Heavenly Father, how humble we are to be able to come to the King of the universe.

[00:03:59] And thank you for all of your many, many blessings. We thank you for this time gathered here today as a community. And we just pray, Lord, that you would be in our midst as we do the people's work. Lord, we pray for those who respond first to our needs, the ones who get the calls on people's worst day.

[00:04:16] And we just ask, Lord, that you bless them in the performance of their duties and that you bless those that they leave behind at home to care for all of the things that they can't care for while they're out protecting our community. Lord, we are truly grateful for them. Father, at this time, we pray for all of those who may be in harm's way, who are in expeditionary environments throughout the world, and ask that you bless them, Lord.

[00:04:38] Help them to rely on their training, their tradition, their identity, their esprit de corps, and to know that they're capable in defending America's freedoms and that a loving and caring nation and an appreciative nation is back home. We ask, Lord, that you bless this meeting and all that we do in the performance of our duties, serving the people of Hanover County, and we just ask that you would be in our midst and guide us in all of our decisions.

[00:05:02] We ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. Please rise, if you're able, for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:05:26] Thank you, Ms. Pritchard. At this time, are there any consideration of amendments to the agenda? Yes, Mr. Chair, I have one amendment to the agenda. I'd like to make a motion to add the appointment of Dr. Frank Schelp to the Community Services Board representing the South Anna Magisterial District for a term ending March 31st, 2029 as a consent agenda item 5E1.

[00:05:54] Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Next item on the agenda is comment period. First, I'd like to recognize the treasurer for Hanover County, Mr. Timothy Boshan. Mr. Boshan, thank you for being here, Mr. Treasurer.

[00:06:11] Our Fire Chief, Chief Anderson, Assistant Fire Chief, Joe Powers, thank you all for being here. I do want to make mention that we are now the proud owners, the people of Hanover County, of an ADA-compliant trailer that's going to provide all kinds of safety measures and safety training to our community.

[00:06:31] And that is out front for those who would like to see that. And I think Chief Hartle told me that that's going to be at any and every event that he can get himself into. I think that's what I heard you tell Mr. Hudson, so thank you for that, Chip. That's great. It was nice to see how that operates, and Chief Anderson said, the old one, we got every bit of money out of that one.

[00:06:54] We did. That thing didn't owe us a thing. Did it still have tires on it by the time we finished, Chief? I mean, you did a great job with that. So thank you all and the leadership team over there. I want to recognize Sheriff of Hanover County, Gregory Sixth. Sheriff Sixth, thank you for being here. Of course, here's Lieutenant Colonel Judson Flagg.

[00:07:09] appreciate everyone being here I assume it's just to see how this budget goes is what I would imagine and everybody's out of the room so we know where the love stands but thank you all it's great to see so much leadership of Hanover County being here today any other comments from board members Mr. County Administrator thank you Mr. Chairman just I'll be brief today with my comments just tomorrow night we will celebrate volunteer appreciation at Atlee High School from 6 to 8 p.m. it's always a great event to see all those that go above and beyond for our citizens each day a week today we will be also cutting

[00:07:46] the ribbon on the new lighting at the Taylor Park dog park and on the 25th we will dedicate the Wickham field all these events are on our website and invite our community out to join us for those events and today just as my last comment I do want to thank all of our citizens our departments our constitutional offices for all of the feedback and work that we've done on the budget the board will deliberate budget adoption today I do want to thank from my office dr brown mark highfield shelly wright learn all the entire budget analysts and everyone who worked together to bring the board a budget while we accomplish a lot throughout a year

[00:08:23] the budget is a our priorities document and we spend a large amount of time trying to get it right and so i know the board has a deliberation yet here today but thank everyone for the feedback to make the budget what it is mr chairman that's all i have thank you sir my last comment is uh Many folks have asked about the Citizens Academy here for Hanover County.

[00:08:43] Of course, we have a fire academy. The Citizens Police Academy daytime course started today. Very well attended. I was with Sheriff Six and his command staff this morning. So that information is available. Mr. Dunlop makes sure that that gets out there, and we really appreciate that.

[00:09:01] I mentioned this morning when I last, I think it was two weeks ago, We did a presentation for a number of folks that graduated from the Hanover Citizens Academy for the county government, and I told Chief Anderson this. The lady was sitting there and said, basically, I need to get my certificate and go because I'm heading to the fire academy right after this. The Citizens Academy at Sheriff's Office this morning, just so well attended, so many participants. And I made mention, when we go to DARE graduations, there's generally over 100 people at a D.A.R.E. graduation in the elementary school, 100 people. And I think

[00:09:39] that speaks to the, as a matter of fact, I know that speaks to the community. If you think about that, and I'm sorry, Dr. Penicuff, I did not see all of y'all there, and I'll recognize you in a moment. But that partnership is amazing. I mean, nine o'clock in the morning at the sheriff's office, or nine o'clock in the morning at an elementary school for a D.A.R.E. graduation, to have 100 people show up really speaks to our community. So, Dr. Penicuff, I don't think you are tardy so that i didn't see you and i apologize but we have the chair of the school board miss whitney welsh and dr lisa pennycuff superintendent hanover county public schools thank you for being

[00:10:12] with us as well and please accept my apologies uh with no further comments it's now time for citizens time that is the next item on the agenda citizens time is a time where anyone who wishes to address the board on any matter within the board's authority is welcome to come forward we do have cards that you can fill out while you're not required to fill out a card it does help us with follow-up information or getting district specific information to the board member representing that district while we do not allow presentations audio visual presentations you are free to have a presentation you can give it to dr. j brown deputy county administrator and he will make sure that the board gets a copy and it will also go into the public record by a show of hands

[00:10:49] can i see i have mr nelson and miss zamorski who have filled out cards there anyone else who wishes to speak at citizens time very well each individual uh we have a budget presentation so we're gonna have to do three minutes today uh i'm gonna ask mr nelson if he would come forward first and then uh miss uh zamorski uh please come forward state your name the district that you live or the entity that you represent thank you for being with us good afternoon chairman davis and board supervisors my name is bob nelson i reside in the ashley district quarterly board meeting involving roads and traffic is a good opportunity so my comments today concern the median u-turn

[00:11:28] proposal to address data center construction issues on mountain road. Under the proposal, construction workers leaving the projects would not be allowed to use an existing median break. Instead, they would make a right turn and head north on mountain road. After driving a short distance, a new median break would be created for vehicles to make a U-turn and head south on mountain road towards I-295. Some construction traffic would still use the existing median break. Construction workers could use it to make a left turn into the project, and trucks and

[00:12:03] commercial vehicles could use it to make a left turn out the project outside two peak p.m. hours. I believe the major traffic problems with this proposal aren't on Mountain Road north. They are on the other side of Mountain Road, headed south towards I-295. On that side, Mountain Road divides and widens to two lanes near a storage facility south of Kitchen 33. Vehicles of all types will be able to accelerate and drive south at speeds of 45 to 50 miles, 55 miles per hour on Mountain

[00:12:38] Road. Construction workers using the new median U-turn will have to deal with two lanes of traffic in crossing or merging into the left lane. They will also have to deal with construction traffic at the existing median brake. Overall, we have high traffic movements, crisscrossing vehicle mergers and lane changes, and vehicles traveling south on Mountain Road at high speeds. Nothing like this happens today. In the future, this will occur in one-tenth of a mile. This median

[00:13:15] traffic, median U-turn traffic proposal will be a traffic and safety nightmare on Mountain Road south for many years if you leave cobblestone water park in a car or bus with happy kids that nightmare could be yours tracks data center proposal should be denied based on construction traffic and safety concerns thank you for your consideration thank you mr nelson miss zamorski thank you for being with us please come forward state your name the district that you live or the

[00:13:52] entity that you represent donna zamorski ashland district thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have been coming to Planning Commission and Board of Supervisor meetings for a while but haven't felt like I could get up and speak until now. I feel it is my civic duty. Unlike other speakers before me who have lived here their entire lives and clearly love Hanover County, I have lived here for only five and a half years but I too have fallen in love with this county. I would like to tell you a little bit of my backstory and why we chose to move to Hanover County. My husband and I lived in Virginia Beach for 42 years. He is a

[00:14:28] a Navy veteran, a retired naval officer. After the congestion of Hampton Roads area, we so wanted to retire to a place with wide open spaces, a place to raise chickens and grow organic food for our family. A place with fresh air, less noise, and houses not practically on top of each other.

[00:14:46] So my family had a big dream to find about five acres of rural land in a beautiful part of Virginia and build a multi-generational home for myself, my husband, my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. And we found that beautiful land here in Hanover County.

[00:15:03] This county reminds me in so many ways of my home state of Wisconsin. I love the wide open spaces, the crops growing in the fields, the two-lane county roads, the fresh air, the friendly people, and the quiet way of life. We built our home in 2020 and moved in in the height of the pandemic.

[00:15:20] Over the years, we have planted over 225 trees on our five-acre property. We have a small flock of chickens and a large organic garden. Data centers and the effects they have on nearby homes is frightening to me and my family. The water concerns, the air pollution, noise pollution, energy usage, traffic concerns, and now recent heat bubble issues have all been documented across this country in various studies, as you have heard from other speakers over the months.

[00:15:49] I do have some specific water concerns. We had 24 feet in our well when we built our house, and when it was inspected last year, we are down to six feet. I've heard a lot that about 70% of people in this county have wells. Water is precious, and data centers use too much.

[00:16:06] So I ask you to please vote no and deny any more data centers for this county. In closing, I do want to thank the county for saying no to Hunting Hawk. Please do the same for Mountain Road and any additional data centers that have been proposed.

[00:16:22] Virginia has more data centers than anywhere else in this country, and I believe the state already has enough. please don't make our family regret building our dream home here remember that citizens in this county will remember how you voted on these data centers when it comes time for us to vote for all of you and my family does really want to stay here and not move thank you for your time thank you next speaker please hello i'm holly makey from south anna and i'm also with friends of hanover

[00:16:59] hanover county needs a moratorium on all future data center developments at a bare minimum there needs to be an ordinance for these massive developments that want to come into Hanover County. There is already another one on 33 at Harris Farm Lane that is in pre-application meetings. This one is within earshot of the Track Mountain Road Technology Park site, which I am vehemently opposed to. This brings the total to seven that have or are attempting to develop data centers in Hanover. Hanover Technology Park approved March 2024. Hunting

[00:17:33] Hawk Technology Park, withdrawn February of 2026. Mountain Road Technology Park, in process. Iron Horse, in process. Old Ridge, in process. Route 30, Ben's Road. They sent letters to neighbors about plans for a data center site. And now the Harris Farm Lane pre-application meeting.

[00:17:53] I ask you, how many data centers do we need in Hanover? Isn't one enough? Especially since that one is 1,200 acres and 2,400 megawatts of power. TRAC promised $1.78 billion, that's billion with a B, in revenue dollars over the next 20 years for Hanover County from this one development at Hanover Technology Park. They promised $27.5 million starting in 2028. We know that this is now pushed back at least two years. Isn't approximately $89 million a year in revenue from this one already

[00:18:28] approved data center enough? It's over 10% of our county budget. I think the old adage of not putting all your eggs in one basket applies here. Do we really need any additional data centers in Hanover County? Shouldn't we wait to see if TRAC fulfills its promises it made to you in March of 2024 before new development is considered? Our resources are not limitless and neither is the patience of Hanover County citizens. Please send a clear message that Hanover is not for sale to these data center developers, and place a moratorium on all future data centers. Thank you.

[00:19:04] Next speaker, please. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Ashley Covington, Cold Harbor District. Today, I want to talk about three things. The footprint of hyperscale data centers, why many may never be built, and why we need a moratorium now. First, the footprint. A modern hyperscale data center now requires 200 to 500 acres. That's not a technology park. That's an industrial campus covered in concrete. Once that land is paved, it never goes back. You can't

[00:19:38] unbuild a data center. Data center electricity use has tripled since 2014 and grown 150% in just the past five years. Dominion's own representatives admit capacity prices are rising because of data centers. And who pays? Families already struggling with higher bills pay. Second, developers aren't telling you that nearly half of all the planned U.S. data centers are being delayed or canceled.

[00:20:12] Sightline Climate found that 30 to 50 percent of planned data centers will not be completed on time. In 2025 alone, 48 projects were affected. 31 canceled, 17 delayed. And we see this firsthand.

[00:20:27] And Hickory Hills revenue timeline jumped from 2028 to 2030, maybe. Developers announced projects they can't deliver. Today, this board is voting to continue giving data centers the same 45 on 100 tax break that they've been getting since 2010.

[00:20:48] So an industry that wants to pave over our rural land, drain our aquifers, strain our grid, and raise our electric bills gets a tax break? Meanwhile, every small business in Hanover pays full taxes. Every homeowner pays full taxes.

[00:21:07] Every family struggling with rising electricity costs pays full taxes. But a trillion-dollar industry? We give them a discount. We pay them to destroy our rural way of life. Is Hanover really a pick-me county?

[00:21:24] And here's what's happened because of that. Hickory Hill was approved March of 2024. That was supposed to be one and done. Hunting Hawk withdrew. Now Mountain Lane is up. And there's another site already waiting near Harris Farm Lane. Not to mention what Holly said.

[00:21:41] Loudon started with one. Now they have over a hundred. The developers won't stop. not unless we make them. Most urgently, we need a county-wide moratorium on all new data center developments, a pause to study the impacts on our grid, our water, our health, and our rural character.

[00:22:02] And while we fight this, the industry keeps getting tax breaks, and that is wrong. So this is up to you to protect the people that live here, to protect our land, to protect our wallets, protect the future of handover. Please, a moratorium, now.

