Coraggio Consulting Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting, Tuesday, April 18, 2023 Date: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia Length: 7h 2m (video) Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7250 Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7250 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 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:08:46] He said he was. [00:08:58] Amanda, good evening, supervisors. [00:09:35] Good evening, student supervisors. Good evening, staff, and good evening, Loudoun. I'd like to call to order the April 18, 2023 Loudoun County Board of Supervisors business meeting. This room has a hearing loop. If you need a hearing assistance, please switch your hearing aid to the telecom mode. If you need a headset, we have those available as well. [00:09:53] Obviously, today we have some very special guests on the dais and in the room. It is our Youth and Government Day, which is the day of the year that I enjoy the most, and we're excited to have them here. We have our student supervisors in the room. I'm going to have them go down the dais in just a second and introduce themselves. [00:10:10] But before they introduce themselves on the dais, I'd like all the young people from Youth and Government Day to stand up, please, so we can recognize you. [00:10:26] Thank you. I'm going to start all the way to my right with the student supervisor for the Dulles District. Would you please introduce yourselves, and we'll go all the way down the dais. Hi, I'm Rudu, and I go to Rockridge High School. [00:10:43] Supervisor, what is your last name? Danny Gayvale. Anagave? Danny Gayvale. Anagave, nice to meet you. Hi, I am James Doherty, and I go to Woodgrove High School. Hi, I'm Rhea Kaith, and I go to Broad Run High School. Hi, I'm Madar Samakab, and I go to Heritage High School. [00:11:00] Hi, my name is Alex Ayala, and I go to Parkview High School. Hi, I'm Anisha Kaninti, and I go to Rockridge High School. Hi, my name is Yubin Lee, and I go to Independence High School. Hi, my name is Lacey Kennedy, and I go to Dominion High School. I'm Julia Whitting, and I go to Broad Run High School. [00:11:16] My name is Grishma Yadlapali, and I go to Rockridge High School. My name is Rosalyn McCurley. I go to Tuscarora High School. My name is Taylor Grand. I go to Woodgrove High School. Wonderful. Welcome to all of you. Vice Chair Sains, I'm going to now pass it to you and your student supervisor to give us words of inspiration, our prayer, and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. [00:11:40] All right. We'll do the pledge. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. [00:12:07] Supervisors and student supervisors, we're going to read the proposed consent agenda, and I say every year on this day that whomever I get lucky enough to have as my student supervisor does a lot of work up here. So you're going to read the... [00:12:24] The proposed consent agenda is as follows. Item R1, resolution celebrating 100 years of service of the Percival Volunteer Fire Company. Item R2, proclamation declaring April 16th to 22nd, 2023 as National Volunteer Week. [00:12:43] Item R3, proclamation declaring April 15-22, 2023 as International Day Dark Sky Week. Item R4, resolution to recognize the 75th anniversary of Banneker Elementary School. Item R5, proclamation to commemorate Fair Housing Month. [00:13:02] Item R6, proclamation to recognize April 2023 as Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. Item R7, proclamation to recognize April 7th, 2023 as Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Phi Uphilson Zeta Chapter Day. [00:13:20] Item R8, resolution of commendation for the Light Ridge High School academic team. Item R9, proclamation to recognize Earth Day 2023. Item 1A, appointments confirmations. Item 2, administrative items report of April 18th, 2023. [00:13:37] Item 7, proposed traffic calming measures in the Broadlands community. Item 8, response to the board member initiative, proposed multimodal feasibility study along the Algonquin Parkway. Item 9, evening star drive corridor safety study. [00:13:59] Item 10A, award authority increase automatic external defibrillators and accessories. Item 10B, award authority increase public safety and emergency preparedness, equipment, and related services. Item 10C, contract renewal, public safety, two-way radios, and related equipment. [00:14:21] Item 10D, contract renewal and intersection improvement design services. Item 10E, contract renewal, day support, and employment services. Item 10F, resolution authorizing the issuance of appropriation-backed bonds to the Economic Development Authority of Loudoun County, Virginia. [00:14:41] Item 10G, resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of general obligation public improvement and refunding bonds. Item 10H, community development block grant funding recommendations. Supervisors, is there any discussion? [00:14:58] I will make a motion to accept the consent agenda. Do I have a second? Second. Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Sainz. Discussion on the motion. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Am I projecting? [00:15:15] Yes. Yes. Okay, great. My microphone's broken. It's stuck on, so that's why staff told me to tip it the other way. I'm very excited that we are approving tonight $224,000 for the project management consulting services from the Project Managed Consulting Services account to a newly created Algonquian Parkway multimodal feasibility study project in the Capital Projects Fund. [00:15:41] This is for Algonquian Parkway, about six miles. It's a feasibility study to see if we can install multimodal paths on there for bikers, wheelchairs, scooters, and those sorts of things. The paths that are there right now are mostly HOA paths. [00:15:59] They are not contiguous. The trails in many areas are in very bad condition with sharp curves, bumps, narrow widths, cracks, and overgrown vegetation. That makes it very difficult to use the path in any way other than being a pedestrian or walking your dog. [00:16:15] Staff notes that they do not meet current standards under the American Association State Highway and Transportation Officials or the American with Disabilities Act. I've received many constituent complaints about these paths and the need for having a way to bike along the six miles of Algonquian Parkway. [00:16:35] I see bikers on Algonquian Parkway on a weekly basis trying to avoid folks on the HOA paths but taking very treacherous trips on Algonquian Parkway on their bikes. This is an important six-mile thoroughfare for Loudoun County. It connects us to Fairfax County and Route 7 and connects us to Atlantic Boulevard and eventually the W&OD Trail. [00:16:56] I'm really excited about this, and I hope that it will lead to long-lasting improvements for multimodal forms of transportation in Algonquian District and the county. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Brixman. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleagues for supporting the Broadlands traffic calming measures on the consent agenda. [00:17:17] After over three years with a process that had been drastically delayed because of COVID, I'm happy that we are able to install speed humps on Ridgeway Drive and watch for children's signs in other locations around the Broadlands community. I also want to thank the community residents, especially in the Ridgeway Drive area, who went door-to-door, handed out flyers, and encouraged their neighbors to vote for these traffic calming measures. [00:17:44] There have been several accidents on Ridgeway that were speed-related, including one with teenagers who flipped a vehicle over and hit a parked car, so I know these improvements are vitally needed. I look forward to seeing them installed later this year and having safer streets in the Broadlands. [00:18:02] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Glass. Supervisors, anybody else? All right, I do believe Supervisor Turner is on his way. I have not talked to Supervisor Kirshner. He's on his way as well, so we'll get them here in a second. In the meantime, if you see nobody else, all the people who say aye, any opposed? [00:18:22] That motion will pass, 7-0-2. Supervisors, do I have any additions or deletions from the agenda? Seeing none, it's going to be confusing with Ms. Bricksman's light on the entire night tonight. That's okay, it's not your fault. Seeing none, I just wanted to give a really quick update on my chair's activities, if I can find them, which I do not really know where I put them. [00:18:48] All right, I'm going to do the chairs update in just a second because I can't find them. I'm going to go ahead and do my voice for a cause tonight. My voice for a cause tonight is Loudon Interfaith Bridges. And if they would come to the podium, the student supervisor from the Ashburn District is going to read all about Loudon Interfaith Bridges. [00:19:15] Loudon Interfaith Bridges envisions a compassionate Loudon community where people of all faiths come together in collective stewardship to value safety, respect, dignity, and equity. They seek to foster a dialogue with the diverse members of our county's faith communities to further strengthen bonds for a good and equitable society. [00:19:31] Reverend Dr. David Malam is going to introduce everyone else. Great. Thank you so much. Madam Chair and Board of Supervisors, thank you for our opportunity to be here. Hold on just a second, Pastor Malam. Is his microphone on? Because it doesn't sound like he's projecting very much. [00:19:48] I can get closer. That's a little better. Thank you. Okay. I want to recognize the board members who are here behind me and other friends of Loud and Interfaith Bridges. Ms. Pooja Khanna is our board president, and she's here. [00:20:04] And let's see, we have our treasurer here, Rizwan Jaka, who is famous for selfies especially, and his son, Mikael Martinez-Jaka, is also here, and Mikael is one of our youth representatives. [00:20:22] Reverend Garrett Wolfe is here, who is somebody who is a pastor of King of Kings Lutheran Church in the South Riding area and also has worked with youth a lot. Octavio Rojas is here, who is part of our board discussions because his wife, Ava Maria Torres, is on the board. [00:20:42] Ava is not able to be here, but Octavio is her translator for some of our meetings. Mercedes Izadi from the Baha'i community is here. We have Nikki Darawalla here who has been very helpful to us as we've been reorganizing our bridges. [00:21:03] And Rabbi David Greenspoon, a very, very good friend of mine, who also helps out quite wonderfully with the organization of Loudon Interfaith Bridges. I think I believe I've got everybody. Thank you, Pastor. The student supervisor from Ashburn now has some questions for you. Okay. [00:21:18] How did Loudon Interfaith Bridges get started? Bridges started back in 2006, and it had a really wonderful kind of existence for 10 years or so, and then it kind of fell into disrepair a little bit. So last year, we started with vigils following the shootings in Uvalde, and we had a series of 10 vigils at the Loudoun County Public Schools offices. [00:21:46] And we just gathered people to lament the shootings that had taken place there and to learn about gun violence, and we especially called people of faith together to do that. So that really kind of was a launching place for us to reconnect with people who had been a part of Bridges and to have a different kind of sense about how it would be in the future. [00:22:08] And I'm now the executive director, and that's a new kind of organizational piece for Bridges, and so we're trying to build a different model, but really want to be active in the county so that we can help with different things that bring together people of different faiths for a common cause. [00:22:26] We have our differences as people of faith, but we know that there are things that also unite us and especially as we want to see the welfare of our county. So like youth resiliency is one of our big focus points. We also have principals and faith leaders and politicians getting together now for lunch every now and then. [00:22:49] And we were meeting in Supervisor Briskman's district for our initial one and had a really wonderful time of forming relationships between school and faith communities and the county. And then we also just like to gather people together of different faiths because sometimes we break the barriers between faiths. [00:23:13] We find great sense of friendship, but also we learn about one another's faith in a way that enhances us and helps us to grow. What a beautiful story. Thank you. What events are coming up? Well, the big event is May 7th, and it's a Sunday afternoon at 5 p.m. [00:23:34] It's going to take place at the Adams Center Mosque in their pavilion in the back, and we're having an interfaith comedy night. So our hope is that the interfaith comedians there will help us laugh, all of us, at ourselves so that we can have those barriers pulled down, and then we're going to sit at table with one another after that, people of diverse faith at every particular table, and just have time to get to know one another better. [00:24:04] And there's going to be food there as well. So you'll all want to come. That sounds like a lot of fun. How can residents get involved in Latin Interfaith Bridges? Please provide your contact information. Okay. My contact... [00:24:21] My phone number is. That's usually how I tell people to get a hold of me. My email is revdocdavem at AOL.com, and you can reach me there. But we have a Facebook page for Loud and Interfaith Bridges, and that's the best thing to look up. [00:24:41] And we will have all of our events on there so that you can participate in that way. And I think just people coming together to gather. But, you know, people who have interest in the youth and how the youth can have a good health, mental health, and have a good future, I'm so glad to be here the same day as all of you young people. [00:25:02] And we know in Bridges what a bright future our county and our nation have because we know you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Pastor and everyone from Bridges, you all do amazing work and bring the community