[00:22:18] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you, ma'am. Please state your name, the district that you live, or the entity you represent. Thank you for being with us. Pamela Clifton, South Anna District, Ms. Dibble. I would truly appreciate it if you pay attention to what I'm about to say since you represent my district.

[00:22:36] I have lived in a neighborhood for 24 years that this data center will have a great impact on. Let me start off by saying that the county has not been very transparent about this data center. When you were considering the Route 33 project, we received letters on a constant basis.

[00:22:54] But in reference to the data center, I have received nothing. I only found out by word of mouth from another neighbor. You were elected to this board to ensure that our constituents of Hanover County are safe and that their best interests are looked after. But in this case, you will have dropped the ball considerably if you allow this data center to be placed in a highly residential area where it will have lasting impacts on the residents, wildlife, and their domesticated animals, water and air quality, and overall health of all.

[00:23:22] I have to ask myself, was this your plan all along? And have any contracts with Virginia Power been put in place by the data center in advance of notifying the public? Having these forums and making a final decision on the location of this data center, Hanover still has a great deal of rural areas that this data center could be placed, for example.

[00:23:41] Why not place it in a more rural area? Why in a residential area? When politicians put money and finances above the health and safety of their constituents, We need to ask ourselves, do you belong on this board? I have been a nurse for 33 years. I, when looking up the health concerns, believe that we wouldn't even be here to speak if anybody on this board looked into the effects that it has on health alone.

[00:24:06] Chronic noise exposure and its health effects, increased stress hormone levels, higher risk of hypertension, sleep disruption and insomnia, reduced cognitive performance, especially in children, headaches and irritability, air quality risks, nitrogen oxides, particular matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide. These pollutants are associated with asthma attacks, cardiovascular disease, respiratory irritation, increased risk for vulnerable populations, children, elderly, and pregnant individuals. Heat pollution and its impact on health. Increase heat-related illness. Exacerbate respiratory conditions. Raise indoor

[00:24:44] temperatures in nearby homes, especially older ones. Increase energy bills as residents must cool their homes more aggressively. Not to mention the impact that it has on mental health and quality of life. Living next to an industrial facility can create chronic stress. You have 30 seconds, ma'am. Due to noise, light pollution, constant vibration, fear of accidents or spills, loss of peace and privacy. Not to mention the effects that it has on hearing. Low frequency vibrations, high pitched electrical noise, intermittent generator blasts, effects on dogs

[00:25:18] and other domestic animals including the natural wildlife anxiety barking agitation avoidance behavior your final thoughts ma'am behavioral disruption my final thoughts on this subject are that if you allow another data center to be placed in hanover county um and you look and you do not um fight for your constituents um what truly is your purpose thank you ma'am thank you next speaker please. Anyone else? Seeing none, we will close citizen's time. The next item will be. Oh,

[00:25:52] I'm Sarah Morgan, and I live in the South Anna district. And I've heard a lot of people talk about electricity, water, sound, air pollution, traffic, a lot of really good reasons to not have a data center. Another thing comes to mind. When you go and Google something or look up something on the internet, the first thing you see is a bunch of AI information. And how often have you found that that AI information is wrong. Also, when you are getting your news feed and looking at general information on the internet, how many times have you gotten a newsflash about how to

[00:26:31] avoid AI in your search, right? So now people are starting to understand that AI a lot of times is bogus, and how can we avoid using AI? My sister sent me a meme for Easter. It was a little bunny and a kitten, and they were looking at an egg or some kind of little cutesy thing. It was obviously AI. This kitten's head was too wide, its eyes were kind of funny, and the bunny was obviously used to be a cat, and they put ears on it, and it was horrible. And I'm like, this is AI. Why do

[00:27:07] people send out this crap, right? And it's terrible. Nobody likes, I don't understand how people can use AI and think that it's good, right? So the reason data centers have exploded is because of AI, right? I mean, yeah, data centers are good. They can store, you know, information from hospitals and stuff like that. But we have that. We already have enough data centers for that. We don't, the reason it's exploding is because of AI. But do we want to support AI, you know? AI, I don't see

[00:27:41] anything good about AI. Okay, there's a few applications, but it's awful. Every time I look up something on AI, it's wrong. Okay, I have German Shepherds, right? I know a lot about German Shepherds. I look up something about German Shepherds, and it's wrong, right? I know it's wrong. So if it's something that even I know is wrong, and about something that's not even very important to the general people, what about all the other stuff that you look up that you don't even know and you think it's true but it's not so really think about do you

[00:28:17] want to support AI I you know I can't believe that anyone is still wanting to support data centers after all the the people have stood up and talked about it and I know there's a lot of good reasons not to you 30 seconds another one let's not support AI thank you you anyone else anyone else take your time thank you for being with us sir please state your name in the district that you live thank you very much my name is Alvin Winston I'm concerned about the taxes on elderly and the very young adults.

[00:28:50] I was born in 1939, and people that are over 70 years of age, there's no reason or logical reason why anyone should have to pay personal property tax or any form of tax.

[00:29:07] The county doesn't need the money that bad. There's enough money to alleviate those people throughout the state of Virginia from paying taxes. For the young that are marrying, want to buy homes, you're talking about people that's in their late 20s up to middle 30s.

[00:29:29] They're paying for over $400,000 for a half-built house to a million and a quarter. In my day, we wouldn't have accepted a house in that condition, but that kind of money.

[00:29:46] They're not built solid. In a few years, by the time these kids are being in a house 25 or 30 years, it's pile of trash. The state of Virginia needed to consider that. The time that I came along, we had many people didn't have college educations.

[00:30:06] Our income has never met what is being, have to pay for today. Consider that there's no reason why Hannaville County or any other county in the state of Virginia or in fact throughout the United States should have to utilize, break the backs of the elderly.

[00:30:29] I'm 87 years old. I'm pushing 90. Seems like it anyway. They are great. Do something about that. You have the capability. Your people have probably more education than most of the people that are over 80 years, 70, 80 years old.

[00:30:48] If you don't, listen to those that do and can do something about it. Thank you so very much. Thank you, sir. Especially the children. The children are, they're just, they're binded into something they didn't ask for.

[00:31:05] Everyone wants a home, but these kids that are having to pay nearly a million or over a million dollars and then find out they have to pay tax, have pay insurance that they never consider, these kids are going to lose their homes in a few years. Thank you.

[00:31:23] Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Anyone? Very well. We will close Citizens Time. the next item on the agenda is a consent agenda it has been amended with item 5e1 is there a motion to approve the consent agenda we have a motion by miss pritchard is there a second second second by miss dibble all of those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye any opposed motion carries for the record miss floyd also wanted to second that motion next item on the agenda item number six is a presentation for potential adoption and potential appropriation of the fy 27 hanover

[00:32:03] County budget and associated ordinances resolutions tax rates and policies with us today is mr. mark highfield our budget division director mr. highfield thank you for being with us hello thank you so as you said my name is mark highfield I'm the budget division director for Hanover County and today's meeting is to adopt and appropriate the FY 27 budget and associated tax rates ordinances and resolutions first I will recap the amendments to the proposed budget. Today, staff is recommending the same amendments as presented previously, one of which

[00:32:38] changes the all funds budget. The amendments would add two positions to the school-based mental health clinician program staffed by the community services board. One clinician would be added by reclassifying an existing vacant position, and the second would be added using $111,000 of state Step Virginia grant funding. So the result would be a team of four, three clinicians and a clinical supervisor who also has clinical responsibilities. The other previously presented amendment would move budget

[00:33:12] for fire station maintenance between departments from fire EMS to general services at no change to the total budget or the maintenance budget. The dollar impact of these amendments is a $110,644 dollar increase to the proposed general fund and all fund budgets. This added amount is grant funding. There is no change to the local dollars in this amendment. Should the board choose to move

[00:33:42] forward with this amendment, you'd be adopting an all funds budget for fiscal year 27 of $797,470,362. following actions will be needed today and mr. chairman i have a slide for each associated motion when you are ready to begin entertaining motions there any questions for mr highfield questions for mr highfield mr highfield would you mind uh taking a seat and we're going to open it up for discussion amongst board members before we get to that but uh please stay with us we'll do thank

[00:34:21] you mr highfield i'll start with ms pritchard and move our way this way ms pritchard do you have any comments ma'am um thank you mr. chair it's always fun to be the first person um I think everyone knows because I've said it about 14 times that I would be much more comfortable if we could fit one more mental health counselor into this budget and I am very troubled by our inability to do that that being said I'm looking back at the fire chief and I know he can't hire one more fireman either and so it's it's a tight tight budget year with with very tight

[00:34:56] considerations. And as folks call me, and they do, about lowering our tax rate, and they say to me pretty consistently, well, you know, Chesterfield and Henrico have lowered their tax rate. At the very same time, I get phone calls all the time that say, please don't turn us into Chesterfield or Henrico. Well, we can't keep from having a business on every corner, and we can't keep our rural properties if we're going to lower the tax rate that's how they do it they do it by the level of development so so what I want to say is as tough as

[00:35:35] it is we cannot have it both ways and while this is a tight budget and there are changes that I would wish for I'm going to support our budget as it stands this is Floyd thank you I I echo miss Pritchard's comments I will be supporting the budget as it stands there are of course things that that we all you know wish could be tweaked but there is only so much money so we can't spend money we don't have that would not be fiscally responsible so with that i will be supporting thank you mr hudson thank you mr

[00:36:12] chair i've wrestled with uh things i've heard folks ask why are we going to spend over a million dollars in pickleball courts, and we can't fund our school-based mental health as it currently stands. And I hear you and understand what you're saying. I've heard folks say that our budget has

[00:36:41] increased some 75% since COVID. I hear you, but you're wrong. We're building schools that we were, that the staff at the time was told that they needed to go before the 2008 economic crisis.

[00:37:03] And so at that time, Hanover County did not expand. They tightened up and once again worked within the parameters that they had set forth. And so now we're paying catch up. We're playing catch up. I hear about the tax assessments. Mine goes up too. And it also went down back in 9, 10, 11, and 12. And so I feel confident in regard to the school-based mental health that this board

[00:37:41] will continue to work to dig and to keep it a priority, if not an initiative. That's something that I think will be happening going forward. I do want to thank our school partners for allowing this program to continue to move to move forward i've learned that many localities many school systems don't allow csb staff to come into their schools i can't imagine that and i would say to folks to continue to advocate for that and um just uh mr chair thank you for your time i'll be

[00:38:19] supporting the budget as it stands uh and i look forward to working with all of you uh to continue to make improvements and advocate where we can thank you sir thank you mr huts and mr hersberg Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to begin my comments by turning to page 34 of the county budget. I'm going to read a paragraph.

[00:38:41] Competitive compensation is critical to attracting and maintaining a highly skilled workforce. Hanover County has experienced recruitment and retention challenges throughout the organization.

[00:38:59] I'm going to add my words to that sentence over the years. Back to the language in the budget. These challenges are expected to persist due to a competitive labor market where employees have choices.

[00:39:21] These are my words. They could choose to work in Hanover. They could choose to work in Henrico. They could choose to work in Chesterfield. They could choose to work in the city of Richmond. All who have a lot more tax revenue than Hanover does because they have higher tax rates and in some cases, they have meals taxes. Back to the language in the budget. The fiscal year

[00:39:50] 27 budget includes a 3% merit increase for county employees, and that's all I'm going to read from that paragraph. This is important to recognize because one of the things that is a priority for me in the county budget as a small business owner who has hired heating and air conditioning and electricians and gas fitters through the years, it is a competitive labor market. It is.

[00:40:28] And when another company comes along and offers one of your longtime employees more money, sometimes they stay. Sometimes they go where there's more money. Some of those people you never see again, some of them they call you up and say, I want to come back. I had a better deal with you. But I can assure you it is a very competitive market. And so when we're competing with other localities that have more money and more economic development, it's hard and difficult

[00:41:03] to cut the tax rate. Imagine if you were a bus driver who'd been driving a bus for 30 years and you're 59 years old, 61 years old, and you hear, oh, Hanover County cuts the tax rate. Well, that'll save me $80 on my real estate. But you're not getting a raise. And Chesterfield comes out and announced is 5%, raised for bus drivers. Then the call will be, well, geez, Hanover doesn't

[00:41:35] appreciate me much. Board of Supervisors doesn't care about bus drivers. And that's something that I consider and process every year. What I also know is that there are different priorities across the county. We had a citizen spoke very well not long ago, and he said, y'all's job is to prioritize everything across the county. Take into consideration all the needs, all the groups, not just the one individual or not just the one individual group. So for some groups, it's

[00:42:13] cut my taxes. I'm 90 years old. I'm not going to sell my house. I don't care what it's worth. I just want a tax cut. And I understand that for a 90-year-old person who doesn't plan on selling their house. They don't care what it's worth. I get that. But then there's families that have three, four, five kids in the school. Each kid may be a $7,000 investment from the Hanover taxpayer, and you have five of them. That's a $35,000 education expense for one household who's

[00:42:49] paying $4,000 into the budget. That's a negative $31,000. And that's why the economic development is so important. What do those single moms care about or those families with five kids? They want a boss that shows up on time, don't they?

[00:43:06] I know, I stand on the corner, I listen to it, I see it routinely. They want cafeteria workers that are in there preparing meals. I remember when I started on the board, some of those ladies were making $10 an hour. And when we did 3%, they got 30 cents per hour.

[00:43:25] And I remember talking to Supervisor Pritchard about that. They said, we've got to do something different and better about these cafeteria workers who stand in on their feet all day feeding our kids. Number one priority for me has always been, and it continues to be, public safety.

[00:43:44] And I have a lot of elderly people in my district. They have concerns, and I've pointed out we do have tax relief for the elderly. We have a very good, healthy plan for elderly citizens who don't have a lot of way to pay their tax bill.

[00:44:02] We have that, and that's important to recognize. But there's other ways to take care of an elderly, and one of those is the 911 call center. You have an older person who has an emergency, hard time breathing. What is the most important thing to that person at that moment when they're having a hard time breathing or whatever?

[00:44:23] They fell, like my grandmother fell when she was 96, and they found her like three hours later. It's a 911 call center. Somebody there to answer the phone, right? And then it's also competent people to go out to run the call.

[00:44:42] Whether it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon or 3 o'clock in the morning, do we want a 911 call center that is experienced, trained, and professional? Do we want paramedics, firefighters?

[00:45:00] If you have a structure fire, your garage is on fire, your kitchen's on fire, like my child's babysitter, Wire called in the wall. She woke up at 1 o'clock in the morning with her house full of smoke. They went out and put the fire out. She had to move out for six months.

[00:45:17] It wasn't her fault. Just a wire in the wall. Caught the kitchen on fire. But they were able to get out there and put that fire out. Six months later, they had to fix it all up. She moved back into her house where she wanted to live. What is that worth? It's worth a lot.

[00:45:34] Other people, it is parks and recs. And I've heard a lot about pickleball. I'm not a big pickleball fan, but I go to Polgreen Park a lot. My child loves it there. And we have a lot of citizens who came out for the community meeting and showed high support for our parks and recs.

[00:45:56] Think about the Tomato Festival. What would happen if we defunded the Tomato Festival? Oh, my goodness. The Board of Supervisors hates tomatoes. That's what we would read. So we're not going to do that. We're going to support our parks and recs.

[00:46:11] The Tomato Festival, Spooky Fun Fest. We have a lot of families, they can't go out and spend $60, $80 on an event for Halloween, but they can go to Polgreen Park for free and maybe pay for some of the stuff at the food trailers.

[00:46:28] And we do have some seniors, they want to go to Parks and Recs, they want to go to Polgreen, they want to go to Poor Farm or wherever they go in the West, I don't know, I don't go there. But I have them come to Parks and Recs and talk about dog parks and pickleball lighting and all kinds of improvements, and we hear a lot from them.

[00:46:51] Public education is, of course, important. Do we want the best teachers? We've got to give them a raise. Do we want good bus drivers, the people that take care of the grounds, who prepare the meals, who keep the schools clean?

[00:47:13] They're all important. And I know we have a lot of citizens, they don't have kids in the school, and I've heard people say, well, I don't have kids in the school. Well, you did, you did, and when I didn't have a school, the Hanover County child and Hanover County public schools for 20 years. I paid my taxes and never complained and helped to educate everyone else's. That's the system that we have. May not always be fair. I'll tell you, I don't think it's fair, but it is the system that we have. And so maybe you had

[00:47:47] kids that graduated 10 years ago. We paid for your public education. And when we look at the children, the two, the three, the four-year-olds, and some of these families who have multiple children who are very young, what's important to them? Hey, public education is really important. They want good schools. We have law enforcement assigned to our schools every day. They're there. What is that

[00:48:20] worth? It's worth a lot. I'm willing to pay for that. And when I talk with a lot of the parents who have these younger kids, they're thinking about their kids' future education, but they're not all suited for four-year colleges, right? How about the career and technical education? Here's a line from the budget. This is on page 35. In fiscal year 27, the county is investing an additional

[00:48:52] $1.5 million in the Hanover Center for Trades and Technology for Infrastructure needed for new programs, primarily diesel mechanic construction, and to expand the parking lot. Well, we've been hearing about a need for this for years. And I think it's great to expand this Hanover Center for Trades and Technology. It's not just my view. It came from the school division. School board members support it. I'm a graduate for Richmond Tech, AC1 and 2. And I made my living in heating

[00:49:27] and air for more than 30 years. There's a lot of value in a program like this. And this is worth the investment. So with all that being said, I think that this budget does a good job of balancing the needs and the priorities across the county in general as a whole.

[00:49:51] Maybe not just one individual or one individual group who just wants one thing. Talk to the fire chief. He probably wants another ladder truck. Talk to the sheriff. He probably wants more deputies, right? And we want law enforcement. We want good law enforcement.

[00:50:07] I'll tell you what else we want is a good Commonwealth Attorney's Office with what else? good prosecutors you want safe neighborhoods you want safe communities you want safe schools i do we need good people to do these things and i think we added a legal assistant in the commonwealth attorney's office in this budget that's a good thing to do so that they have the proper resources they need to keep hanover safe thank you mr chair thank you mr hersburg miss dibble thank you mr

[00:50:41] chair. I want to thank all my colleagues for their comments, very good, very well intended as well. This is a pretty skinny budget, I call it skinny. This is the 14th budget, 14th year that I've been involved in the budgets and it is very skinny, but as Mr. Herzberg has pointed out it's also a very comprehensive budget And I coached a lot in my days, and one of my first lessons that I taught to my team was the word ohana, which means nobody left behind.

[00:51:19] And that's really the approach that we as the finance committee, including myself, Ms. Pritchard, and our wonderful chair, Mr. Davis, have approached this budget with. Nobody left behind. And I want to give a big shout out to our finance folks. Of course, Mr. Highfield, Ms. Wright, and Ms. Null, three of the finest in the business. This particular budget cycle, which we know and agree is a 12-month cycle, has been very transparent.

[00:51:51] We've had some very in-depth conversations, and we have had positive conversations. Questions are well-received when we ask you, and I think that you have definitely put together a budget that it certainly reflects our priorities.

[00:52:11] We know we've had to have some difficult choices, but again, we have people that move here because it's a great place to live, a great place to work and a great place to raise their family and people tell us that they come here for our schools and they come here because it's a safe place so i think that i'm very proud of this budget but most importantly and i will be supporting it even more i hope that you feel our support for you our finance team because it's a job well done thank you mr vice chairman

[00:52:48] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do echo my colleagues' comments on this, and I think it's very important that we acknowledge all the hard work and effort that's gone into this budget. And for that, I just want to say thank you, Mr. Badesky. I know that your hard work and commitment to the citizens and the Board of Supervisors in producing this budget, one that we can get behind and feel like that we're supporting our citizens, is very important.

[00:53:14] And I would like to thank all of the staff that have put forth the effort. Dr. Brown, Mr. Todd Kilduff, and Mr. Brett Shardine, thank you so much for all your work. For the different agencies, Chief Anderson and Colonel Six, thank you for your thoughtful efforts in putting forth a budget that not only reflects your needs and your wants, but also the physical responsibility that you've been entrusted with.

[00:53:38] And our partners at the school board, Ms. Welch, thank you so much. And Dr. Penikoff and Terry Stone, thank you so much. I know that you guys work really hard in order to put something forward that you believe that meets your needs, meets the needs of the students here in Hanover County, and also shows their physical responsibility and the values that we hold dear here in Hanover County.

[00:54:00] As elected official and representative for the Beaver Dam District, I do, like Michael said, we get a lot of calls from folks that are curious of why we're spending money in one area when they believe it should go to another area. And why do we need to have our taxes so high?

[00:54:19] And I think Michael did a good job of describing what those priorities are and why we have to make the decisions that we make. But I do recognize that there are many different perspectives on the proper role of local government, and those differences are healthy, and they reflect a diversity of thought within our community.

[00:54:38] However, I do believe that this proposed budget strikes a thoughtful and appropriate balance that aligns with the priorities of most of Hanover residents. This budget clearly reflects what matters most to our citizens, and it makes a strong investment in our public safety, ensuring that our law enforcement, our fire, and EMS have all the resources they need to not only protect the citizens of Hanover County, but also protect themselves.

[00:55:08] It also continues to prioritize schools supporting the education and the future of our children. Additionally, it recognizes the importance of human services, including the support for the Department of Human Services and the Community Services Board, which these services are critical to some of our most vulnerable residents.

[00:55:31] And finally, this budget maintains a commitment to the infrastructure, parks and recreation, key elements to contributing to the quality of life that makes Hanover County such a special place to live. And for these reasons, I'm proud to support this year's budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[00:55:46] Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. There's really not a budget season in local government. There's not a season for budgets. Every day is a budget day. And I tell folks a lot, we're in a very, very expensive business.

[00:56:06] Many of the costs, we cannot control ourselves. We were talking earlier, I was speaking with the chair of the school board this morning on a matter. I'm talking about state surplus. And just to be clear, the state does not have a surplus. The way the state has a surplus would be like you turning around and saying that you have a surplus in your home on any particular month, but you didn't pay your Dominion Energy bill, then you really don't have a surplus. So what will happen is the CSA Child Services Act this year went up by millions of dollars. We're still going to fund the CSA. We're just not going to receive any money from the state for that difference. But the Child Services Act will

[00:56:46] be funded. So that'll give a plus in the state budget. But it's because that burden was passed on to the taxpayers here in Hanover County. I tell folks one of the largest costs we have in local government, and particularly here in Hanover County, is our insurance cost. And when you think insurance, you think in health insurance, property and casualty. The biggest insurance policy that we have in Hanover County sitting in this room right now, Chief Anderson, Sheriff Six, the largest insurance policy this county has. Because you don't know when you're going to need it, and you actually hope that you don't have to have those services. But they are on standby.

[00:57:26] their own duty every day waiting to respond to someone's worst day. That's just what happens. I cannot build a fire station once I get a call that a house is on fire. I have to be ready for that. That requires training, that requires individuals to be at the highest level of competency and professionalism in the state, in the region, and quite frankly in the nation. And if you look at the numbers in our public safety divisions, our response times, our crime rates, our clearance rates. They are really second to none. So we have to be ready. When Chief Anderson

[00:58:00] sends out an ambulance or Sheriff Six sends out his tactical team for something very dire in someone's life or a possible threat in the community, not one time do they have to call back and say, what's my budget for this response? Doesn't happen. Your budget is get the job done with whatever you need to do at the time. And that's just, that's a fact. I want to commend Chairwoman Welsh for working through the budget process with the school board and bringing us a budget from the school board, the adopted budget that you worked on, not knowing what the state was going to do. So I appreciate your leadership with that. And Dr. Penny Cuff,

[00:58:39] all of the administrative work that you do in leading the school division on behalf of the school board as directed is not only appreciated, but it's seen in real benefits. I want to touch on one thing very briefly. I know a lot of times folks see us sitting up here in this environment and it does have kind of a different feel.

[00:58:59] You know, we're kind of here and you're kind of there. And for us, it feels like there's like a separation. I think that's probably true when you look at this environment, when you go to the state or maybe go to Congress. But that's not the case at local government.

[00:59:14] As soon as we step off of this dais, I mean, most of this here is just for audiovisual, right? And so you can hear what we're saying and we can have a professional environment to interact and to set policy but the reality is as soon as we step off of this dais you can find us in the grocery store you can find us at many of the events Mr. Herzberg talked about you can show up on our front doorsteps and that does happen people pull into our driveways call us on our cell phones Sheriff Six told me today that a citizen had contacted him about an expenditure that his office was looking at and was absolutely shocked when they got a response back from the

[00:59:51] sheriff's from the sheriff actually from the sheriff's email account from the sheriff himself i'm like well that's handover that is the standard but the reality is you cannot have this type of interaction anywhere else now for whatever reason it's not a disparagement i don't know i do know this i do know that you can not just walk onto the the floor of the house of representatives of the senate and say when citizens time it just doesn't happen if you go to a committee down uh at the general assembly um then they have a different structure i understand that and again no disparagements but you park you get in you go through security you do all that do you know how

[01:00:29] long you get at a committee in the general assembly to speak anybody know anyone guess one minute one minute now you look at their budget and you get one minute yet board members here consistently meet on matters that you might consider small as it relates to the budget but they're very very important i've met with the commonwealth's attorney on funding drug court myself and Mr. Herzberg. Ms. Dibble and I met on a capital project at the schools with Dr. Penny Cuff and members of her staff. Everybody on this dais I've met with at some point with other folks to

[01:01:07] talk about budget expenditures maybe at $10,000, at $5,000, sometimes millions of dollars. But board members are absolutely involved in that every day. So there's not this disconnect where we sit here and we just make decisions on information that's passed to us. There are many, many times that i've talked to the chief sheriff six used to be the budget director uh in the sheriff's office and uh we would talk for hours sometimes hours on compression um as it related to salaries on staffing the chief and i just had lunch the other day with chief powers talked about

[01:01:44] staffing we talked about equipment one piece of equipment and i say that in in no way for you to say well you should be commended we shouldn't be commended that's just the bare bones necessity of the duty that we have to execute policy here in Hanover County, to set and then execute policy here in Hanover County on your behalf. But we are in a very expensive business. Many of the costs that we have, we're not able to control. So I want to address one matter. Folks have talked about assessments and I do understand that assessments are higher in Hanover. And there's a reason for that. Limited land because we are a rural community, low crime rates, fast response rates

[01:02:23] for ambulances and fire trucks, high clearance rates from law enforcement standpoint, good schools. You pay a premium to live in a community like this. Everybody does. It's an investment. Now, I do recognize folks talk about tax breaks. I appreciate that. We do have tax relief for the elderly. We take that tax break that we give folks who qualify for it and then pass that burden onto someone else. That's the reality. So if you receive a tax break and you qualify for that tax break, we want to make sure that you get it. We work very, very hard. Mr. Harris works extremely

[01:03:03] hard with these programs. He's the commissioner of the revenue. He advises the board of many issues, gives us input. When he works on those programs and somebody qualifies, they get the tax break. Dollar for dollar, the tax break that they got is then passed on to the folks who are paying taxes at the level that is not under a tax program or any rebates or abatement.