together in amazing ways every single day. [00:25:22] So we really do, I join the student supervisor from Ashburn saying thank you very much. Thank you. Whilst I get my comments back from the student supervisor from Ashburn, I'm going to go to Mr. Hempstreet to see if you have comments. [00:25:40] Mr. Hempstreet, if you have comments, you can go for it, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have four comments this evening. First, the Loudoun County Public Library is sponsoring a system-wide food drive. Donations of unopened, unexpired, non-perishable food items can be dropped off at any of the 10 branches from April 22nd through April 30th. [00:25:58] Donations will be distributed by Loudoun Hunger Relief. During the library's last food drive in 2019, the community donated over 15,000 pounds of food. More information is online at library.loudon.gov. Second, the Loudoun County government is one of many local employers that will be represented at the Work in Loudoun Career Fair tomorrow, April 19th, sponsored by Loudoun Economic Development. [00:26:18] Job seekers can meet employers from a variety of industries, including health care and information technology. The event will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Higher Education Center on the Nova Loudoun campus. Details are at biz.loudon.gov. Third, the Loudoun County Treasurer's Office reminds taxpayers that personal property taxes are due May 5th. [00:26:37] The county offers several convenient payment options, including online and by phone. More information can be found on the county's website at loudoun.gov slash pay taxes. Finally, I think it is appropriate that on this Youth and Government Day, my last comment focuses on an opportunity for young people. Students who would like to create a legacy of leadership are encouraged to apply for the Summer Youth Leadership Institute scheduled for July 25th through July 28th at Mulvern Park in Leesburg. [00:26:59] The free program will include leadership development lessons, activities, volunteer experiences, a field trip to a local nonprofit, and games. The Institute is co-sponsored by Loudoun County Parks Recreation and Community Services and the Morven Park Center for Civic Impact. Rising 9th through 12th graders are eligible to participate. [00:27:16] More information is online at loudoun.gov slash teens. Those are my comments this evening, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Student Administrator. I actually did find my comments. I'm just going to go through them really very quickly. In NVTA this past week, we got the numbers on pedestrian and bicycle deaths in the country. [00:27:39] And it's really very disturbing. In the country overall, we are at a 40-year high in the nation of bicycle and pedestrian deaths. They are up 60% in the past two years. In Northern Virginia, for reasons I still don't quite understand, it's about 25% higher than the rest of Virginia, again, for reasons I don't really always understand. [00:28:02] The main reasons for more accidents, more deaths, and more deaths with bicycles of pedestrians and bicyclists, the two main reasons are distracted driving. And they have found that distracted driving obviously is your cell phone. [00:28:19] But it's also other things, other things people are doing when they're driving, fiddling with their radio, putting makeup on, doing something with your children, and speeding for whatever reason. And, again, we're not sure of these reasons yet. [00:28:36] Speeding is also up. And so there is a regional, statewide, and nationwide effort to do an education campaign about bicycle and pedestrian deaths from vehicles. [00:28:52] Because, you know, if it's pedestrian versus vehicle, the vehicle is going to win pretty much every single time. And so there's a whole education campaign about that. The second thing we talked about was EV charging stations. I did not know this, but there is what's called a tipping point. [00:29:09] When a percentage of people use one thing in the nation or do one thing in the nation, you've gone to a tipping point, and now you have to adjust society around that thing. And so in the country as a whole, at least 4% of the drivers throughout America have electric vehicles. [00:29:29] In northern Virginia, that number is well higher. In fact, it's almost double. Almost 8% of drivers in northern Virginia have electric vehicles. What we're trying to do now and the goal is to build in the electric vehicle infrastructure as soon and as fast as possible. [00:29:48] So if you have an electric vehicle, you can use your car and charge it wherever. Studies were done and it found that 80% of people who charge their electric vehicle do so at home. But for those who do what's called charging on the go, there is being a capacity map is being created to show where you will find the charging station as you're driving around. [00:30:11] And they're even doing the map that says where you'll find the charging station that has, I don't know what the exact word is, but it's charging faster. I don't know what the exact word is for fast charging, for faster charging, because NOVA has gone well over that tipping point. [00:30:28] And so we believe that by, I think it was 2054, it might have been the year, that we'll have nothing but electric vehicles. That's all there will be. So they're trying to put the vehicle charging stations in now. So those are my regional reports from NVTA. [00:30:48] I am going to ask the information items one and two, the Advisory Commission on Youth, Mr. Torpy and your team, will you please come down? student supervisors especially we we save these two items especially for this day and we have items I one and I two which is the Advisory Commission on youth youth Loudoun youth update and the youth in government day county-wide kind of what happened student supervisors what happens at this moment is they will give us a presentation and then we will have time for questions now supervisors [00:31:24] can have questions student supervisors will have questions and student supervisors and student administrators, student attorney, student clerk, I really, really encourage you all to listen closely and to ask all the questions you want to ask because this presentation really is about and because and for you. [00:31:44] So when they get organized, which is going to happen real quick here, we're going to do, I'm going to talk real slow now. We're going to do that. Very good. We are, are we ready for them? [00:32:02] We are ready when you all are. Thank you, Madam Chair and board members, and thank you for allowing us to come this evening. As we do each year, the Advisory Commission on Youth, your appointed commission for youth information, comes back before the Board of Supervisors and provides an annual update on the status of youth in Loudoun County. [00:32:24] I know that the commission has been working with staff and various departments for quite some time on this project, and they are here this evening to deliver that annual update for you. So, Madam Chair, if it's okay, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Goldman. [00:32:41] Student Madam Chair, is that fine with you? She says it's okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Steve, and a big thanks to Parks and Rec for sponsoring ACOY. Thank you again, Board of Supervisors, esteemed government leaders here, students. [00:32:57] This is the perfect time. We love to be able to present to the Board of Supervisors for all the hard work that you guys do throughout the year. This is a perfect forum for us to do so. So what I have for you today, this is our most comprehensive report the Advisory Commission on Youth has ever done since Mike and I have been members, and I'm told since ACOI has existed. [00:33:23] As always, we draw upon publicly available data at the national, state, and local levels, but we also have inputs from nearly every district rep in Loudoun, eight different community liaisons, the LCPS Office of Student Services Leadership Team, the Acting Superintendent, Youth Advisory Council Leaders, and a newly updated in-depth parent and youth survey providing inputs directly from the youth constituency itself. [00:33:53] We can't cover it all today. You have packed 50 pages of material in our report. So instead, with our limited time, before I turn over a couple of things to Mike for some specific data highlights and recommendations, I want to start with three key takeaways, and I brought visual aids. [00:34:12] Our Loudoun youth are accomplished. These are just two of the top 20 teams from the Step Up competition sponsored by Loudoun Youth, Inc. I have on my immediate left Ms. Suhani Dixit, one of the finalists for this year. She is a team of one for thriving times, an online lifestyle platform focused on teen mental health that helps teens manage stress in constructive ways while encouraging them to give back to their community, which leads me to point number two. [00:34:46] Mental health wellness concerns plague our county, our state, our nation, and the pandemic only helped to expose problems that were just under the surface. Online support opens doors to licensed practitioners where we have a national shortage. [00:35:02] ACOI supported the LCPS task force, which explored and evaluated multiple online platform solutions, something our youth supports and need in addition to incentive for students who commit to the field and remain in Loudoun. Also on my left, point number three, I have Anvi, representative of the Breaking Vaping team, second overall in the step-up competition with more teammates that are here in the audience. They can wave their hands. Yeah, this is how we clap here, what I'm doing right now. These middle schoolers use their platform to educate students and adults about [00:35:41] the dangers of vaping. Like ACOY, they support the Board of Supervisors taking steps within their power to curb illegal use and illegal sales in Loudoun. Our report shows the continued growth of vape shops, and as you are aware, penalties are not nearly as harsh as illegal alcohol purchases or consumption than for vaping. There are zero reasons to start vaping if you aren't already a smoker. Those three takeaways again, Loudoun youth are accomplished, Loudoun provided innovative programs, and youth-led programming works. Number two, youth supports online solutions to help other [00:36:19] students struggling with mental health issues, and ACOI would like to see incentives for youth who commit to the profession in Loudoun. And number three, while ACOI was way out in front of the vaping, normalizing youth smokers, we now have a talented group of middle schoolers that would also like to see some action taken too. Michael now give us a few highlights with data backing up some of our claims and some key recommendations. This we believe will help our 125,000 plus youth we serve in Loudoun. Mike? Great job, Jeff, and thank you too for joining us. And thank you to [00:36:58] the Board of Supervisors for supporting the work of the Loudoun Advisory Commission on Youth. We heard you last year when you asked us to look back and show what has happened with the recommendations we've made in the past. So we include each recommendation we've made over the last nine years and color-coded them in green where we've accomplished it, yellow where we've partially accomplished it, and red where we haven't made progress yet. [00:37:27] So a pretty healthy look back. We also included a section that describes the data that we gathered, and we pay particular attention to gathering data that is Loudon-specific and is actionable, things that we can take action on. [00:37:46] We made a handful of recommendations, and we try very hard to make our recommendations actionable and cost-effective. Three or four that are really important to us this year, we would like to pour a little fuel on the fire for youth-led programming. [00:38:06] So we're asking for a line item of around $10,000 for 10 $1,000 mini grants for youth to encourage their work, maybe to expand upon projects that they started in Step Up or other projects that they initiate outside of that. [00:38:26] And the awards would be made with Parks and Rec, ACOI, and YAC as the recommending group. Because we're persistent, we're going to continue to recommend expanding hours for libraries and doing youth library after-hour teen centers. [00:38:47] We've been recommending that for years. We love the recommendation because the libraries exist. There's a footprint there. They're well-known where they are, and they're very geographically dispersed. We want to make sure that when somebody presents with a mental health issue that there's good Loudoun County staff there, and Loudoun County mental health staff face the same challenges other professionals do. [00:39:14] It's hard to hire and hard to retain, so we make some recommendations around improving the pay rates and the recruitment incentives for Loudoun County mental health workers. And then lastly, I just want to highlight that we recommend that we train not just teachers, but everybody that works in the county, Parks and Rec, Parks and Rec staff, other department staff, coaches, any school workers on how to identify when a mental health or substance abuse issue presents itself. [00:39:48] So they know how not to treat, but how to screen, intervene, and refer those youth to the help that they need. That's just a few of the items that we feel are very, very important this year. [00:40:06] Thank you. We want to give you a chance to ask questions and feel free to ask our youth as well. Well, thank you. I do know in the past we on the board have asked for things to happen. [00:40:24] And I do recognize that you're trying to make those things happen, and I would appreciate that very much. Supervisors and student supervisors, if you have questions, please turn your lights on. Supervisors from the Algonquian District. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the report. [00:40:43] For some reason, I felt like the recommendations in this report stood out a lot better than they have in the past years. I'm not sure if maybe I was missing them in the past years, but it was a lot more easy for me to understand exactly what action items the committee wants to take. [00:41:01] I was wondering, as far as the programming that's recommended, would that be the programming would come out of ACOI, like for the grants and those sorts of things? And if so, is that where you're envisioning the grant funding go? [00:41:19] Yes, we propose joint to make recommendations with YAC as well. The point being is sometimes you've got students with great ideas and wanting to get youth-led programs off the ground. This is just another avenue to help, as Mike said, throw fuel on the fire. [00:41:39] Yeah, so I have another question. So according to the recommendations, the libraries would be open until 9, and they would have programming, but they would not have a teen center? That's a great question. So the library's stance is currently looking towards keeping all the libraries open late. [00:41:59] Some of the libraries have dedicated teen spaces while others do not. We are an advocate for both. Okay, and another question. Would we need libraries to agree to these recommendations, and how exactly would that be accomplished? So I've had the opportunity to speak to the board, library board, made our recommendations, and where we currently are is the future work that they have. [00:42:28] They're setting up the libraries with these spaces in mind. So you've got some exemplars out there of certain, you know, some of the newer libraries, and this is where we want to go. there are libraries in the county that don't have dedicated teen spaces that we continue to advocate the libraries to make that happen. [00:42:50] And finally, a question for myself, or for myself. How do we accomplish upgrading the library equipment, like, for example, gaming equipment? Yeah, as each of the libraries should have a really well-stocked teen center, an area that has games so kids can come in and play Super Smash Brothers. [00:43:14] They can play Nintendo, and they can work and play in a safe setting. We also advocate for after-hours teen centers. They can go until 10 or 11 o'clock at night on a Friday or Saturday, and that is just using the libraries as a pure open space. [00:43:34] There is programming involved. It's incredibly successful at the Cascades Library, and we we are persistent i think at bringing that to um to this report every year in the places where space doesn't necessarily exist a lot and a shout out for the libraries for setting up virtual events as well thank you thank you leo gonkian district supervisors i appreciate it to the ashburn district supervisors thank you madam chair i just wanted to comment uh i was one of the judges for the second year in a row for the step-up competition this last uh friday i guess it was and uh man [00:44:11] that's a hoop. It's really something to see the talented youth we have in this county, and the projects are very innovative. I'm really happy to see you guys here. Congratulations on really, really a great job, and as a father who has a son who is now addicted to vaping, it really resonated what you were talking about, so I'm really proud of our youth, and I just want to thank you guys for the opportunity to participate. Thank you. To the supervisor from the Leadsburg District. Yes, hi. I just had a question. I was looking at your recommendations. [00:44:48] You mentioned collaborating with Latin County Public Schools to fund expansion of alternate high school options. Could you just elaborate a little bit more on what that looks like? Yeah. So one of the things we learned from the COVID pandemic is there are different ways to present educational content to youth. Another thing we learned is that the Hispanic population is much more likely to have chronic absenteeism or dropout as they approach the 11th and 12th grade level. [00:45:27] And that starts earlier on. So what we're advocating for is for us to leverage what we learned in COVID and create some learning settings that are more culturally competent and will allow youth who have that really difficult choice between jumping into the workforce as an 11th grader or 12th grader or finishing high school, it'll give them a chance to finish. [00:45:57] So it might mean weekend courses, it might mean some virtual content that allows them to finish the school day at 12 or even start the school day after a work day. Thank you, I appreciate it. To the supervisors from the Dulles District. [00:46:20] Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for the work here. This is one of the most clearest and I think well-documented reports we've ever gotten from ACOY. So it really shows the effort that went into this. And I know you have some great, great members. A quick question. Subsidize a mission for students to attend home games and sporting events at their high school. Is there a, there is a fee associated for an event at your own, at your own high school? I should know this because my own kids play sports, but I. [00:46:45] so for sports events at your school and at other schools there are fees associated the only people that don't have to pay fees is if you're a manager of a team of course or if you're taking pictures or if you're there to fundraise for something yeah but i know that if you're going to an away game sometimes the fees for tickets may be a little bit more expensive there okay yeah that's that's an interesting one um obviously we'd have to talk to the school system about that but that whole subject is a little bit of a one we've looked at before up here, as well as the mental [00:47:21] health discussion. It's a county-wide issue. Access to teens in particular is really an acute problem just in terms of having enough providers. We are fortunate now to have a facility at Stone Springs that's handling adult patients, inpatient, but not teens. So I've had some discussions with community organizations and members about that and i just wanted to convey it i think it's on everybody's uh radar up here um my final question so maybe during dinner we can get kind of a the take of all of our students here about whether you really think you would go to a library for [00:47:59] extended hours on a friday or saturday we have great numbers in cascades but i'm just curious honestly you know if that's something you guys think people would do um because obviously process wise you know we need to get that to the library board um one of the things about youth and government day hopefully your takeaway is that the board of supervisors can't just do everything we have a library board in this case that makes those decisions about what happens with library programming um but i'd be very interested to just to get everybody's take on it um during our dinner break or something so or if you haven't yeah please turn your little you go so talking about if extending library hours would be something that high schoolers middle schoolers kids are [00:48:38] interested in i think that it would i mean personally i go to independence high school so the library at the brambleton town center i think that at the closing hours of the library on like fridays saturdays weekends a lot of times they end up having to like verbally ask people to leave so i feel like extending the hours would be something that'll work i know that the gaming area and just the teen area in general is a very popular spot um i think with that the only concern that would be brought up is that obviously like teens behavior and stuff like that but I think that we have a couple like that one that are super walkable right in the middle of it I think that [00:49:14] solution could be found pretty easily if I could just summarize so for our years of talking about this our advocacy at ACOY has always been a safe space for teens we focused on library because in order to help 125,000 the places exist and they're generally central places that people can get to but any number of spaces work student clerk do you have a question i haven't had a chance to look through the um recommendations yet but have you considered providing transportation from the [00:49:49] schools to the libraries so so you picked up on on one of the number one issues uh there and especially in western loud where you you would need the transportation in general so those have been always the three concerns you know I like one I didn't know about the program two I can't afford it three I can't get there so so I we absolutely agree transportation's a must student county administrator do you have a question oh I just wanted to respond to the question if teams would actually benefit from it um I have lots of friends who can like only hang out at the library [00:50:27] because their parents don't want them at other people's houses and they can't stay for like a long time or they have to go home or they can only go after dinner and can't stay for a while So, yeah, definitely people would appreciate having longer hours at the library. From the, oh, you guys turned your light off down there. [00:50:42] Okay. Are we going back to the Ashburn District for the student supervisor from the Ashburn District? Okay. You guys mentioned mental health, better training for that for coaches and teachers and kind of everyone that gets involved with students. What would that look like? [00:51:05] It would look like some required regular training for, Let's use coaches for an example. A coach has contact with 25, 30 kids four or five days a week in season. [00:51:21] Sometimes youth might show up to a practice or an event, and you know something's not right. Either the anxiety is much higher or they just don't seem right. Having those coaches able to identify a problem, which is the screening aspect, intervene without overstepping their expertise, and then referring them to somebody who can help them. [00:51:48] The Board of Supervisors and the school district did an amazing job staffing up high schools and middle schools with mental health staff. This would help the handoff to those mental health staff. And the investment in making sure that there's no delay, that there's a smooth, easy handoff to county mental health workers that actually provide treatment is huge. [00:52:16] So I think that training all staff, not just guidance counselors or certain people, would be very beneficial. Currently, at Independence, I play for my school's basketball team. And something that we did starting this year was we had combined practice Saturdays. [00:52:33] So we had our freshman team, our JV team, and our varsity team. And a couple times a month, we would come together on the Saturday practice. And for the first 20 or 30 minutes, my coaches would invite our guidance counselors in to come talk to us and just do mental health check-ins. [00:52:49] So I feel like a system like this could also be something really great to do. And then also at some of our practices, our coaches would ask us questions just checking in. And we would go around after our warm-ups sharing any, like, our daily highs and lows. And I think that really helped to get stuff off your chest like that. [00:53:08] So I think that systems like that would be super great and beneficial to student athletes, being as I think that there's a rising rate of student athletes suffering with mental illness due to kind of just trying to balance everything and performance and stuff like that. [00:53:25] Thank you. I agree. Great question. Student supervisors, I mean, supervisors from the Catoctin district. Okay, so we touched on transportation for getting kids from the schools to the library. I know in my school, we have a lot of trouble, like, trying to publicize clubs and getting people, like, aware of that. [00:53:44] What are some publicity methods you guys have thought of to get people aware of the library, teen spaces, and programs? So I know the library has a number of different things they do online and blasts, email lists. They have things on their website. [00:54:01] They have some social media that they do. We, in our investigation, probably not always the latest and greatest. We've tried a few different things ourselves, and, you know, we've basically shown that as adults, we're just not very good at it. So we welcome any inputs from youth on best forms of communication. [00:54:22] Have you thought of maybe having, like, a student council, like, come in and, like, advise in ways, like, best reach teenagers? Yeah, so we actually have youth advisory council that are now, I'm proud to say, voting members on ACOY. So we have two that meet with us at our monthly meetings, and we get inputs that way. [00:54:41] Okay, thank you. Student County Attorney. I was just wondering how you plan to manage the training of all the staff and the transportation to the libraries across all of Loudoun County, because it's like a huge number of people. [00:55:03] These kids are like asking major questions, right? They are no joke, right? They are amazing. I think I can go home now. So one of the ways that we can do the mental health first aid training is by department. We work with Margaret Graham's shop, Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Disabilities. [00:55:24] And they have come and trained, like, for example, summer camp staff or children's program staff in mental health first aid. And we would see that being rolled out into various departments as well. It's a great program, and as Mr. Ellis was saying earlier, it does not teach our staff how to treat mental health, but helps to identify that there may be somebody at risk or having an issue, and then we can help refer so that they can get the proper help that they would need. [00:55:56] Transportation, we're still working through. Thank you. Thank you. Student supervisor from the Broad Run District. I notice how you guys have a new anti-bullying program that you're willing to implement, like the See Something, Say Something program. Could you elaborate a little bit more on that and what that entails? [00:56:18] Yeah, so again, coming out of COVID, and obviously youth live on their cell phones. [00:56:33] A few years ago, we reported that Loudoun youth use their cell phones about two hours more than the national average. And unfortunately, sometimes bullying occurs in that setting. And we don't have a great way for kids to show when something's occurring to somebody, to a responsible adult or a responsible peer to help identify really just what went wrong in that