[01:03:28] So with that, we talk about assessments. There's a state law that says, it's a revisionary law that says, whatever your whole dollar tax burden was the previous year must be connected to a tax rate that would give you the same whole dollar tax burden.

[01:03:45] So if your assessment goes up, you must reduce the tax rate to whatever would be conducive to having the whole dollar tax burden. So the state does that. Anybody in the room want to guess how much real estate tax, local real estate tax, goes to the state budget?

[01:04:04] Right, zero. So that's a pretty easy thing to do, right? But here's the problem. When a television goes up, when a candy bar goes up, when gas goes up, when all of those things go up, your sales tax doesn't go down, right? Because that's state revenue. So we talk to folks about that and say, when we gave a rebate, And we say, we're going to do a rebate, which we did a number of years ago.

[01:04:27] And we looked at that. Some folks got pretty upset. Dr. Brown asked him to pull some numbers for me. I said, take the top 10 taxpayers out for commercial and the top 10 for residential. And what was the average rebate? I believe it was about $78 is what we came down with. So gave back.

[01:04:43] Now, that equated into a whole lot of money. And that's not to mention the personal property tax. This was just real estate. And then some folks called and said, I cannot believe that you gave Bon Secours $36,000. But that was their due, right?

[01:04:59] I couldn't just exclude Bon Secours. So when asphalt goes up, when supplies go up, when capital improvement projects go up, we have to meet those demands. Now, I'll say this, we do have a really, really good team.

[01:05:16] And when capital projects go up, Ms. Knoll is a big help. But I got to tell you, the bulldog in the room when it comes to capital projects is Shelly Wright. Where's Shelly? I mean, she does not mess around. A budget hawk, ladies and gentlemen, working on your behalf.

[01:05:33] And Shelly, you do a fantastic job. I've left meetings where people think Shelly's mean. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. I'm like, yeah, yeah, she's doing a great job on behalf of the citizens of Hanover County. It is down to the penny. It is down to the penny.

[01:05:49] So there are decisions that the board has to make, and that is what level of service are we able to provide for the revenues that we have available? That is a decision every year. And I want to end with this in an area that I think the board has not done a good job with.

[01:06:07] I've talked to Mr. Badeski about it. I've spoken to board members about it. I think we've been deficient in this. Some folks have said, well, it seems like when you get extra money, you spend it. And I say, that is correct. They say, you really admit that? I said I do because when that money comes in we haven't done the best job us as a board and I say that respectfully by the way I haven't told all board members this so some of them are really anxious right now as what I'm going to say and they will talk to me when we adjourn this meeting but we've got a desk drawer with a bunch of projects on a piece of paper that need to be done we have not done the best job at communicating that to the citizenry that there is always a list

[01:06:46] of things that are not getting done so what happens is much like in your home when the money's not there and you you need a new roof and the money's not there then what happens you say well i kind of need a new roof right but you work a little overtime maybe there's a bonus that comes in some things change in your family budget you pay something off and then all of a sudden you've got that money and you say now's the time to replace the roof that's what we do but we haven't communicated that as well as we should have. We need folks to know that we do not sit

[01:07:22] around, Mr. Badeski does not sit around and say, my goodness, look at all this extra money I have. Wonder what I can do with it. What happens is he pulls that list out of the drawer and he says, okay, board, these are the things that are priorities for the citizens of Hanover County, as you've communicated to me. We do have some extra funds. Are we going to be able to do this project now? You would be shocked at what a range hood cost inside an elementary school kitchen.

[01:07:47] I was shocked many years ago. It's expensive. So when that money comes in and we have an opportunity to try to play catch up, we do that. The issue that comes in is when we look at that range hood and it was $100. And by the way, that's an embellishment.

[01:08:03] There's nowhere near $100. But to say, OK, I've got the extra $100, open that drawer up, I pull it out, I say, I'm going to put that range hood in or I'm going to do the addition in the school and add to the learning environment classrooms that we need to have. That $100 item is now $123.

[01:08:19] Okay, that's a big deal. So we need to do a better job of communicating with folks when they say, when are you going to fix this roof? When are you going to fix this classroom? When are you going to put technology in the schools? We say, it's coming here and this is how we're paying for it. We haven't done the best job of letting folks know that when it's not coming, that it's still on the list. So when money does come in, we'll be able to get it done.

[01:08:45] But it may not be for the original cost, and I'm looking at Ms. Wright right now. It may not be for the cost that we got when they gave us the estimate in 2022 or 2023, or in some cases, 90 days ago. I mean, that's how fast things move. So we are going to do a better job of letting folks know there is always something on the priority list that needs to be done.

[01:09:06] It's just sometimes we can't afford it. So, I want to thank everybody in this room, those who are here, not only to hear this presentation, but for every individual who has helped work on this budget, and there's nobody in county government, Mr. Boshan's out there. He knows. I mean, he counts every bean. I think he counted them three times, right?

[01:09:27] Right, because it's not your money, it's a citizen's money, and you take that seriously. I mean, at finance committee meetings, Mr. Boshan shows up, finance committee meetings, the chief and the sheriff show up the school board chair of the school board i mean you know we have conversations sometimes 10 30 11 o'clock at night when both of us have finished whatever we were doing for that day to talk about the budget it just and we're not to be commended for that that's our duty but sometimes that's the time that we have available and then so we knock it out then because it's that important there is never a budget season in local government i just want

[01:10:02] you know there's no budget season every day is a budget day so thank you all tremendously for doing what you do and lastly I want to thank all of the department heads the information that comes out of your departments that you get to Mr. Badesky or to the board directly with your boots on the ground Ms. Fox thank you for being here that is the information that we have to have on a daily basis we have to have it on a daily basis and I know sometimes public utilities public works general services uh y'all are in in very expensive businesses and making sure that we could stay up on

[01:10:38] top of the information that's pertinent and and prioritized at the time or or a priority at the time so we can prioritize that is extremely important so thank you for that to all of our leaders uh in the department head positions so with that i'm going to ask mr highfield if he will come up end of our comments mr highfield if you'll place first motion pretend for potential

[01:11:03] board action on the screen all right that motion is going to go to our vice chair before i understand there was some interest in an alternate motion are we yes it should this should be the ultimate get to the ultimate okay please let me go to the alternate motion mr vice chairman all right thank you mr chair so i'd like to move that the board adopt by resolution the property tax rates and

[01:11:39] fees for the calendar year 2026 as proposed with the removal of the data center tax rate second we We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next motion, sir.

[01:11:55] And is there an interest in directing the staff to compile further information? It is, sir. Mr. Vice Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that the board direct the staff to compile information on data center tax rates used by other jurisdictions across the Commonwealth and provide that information to the board prior to the April 22, 2026 board meeting.

[01:12:18] There is a motion. is a second by miss pritchard any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye any opposed motion carries miss pritchard miss floyd sound a lot alike very well oh wrong way keep doing that will you restart me just start me from the beginning i'll have memorized the buttons by next year motion number two chair recognizes miss dibble chair of the finance committee thank

[01:12:55] you mr chair i move that the board adopt by resolution the county administrator's proposed budget presented on february the 18th 2026 with the proposed amendments as presented today on april 8th 2026 second motion there's a second is there any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye mr vice chairman thank you mr chair i'd like to move that the board board appropriate by resolution the funds included in the adopted fy 27 budget by fund category as

[01:13:31] reflected in the budget adoption resolution second we have a motion the second by mr hudson is there any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye any opposed motion carries mr vice chairman thank you thank you mr chair all right i'd like to move that the board adopt by resolution the county administrators proposed five-year capital improvements program for the fy 27 through fy 31 as presented on february 18 2026 with the proposed amendments as presented on the april 8th 2026 there's a motion is there a second second we have a motion second by mr

[01:14:07] pritchard all those in favor please indicate by saying hi hi and the opposed motion carries all right i move that the board adopt by resolution the county administrators proposed five-year general fund financial plan for the f fy 27 through fy 31 as presented on february 18th 2026 with the proposed amendments as presented on april 8th 2026 we have a motion is there a second Second we have a motion the second any discussion all those in favor. Please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed motion passes?

[01:14:45] All right, I move that the board has adopted the resolution of the Board of Supervisors declaring its intention to reimburse the cost of certain expenditures in the maximum principal amount of ten billion dollars Yeah, we have a motion the second any discussion all those in favor, please indicate by saying aye aye

[01:15:08] Any opposed motion carries. I move that the board adopt the resolution of the Board of Supervisors declaring its intention to reimburse the cost of certain expenditures in the maximum principal amount of $50 million. Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please take it by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Mr. Vice Chairman.

[01:15:32] I move that the board adopt an ordinance 26-02 to increase in erosion and the sediment control fees and charges. Second. We have a motion to second any discussion. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, motion carries.

[01:15:50] Mr. Vice Chairman. I move that the board adopt Ordinance 26-03, increasing fees for water and sewer capacity and user fees and various other changes. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion to second any discussion.

[01:16:06] All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Ladies and gentlemen, the budget now changes from title proposed county administrator's budget to the Hanover County budget. This is now the people's budget. Are there any more comments? Hearing none, the board will take a recess for five minutes.

[01:16:24] We're in recess.

[01:27:25] Board's back in session.

[01:28:06] The next item on the agenda is a presentation of the Monthly Connect Hanover Broadband Initiative. Mr. Todd Kilduff, pardon me, Deputy County Administrator, is with us. Mr. Kilduff, thank you for being here, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Mr. Badesky, Mr. Walter. Again, Todd Kilduff, Deputy County Administrator, And I have the monthly update on the Connect Hanover Broadband Initiative Project.

[01:28:28] Again, you've seen a lot of these slides before, but just to go through them real quick. Bright Speed is still moving out there in the field. They're still getting homes connected. They're still installing some fiber. We do get some street cheats from them, not as frequent as we used to, a little irregular, but they're still out there doing some work.

[01:28:44] And All Points Broadband is still moving forward with a lot of the private roads. So as we've shown before, the contract that we have with All Points is for 6,198 passings. They're still looking at about a 30% take rate. So what that means is every home they pass, only about 30% actually say they want to connect and have All Points be a provider for them.

[01:29:06] The 6,198 is in their contract. The 30% is not. That's just a metric. That's what they're seeing. That number can go up. It can come down a little bit. But we're using that 30% as a metric to see if they're on track to finish the project on time, which at the moment we are going to a little bit more detail in the private road piece of that.

[01:29:23] So if you do the 30%, that's about 1,859 homes to connect. And they have officially peaked over the 1,000 home connection mark. And home connection meaning the home is actually paying a monthly bill and has the high-speed internet. So we have 1,054 homes as of Thursday of last week.

[01:29:42] So again, using the 30% take rate, that leaves about 800. So again, these are just metrics we're using to make sure they're on track. eight months remaining in the overall project. And we're looking at about 25 home connections per week. That number has gone up and down a little bit. If you look at all the previous month's updates, it goes up a little bit, down a little bit. And one of the reasons is when the weather's good, they have hit 100 homes a week a few times. But when we had a long string of pretty bad weather recently, so the number went down significantly, which raised the average up a little bit. So it's gone up and down. But again, it's just a metric we're using. And they're

[01:30:18] currently still working on private roads we're still updating the county website we've I've mentioned this before we do get feedback from citizens on the website they're very appreciative that we put out this information and I want to thank Mr. Rook Rogers for helping compile the data and Shelby sitting here Ms. Walker to my left on getting I'm going to call it the brochures posted online so we do that on a monthly basis so this is probably where I'll stay for at least a minute. We've been reporting for several months that the bead funding is something that we're going to get a really good update in March. So the good news is, well, even though it's now April 8th,

[01:30:55] there was a lot of movement in March and we're just reporting it to you today. It just happens to be April, but a lot of the red tape is gone. So really good news. Bead funding is in fact moving forward. We've known that for a while, but there was a few hurdles they had to jump through, environmental hurdles, a few other things, but they got that done. The contracts from the state to the providers, have been provided back to the providers. They're looking at it, and they're sort of in what we're going to call the final review phase, and that is due on this Friday. So any providers that have any concerns with the contracts, they have until this Friday to get back to the state with that. But they've already gone through several rounds, so the expectation is that there

[01:31:32] should be very few, if any, comments from the providers. So what DHCD, the Department of Housing and Community Development, is now stating is that with the contracts, hopefully to be signed maybe at the end of this month, maybe early next month, that construction should begin in the third quarter of this year. That's what they're reporting. And I just want to be clear, we've been through this before. We know that the make ready phase takes a little bit of time to do. We know that's delayed this project on our end, but I am not, I want to just be a little cautious about the Q3 statement

[01:32:07] that the state made. It may be a little bit longer, but it will be significantly faster than what we dealt with on the beginning of this project, because the make ready phase, if you recall, that was hanging the fiber from electric poles, which means they had to work with the electric providers. They had to do a pole survey. Some of the poles were old and antiquated and they were falling apart. So those poles had to be replaced. And everything I just said in 10 seconds takes a lot of time. But a lot of these providers for the B funding are all going to be going underground, which eliminates that entire process. Not all of them will, though, just to be clear. Comcast still has some contracts to go on polls, a few other things, but that's something

[01:32:45] they can work out as they're installing underground. So again, just to be clear, the state is telling everyone around Q3. Might be a little bit longer, but trust me, every single month we're asking for updates on this. And as we get updates, I will make sure I relay them to the full board of supervisors and the public. So, and again, the BID funding does cover 3,525 passings. So private roads, that's sort of the hiccup that we've mentioned on numerous updates, is it just takes a little bit longer. If you're working on public roads, you can just go to VDOT, get your permit from VDOT, and then they can rock and roll. On private roads, that's not where VDOT is, so you

[01:33:21] have to get easements. And the easements may not exist, meaning you have to knock on individual doors and get easements from the citizens that live on those private roads. It could be a handful of homes. It could be up to 20, maybe even 30 homes, depending on the nature of the neighborhood. but we have been doing that. We've been helping All Points Broadband doing that. Mr. Herzberg, I want to thank you for your help and your leadership. I'm going and knocking on doors yourself. Mr. Rogers has gone out. I mentioned before he actually received his notary a few months ago. So as we go and knock on the doors and tell people, hey, here's an easement document.

[01:33:51] If you're willing to sign it, we'll notarize it in front of you and take it back to All Points, and All Points has to take it from there. They have to do the recordation and all that stuff, but we can help them do sort of the lion's share of that work. So we've been doing that and the private road piece which started out a little slow has been picking up significantly so and with that that is my presentation but if there's any questions comments or concerns I'm happy to try and answer them. Any questions for Mr. Kilduff? Mr. Herzberg. Mr. Chairman thank you thank you Mr. Kilduff for your presentation. I would just like to provide an update on some of

[01:34:27] the subdivisions. Yes sir. In the in the Cold Harbor District this isn't really a question but We've worked on some of these and we we have some citizens tuning in good chance So if you're in some of these subdivisions, you may find this information Very helpful Farmington farm subdivision should be for the most part complete There are still a few from what I understand that need the drop in the inside connection But most of that has been activated Pamukki Riverview the main fibers in some drops are taking place in Pamukki Riverview

[01:35:07] You know, we took a while to get down almost for a while. Yes, sir. It is progressing Mandeville trail the easement process is complete and so me and Rook Rogers We we worked on that over the last two weeks and we began that when it snowed and that kind of put its back some But uh, the easement process is done So the next part to that would be that they will eventually turn it over to the construction crew And they'll go out and survey and then after that they'll contact the Miss utility to have the underground Dominion and Verizon marked

[01:35:43] Green retirement lane from what I understand they were all points was out there just a couple days ago We began working on that one. So that's really good. And we got all that easement process worked out uh eastern view lane is in progress one of the residents called she's really happy and she's seen the the main fiber going in so we've seen a lot of progress uh old church place is still uh waiting on the hoa and so we're aware we've been there for uh the last three months and so

[01:36:17] we don't have any new update on old church place but thank you for all of your time and your uh Diligent work on it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mr. Chairman certainly anyone else seeing us. Thank you. Mr. Kilda We will now move into presentations Related to transportation updates. Mr. Philip Frazier is with us from Virginia Department of Transportation Frazier and director Hardman Randy Hardman with Department of Public Works is also here

[01:36:58] Director Hardman you come up just as soon as it finishes. No need for an introduction. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman members of the board I'm Phillip Frazier with VDOT, resident engineer at the Ashton Residency. Just want to give you a quick update on the last quarter of our maintenance activities. We've been completing a lot of just traditional maintenance activities, patching, pot hole patching, things like that, pipe replacement, pipe cleanings, ditching, tree trimming, and clearing.

[01:37:25] Two primary activities we've been really focusing on, kind of two different buckets. One is pavement rehabilitation and patching. I've already mentioned that, but the winter didn't do us a whole lot of favors with our pavement, and we've been paying for it ever since.

[01:37:40] The other thing is we do have our resurfacing schedule, regular resurfacing efforts that come on every single year and go until November. We focus a lot of our other maintenance activities, like that tree trimming and things like that, ditching, on roads that are going to be resurfaced in the upcoming schedule.

[01:37:59] So that's where a lot of our efforts with those maintenance activities have been focused. I want to give you a couple updates on some projects. Like I said, resurfacing is expected to kick off in the next couple weeks. You might see some pavement marking eradications that are prefacing the resurfacing efforts, but you will see that going on through the summer and then November.

[01:38:24] FDR, this is a project that is actually funded by Hanover County. We will be doing a full-depth reclamation covered with a final surface of an inch-and-a-half overlay of asphalt. So that is going to kick off next week on Route 738, expected to start on the 13th.

[01:38:46] I will note, talking about FDR, we had some performance issues. I think I mentioned this last time, Mr. Stoneman, about Shiloh Church and Taylor's Creek. We've had a lot of conversations with the contractor. they're still going to come back and provide a little additional cleanup and resurface treat those roads but we have done a lot of asphalt patching to kind of fix some of the issues that we experienced after the winter weather that we had i will note that with the acceptance of the fall line trail we're putting out a contract i expect i think we actually received bids pretty recently to have a grass mowing contract for that so that we can cut that a little bit more frequently

[01:39:28] One thing that I want to let folks know is that the Mount Hermon Bridge is actually scheduled for replacement. This is not a traditional replacement project. It's actually being done by our state forces. It's a four-month bridge replacement. It will be done under a full detour, which is going to be through Sherroy and Ashcake Road. And then the last thing I'll mention is as Work Zone Awareness Week approaches us in the next couple weeks is I'd be remiss if I didn't ask for everybody's patience as as our folks work in those work zones I sat down with some of my

[01:40:07] crews yesterday in Mechanicsville and they asked how can we be better supported and you know getting the message to the traveling public to respect our work zones be patient with what we're doing know that we're you know getting after it as fast as we can while also knowing that there's some activities that we've kind of had to put on the back burner until as we limp through this final fiscal year, things that are important, but not necessarily our top priority. For example, we know there's still a lot of sand in people's subdivisions and cul-de-sacs from where we put them down for the snow removal a couple months ago. That is still something that we expect to

[01:40:47] get to in the next couple months, but also just asking for patience as we kind of limp through this final leg of the fiscal year. So with that, I'd be happy to take any questions. Very well. Any questions for Mr. Frazier?

[01:41:03] Yes, Ms. Pritchard. Thank you. First of all, I want to say thank you. My project on Route 1 in Pleasant Street turned out very pleasantly. I had a lot of concerns about that. And I think as town and county and your staff came together, I think the business is extremely happy with how it all worked out and to me that's what we should be aiming for with every project that everybody comes to the table to try to find a solution and we find one that works for everybody big thanks also to mr killed up for help helping that work out in the end um as far as communicating

[01:41:42] to citizens to have a little more patience is that on your website to me i mean we've got to be i think when people don't know things they get angry and out of patience but when we communicate better then people tend to give you a little bit more leeway. I completely agree and that was one of the things we talked about. I don't think that us as a department have ever gotten as much support to request for patients for snow removal efforts than we did this last you know back in January and that came a lot from our communication staff through the different groups Facebook and

[01:42:20] Instagram all the different ways to communicate with folks but you're exactly right. Communicating That was part of the reason I told them I'm coming here tomorrow and I will make a point to to bring it up And just remind folks to be patient, but you're exactly right communication is the key I think we could even link out on our website when there are big projects going on or when people need a little extra a little extra grace We're happy. We want people to be happy We want them to be happy with you and we want them to be happy with us So if we can help, please let us know. Thank you for that partnership. Thank you, Mr. Richard. Do anything further?

[01:42:55] Yeah, that's my show. I think mr. Chair. Well, thank you. Mr. Frazier. I appreciate your your Information on the shallow church and your presentation today and I just wonder if you could give me a little more detail on what's what actually is going on because I You know ran some folks and they would tell me was I didn't know it was getting paved over So you're doing a little surfacing on there. And so tell me a little bit more about that So that was a full-depth reclamation similar to the project that Hanover's funded But the final treatment was going to be a surface treatment.

[01:43:26] So that is that tar and chip application. The surface treatment flew apart. It was that simple. It flew apart. And then some of the reclaimed base started to pothole. So we had to figure out a way to fix it as quickly as possible.

[01:43:45] And so what we decided we landed on was asphalt. So that was not necessarily always within the plan to patch it with asphalt. but we had to make we had to make some move to to make sure that that road was safe for travel and shore it up so that's kind of where we're at it is expected to still be surface treated so i know people see pavement out there right now but i do want to be clear that that we expect um the contractor that did the original uh project to come back and surface treat the whole road so the final surface will be a tar and chip okay yeah i was just curious and i've been

[01:44:24] ask you know how they'll build asphalt you know 500 feet then you'll skip 50 feet and then so so unlock that mystery for me because i'll be seeing some folks on saturday morning yeah so we we call that heavy mechanized patching um that is like i said patching in preparation for the final uh resurfacing the full resurfacing effort um and we do that pretty pretty regularly in preparation of our regular um resurfacing effort where we patch sometimes it's 500 feet sometimes it's 150 feet but typically 500 feet is is our is our max

[01:44:59] with heavy mechanized patching and sometimes we go a little bit further if necessary but but it is a patching effort in preparation for the final surface. Do we have a high level of confidence that this next effort will make shallow church a smooth flat surface? Yes I feel pretty good that it's it's going to turn out in the positive but again it's not going to be an asphalt final riding surface it's going to be a surface street so it's still going to have that kind of rural country

[01:45:32] road feel thank you very much yep anything further thank you mr frazier thank you mr chair members of the board for the record my name is randy hardman director of public works today i'll be

[01:46:06] going over quarterly roads project status update first project up is the shelley lee drive paper Street paving project. As you can see, we've made quite a bit of progress since the last update. We took a brief hiatus during the winter months due to the wetness and the cold, but things have picked back up out there. Making a lot of progress with getting the gravel down, ditches graded, trees removed. It's kind of opened the entire area up. But if weather holds, we look to be finishing this project up in the next couple months. The key now is the next step

[01:46:43] That will be paving, and we need a 40-degree surface temp in order to put the asphalt down. So that will be our constraint moving into the next month. But we're looking to finish this up in a couple months. U.S. Route 301, 3rd southbound lane.

[01:47:05] This project has been delayed for almost a year due to what's shown in that top right corner, utility conflicts. We finally have some good news. There were two different companies involved with the conflicts out there. One company has moved their conduit to the backside of our project, so they're no longer within our project limits.

[01:47:25] We will abandon one of their conduits in place. The other company has been unresponsive, but we have heard that they had moved something, so we're still trying to get coordination and communication from them to determine if they have done any work out there.

[01:47:41] If it has been done, we're confident that this will go forward as soon as Shelly Lee Drive is finished because the same contractor, all-call contractor, is doing that work for us. A full-depth reclamation project, as Mr. Frazier just mentioned, that is a project that was awarded by VDOT to Colony Construction for $3.8 million.

[01:48:04] The notice received for that project was yesterday, as a matter of fact, and they will have until November 20th to complete the work and be subject to liquidated damages of $1,350 a day if they don't complete the work on time. At its last meeting, the Transportation Committee approved the addition of the segment of Rock Hill Road between Market Road and Swan's Lane to the FY26 schedule.

[01:48:27] Also, the Transportation Committee also recommended the $120,000 pay by Chamberd and Solar, which is located on Rock Hill Road, as a condition of their cup to be applied to this work to offset the cost. The use of these funds are subject to board appropriation, and staff will be presenting this request to the Finance Committee at its next meeting.

[01:48:49] Lewistown Road, Ashcake Road, Roundabout. This project will convert the intersection of Lewistown and Ashcake to a roundabout. All right-of-way needed for this project has been acquired, and Verizon has been relocating their facilities, which is expected to last into the fall. If their work continues as planned, we expect to advertise for construction late this summer and let the contract go to award as soon as the relocation of the utilities is finished.

[01:49:18] Route 1 and Route 30 project, this project will add a signal and turn lanes at the intersection of Route 1 and Route 30. The schedule has slipped and due to delays associated with development of stormwater design and utility location. However, I think we're past that hurdle now. Our next step is to issue no to proceed on the right-of-way acquisition for the remainder of the parcels.

[01:49:39] There's four parcels involved. We already have two parcels with the right-of-way acquired. We will be now working on those parcels to the north on this picture of Route 1. As things stand now, we're tentatively looking at a late fall of 2026 for an ad date.

[01:49:59] Hickory Hill Road Reconstruction. This is a two-lane reconstruction of Hickory Hill Road. Design is nearing the 90% stage for right-of-way acquisition, and we're anticipating holding a citizen information meeting late this spring. The tentative add date remains in early 2028.

[01:50:16] The transportation improvements are in accordance with the proffers associated with the track development located on the south side of Hickory Hill Road. The Route 301 Hanover Courthouse Pedestrian Improvement Project. This project will significantly enhance pedestrian access in the courthouse area. The design is nearing the 90% stage necessary for right-of-way acquisition, and a public hearing will be held on April 27th to review the design proposal. We recently reviewed the design with the Architectural Review Board, and they approved the plan as proposed. The

[01:50:48] construction ad date for this project is spring of 27. Attlee Road Business Route 360, Coal Harbor Road Roundabout, and this project will convert the existing signal-controlled intersection to a roundabout. 90% plans were recently submitted for review and approval, which allow us to proceed to right-of-way acquisition phase. Delays associated with private utilities recently being installed within the project limits have been resolved but has delayed things a bit and pushed the construction

[01:51:17] start date into early 2028. Creighton Road, Creighton Parkway, and Walnut Grove Roads. This project proposes independent roundabouts to address operational issues at the two existing T intersections. Right-of-way acquisition is currently in process and we expect to make offers on the remaining parcels over the next several weeks. There are a total of five parcels and one parcel has already been required. Construction advertisement is tentatively scheduled for summer of 27. Creighton Road left turn lane project. This project is intended to

[01:51:56] improve the northbound through movement on Creighton Road by adding left turn lanes into Tammie Lane and Sled Lake Road. Right away acquisition will begin this month in the next month I'm sorry or so and are currently looking at bidding the project next summer. Whole green widening. This is a new slide. Y'all haven't seen this one. This used to be the one with all the parcels. We removed that because we're now in utility relocation phase. I've received some calls and emails about the tree clearing going on out there and the stakes in the ground. That is specific to Dominion Power

[01:52:31] and their relocation activities. So Dominion has mobilized and the other utilities will follow once Dominion completes their work. And we're looking at a construction advertisement date of fall 2027. Ashen Road, Ashcake Road, Greenwood Road, Blanton Road roundabout. This project will convert those roads into a roundabout. In the next several months, we plan to enter the right-of-way acquisition phase. We continue to engage VDOT on the topic of lighting for the project. We have submitted justification memos for both lighting and the removal of the 10-foot bench around the

[01:53:08] roundabout to VDOT. During a recent meeting, they seemed receptive to the removal of the bench. However, we are still waiting to hear from them on the lighting issue. We're looking at construction advertisement data this project for the fall of 2027. We're at 301-54 roundabout. This project will construct a roundabout at the T intersection. The plans have been advanced to the right-of-way acquisition stays and we'll be initiating right-of-way activities in the next several months.