setting. [00:57:09] You know, why is it happening? Who was impacted by it? And pull the people together. One of the best things about things like the library teen centers is it puts people together. Social media has people sometimes apart. It's divisive. [00:57:25] And what we are recommending is not just a school-based program, but a program that allows somebody who's bullied or somebody who witnesses bullying to be able to take what they saw and bring it to somebody who can help break that down. [00:57:44] and first you got to get the bullying to stop and we all know the most there are some very tragic consequences to bullying especially in the settings that are going on now um i know currently an app that was being promoted through some of my teachers i forget the name but there was an app being promoted not only targeting bullying issues but also just other issues in general like social issues. And the idea of the app was it was like an anonymous messaging app. So you could text in what you're going through and then they would get in contact with admin at your school and kind of [00:58:23] try to figure out a constructive way to deal with it before, you know, the situation escalated and got any worse. So I think maybe an altercation or continuation of that idea would be a great system considering the statistics brought up that in Loudoun County, our youth loves to be on our phones. Supervisors from the Sterling, I'm sorry, I'll be right back to you. Supervisor from the Blue Ridge District. Okay, so do we have, I was wondering if we have enough librarians willing [00:58:59] to work for the extended hours? So the libraries have told us, I think it's about a half staff member time, additional time, line item. And again, they're moving towards just keeping the entire library open for the full hours which i i think is more staff i don't have that number and um would the county government have to increase the budget to pay librarians for the extended hours so that would be um an item that would come to the board as a part of the budget [00:59:37] process or some type of a board item uh for the board to decide that just like we do with every other enhancement that goes to operations all right thank you thank you no didn't he go already Did we not have other repeats? [00:59:55] No, not from the same person. But Mr. Kirshner, you haven't spoken yet, so if your student wants to give you his question, that would work just fine with me. Student supervisors, I allow one round of questions for everybody. [01:00:18] So just same rules for everybody. So I'm going to hand off a question here. So my Catoctinian student, who obviously asks very brilliant questions, wants to know if we can make libraries more attractive places for people to hang out and maybe be more exposed to the programming and other things that you've talked about earlier. [01:00:38] Has there any thought been given to that? That is a difficult question. Because library is not a super popular question, you know, not a popular word. Sure. So I know the libraries have introduced some more avant-garde programs. [01:00:57] They have the game nights. They have the, they had a, I believe, a Dungeons and Dragons virtual event during the pandemic, you know, writing contests, other, you know, ad hoc meeting events for students. [01:01:14] I know they're always, you know, looking at doing innovative things and offer that to as many of the, you know, Loudoun youth as possible. We have members, community liaisons from the libraries on our meetings, and we definitely can bring back any inputs and suggestions that you have to offer more programs. [01:01:40] Supervisors from the Sterling District. What accounts for the significant annual variance in graduation rates for Parkview High? Good question. So I don't have an answer for that. [01:01:56] I can only say that we've improved where we had in the past years. A couple of our high schools in Loudoun County had graduation rates below the state average. Only a couple. [01:02:11] The majority of them are above that state average. There have been some high schools that are still below the line, like you mentioned. Mike has talked about the issue of chronic absenteeism, potentially committing to dropouts and failed graduation. [01:02:32] While we don't have an underlying cause for the particular graduation rate, it has been a concern for several years, and we have pushed different initiatives from the LCPS Research Office to try to learn what might be the cause. [01:02:53] All we have is data, but it doesn't necessarily mean causation. How can we include the multiple ELL students from Sterling Middle, Parkview, and other schools that may not be familiar with teen centers, nor the resources it may provide? [01:03:12] So this is, again, an issue of communication. In our surveys, we have generally found that parents and students alike don't necessarily know of all the available resources in the county. to include a number of different things, and so with our subcommittee, YouthNet, we have put up a portal to help provide a sort of a one-stop of the available resources that the county offers, because there are so many. [01:03:45] When we first took this on, we thought the answer was to go to the budget and look at all the line items to see if we could figure out all the different programs in the county. That's not necessarily an exhaustive list we learned. So it's been a grassroots effort of learning all the things that are there, both for the commission and for members. [01:04:10] Thank you. Thank you. Student Madam Chair, do you have questions? Oh, I'm sorry, Supervisor Sains. Thank you, Madam Chair. You just saw on display why this is probably one of my favorite days out of the year, the Student Government Day, with the questions that the students were asking. [01:04:26] so those are great. Good job, everybody. You mentioned earlier that you're looking to still get into the libraries. I know we've had this conversation for many years now. We even took a vote in my first term to provide extra funding to extend some hours for at least the Sterling Library in particular, which is now open until 9 o'clock, but we're still not using that facility. [01:04:57] Is that correct? So we had a, sorry, I've got the list, I don't have the list in front of me. We have a list of breakdowns of where centers exist or where after our teen hours are in place, where dedicated space is in place. [01:05:19] When we've approached the library recently, again, their position is to try to get enough of the funding to keep the entire library open the late hours. And that will help a number of issues for several libraries. We've got, yes, thank you, Steve. [01:05:37] So really, though, when we're talking about the dedicated teen center, that's something very specific, like for Cascades. So you've got the late closing at 9 p.m., but you also have that dedicated center. [01:05:54] Right, which in your chart you have Sterling Libraries, yes. So, again, are we using it? They are using it. Youth are using it. For Sterling, what we're recommending is we would like to stay open later on Sundays, not close at 5 on Sundays, and that they have an after-hours teen center. [01:06:16] An after-hours teen center might go even beyond 9, and it's less structured time. It's usually at Cascades, it looks and feels like part of the library is shut down for normal business, and youth can go in and they can play up-to-date gaming systems. [01:06:36] They can participate in some lightly structured activity, but it's a safe place to gather. You know, what the youth have told us at our meetings is that after-hours teen centers are very popular with 7th, 8th, 9th graders, 10th graders. [01:06:53] Before my time runs out again, you know, I will continue to work on this. And I know we have discussed also looking at using the Sterling Community Center. Oh, yeah. Recently renovated. I believe we had that conversation last year. We have a dedicated teen area. We have the gaming, the TVs, all the game boards and tables that have the chests and checkers and stuff on there. [01:07:15] So I'll have a conversation offline. But when the time after that conversation, I might be bringing BMI to direct us to actually do this because we have a space and let's utilize it where we do have the space. Thank you. [01:07:31] Thank you, Mr. Staines. Student Madam Chair, do you have questions? So I really love the idea of extending the library hours. I was wondering if you guys considered like mental health resources are they're often like not known. [01:07:46] So I was wondering if those would be implementing those teen centers in the libraries as well. That's a that's a really great idea. I really like that. So certainly to know about the availability in those teen centers where we have the safe space, that makes a lot of sense. [01:08:07] So I just have a couple of questions. My first one is this. So you're asking for $10,000 for $10,000 grants to continue the youth program. So whenever there's a discussion about a grant, the most logical question is, do you have a plan to continue the program after the grant has expired? [01:08:28] Because the reason for grants is to jumpstart a program. So do you have a plan to continue the program after the grant has expired? That is my first question. My second question goes to a very hard discussion, which is the fact that our dropout rate for our Hispanic kids in Loudoun County is well higher than everyone else's dropout rate. [01:08:50] And so when the student supervisor from the Sterling District ask about graduation rates, would it not just lean into common sense to say, if you have a school that has a high population of Hispanic kids and Hispanic kids are dropping out higher, at a higher rate, then you probably have a lower graduation rate. [01:09:09] And then what have we got? Because we've had this discussion before, and I know that this is a hard discussion. In my opinion, what I've learned as an elected official is this. Just because I happen to be a minority doesn't mean I have carte blanche to walk into any other minority community. I have to have someone who basically escorts me into those communities so we can help and figure out what's going on. [01:09:31] We have to have a community advocate who's in that community already. And I think if we don't get a handle on our Hispanic kids dropping out at this rate, I think we're a crisis point for them. and I'm really, really worried about that. And so maybe working with New Virginia Majority, maybe working with CASA, whomever we have to work with to get a handle on this, we need to because we cannot keep losing our kids from one culture and from certain schools. [01:09:59] It's just not acceptable. I know I'm preaching to the choir on that one. I know you all care so much about that, as do the supervisors and student supervisors on the dais. And finally, my last statement is about the mental health issues especially to our young ladies who are sitting here today all the new studies have said that you know it's it's not it's not really that that that mental health issues were caused by COVID as much as it uncovered some things and exacerbated some things that may not have been seen before the the mental health numbers especially among our young ladies [01:10:34] from about ages 11 through about age 18 and 19 are severe. The suicide rates, and, of course, suicide, I say this all the time, suicide is not an act of depression. Suicide is an act of hopelessness. [01:10:51] What is happening with our young ladies, especially our young ladies, that at 11 years old, 12 years old, 13 years old, they're feeling so hopeless that they seek to take their lives. And how do we affect that change? And I know that's a lot of questions that you might not have answers to all those right now. [01:11:09] I appreciate that. I respect that. We can get those answers later. But those are the questions I at least want on the table. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair Randolph. I can just take a shot at a couple of these. On the grants that you talked about, the typical thing that we would do is have a transition agent for that $1,000 seed grant. [01:11:29] Where is this going to go in a proposal to award any type of grant. So you can have a great idea, but there's got to be continuation. That model is actually seen in the step-up competition where they have to do that as part of their grading. On the dropout rates, the best recommendation that we have at this point is because we still don't understand at the level of where the rubber meets the road on the data, We had suggested the bilingual attendance officers at all the touch points to understand why are you so absent, what is going on, [01:12:08] can you explain the chronic absenteeism, because that's the indicator for the dropout rate and the low graduation rates in that particular environment. And then third, on the mental health issues, there is a study that we didn't include in our report that's actually an interesting graph of the state of mental health of youth broken down by a male, female, and I think they even include political affiliation just as a way to look at the data. [01:12:42] And right around the 2011 time frame, you have a giant drop in mental health, especially among young women, teenage women. And that's right about the time as you had social media presented. now that's not a cause i'm on record here i want to say that's not a cause it's just that's an event i actually think it is a cost to be honest i i can't go that far i can only say there's data and it's suggestive of something and so um i know and i can i can mention this because the the sheriff's office our rep has has said this before they said that 98 of their problems would go away [01:13:20] if phones weren't allowed in school but you can't do that because phones are a way of learning as well. So there are the cyber bullying we've talked about. There are a number of underlying issues going on at that, contributing to that mental health. And for reasons that we haven't exactly codified, but we can see the data, there is something going on. And so, again, And the advocacy we have about the online programs, that's how teenagers communicate. [01:13:56] And so having online access to mental health resources is a way to help