[01:53:37] We will need to acquire a right-of-way from eight parcels for this project and the add date is tentatively set for the fall of 27. Sliding Hill Road, Peaks Road, Ashcake Road, Mount Herman Road. This is to propose a roundabout at the intersection of these roads. The project entered the right-of-way acquisition phase last month and right-of-way is needed from two owners that includes five parcels.

[01:53:59] We have a construction advertisement date of late 27, but that can move up based on some timing of the right-of-way and utility relocations. Atlee Station road widening phase two.

[01:54:16] So this is the pole green road map you've seen for a couple years, but for Atlee Station. On this map, what you see is green parcels are parcels that we've acquired right-of-way. Yellow are parcels that have been submitted for negotiation, and gray are still awaiting the appraisals.

[01:54:33] We expect the right-of-way acquisition phase to continue through next summer, 2027. Route 54, Gaudens Hill Road turn lanes. This is a safety improvement to add a left turn lane on Route 54 at Gaudens Hill Road. Plans have advanced to 30% stage and are anticipating a citizens' information meeting later in the spring.

[01:54:56] Atlee Station Road widening phase three. This is the continuation of the Atlee Station Road widening project from phase two to Sliden Hill Road. Plans are being advanced to the 60% stage of development. We're looking at holding a formal public hearing in the fall. route 301 pedestrian and operational improvements the main elements of this project include pedestrian improvements to include a sidewalk along with crosswalks between times dispatch boulevard and rutlandshire drive and new lane assignments and signal adjustments at the three intersections in that stretch i will add as well recent discussions with vdat we're looking at

[01:55:35] also extending the sidewalk on the north side of 301 on this map the far left street is called Leon Lane. One block over from that is Cutlip Avenue and Craney Island Farms. The proposal that VI seems receptive to is extend the sidewalk to Craney Island Farms so folks can walk straight off of that road onto the sidewalk network. A field survey's work will be underway soon as we work toward a preliminary 10% design later this summer. Route 33 widening, we are in the pre-design phase here. Recently, the CBTA awarded $4 million to develop the plans

[01:56:13] for widening of Route 33 between the end of the four lane section and Wins Church Road. This project is consistent with the objectives of the Route 33 gateway small area plan and staff has begun working on the solicitation to hire an engineer and we expect to have all the agreements and funding in place to begin the design by the later part of the year. And one last one, I got an email right before it came in here. One of my staff let me know that for March on the fall line trail it averaged 257 users a day so that is a that is getting a lot of use and i believe um there was a social media post today that the signs for the fall line trail are being installed as we speak

[01:56:51] and that concludes my presentation thank you direct harvard any questions or comments direct harvard mrs hersberg thank you mr chairman thank you for your presentation mr harvard i just want to mention the uh the gentleman that you went out and looked at the storm drainage issue in front of this house in High Point Farms, he called, you know, asking for an update, and I'd let him know that you had been out, and hopefully someone will call him and communicate with him soon. But I did bring up how nice his landscaping is. I said, sometimes, you know,

[01:57:26] people are concerned about going in and digging up a trench with nice landscaping. And he is now being put on the public record right here on video. He said he's not worried about that. His priority is the stormwater draining he is not he understands that the grass will not look the same when it's done that is not his concern so i would i just want to let you know that we'll follow up with him okay all right sir thank you very much thank you mr hersburg anything further thank you

[01:58:00] director next item on the agenda is a presentation for hanover county tourism brand and marketing initiatives director smith is with us our tourism director director rachel smith thank you for being with us ma'am good afternoon good afternoon mr chair mr vice chair members of the board mr county administrator mr county attorney thank you all so much for your time today just eight months ago

[01:58:38] the tourism department was founded seven months ago i had the pleasure of giving you all the work plan for this department and six months ago we were fully staffed and our tourism team internally to the county was formed and before i hop into our full presentation today i want to give a thank you to that team. It has taken a lot of work and a lot of minds to bring tourism to fruition here in the county. Starting off with a thank you to Mr. John Bedetsky, our leader in this project, as well as the full team who had representatives from Communications Department, Ms. Kristen Smith-Dunlop and Shelby Walker, Economic Development, Mr. Brandon Turner and

[01:59:16] Angela Wright, and Parks and Recreation, Marcy Durr, Patricia McGrath, and Aaron Reed-Miller. And I want to give a special thank you to our tourism specialist, Jessica Novotny. She work tirelessly to make this happen alongside of our team. Before we hop into the really fun part that I know you all have been waiting for, which is the branding, I want to talk a little bit about the why of tourism for our community and for those who are asking why we're even investing in tourism.

[01:59:49] So according to Destinations International, which is one of the leading tourism agencies in the United States and beyond, it states that there is a community vitality wheel starting around tourism. That if you visit a place where people, if you build a place where people want to visit, then you have built a place where people want to live. And if you have built a place where people want to live, then you have built a place where people want to work. And if you have built a place where people want to work, then you have built a place where businesses and residents want to invest. And finally, if you built a place where businesses and residents want to invest, then you

[02:00:28] have built a place where people will want to visit. And this is an ongoing cycle over and over again that we want to make sure that we are supporting here in Hanover. We know it's a great community full of great people, great businesses, and great non-profits and tourism assets, but we want to ensure that we are giving the correct support so that people continue to come back and visit again and again. We will continue to partner with our economic development, our parks and recreation, and other county services to ensure that we are supporting this wheel. And I did want to point out while we are on the why and the how, since it's the day of our budget approval, that this department

[02:01:07] is a little bit unique. It is being funded out of our lodging taxes versus out of the general budget, and I just wanted to make sure that we pointed that out today for our community. For those of us who were not together during the work session, I wanted to point out what some of the tourism goals were for this department. We are a dual-arm department. We're both here for local tourism and regional tourism, and our goals for local tourism are to promote togetherness among our residents, increase awareness of our current happenings in this community, our local businesses and our assets, and strengthen our community identity through storytelling and shared pride.

[02:01:46] Regionally, we act a little bit more as a traditional DMO. We attract regional visitors through self-guided, marketed experiences in partnership with our regional and state affiliations. And I want to thank Ms. Catherine O'Donnell with Richmond Regional Tourism, the president and CEO, for being with us today. We want to expand foot traffic and visitation into the county, increase tourism-based spending throughout the county, and identify statistical changes in hotel stays. For our tourism pillars, I want to reiterate that they are history,

[02:02:20] outdoor recreation, agritourism, and events. This comprises a lot of the great assets we have. There is not one identifier that defines us. We are a plethora of different areas of attraction, and I like to say that we're purely Americana. We are people, tradition, and spirit here in Hanover.

[02:02:40] We take a lot of pride in our community, and we have an incredible wealth of tourism attractions. In our history area, we have Scotchtown, Polgreen Church, Hanover Tavern, and the Cold Harbor Battlefield, to name a few. Outdoor recreation, we just heard the update on the Fall Line Trail, and I'm so excited to continue to promote that. We have our beautiful parks and blueways, national battlefields, and world-class cross-country and golf courses. For agritourism, we have our wonderful farms, which there are too many to name, but we have had some incredible partners already with Hanover Vegetable Farm, Gilman Farms, Agraberry, Freckled Flower, Thistledew,

[02:03:17] and beautiful community markets that are just getting ready to open up this past month and some even are today. And then finally for our events I would be I would be remiss to not say about the Tomato Festival, the Strawberry Fair, Beaver Dam Brew Jam, and then the brand new PGA tournament that is coming this year. Since you already got a sneak peek our brand new branding has come out. It was with collaboration with our full tourism team that we came up with this brand.

[02:03:52] It took input from our communications department, our economic development, parks and recreation, and tourism to really put together this brand. It's similar colors to our county brand, and it does include the iconic tomato, but we did introduce new fonts, new styles, and a new tagline to really bring about some fun and an extra flair to this tourism department.

[02:04:15] It continues to utilize one of our most recognizable icons, the Hanover tomato, giving us recognizable features for those who know us only from the Food and Wine magazine articles or from some of the Virginia Living articles we've had featured on us in the past.

[02:04:31] The shape of the badge nods towards our gateway sign, welcoming our visitors, and continues to give us opportunities for us to be able to welcome them and to continue our signage standards as we move forward with cohesion. And then it highlights Virginia on here.

[02:04:50] There is a very specific reason for that. There are a lot of Hanover counties on the East Coast, and many of them have already established destination DMOs. And so we were in competition with Hanover, Massachusetts and Hanover, Pennsylvania for what our name would be and what our branding would be.

[02:05:09] And so we settled on Visit Hanover. It is classic, and it is also one of the available tourism nomenclatures. We also wanted to make sure we highlighted Virginia so that when people searched us, they would find Virginia and not Massachusetts or Pennsylvania.

[02:05:26] You can see on here that we have a badge logo. That is one of our more predominant logos. And then we have our wordmark, which is a sister feature to that badge. They can be used together or they can be used separately. Then our tagline is ripe for discovery, playing against that Hanover tomato, making sure that we're really digging into all that there is to discover.

[02:05:47] Because again, there is not one thing here in Hanover. we have a plethora for people to discover. Up next, we have our promotional video. This video does play automatically, so I'm gonna give a little prelude before I change the slide.

[02:06:03] It was complete with multiple features of B-roll. Thank you to Shelby for pulling that together, and then also some additional new footage that we were able to get this winter. It was a little bit limited on how much great footage we could get in the dead of winter with the ice storm, and that threw us back just a little bit, but we still were able to put together a fun new promotional video.

[02:06:27] Fortunately, there is no sound in this room at this time, but there is sound. As you can see, it does highlight our four pillars of tourism, the history, agritourism, outdoor recreation, and our events.

[02:06:56] This will be utilized on our website homepage as the landing page, and it also will be utilized in our digital marketing efforts. Next up is a Visit Hanover County VA website recording so that you're able to see the different portions of the website.

[02:07:21] So this is about four minutes long, and I'll give you some voiceover as we go through the video together. This is our landing page in the video that you just saw. As you can see across the top, we have things to do, stay, events, food and drink, plan, and our blog.

[02:07:48] We have our positioning statement, which I will read to you briefly here shortly. But it does feature our slogan, Write for Discovery, and our first awareness campaign slogan, which is Big Thrills, Deep Roots, Legendary Tomatoes.

[02:08:09] These are tab outs to our four main pillars of tourism here in Hanover County, an interactive map with icons of some of our most recognizable features, an events calendar that shows all of these are the pinned upcoming features, our blog, the app preview, and then our footer, which links out to all of our partners in the region and in the state.

[02:08:43] Moving on to our things to do page, has attractions, farms and fields, historic, outdoor, and shopping. And it has roughly about 350 listings at this time between all of our different local businesses, farms, and attractions. We do want to note that while we certainly did our best to capture everyone in the area, no one was specifically left off of this list. So if a local business or non-profit is not seen here, please reach out to us. We would love to feature you and partner with

[02:09:21] you. As you can see on the side as it's being demonstrated, that you're able to filter by different attractions, different categories, so that you can see things that are pulling just for that category. It's a little easier to navigate that way. You get a brief description as well as the website and phone number of each of the attractions and listings. This is our places to stay. It includes all of the local hotels, inns, and motels, and campgrounds for both the county

[02:09:56] and for the town of Ashland. You can see here the listing is also giving all of the contact information as well. Moving on to our events page. This is where you can see the local calendar, Things that are being featured, you can search by date in the month, or you can look at the calendar view as well. This is going to be a great resource to our community members who are looking for something to do and asking, what is there really to do in Hanover? Well, I would love to

[02:10:32] show you. We have hundreds of listings already pre-populated on here. There's so much happening in Hanover. Our restaurants, we had to narrow it down. We had so many different types of food and drink here in Hanover County. We were told that we had to narrow down our filters list. So you will see a specialty tab on here. That really is our catch-all. If it's specialty, it's under that tab, but Americana, American dining, Asian bakery, barbecue, beverages, and a whole list of others

[02:11:02] allows you to really dig down and to find something you want to eat at that time. For our plan, this highlights our visitor center in partnership with the town of Ashland when our hours are and how to get there. And then our fun tomato friend is our trip planner. So this is an interactive map that has all of those listings that we just previewed located on this map. And you are able to go in and add them to your trip itinerary. It shows you all of the different routes that you can take to get there. You can add your dates of travel and you can even navigate with a GPS router to be able

[02:11:42] to go from place to place without having to keep updating your personal GPS. And that takes us back to our homepage. So the website is visithanoverva.com. And I want to thank our friends at Richmond regional tourism they were the original owners of that domain name that domain has been switched over to hanover and at this time it is populating now on the campus and over the next couple of days will be populated throughout the rest of the internet so that the world can view it

[02:12:20] did katherine negotiate a good deal on that or was she was she kind to us she was very kind to us i so appreciate her kindness and her team was fabulous wanted to highlight the events calendar briefly again. This is what it looks like pinned to the page. This is an incredible resource for our community members. Again, this allows them to see at a glance what some of the biggest festivals are coming up. And then when they click on an event that they want to see more information on, they're able to see a snapshot of what the photo is, the times, locations, some event details, and a link to learn more. This is something that we're going to be posting about each week,

[02:12:59] and I'll mention it again when we come back to social media. But we will be posting events that are going on each weekend. And so we want to make sure we're pointing people to the calendar so that they're able to see everything going on. And shout out to our Parks and Rec friends for this great sounds at sunset. If you were able to go, it was wonderful. Interactive maps. So when we first were being brought on to build this department, one of the things that was mentioned is how large Hanover County is and how some people have a different concept of navigating it. So maps were discussed and suggested, and we took that to heart. We built two different kinds of maps. One that's

[02:13:35] interactive and a little more stylized on our homepage as you saw in the video. It has all of these wonderful icons including the Beaver Dam Depot, the historic Scotch Town, different farms represented, the Fall Line Trail, Beverage Opportunities, King's Dominion, the Historic Courthouse, the Rutland Shops, Mechanicsville, the Polgreen Park, and Cold Harbor. All of these icons link out to their own specific pages so you're able to click on them and then get a little bit more information about some of our top attractions. As you can see here, this one is linking out to the Hanover Courthouse Complex. It talks about our historic

[02:14:14] courthouse, it talks about the Hanover County Museum in History and Culture, and then it also links to the tavern since they are our neighbor right next door. On the right we have our more interactive map that is with our trip planner. That has all of our different listings listed out and points on this map so you can see which ones are grouped together, which ones a little further apart, so the visitor can really understand where they are going and driving to if they're able to go all the way across the county for certain things or if they have to stick a little closer to their hotel for time's sake all right next up we have our app video so again i'm going to give you a

[02:14:51] little preview before we go into that slide since it plays automatically the app was a is a partner to this map on your right they talk to each other so you can create a login on the website download our app and then be able to log into the app and have the same information that you have saved at home at your fingertips. Here's a little preview walking you through how the app works. This is our homepage. It's very easy to read the different categories as well and it has all of the same

[02:15:24] listings that our website does. You're able to sort at the top left to the different categories as we did on the website. Find what events, attractions that you're looking for, hotels,

[02:15:39] and add them to your plan. Same with restaurant and dining. Then you can click into my plan and see everything that you have saved both on the website and the app and see your navigation options

[02:16:11] directly on your phone linked to your GPS and can be over your car speaker as needed. Gives you step-by-step directions should you need those versus the auditory and then finally it also has our entire events calendar built into the app as well that you can add events to your plan. You're

[02:16:51] able to save things to get notifications for these events that you have coming up. This app is live now in your app store so you're able to go online and download it. It is visit Hanover VA and you will see a little green icon like what is on the left of your screen. Once you download it you'll see the very fun splash screen that comes up which features King's Dominion and the Hanover

[02:17:29] Tavern. Director what was the name of it? Visit Hanover VA app. It's in your app store both on Google and on Apple. Okay thank you ma'am. Wonderful. I'll give you all a moment I see a lot of heads looking for that app that's great fantastic so this year the department was able to apply for

[02:18:05] a grant through vtc for the arrivalist grant giving us direct access to tourism data for our department to base to create a baseline so that we know moving forward what our direct impact is and so i wanted to go over a little bit of that data with you that we know what our starting line is so our top visitor markets is the richmond petersburg area with 17.3 percent visitation closely followed by Washington, D.C. with 12.5 percent. Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News is 7.8 percent visitation. And then our out-of-state markets is the New York market at 6 percent

[02:18:43] and Philadelphia at 5 percent. The average days that a visitor spends in Hanover is 1.5 days, with day trip visitors up 14.2 percent from 2024 to a 35.5 visitation day trip rate, and 64.5% overnight visitors, down slightly 6.4% from 2024.

[02:19:07] We see consistent travel month over month in March through September, with our highest month, unsurprisingly, is July at 10.7% visitation. Our lowest month tends to be February with 5.8%, with an annual mean range of visitation at 8.34% visitation per month.

[02:19:27] Our heaviest travel days are Mondays at 18.3%, and Fridays at 16.4%. This leans heavily on the model we've been utilizing in partnership with Richmond Regional Tourism. We see a lot of weekend activity in the city, and then we see a lot of great visitation here in Hanover on those buffer days between.

[02:19:48] Going into our marketing, based off of the data that I was able to just show you, there are three segments of marketing that we will be utilizing over the next few months as we break into the market. Our physical marketing, we will be partnering with the Virginia Tourism Cooperation. For visitor centers, we have 11 across the state that we will be located in, three safety stops. The Virginia Tourism Corporation 2027 Travel Guide we will be featured in. And then for magazines, we will be featured in Virginia Living and Southern

[02:20:24] Living. For digital marketing, we will have 60 radio advertisements through WNRN in the month of June 2026 throughout the state. We will be utilizing search engine optimization, social media ads, both meta awareness and meta traffic, extend reach networks displays through our extended markets, digital content articles about Hanover County. And locally, we want to promote in newspaper and video with Richmond Times Dispatch. They have been a great partner already reaching out, making sure that we have the resources we need to be connected here in our own community, making sure that we're featured in the Mechanicsville local. Hanover Review cover and feature. Thank you to our

[02:21:03] team in communications for making sure that that cover is beautiful. I'm excited to show you a little sneak peek here shortly. And then the tourism tent and presence at local festivals and events. Festival season's coming up. We're incredibly excited to be out and to speaking with our visitors who are coming in for these great events and to tell them what else they can do while they're here. We also finally have a social media presence and weekly event features, as I have mentioned previously. I would be remiss if I did not say a thank you to Mr. Sam Zidon.

[02:21:34] He came forward at one of the local EDA meetings when I was giving a brief presentation about our work plan and donated $30,000 to go towards our digital marketing campaign. Because of that donation, we were able to break in further to the D.C. market for our digital advertisements, really utilizing that pull down the I-95 interstate for drivability. So thank you, Mr. Zidin, for your generous donation. Mr. Zidin, he donated $50,000 for the AED machines. He donated, I just had lunch with Mr. Zidin today, and he did not mention that. So thank you for

[02:22:09] mentioning that. He gave us $30,000 for a digital marketing campaign? Correct. Yes, sir. Thank you. What a great guy. I did also want to mention on a very fun note that Hanover was center stage in the Virginia Living Magazine this past month in the April edition. Hanover's own Hillbrook Farm was featured as the cover and we wanted to say congratulations to Hillbrook Farm for that feature.

[02:22:42] It's incredibly well-earned. Our social media presence, we have Facebook and Instagram. There will be weekly posts include a weekly history post, an agritourism feature, and then happening in Hanover weekend event roundup. We will also see some education initially as to why tourism is important. We know this will be a big feature locally as we launch and grow brand awareness, so we want people to be educated on why tourism is important, just like what I mentioned at the of our advocacy posts about why tourism. It is referencing that wheel that we first started with.

[02:23:21] And then on the right is an example of what our weekend event wrap-up will look like. That brings us to our first awareness campaign. This is a preview. Thank you again to our communications team for helping us bring this to life. This is a convertible on the side of the road near King's Dominion at our beautiful gateway sign. Congratulations to Dana and her husband for being the chosen models and being such good sports during this. It really features our

[02:23:56] drivability campaign. Our slogan for this awareness drivability campaign is big thrills, deep roots, legendary tomatoes. Hanover and the Richmond region are within an eight hour drive for nearly half of the United States population and we want to encourage visitors not just to know who we are but to also get off the interstate and to spend some time and hopefully money here in Hanover County. So this will be featured with our digital marketing campaign, as well as these other marketing avenues that I just mentioned. Our RAC card, we mentioned our physical marketing avenues,

[02:24:31] one of those being the visitor center, 11 in the state, three safety stops. This will be at all of those locations, as well as at the local Hanover Ashland visitor center and our Richmond visitor center in partnership with Richmond Regional Tourism. And this is when I would love to read our positioning statement that the entire tourism team worked towards. Hanover County, Virginia brings it all together with 300 plus years of history, farm fresh experiences, world-class roller coasters, championship golf and cross-country courses, and the charming town of Ashland, affectionately known

[02:25:07] as center of the universe. Only 12 miles north of Richmond, Hanover County invites you to dig in, explore, and to find something unexpected. You can see a variety of our different experiences featured here and really pushing people towards our digital app and website and then finally making sure that our brand is front and center. On our local tourism front we wanted to make sure that we're using this time where we are stepping out and getting the community familiar with who we are that we're engaging our families and this is the avenue that we are going to be doing that this

[02:25:42] summer. This is the 2026 Hanover Family Passport. It has different challenges throughout like spread the love. Find the Hanover VA 250 love sign. Post a photo in front of the sign and tag someone else to do it. Or give me adventure. Be expired by Patrick Henry. Take a photo of Patrick Henry's site in the county. Tag us and write your own famous speech. Basket of fun. Visit any you pick farm in Hanover County and fill a basket box or bucket with your harvest. And then tag us. And then trail time featuring the fault line trail. There are 12 different challenges in this booklet,

[02:26:20] this passport. You need eight to complete it. We do have it set up where if you are not comfortable utilizing social media, you can still complete the challenge. We also have allowed that we understand that social media privacy is very important to people. So if you do not want to feature faces, you do not have to. We just ask that you please complete the challenge and spread the love in Hanover County. This can be redeemed at the Hanover County of Museum and Culture of History and Culture or at the Visit Hanover VA booth at the Tomato Festival.

[02:26:53] Those who complete the passport will receive a custom Hanover County coloring book packet for their kids. I mentioned grants previously already. We've already applied for three within our short six months of work on this team.

[02:27:11] The Arrivalist grant we received, that is a savings of roughly $10,000 to our department, providing us year-long access to Arrivalist data. We have applied for the Marketing Leverage grant It provides matching marketing funds of up to $20,000 for annual year 2027.

[02:27:29] The focus would be on our next year's campaign for the Tomato Trail, driving visitation and engagement during peak months. That would be a match of $20,000. And then for the VA 250, we had a unique opportunity to partner with the town of Ashland.

[02:27:44] Ashland had a grant that they wanted to pivot for the VA 250 and came to us to partner, and we are so glad that they did. They have now helped us promote and design the Voices of Freedom Tour that will be happening on August 15th, celebrating Hanover's role in achieving religious freedom.

[02:28:02] There are three religious sites in Hanover County and three religious sites in Ashland that will be featured on this tour with interpretation. We're excited to make that happen for that tour and to promote it and support the groups that are all contributing to that effort. That was a match grant of $15,000.

[02:28:20] And I did want to point out the beautiful love sign that our school, Hanover Education Foundation, put together in collaboration with the VTC Love Works. Mater the trailer at Hanover VA. In case you all are wondering, that's how you can find him on Instagram to make sure he's traveling around the county and where you can take pictures with him.

[02:28:43] I wanted to highlight some of our partnerships as well as we have grown over these past few months. The town of Ashland has been an incredible partner as we have built this. They have their own tourism identity, but they have willingly and openly shared their resources, given their time, and made sure that we were at the table for conversations that we needed to be there for.

[02:29:04] And I want to genuinely thank them for that. They partnered with us for the VA 250 grant, cross-collaborating on marketing initiatives that we already have underway, and are working with us to update the Ashland Hanover Visitor Center with our new Hanover tourism assets.

[02:29:21] King's Dominion, as you all know, there was some change that occurred within the past couple of years with Kings Dominion ownership. We have a new relationship with their park manager as well as their new parent company Six Flags representatives. We've had multiple meetings with them and they are interested in pursuing a possible MOU with tourism to be able to cross promote for each other as well as what different incentives could be. We're excited for that.

[02:29:46] Richmond Regional Tourism, RRT, working to integrate our additional tourism assets into their wonderful website and inventory, making sure that Hanover is providing a pipeline of information up to them so that we are accurately represented on a larger scale. We are collaborating with their team on the TBEX conference, which is an international content creators conference that's coming to the Richmond area in June of 2026. Congratulations to Catherine and her team for landing such an incredible conference. Hanover will be offering four familiarization or fam tours

[02:30:20] with a maximum of 60 content creators who will be coming on these tours giving possible large spread promotion of Hanover County throughout those tours. And finally we love the support that we get through the regional advertisements and the campaigns that they do and we will continue to give information up so that they are able to represent us on a much wider scale and we thank them for their support and their marketing efforts. Finally Virginia Tourism Corp VTC we are updating all of our assets in the state inventory regarding Hanover County, including our photos, descriptions,

[02:30:57] film locations, and marketing assets, and consistently holding familiarization tours for their staff across the state to come in and learn about Hanover County. We've had three thus far, and we're looking forward to hosting more. We also partnered with VTC for the iconic Virginia is for Tomato Lovers, a spinoff of their traditional Virginia is for Lovers slogan. This is open to others to use because no one can claim their slogan but the state themselves.

[02:31:26] But I do not know of another county that is currently utilizing tomatoes as iconically as we are. And then finally, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the partnerships that we have had at the business, nonprofit, and resident level. I have never been in a community or served in a community that is so excited for tourism.

[02:31:45] And that has been evident in every, every business that we have walked in. We are new people in the county coming to ask if we can take pictures of your business and to get content. And almost everyone has answered with a resounding, yes, you can.

[02:32:01] And Mr. Hudson, you might recognize a few faces. We went into the Mechanicsville drugstore to take some photos of that iconic diner setting. And these gentlemen, the regulars for the breakfast crew, they said, wanted their picture taken and they wanted to be involved. So we are incredibly thankful for the overwhelming sense of kindness and pride that these residents have.