that broad-based population. Well, these are hard questions, and those are good answers. And I know that everyone is going to continue to work for the good of all of our young people. [01:14:14] Student supervisors, I don't know if I've heard such great questions in a long time. Fantastic questions. Thank you so much, and thank you for this item. We're going to have you leave you guys there, and we're going to go on to the next item, unless you feel like you've done both, which you really haven't, because the next item is just a one-page or two-page item about Youth in Government Day itself. [01:14:35] Would you like to do any discussions on that or talk about what the day has been for you? And then I'll let them talk about what it's been for them. Absolutely. Well, as you know, we have been doing Youth in Government Day for some time, And it seems to get better and better each year, and that is evident today as well with the students that we had coming from every election district across the county. [01:15:02] Started this morning with a typical welcome. Students had a chance to spend time with Chair Randall and hear her story and have a pretty lengthy question and answer time this morning as well. And then we tasked them with looking at electric vehicles for fleet within the county and whether or not that was a good or a bad idea, and the pros and cons surrounded that. [01:15:27] And they prepared to do a mock Board of Supervisors meeting, which happened this afternoon. Getting the time to spend with the board aides, with you all, the Board of Supervisors, and also with staff is also a very positive thing that happens throughout the day because it gives insight to how local government actually works and the impacts that can be had with just one decision within local government, but also the collective work of the bodies. [01:16:01] And so we were very, very pleased with the way that today went. We do thank all of the students for being willing to give up a day and come and really put their hearts and minds behind the project today. I hope that they learned from today. [01:16:18] We certainly have learned from you. And Chair Randall, if you don't mind, there is a few people I would like to, I typically do not thank folks from the table, but there was a lot of folks that went into making today happen. [01:16:33] Ms. Garrett, Ms. Barger, Mr. Walker, Mr. Yonkin, Ms. Wall, Mr. Christie, Mr. Wood, Mr. Bird, and Mr. Troxell were the PRCS team who were led by Christina Haig and Courtney Aylward to put this together and been working on this for quite some time. [01:16:51] I would like to thank Mr. Hemstreet and Mr. Rogers also for being willing to hang out with us all day long, and Ms. Logan and Ms. Grimmel and Mr. Rogers as well. We also could not have done this without the assistance from Loudon Youth, Inc., and Mr. [01:17:08] Wolfson was with us all day today and of course a special thanks to you the board especially you Chair Randall for this morning and and your time with the students as well as your staff for helping today to be successful so with that we can ask or answer any questions that you all have about today but thank you. Thank you Mr. Turby thank you you all do this every year and we appreciate you so much. Do you have any questions about Youth and Government Day for anybody. Seeing none, I just want to really quickly take a second. I looked up, and I do this [01:17:47] pretty often, the characteristics of Generation Z, which everyone in Youth and Government Day is Generation Z. Generation Z are people who were born after 26. No, not 26. 16. No? Wait a minute. [01:18:04] 1997. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. 1996. These are the characteristics of the Generation Z. Generation Z, overall, is less concerned about material wealth than generations before you. You like it, but you're less concerned about having material wealth. [01:18:22] You embrace change faster than any other generation before you, with the exception of and even to the generation of the 1960s. You've never, listen to this one, Generation Z has never known a world without war all your life. [01:18:41] You've never known a world where we were not at war. You are very connected and you are very accepting. You're the most connected and accepting generation ever, which may be the one thing that social media has actually done well. [01:18:57] You were concerned about universal issues more than any other generation before you, especially the environment. The environment is a universal issue, and it's one that you all think about all the time. And this one was one I thought was really very, very interesting. You are less religious but more spiritual than any generation that's come before you. [01:19:18] i'm not even sure i know what that means to be quite honest but generation z is less religious but more spiritual than any other generation that comes before you you all are fascinating people and you all will y'all will save the world y'all will save the world so thank you thank you mr torpe oh hey um supervisors and um student supervisors it's already 5 15 gosh so what i think I will do is go on and do the Environmental Excellence Awards, because everyone is here for [01:19:55] the Environmental Excellence Award. That could get us fairly close to six o'clock, to be honest. But I can't start the proclamations yet, because it's still 15 minutes too early to do that. So is everybody here for the Environmental Excellence Award? Mr. Avani, is everybody here? All right, So student supervisors, I'm going to ask Mr. Turner, if he doesn't mind, will he explain the Environmental Commission, what you wrote for that and how we got here? [01:20:33] And then Mr. Turner and I and our student supervisors are going to join us down front while we do the environmental awards after Mr. Avani has given a presentation. Mr. Turner? Thank you, Madam Chair. Correct me if I'm wrong, the Environmental Commission idea was on your prior board, wasn't it? [01:20:51] It was your idea. It was. And I'm not sucking up. It really was the chair's idea. But our board was the first board to really take it up and commit it to action. The biggest probably environmental work that had been done in the board prior to that was a 2009 comprehensive countywide energy strategy, which was an award-winning strategy, but it was narrowly focused on energy. [01:21:23] And when this board took over, the idea for the Environmental Commission had already been tabled, as I said, by Chair Randall. But we began to flesh out what exactly would the Environmental Commission do, what would be its purpose. And so the chair asked me to draft up the bylaws for the Environmental Commission, which was an interesting project. [01:21:45] We had to determine in the bylaws who was going to be on the Environmental Commission, what was the process by which they were appointed to the Environmental Commission, what we were trying to achieve. We thought through and actually decided we wanted right off the bat to have two permanent standing committees, which was clean energy and environment. [01:22:04] And I believe they have several other committees right now that they have stood up. And along with the Environmental Commission came all a host of motions that we made in that one meeting. So we had a motion to explore solar power purchase agreements among county facilities. [01:22:22] We had a motion to build the electric vehicle infrastructure in the county. I can't remember some of the other ones, but we had five or six key environmental and energy motions. The Environmental Commission began to meet, and under some excellent leadership by Jim Bingle, has done just stellar work. [01:22:46] The biggest, I guess, landmark piece of work that they've produced is the new county energy strategy. I read the one from 2009. It was very good when it was written, but I read it, and I thought, this doesn't need an update. We need to start over again because science, technology, and energy have so advanced that most of what's talked about in here is obsolete. [01:23:08] And so we have just approved the new county energy strategy. It's a three-pronged strategy, which is an exceptionally good strategy. And one of the outcomes of the Environmental Commission was the commission decided they wanted to produce annual Environmental Excellence Awards. [01:23:28] And so that's what we're doing here tonight. And we couldn't be happier about doing this. It recognizes individuals and organizations in Loudoun County that are singular in their contribution to environmental issues. [01:23:47] And this is our first such award ceremony, and we're very happy to do this. And we look forward to many, many more with some really impactful programs. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bonny, you are up, sir. With that wonderful introduction, we are very pleased tonight to present your first ever Loudoun County Environmental Excellence Awards. [01:24:06] As you mentioned, Supervisor Turner, Chair Randall, that is in your bylaws that annually the commission will do these presentations. And so if it's okay, I'd like to invite up our chair of the Environmental Commission, Jim Bingle, who will proceed with giving out the awards. And that would be wonderful. [01:24:21] And Mr. Turner and I and our student supervisors are going to join, are going to come down front. And I believe we have a whole plan for how we're doing this. I think, Ms. Bingle, I guess you don't need a, you're going to stand there, so you don't need a, yeah, okay. Mr. Turner, will you join me down front? [01:24:37] Student supervisors, will you join me down front? Okay. Thank you, Mark. And before the presentations begin, I'd like to invite the Environmental Commission members who are here today to please join me at the podium. [01:24:58] I don't have a mic. [01:25:22] Oh, oh. It is a mic. Okay. Yeah, right. So as you're getting situated there, I wanted to just introduce our commission members who are here. [01:25:40] William Marsh, who is our vice chair. Michael Myers, Dr. Emily Southgate, Chris Tandy, and Scott Emery. Before I go to the awards, though, I wanted to, while we have a room full of people, to tell you, invite you, the people who are here in the audience and then the general public who might be watching, that we invite everyone to our Environmental Commission Forum for 2023, [01:26:19] scheduled for May 11th from 5 30 to 8 at the Academies of Loudoun. So now to our awards. Due to scheduling conflicts, Carrie Ann Mosley, the person who was pivotal in developing the awards program and moving it forward, wasn't able to be present, but we are deeply grateful for all the time that she put into drafting the program for input and approval by the rest of the commission. [01:26:45] Commissioner Mosley was one of our three judges. Our other two judges were Dr. Emily Southgate and Dr. Miriam Westerveld, who is also unable to be here tonight, the stars of our award program. We have winners in five of the seven possible categories for awards. [01:27:05] The categories were student, small business, community organization or project, government employee or team, and lifetime achievement winners. The criteria that our judges used in selecting the winners was 50 points for environmental impact, 30 points for innovation, uniqueness of the initiative, and 20 points for transferability, sharing of insights, and best practices. [01:27:31] We also gave five bonus points for addressing the theme of our awards this year and every year. This year, the theme was impact on litter prevention, education, or cleanup, And that was in response to the public input that we received last year about the importance of cleaning up the litter in our environment. [01:27:52] So winners, please, when I call your name, join us at the podium to receive your award. Yes, yes, sorry, I didn't explain the whole thing. They're going to get their award, then come in, and when they come in, then I'll just give you a brief information about what they've done. [01:28:12] So our first winner is our student winner, Iyasu Neal. Please come up. [01:28:28] IASU has completely embodied a foundational tenet of environmental leadership. Think globally and act locally. I'll let him get through the line before we keep talking. Oh, okay. [01:28:45] IASU Neal is a junior at Tuscarora High School. He initiated an entire program last spring revolving around the idea of how fast fashion is detrimental to the environment. In case you haven't heard the term, fast fashion garment production leverages fashion trends and low-quality materials, like synthetics, in order to bring inexpensive styles to consumers. [01:29:08] The fashion show clothes were curated from Leesburg area thrift stores and also served as a fundraiser for Loudoun Abused Women's Shelter. It highlighted for students that clothing can be used longer, used again, thrifted, and created or sewed without purchasing from traditional retail stores. [01:29:29] This idea was one that he pursued because his family had an exchange student from Kenya who told them about the piles of clothing that they were receiving in Kenya as a result of all of this fast fashion. [01:29:50] It was such a hit that the second thrifted fashion show is tomorrow evening, and the theme is Invest in Our Planet. We celebrate Yasu's creative approach to creating a conversation around the importance of questioning before buying, reusing before tossing, looking for the change that people can make locally and globally, and the importance of putting environmental issues in everyday conversation. [01:30:15] The possibilities for this event to be replicated at other schools, shared on social media, and its own trend-setting potential is pretty exciting. So thank you, IASU. Next up, our small business category winner is Little Tree Huggers with Leah D. Johnson as the founder and director and her team. [01:31:01] Little Tree Huggers was founded in 2015 by Ms. Johnson with a mission to inspire children, their families, and local businesses to connect with nature and celebrate the diversity of our multicultural world. The bilingual school is committed to environmental education and breaking down barriers to sustainable practices. [01:31:21] Their students spend 75% of the day outside rain or shine and participate in all aspects of farm operations. They've established a wildlife sanctuary on site, including pollinator gardens and riparian conservation areas, which are installed and maintained by students, staff, and parents. [01:31:40] They set examples by running a carbon-neutral operation, installing a geothermal heating and cooling system, a solar array, and they demonstrate a variety of other energy-efficient solutions for their families and others. [01:31:56] And they are very committed to sustainability in reading everything that they've done. So thank you. Next, our citizen-slash-community group winner is Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy's Stream Monitoring Program, led by Amy Uland. [01:32:17] The Stream Team effectively implements citizen monitoring and educational outreach to support stream health in the county. [01:32:36] We have a big team here. While the Wildlife Conservancy's Stream Team has been active for over 25 years, in the last year, under the leadership of Amy Uland, They have increased citizen science efforts and expanded educational outreach. [01:32:54] They have collected solid scientific data on stream health and salt pollution, providing this information to the general public and governmental decision makers. They have the stream monitoring that they do is for benthic macroinvertebrates, which is, in other words, the little critters that live on the bottom of streams. [01:33:16] And they check them out, and they assess what the quality of those insects are, how many there are, and that's a fantastic effort. They've sampled 13 streams in 21 locations and have done 39 surveys this past year. [01:33:35] They've also brought attention to bacterial contamination in the streams in the Luckett's area and established 50 salt watch sites in 15 streams. Their public education outreach has reached hundreds of students and residents, so we thank them for all their efforts. [01:33:59] Now, next, our government employee and program and team winner is Michelle Seib from the Department of General Services stormwater team. She was nominated by a co-worker, totally unbeknownst to her. [01:34:23] Michelle is a licensed senior stormwater engineer who has devoted her professional career to water quality improvement projects. So what did she do? She designed a seven acre constructed wetlands to remove pollutants from stormwater runoff in a 75 acre watershed upstream of Broad Run that also provides a diverse habitat for wetland species. The wetlands help Loudoun County to meet its responsibility to reduce pollutants in the waterways of the county and the bay. The innovative project required extensive outreach to property owners because it's located in a high visibility [01:35:01] location, and Michelle attended HOA meetings and answered questions from residents for three years to help coordinate this project. Besides the engineered benefits, Michelle included over half an acre of trees with 280 new natives for the tree canopy benefits that they will provide, increasing air and water quality improvements as the trees mature. [01:35:25] To top it off, almost half of the project was funded with grants that she applied for from the state. So cost-conscious, totally above and beyond, she really demonstrates all the qualities that we love to see in our county employees. [01:35:42] Please. Finally, in the category of lifetime achievement, our judges felt that two of our nominees were so deserving that we have two winners. So, Shirley Pearson. Please come down. Ms. Pearson has been a volunteer with Keep Loud and Beautiful for more than 30 years and has worked to get youth in the county [01:36:20] invested in litter prevention and environmental preservation. She has served as a KLB board member for many years and president from 1998 to 2003. She has been dedicated over 19 years to organize and conduct a poster and essay contest for Loudoun County elementary students that ran from 1998 to 2018. [01:36:45] At the height of the contest, 32 schools participated in a single year, and many who participated as students have come back to volunteer for KLB, Keep Loud and Beautiful, as they've gotten older. After a pause, the contest was reborn as a video contest for junior and senior high school students in um 2022 i guess that would be middle and high school so um and the and the um videos can be done in submitted in english and spanish so um miss pearson has definitely been someone who's [01:37:24] looked to be as inclusive as possible over her many years of volunteer work and um i also need to mention that she was a founding member of the catoctin garden club and is focused on promoting beautification with native plants, leading classes and projects to inform the community about native plants. And for the board member initiative, she was a very vocal proponent of the bag tax. And in the 1970s, was a key leader trying to get a bottle tax for Virginia and Loudoun County. She deserves a lifetime award for devoting so much of her life to engaging with youth in [01:38:04] their impressionable years and with adults on the changes that they can make to improve our [01:38:24] environment. Thank you so much. And last but not least, Joe Coleman, please come up. Joe Coleman was nominated as the founder of the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy in 1995, and he has been the main force behind the nonprofit for decades. Since its inception, he has helped Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy to grow to more than 1,000 volunteers and members. Under his guidance, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy has offered free programs and field trips for all residents of Loudoun County with many aimed at children and family audiences. He also leads bird walks himself every month. [01:39:00] Knowing that citizen science engages, educates, and creates a deep love and appreciation for nature, Joe has been a driving force behind Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy's citizen science programs. Maybe some of you would be interested in stream monitoring, bluebird monitoring, butterfly counts, bird counts, the bird atlas, and amphibian monitoring. [01:39:22] So there's something for everyone. Joe has also been a leader for numerous habitat restoration projects. He was a leading advocate for establishing Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve and established the nonprofit Friends of Banshee Reeks to assure its continued protection. [01:39:38] And he was pivotal in finding a financial supporter for the purchase of the J.K. Black Oak Wildlife Sanctuary, an 87-acre property that has classified, has a globally rare wetland classified on its property, on its site. [01:39:57] And he has also devoted much of his time, besides LWC, Loudon Wildlife Conservancy, to volunteering with many other local nonprofits. Without a doubt, his passion and dedication have resulted in lifetime achievements that have benefited people, wildlife, and habitats throughout Loudoun County. [01:40:15] So thank you very much. One last sentence. That is, we had so many other people who were very interested in participating, have done many things for the environment, and we can't have everybody as a winner, but really we're the winners because all of these people are very engaged in doing something for our environment. [01:40:41] in Loudoun. Thank you. Well, Ms. Bingle, it would be impossible to thank all of you, but you specifically, because your commitment to the environment and to educating all of us about the environment and to sending us emails and talking to the board and always just being there when we have questions is just unmatched. And so I appreciate you. We all appreciate you so much. [01:41:07] We're going to try to figure out how to get a picture. I have no idea how we're going to do this. So I'm going to ask Glenn to just tell us how we're going to do this. The young people can [01:41:25] get on their knees or something yeah we're doing everybody right now let me [01:43:41] down front please stay right here and mr. Buffington's student can they join me down front too we have quite a few proclamations tonight and the first one is for the Percival volunteer fire department we're gonna scooch over some because we're too far over this way for the Percival volunteer fire department [01:44:17] and I am going to ask everyone from the Percival volunteer fire department to please come down to the front and I will have mr. Buffington read a resolution Thank you, Madam Chair. Hey, Scott, how's it going? [01:44:34] As you all are coming down, can I pass around the mic and just have the leadership introduce themselves, the current leadership for the Volunteer Fire Department? Scott? My name's Scott Maple. I'm the fire chief at Percival Volunteer Fire Company. [01:44:57] I'm Sandra Sokol. I am the president of the Percival Volunteer Fire Department. I'm Michael O'Brien, past assistant chief and current technician at Percival Volunteer Fire. [01:45:15] Oh, he's in Sterling. How are you, sir? Good. Good to see you. All right, without further ado, let's read this resolution. Loudoun County, Virginia Resolution. Percival Volunteer Fire Company celebrates 100 years of service. [01:45:33] Whereas the Percival Volunteer Fire Company was established in 1923 after the town of Percival endured a series of disastrous fires, the first in 1911 and then two more in 1914, which virtually wiped out the historic business district, depriving the town of much of its earliest architectural heritage. [01:45:53] and whereas Percival Volunteer Fire Company has grown from a small group of citizens and dedicated volunteers to a team of just under 100 highly trained professional volunteers and whereas Percival Volunteer Fire Company responded to more than 1,200 emergencies last year and countless more throughout the past 100 years helping to save lives from auto accidents, alarms, structure fires, medical emergencies, and to protect citizens and property. [01:46:25] And whereas, Percival Volunteer Fire Company members have been active in the community, participating in events and supporting many local organizations with the Percival July 4th Parade, Ride to School, Sundays on Saturdays, Sunday like Ice Cream Sunday, on Saturdays, books and badges, the annual Santa runs, Christmas parades, and Christmas tree and ornament sales. [01:46:48] And whereas Percival Volunteer Fire Company will be holding a series of events throughout 2023 that will be open to the community, including Public Safety Day in May and open house events in October, so the public can meet the Percival Volunteer Fire Company members, learn about the company's history, and see the equipment and facilities used to protect the community, and of course, volunteer and join. [01:47:12] And whereas Percival Volunteer Fire Company has been dedicated to protecting the community and providing top quality fire and emergency medical services for the past 100 years and will continue in its mission for many, many years to come. [01:47:28] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does recognize and celebrate 100 years of service of the Percival Volunteer Fire Company to the town of Percival and Loudoun County. [01:47:58] Thank you all. That is an amazing accomplishment, and I, for one, am very appreciative as I live in the town of Percival, and I see and hear you guys responding constantly, and I see you guys doing good work throughout the community constantly. You're vigilant. You're always on duty, and we very much appreciate you. So with that, I turn it over to Chair Randall. Mr. Bucknell, I think you've said it all. Thank you very much. Would you all like to say anything? [01:48:19] People may not know, Percival is the second oldest fire department in Loudoun County behind Leesburg. I believe Leesburg is over 200 years old now. Percival is at their 100-year mark. We're volunteers. [01:48:34] We don't always have the time to do it, but we have heart, and we want to do it for our community and for the county. We have about 87 operational members total. At one point, we had well over 100. As you all know, the volunteers in this country have declined over the years for many, many reasons. [01:48:56] If anybody's looking to want to help out, we're welcome to have you come in, meet with us, and get you riding on firetrucks. So, thank you. All right, let's take a picture. I want to hand this to Mr. Mabel. There you go. [01:50:30] Would everyone, what are we pointing at? Oh, would everyone for the Banneker Proclamation please come up? I think it's right. Thank you. Proclamation for the 75th year of Banneker Elementary School. [01:50:57] All right, we have the resolution. [01:51:29] We also have the principal of Banneker, and we have alumni. And I feel extraordinarily humbled and extraordinarily, like, not even to have the right to stand here next to them, to be quite honest. [01:51:46] It's really humbling to stand here next to them. So what I think I'll do is first read the resolution and then have the principal say anything that he'd like to say, And then anyone else who wants to speak, see anything they want to say. How's that sound? Okay. 75th anniversary of Banneker Elementary School. [01:52:03] Whereas March 31st, 2023 marked the 75th anniversary of the opening of Banneker Elementary School. And whereas on March 31st, 1948, the children and faculty of the Middleburg, St. Louis and Mountain Vale schools with an approximate enrollment of 185 students entered the beautiful brick building for the first time. [01:52:32] And whereas in 1938, parents of African-American students formed the countywide league to promote better education facilities for their children in the midst of Jim Crow legislation of Percy v. Ferguson, which happened in 1889, known as separate but equal, although of course we knew it was not. [01:52:49] And whereas in 1944, Middleburg's black physician and community leader, Dr. Maurice Edmond, backed by parents and teachers, lobbied the Loudoun County School Board to relieve the overcrowding of the local schools. [01:53:05] And whereas, through the dedication and arduous work of the countywide league, three state-of-the-art, though segregated schools, opened within the decade. Douglas High School in Leedsburg in 1941, Carver Elementary School in Percival, 1947, and Banneker Elementary School in