[02:32:23] We also have Dana and her family during our photo shoot. We were able to get some wonderful family photos of our cows at the Hanover Vegetable Farm. That little gentleman's name is Lucky. He's a calf. We have our featured food photography that our staff was able to take at the brewery locally.

[02:32:43] And then finally, we have our beautiful local coffee. They did a custom roast for us so that we would be able to showcase that and get some great footage of what that looks like roasting on site to feature. So I just want to extend a very sincere thank you to all of our residents, nonprofits, and our businesses.

[02:33:03] Looking ahead, as I mentioned earlier, we will begin attending community events and festivals. We will continue our community small business and farm engagement as we have been doing over the past six months. Marketing will be enacted, digital, physical, and social media, as we mentioned our plan earlier.

[02:33:24] Our kickoff strategic planning process will begin. We have our foundation now, but now we need to look at what the next three to five years will look like. And then once our strategic plan is completed, a process will be initiated to recognize Hanover County officially as a destination marketing organization, or a DMO.

[02:33:42] This will open up the opportunity for new grants and new funding to be acquired through different sources. And without that designation, it sometimes is a little bit more difficult to access those. Finally, we will be moving forward with the marketing planning and engagement for the PGA Corn Ferry Championship.

[02:34:00] That is an incredible opportunity. And I can honestly say, as someone who is starting a brand new tourism department, I never thought I would have the opportunity to market on something on that scale so quickly. And I'm incredibly excited to move that forward. And then finally, marketing support for the Hanover VA 250 and the Voices of Freedom event that we have mentioned previously.

[02:34:22] On my last note, before I wrap up this presentation, I want to thank you. Thank you for the time that you allowed this department to build. It's not often that you get to step into a local government role and be allowed the time to build the boat before you have to row it.

[02:34:38] Oftentimes, we build and we row and we make it work, but this opportunity to build it before we were able to launch it was incredible. So thank you so much for your patience and the time as we have built this boat. Thank you director. Are there any questions any comments? Mr. Herzberg. Well, thank you. Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much Miss Smith for your presentations. Very well done. It's impressive and I remember when we first met

[02:35:10] We discussed this you had a lot of good ideas and I remember thinking well, we'll see what happens and you you Incorporated the good ideas and really put that plan forward and we have it so it wasn't just talk i mean it was talk backed up by a lot of really good action so i thank you and i think it's great i do have a couple of questions yes sir minor questions so the first one is on the event calendar will that have events such as

[02:35:48] tomato festival spooky fun fest and winter on the green yes sir we will partner with our parks and rec department to make sure those are featured well very good because that you know a lot of our citizens really enjoy those events and parks and recs does a great job on putting those on they don't do that for the Board of Supervisors they do that for the community for our citizens and our residents and that's a lot of good community fun there one thing that we mentioned a few months ago you it was your idea and I think it's on the app if if a person goes to a site let's say

[02:36:28] they're touring Cold Harbor Battlefield and they, you know, want to look for a local place to stay or a restaurant. Will they be able to download the app to do that? Is that how you set that up? Can you explain that a little further so I understand it, so I can explain it better?

[02:36:46] I would be happy to. Yes, they will be able to zoom in on one locality, like Cold Harbor, and they're able to see what hotels are around them by the lodging feature on the map. They're also able to see and sort by restaurants on the app through the filter. And so they can see what's around them. They're able to see where they can stay. They're able to see what attractions are near them, all by just zooming in on that map and clicking on the different listings that are located there. Well, I think that's great because one of the concerns I had was people that visit

[02:37:22] the battlefield. There's not a hotel near there. It's not really a restaurant near there because so out in rural but there's plenty of that in the 360 corridor not far from there so you did what you said you would you got it set up so they can stay in hanover and i think that's great so very well done thank you very much mr chairman thank you thank you mr hersberg anything further yes floyd thank you i am so excited rachel this is better than i could have imagined i've been very excited about the tourism department but now seeing your presentation

[02:37:58] especially the app I'm just blown away this is wonderful I've been playing on the app since you told us to get it so thank you for all you've done thank you miss pressure same this is absolutely wonderful and that you've managed to do all of this this quickly time to build a boat you build an ark I mean this is is really amazing work. I'm wondering if in the future you're thinking about something around holidays. Yes, ma'am. So Mother's Day is coming up. I know that I'm getting a trip to go cuddle

[02:38:38] New Highland miniature cows. That is my Mother's Day gift. And I think that a lot of our farms might be really doing things that we could pull into holiday celebrations as a part of marketing. is that an ongoing thought yes ma'am it is every holiday to the best of our ability will be featured in some capacity or another with ongoing businesses and our farm promotions anything further you want to go cocktails director smith thank you ranger i i mean seriously phenomenal job i mean i'm going through the website i'm looking at different things um just had no idea you certainly

[02:39:16] hit the ground running and uh been just a dead sprint and i knew you were busy uh board members had talked about all the things that you were doing but I think I can speak for the entire board when I say we had no idea it was at this level this is phenomenal so thank you so much this is just huge I want to thank mr. Donald as well for all of her partnership long history long relationship with that organization and she leads it very well and so thank you for that Catherine but we really appreciate not only a presentation but all of the hard work that you've done and the results because we're the results business that's just

[02:39:53] what we do and we can't confuse effort with results we have to deliver on a daily basis and you certainly done that so thank you very much we really appreciate that at this time it's 4:36 the board will reconvene at 6:00 p.m. board members are invited outside with fire and EMS for preview of our new ADA trailer as well as photos so please make yourself available here if you need a hospitality break please do that and then we'll meet outside this board is at

[02:40:22] recess we'll now call the hanover county board of supervisors meeting back to order next item on

[04:03:48] the agenda is citizens time citizens time is a time where anyone who wishes to address the board on any matter within the board's authority is welcome to come forward we ask that you state your name your address or the district your name the district that you live uh or the entity that you represent we do ask uh first of all how many folks do we have here want to speak at citizens time just to okay so we can do five minutes for each person uh you do not have to fill out a card however it does help us with district specific information and follow-up while we don't allow presentations either audio or visual during citizens time you are free to provide a presentation

[04:04:24] or notes you can give them to dr brown we will ensure that it gets to the board and entered into the public record uh the first speaker is welcome to come forward again please state your name that the district that you live or the entity you represent thank you for being with us good evening my name is Rhonda Hammond and I'm in the Beaverdam district good evening chairman Davis and members of the board Luckstone has presented the county with a new traffic impact analysis that paints a picture of a quiet rural road easily absorbing 500 industrial trips a day

[04:05:03] as well as a new railroad crossing but as someone who actually lives on this road I don't need an engineering degree to see the flaws in their math. Let's look at the baseline data. The latest published 2023 VDOT AADTT for Verdun Road from Route 1 to Noah Road is 1,700 vehicles per day.

[04:05:23] Yet, Luckstone's TIA uses dates in April that showed only 1,179 and 1,143 trips. They are basing their entire safety model on a ghost version of Verdun Road that is 30% less traffic than VDOT actually reports. If their starting numbers are wrong, every conclusion has to be questioned. But we don't have to guess what happens when you put a massive industrial complex on a rural road. We have a case study just a few miles away in Goochland on Ashland Road. Recently, I was

[04:06:00] on Ashland Road with my two daughters and my four-year-old loves to count, but unfortunately she can only get to the number 11. So we were lucky that her fifth grade sister was in the car because we went way past 11 counting the trucks in the queue going down Ashland Road. Everyone in this room has witnessed the never-ending line of dump trucks, asphalt trucks, and massive backups and dangerous queuing. Ashland Road is in the process of being updated to accommodate the industrial traffic that has consumed that road with multiple quarries. And guess who is paying for these upgrades, taxpayers. Furthermore, the TIA admits a train will cause a one to five minute

[04:06:38] delay. Now, ignoring the obvious concerns for first responders, Luckstone's plan places two separate industrial entrances and a new railroad crossing all within a single mile. Their study models these as isolated points, but in the real world, a 425-foot train queue doesn't stay in its lane. It backs up directly into the site entrances, creating a gridlock of heavy trucks that the TIA completely ignores. Additionally, these entrances are on blind curves when headed westbound on Verdun Road. Verdun Road is not designed for this. I am asking this board to look at the reality

[04:07:18] of what we have seen in Goochland and the flawed math of this TIA. Do not let Verdun Road become the next industrial corridor and thoroughfare. It is not what the citizens want or what this board has envisioned for this area of the county please maintain the rural character of beaver dam in the safety of verdon road for residents school buses and farm equipment and i've printed a picture recently where the road that luckstone says did not need to be upgraded a dump truck on march 6 almost clipped the back of this school bus but the bus thankfully moved further into route one

[04:07:55] to avoid the collision but this is an example of what we have seen thank you and that concludes my comments thank you for being with thank you thank you ma'am next speaker please please come forward state your name the district that you live or the entity that you represent thank you for being with us miss mcgee can you pass hi my name is cheryl mathry i live in the south anna district approximately less than a mile of the data center that you will hopefully not be um

[04:08:28] having to make a decision on um i've spoken before about this and i'm trying to understand is why we are chasing this rabbit hole of data centers when there are so many studies out there about how bad they are for our environment. One I know that you got, and this actually comes from VCU.

[04:08:49] Hello, they're just down the road. I think as a person who lives close to this data center, you also need to consider those who are living right next to it. I would like to know if this actually goes through, is the county going to help me sell my home, which my physician has told me I need to move? Are they going to help reimburse the electrical costs that are going to be incurred?

[04:09:16] I also would like to know why. Why are we chasing this when there's just so much bad information that's coming out from these data centers? There's a place in Illinois, if you do some research recently, that is predicting that their water is going to run short in 2030.

[04:09:39] Water is essential for our life. Water is what makes us live, breathe, and be able to grow food. We need to keep these data centers away and out of Hanover. I'm asking also for the environmental reasons that it causes more respiratory, as well as lung cancer issues. And we have many schools within very close range. In fact, Glen Allen is basically across the street. Echo Lake is down the road within a mile and a half. These are our

[04:10:15] children. Elmont is not that far away. Elmont is two miles from my house. I'm asking that if this makes it through zoning and planning that you really consider the environmental factors that are going to hurt us as well as our children because they are our future thank you thank you ma'am anyone else anyone else with citizens time seeing none we will close citizens time i want to welcome the chair of the hanover county board of supervisors or chair of hanover county school board here to the board of supervisors meeting miss welsh thank you for being here ma'am

[04:10:51] i think we'll hear from mr martin shortly but he also serves on the school board thank you for your service sir before i open the public hearing i'll recognize mr hudson mr hudson thank you mr chair i just wanted to express a thank you to everyone that did express an interest a lot of folks that expressed an interest actually don't live in the mechanicsville district but it is always good to know when folks have a willingness to serve and so i look forward to hearing from folks that are here thank you sir thank you mr hudson so we're getting ready to open up a public carrying to receive nominations for the school board in Hanover County for the Mechanicsville

[04:11:31] Magisterial District. We are going to do that in order of receipt of the interest form. We had five interest forms. Three of the interest forms submitted were disqualified due to Magisterial District, meaning that the individuals that submitted the interest form did not meet the residency requirement, meaning they did not live in the Mechanicsville Magisterial District.

[04:11:51] With that, names that come into nomination today at this public hearing are the ones that will be considered, and the board will take that under consideration and then receive a nomination at a later date from Mr. Hudson, and then the board will vote on a confirmation vote for any nomination.

[04:12:12] Again, that does take a full board vote. The nomination is made by the Mechanicsville Supervisor, as is customary with all other districts. As people know, these are staggered appointments, so this is the only nomination available now is for the Mechanicsville District.

[04:12:28] So at this time, we will open the public hearing to receive those nominations. In order of receipt of the interest form, Mr. Ryan Martin. Mr. Martin, please come forward, state your name, the district that you live, and you have up to five minutes. Thank you for being with us, sir. I'll be very brief.

[04:12:48] There's not a lot of folks here, so I don't want to waste your time. Ryan Martin, Mechanicsville District. I really just want to say how much I've enjoyed the opportunity to serve on the school board. It has been an extremely rewarding process for me personally. I have a lot of skin in the game with three young elementary-age students and one in my wife's stomach that will be a class of 2045 graduate.

[04:13:16] So I've got a lot of investment in Hanover County Public Schools for a long time. You know, one of the things that I've really focused on, you know, coming into the board was really fostering a better relationship with the school board and the key stakeholders in the division.

[04:13:32] I thought that there was work to be done on that. I've worked really hard to have a good relationship with our superintendent, assistant supes, directors, and principals. We've really made an effort to get into our schools and foster better communication, I believe. Our board, my colleagues on the board, we've really got a nice thing going with the relationship at the schools and with central office.

[04:13:54] So I cut my remarks very brief. I would be humbled to have the chance to serve a full term for another four years. I want to thank Mr. Hudson for his consideration, for you all for considering me, and again, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Martin.

[04:14:10] We have received your nomination. The next interest form received was Ms. Aisha Allen. Ms. Allen or any representative? Anyone here to place Ms. Allen's name in denomination? Aisha Allen? Very well. Additionally, anyone can place their name in denomination or someone else's name in denomination, and we do have blank interest forms if that was to take place.

[04:14:35] Is there anyone here present who wishes to place anybody else's name into consideration or nomination for the Mechanicsville District School Board representative? Anyone at all? Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. Are there any announcements by board members?

[04:14:52] very well mr. county administrator mr. county attorney the time is 6 11 we are adjourned until the next regularly scheduled board meeting at 6 p.m on wednesday april 22nd we'll have some order april 22nd 2026 for the regularly scheduled board of supervisors meeting to be held at the county boardroom we are adjourned now you can celebrate

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