St. Louis, 1948. [01:53:28] And whereas the St. Louis community chose to name the school in honor of Benjamin Banneker, who lived from 1731 to 1806, a free African-American man from Maryland who was a self-taught astronomer, author of well-regarded almanacs, and a civil rights thinker. [01:53:50] And whereas in 1967, with the court mandated to integrate Loudoun schools, the school board changed the name to Mercer School, which was met with strong community objection, and the decision was reversed, returning Banneker to its original name. [01:54:08] And whereas the local residents raised money to pay for a part-time school secretary, and parents provided desks, sports supplies, and furniture, which would have normally been provided from municipal funds from the school system. [01:54:30] And whereas in the 75th year of school operations, Banneker Elementary School continues to anchor this rural historic district, serving as a community gathering place, a reminder of the strength of the founders of St. Louis and their families, and an inspiration to continue to provide the best educational opportunities for all our students in Loudoun County. [01:54:49] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby recognize the 75th anniversary of Banneker Elementary School and recognizes its alumni and supporters over 75 years and in all of Loudoun County who endured segregation. [01:55:09] Banneker is the last of the school buildings that were originally built for segregated education to still remain in schools used today. Therefore, this historic building, while vibrant and full of bright young students today, endures as a promise of an inclusive future where Loudoun County families, students, and teachers can thrive. [01:55:39] Sir. Thank you for this opportunity, Chair Randall. I'm excited to be the principal at this historic elementary school for nearly a decade now. We just surpassed a major milestone with our 75th birthday. [01:55:56] on March 31st, 2023. Banneker got the best birthday present of all this year when the Loudoun County School Board voted to renovate the school with an emphasis on historic preservation. And I would be remiss not to mention that the supportive community, many of whom who are up here with us tonight, also the fantastic teachers and staff past and present at Banneker, and the hard-working students make Banneker what it is today. But we're not going to just let that date pass without fanfare. We are going to make sure we celebrate the 75th year anniversary with a homecoming on [01:56:35] June the 2nd, 2023. Invitations are going out electronically to those who are invited this week, and we have a beautiful physical invitation that will be going out in weeks to come. And if someone could hold the microphone, I'll display the physical invitation. The invitation includes a sketch of Banneker Elementary School. We're really excited to get this in people's hands and at this time I'll turn the mic to anyone else who would like to speak. I would like to say [01:57:09] something. There's one person who is not here and his name is Marcus Howard. He was instrumental in the Banneker community and Marcus and I got to work together and I just want to acknowledge him as a very important part of this community and a part of the St. Louis Village Task Force. [01:57:31] course, and on behalf of all of us, the St. Louis Task Force alumni, we appreciate this acknowledgement. The late Marcus Howard. Yes, yes, yes. So, I'm going to assume that Mr. Buffington and I know enough people to get a ticket to the, I know Ms. Randolph, I can get anything in the world that I want because I know Ms. [01:58:00] Randolph, so that's amazing. Would anyone else like to say anything before we take a picture? I would just say, you know, every February I talk about Benjamin Banneker. And we talk about why we need still African-American History Month. [01:58:16] And I say all the time, people know who Benjamin Franklin is, but they don't know who Benjamin Banneker was. Benjamin Banneker was a brilliant man. He fairly well-designed D.C. He was said to write not just almanacs, but the first almanac. He was an amazing astronomer. He was a clockmaker. [01:58:32] He was a mathematician. He was a very brilliant man. And he's very... Almost unknown, as much of African-American history is unknown. He's almost unknown. And so for the forethought and foresight to name a school after him at that time is amazing. [01:58:50] And the pushback when they wanted to rename the school was so, so important. And when you think about all the schools that were named, Douglas High School, George Washington Carver, Benjamin Banneker, y'all were not kidding. Y'all were not kidding. Y'all were laying down some history for people to understand if they wanted to understand it. [01:59:09] I mean, you were pushing against tides that people of my age have no idea what you are. We can't even understand how you did what you did. That's why I'm so humbled to stand with you. But, you know, those schools, you know, we have to keep them, and we have to keep them renovated. [01:59:26] And we can't let them fall into disrepair, and we certainly can't let them fall down. So thank you. Thank you for everything you all have done. Let's get a fantastic picture. [02:00:38] Oh, mister, you got it? [02:00:56] Okay. All right. I would like to have the ladies of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated please come join me. Mr. Sains, will you come join me with your student, please? [02:01:25] You want to get on either side of me. Thank you very much, ma'am. How you doing, Peggy? I did. [02:01:43] Did you hear what she said? She said, I see you wear your red today. I did. I did. I see you noticed. I see you noticed. Okay, all right. Proclamation for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Phi Upsilon Zeta Chapter Day. [02:02:02] Whereas Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated celebrated 103 years of public service, having been founded on January 16, 1920, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and with the principles of scholarship, service, sisterhood, and finer womanhood. [02:02:20] And whereas Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated, Phi Epsilon, Zeta Chapter, was chartered in Loudoun County on April 8, 2008 by Kendrick Lever, Suzanne Volpe, Constance Wellingham, Erica Williams-Boone, Pamela Croft. [02:02:36] I didn't know Pamela's a charter. I didn't know Pamela. I didn't know Pamela. I didn't know. My bad. And where Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated upholds the belief that elizism and socialization should not overshadow an organization's mission to address social morals, ills, prejudices in poverty, and health concerns of the day. [02:03:03] And whereas Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated is a community-conscious, action-oriented organization and calls for all Zetas to action at local, state, and national levels. And whereas Beta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated conducts its programs and services under the umbrella of Zetas Helping Other People Excel, [02:03:26] A holistic, multidimensional outreach program designed to cultivate and empower participants to develop healthy lifestyle choices in the components of mind, body, and spirit, and is specific to women, youth, seniors, men, and international women of color. [02:03:52] And whereas the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors commends Data Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated on the occasion of its 103rd anniversary and 15 years of service in Loudoun County and their dedication to uplifting the principles of scholarship, service, sisterhood, and finer womanhood, now therefore be it resolved. the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby declare and proclaim the day of April 7, 2023 as Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated by Upsilon Zeta Chapter Day in Loudoun County. [02:04:25] My Greek sisters, you all look beautiful today. You just look fantastic. Who is speaking for you? I promise I'll be brief. 15 years ago, Sarah Croft and I saw a need and we understood the assignment, hence Phi Upsilon Zeta. We have enjoyed serving Loudoun County, and we will continue to serve forever. Thank you. Thank you. You want to hold that while we get a picture, and then we can [02:05:00] get a picture, and y'all can throw them up and take a picture if you want to. We're going to have an [02:06:40] award, not an award, I'm sorry, Proclamation for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. Will all of my female colleagues and your students please join me down front? Thank you. Yes, yes, yes, yes. [02:07:03] yes please well the females please join me down front how's that how's that sound females females ladies please join me down front no i didn't say all the same not but everyone who has come for this resolution for sexual assault um awareness and prevention month please come down everyone who's here for sexual assault prevention awareness month [02:07:37] anybody else who's here for this who's here to accept this who's accepting this i don't think so i wouldn't have it if it wasn't okay well we have a resolution for sexual assault prevention and Awareness Month, and even though it's approval only, I'm going to read it now. [02:07:59] So, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and calls attention to the fact that sexual violence is widespread and impacts every person in Loudoun County. You know what? Actually, here. Whereas April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and calls attention to the fact that sexual violence is widespread and impacts every person in Loudoun County, and whereas every day, children, youth, and adult survivors in communities across Loudoun County and the Commonwealth experience the trauma of sexual violence, and whereas the crimes of sexual [02:08:38] violence occur far too frequently, go unreported and underreported far too often, and leave long-lasting impacts, and whereas during National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, we recommit ourselves to removing the stigma and shame surrounding sexual violence, expanding the support for survivors of sexual violence and strengthening our response and now therefore it be resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim the month of [02:09:05] April 2023 as sexual assault awareness and prevention month. In Loudoun County we the under designed or undersigned proclaim that now is the time to take action as leaders in our community to create safely for all Loudoun County citizens including our youth and our educational institutions. We must work together to inform members of our community about sexual violence prevention, support survivors, and speak out against harmful attitudes and actions. We join [02:09:42] advocates and communities across the Commonwealth and the country in playing an active role to prevent sexual violence. It's an important proclamation. Take that. You're going to turn [02:09:55] that around. [02:10:31] For National Volunteer Week, would you all come back down? Oh, Light Ridge, that's right? For National Volunteer Week, would you come down? And for National Volunteer Week, I don't care. Mr. Turner, would you join me down here, please, as well? Wow. Wow. Yeah, wow. [02:11:11] That's amazing. So, Turner, would you join me here as well? Thank you. And you ready to read a proclamation? Throughout Virginia's history, citizens have actively volunteered their time, talent, and energy to serve and improve our communities to make our commonwealth a better and safer place. The hundreds of dedicated volunteer members of the Loudoun County Combined [02:11:46] Fire and Rescue System selflessly donate their time as first responders and in critical support roles for the system. Volunteers are the catalysts that create positive changes in our communities for bringing their compassion, their time, their ideas, talents, technical skills, and professional expertise to strengthen and help our county flourish. [02:12:06] These trained and organized volunteers, our neighbors, are summoned to a wide array of emergencies across the county every day, including fires, emergency medical incidents, natural disasters, hazardous materials incidents, water rescue emergencies, and other public service calls. [02:12:23] Our community is truly fortunate to be served by our dedicated neighbors and volunteer first responders who give their time and service to those in need. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim April 16 to 22nd, 2023, as National Volunteer Week in Loudoun County and encourages all citizens to honor the dedicated volunteers of Loudoun County combined fire and rescue system. [02:12:49] Yeah, very good. Who is speaking on this item? If I can, I'll start off and turn it over to President Townsend. But four real quick acknowledgments that we were unable to provide at our awards ceremony just a couple weeks ago. [02:13:08] Four special volunteers with us. And Rick Pearsall, who's currently the chief of the Philomont Volunteer Fire Department, is being acknowledged for 25 years in our system. We have Milton Gulick of the Aldi Volunteer Fire Company with 45 years. [02:13:28] Fuzzy Carter, right next to me, of Aldi Volunteer Fire Company with 55 years. And I'll have to find out this story. His wife, Betsy, of Aldi Volunteer Fire Company, was 60 years, so five more years than you, Buzzy. [02:13:48] President Townsend. Hi, my name is Josh Townsend. I'm the president in Ashburn Volunteer Fire Rescue Department, also a firefighter EMT there. I have the distinct pleasure of thanking the board for your support, for recognizing our volunteers for their time, their dedication, and their service to our community. [02:14:09] it's no small feat. Many of our members put in thousands of hours a year in volunteering to protect you, our community, because we care deeply about you and the community that we live in. So thank you to the board, to the county administration, and to our amazing community for all the support that you show us. We can't do our job without your support. If you're interested in volunteering, please visit opennewdoors.org. We have opportunities for anyone willing to be a firefighter, an EMT, or an administrative support person. [02:14:38] So thank you very much. All right, let's figure out. So you're going to hand that to Mr. Townsend, who's going to come over here with us, and then we're going to figure out how to take a picture. [02:15:56] Thank you. We have one more proclamation, and then we are going to do public comments before we leave the dais today. Mr. Letourneau, Mr. Buffington, and your students. [02:16:16] And then we have three people for public comment, and we'll do those, and then we'll take our break. [02:16:29] Can everybody come down from Light Ridge High School for the academic team? Will you come down? Light Ridge High School academic team. [02:16:46] There you are. Come on down, please. Let's scooch over. [02:17:05] Welcome. Nice to meet you. There we go. Okay. So Light Ridge High School serves students from both the Dulles and the Blue Ridge Districts. [02:17:24] So myself and Mr. Buffington are presenting this resolution recognizing the Light Ridge High School academic team. Whereas the Light Ridge High School academic team won the Virginia High School League State Scholastic Bowl Class 4 Championship for the second year in a row. And whereas academic competitions have two rounds, the first round featuring toss-up questions in which a panel of team competitions competitors race to buzz in and provide the correct answer. [02:17:49] And in the second round, teams' competitors collaborate to provide answers on questions covering a wide range of subjects such as history, literature, science, fine arts, and current events, popular culture, sports, and more. And whereas the Light Ridge academic team endured a difficult first season to win last year's state competition and the team stayed together this year to win the championship once again with no other team coming in within 60 points or six questions of them at any match during the season. [02:18:18] Wow. And whereas sophomore, I'm going to apologize if I don't quite get the names right, Aishin Ramesh and seniors Tristan Holland, Christy Lau, Care3 Selvam, and Monit Shrum competed in the state championship for Light Ridge, with Lau and Selvam co-captaining this year's team, an additional 25 students competed on the team during other events this season. [02:18:43] And whereas the high-level state competition requires preparation, study, concentration, and dedication from all team members and Coach Matthew Crisp, as well as support from parents and other staff members. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors commends the Light Ridge High School academic team for winning the VHSL State Scholastic Bowl Class 4 Championship and wishes the team the best in future competitions. [02:19:10] Congratulations. Would Coach like to speak? I'll go ahead and start and then pass it off to whoever got elected. So for everyone who's been in the county recognizes that Light Ridge opened in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. [02:19:31] And while everyone was trying to deal with how to manage education during that time, we had the added challenge of figuring out how to build a school community, how to build organizations, how to build teams like we did here completely online. And for a lot of these students, not only here, but at the school, they didn't step into our building for about four to five months. [02:19:49] some of these students not even until we got to our year last year uh so building that up we had a completely online competition the first year uh and these students again not face-to-face answering questions online running through all of this uh they came together they found joy in learning with each other even across the internet and they resolved at the end of that year that as we got back into school but we started interacting that this would get easier and easier and they resolved that they were going to make this program into something they could be proud of and they have built a successful supportive program faster than any organization any team any department that I've been a part of and they have built something that I believe is [02:20:27] going to last for quite a long time so that's our history on the team but to talk about the team itself I feel like it's only fair to turn it over to the students. Hi I'm Kirthi Selvam I'm one of the co-captains of the Light Ridge academic team. I've been part of the team for three years so since its inception and I think while I do love competing I think the most important thing is that I'm really impressed to be surrounded by some of the most brilliant, dedicated students I've met. And I'm just constantly in awe of the fact that everybody is so bound by a passion for learning, but most importantly, just willing to support each other and uplift one another as we [02:21:06] move into competitions and practices. And I think it's really that optimism and that dedication that's taken us so far. So even though I'm graduating, I'm confident that we've built a community that will long outlive us, and I'm really grateful for that, so thank you for having us. [02:21:24] All right, let's take a picture. Supervisors and student supervisors, we only have three people [02:22:56] to speak today, and so instead of waiting for us to get out of break, we're going to take them. I know we're running just, we're running about 15 minutes late, and I apologize for that, but we are going to go on and have our speakers. Speakers, please remember that as you're speaking, you're facing the dais. In fact, you're facing me, and please do not turn to the audience. One, you're off mic, and no one can hear you, but two, you're here to talk to the board, and please direct those comments to the chair. So, we, in this order, our speakers are Madeline Skinner, Valerie P. Sierra, [02:23:34] and Robert Griffin, in that order. Good evening, Ms. Skinner. Good evening, Chair Randall, supervisors, and guests. My name is Madeline Skinner, and as many know, I am one of the groupies of Wander Magazine, and the new issue is out. So I am here tonight to officially, sort of unofficially, be a nice lady over there, to hand you your latest issue of the spring-summer edition of Wander Magazine. As a resident of Philomont, I am proud to note [02:24:10] that the cover of the issue is blooming hill lavender farm which if you have not visited is absolutely just a beautiful garden and a lovely gift shop and we're really proud of that as the chair of the land historic village alliance we're proud of our two articles on willisville and all the villages and as a loudon county resident we love the articles on the future of farming our gravel roads and uh obviously there's a few articles on some of the farming uh grain and this really interesting. And then, of course, we have a great article by Mitch Diamond on Charles Hamilton, [02:24:47] Houston, and the Crawford case. We always really enjoy the articles in Mitch Wright's. We hope that you enjoy the latest issue. They are distributed throughout the county, and they also can be seen online. Just on an aside, I do want to say how I haven't really been able to say this since it's happened, but I do want to say how pleased all villages are about the decision to do an addition renovation for Banneker. Also, I'm on the St. Louis Small Area Plan Task Force. We were just thrilled with that decision. Maintaining the iconic symbols of our villages is extremely [02:25:22] important. So anyway, thank you and enjoy your magazine. Skinner, as always, thank you. Ms. Valerie P. Sierra and Mr. Robert Griffin. Good evening. Good evening. How are you? Good evening, Madam Chair, Board of Supervisors. I'm Valerie P. Sierra. I'm the Executive Director of Loudoun Cares. I'm also chair of the Loudoun Human Services Network, and I'm speaking to you this evening in the capacity, in that capacity, and on behalf of the network. The Loudoun Human Services Network is a coalition of about 50 human services nonprofits. We provide services to Loudoun [02:25:57] residents helping meet their most basic needs, and we are not just essential service providers. We are also an economic engine that fuels Loudoun County through employment opportunities. Our nonprofit organizations employ hundreds if not thousands of community members and are a vital part of our local economy. Tonight on your agenda are funding recommendations for the fiscal year 2024 human services non-profit grants. I'd like to take a moment to share how important this grant program is for our community. A majority of these grants support a safety net of services for thousands of [02:26:31] Loudoun residents who may otherwise not have access to food, health care, housing, quality preschool, legal assistance, literacy support, medication, employment, case management, mental health services, and crisis intervention. These grants save lives by supporting programs preventing suicide, overdose, and child abuse. And these grants strengthen our nonprofits through training, volunteerism, and coordinated service delivery. You should know, too, that grant support from our local government helps many of our nonprofits leverage additional grants from other funders. These grants help us bring more dollars into Loudoun, in turn making it possible to [02:27:11] support more Loudoun residents. We want to thank the board and staff's continued support of this grant program and commitment to its annual growth through your commitment to contribute the annual funding gap amount to the next year's grant allocation. This has resulted in an increase in funding over the last four years and has allowed us to continue to meet the needs of our growing and changing community. Thank you for being our partner in so many ways, as a funding partner, as a service partner, and as a partner in leadership. Thank you so much. Thank you, [02:27:42] Ms. Pesciara. And our last speaker is Robert Griffin. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair, and thank you for letting me speak. I would like to briefly talk to you, the students, Mr. Griffin, I'd like you to face me, please. Ma'am. I'd like you to face me, please. Well, No, I won't. I'll tell you why I would like to address the scholars. Look at Matthew chapter 7, [02:28:15] verse 6. I think that explains it. I have a right to be able to address it and congratulate the scholars. In fact, I'm just going to tell you, you fine students, the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Mr. Griffin, I need you to address me, please. The book of Proverbs gives great wisdom to those who search for it. You don't find wisdom just doesn't drop on you. Look in the Bible. [02:28:48] Study the book of Proverbs. It's marvelous. The wisdom of the Bible. In fact, Mr. Griffin, I need you to address me, please. Well, ma'am, you know, she's up here hiding behind the fine and stuff that she says she objects to, I think it was sexual assault. [02:29:10] Mr. Griffin, I need you to address me, please. This madam criticized Cornerstone Chapel because Cornerstone Chapel was defending and honoring the man. [02:29:26] Mr. Griffin, I need you to address me, please. I do not have to address you, ma'am. Mr. Griffin, if you do not address me, I will call you out of order. You see the face of Democrats. You see the face, the funny, sad face of Democrats saying all these fine things, but they don't really believe them. [02:29:45] Look at that Democrat Party. Did you ever see Madam Chair speak out against the assaults at churches and conservatives' streets? No, you don't. It's a fine mask. It's a lie that you put on. [02:30:01] And, as I said, Matthew 7-6 is the exact reason that I don't let you trample on my freedom. And that's what happens. I'm wondering what breed of animal you are in Matthew 7-6, Madam Chair. [02:30:16] You too, Mr. Turner, using the church for your impeach, impeach. Look what the incredible president we have. You are responsible for that, sir. And you too, Madam. You don't defend. [02:30:32] You don't even speak. You don't speak. Mr. Griffin, your time is up. Your time is up. Thank you. Supervisors and student supervisors, we're going to take our break now. Thank you. [03:06:27] It's five of us. Go. Go. It's five of us on the dais. Go. Okay, supervisors, we're going to do the broadband update and then comments, and then we'll go to action items, which really shouldn't take very long at all. [03:06:46] So would the staff come forward for the broadband item? [03:06:58] How are you? Doing well. Thank you for the update. We're ready when you are. All right. John Bayless is not here with us today, but we do have Dave Frederick online. You know what? Pull your microphone a little bit closer, please. See, they're going to mock me for this later. So John Bayless is not here with us today, but Dave Frederick is online, and we'll be providing updates. [03:07:18] Yeah. Hold on just one second. Pull it a little bit. I don't think it's you, actually. Is the volume turned up? Can you hear me now? There we go. All right. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to present the broadband update to you. [03:07:39] Dave Friedrich is online with us, and he's going to be providing you the details. Dave. Good evening, Madam Chair and Supervisors. [03:07:56] Good evening. We'd like to start with the American Rescue Plan Act funding the board allocated in mid-2021 to address broadband unserved homes in Western Loudoun. Staff is nearing the completion of a request for proposal that is expected to be published within the month. [03:08:15] This RFP is in an effort to find a broadband partner to bring service to roughly 180 additional unserved addresses in Western Mountain. These residences have been included, identified in the RFP, have been collected through board office communication, direct resident inquiries, and fallout from the All Points Broadband Fiber Tool. [03:08:45] I'd like to note that this published advertisement will not preclude the county from submitting for future VATI opportunities with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development in the event additional unserved homes are identified in the future. [03:09:02] Secondly, we'd like to update you on the Segre Lee's Dark Fiber Initiative. The first phase of the project is now 95% complete with over 30 fiber miles constructed, with the remaining expected to be completed later in 2023. On the Phase 2 portion of the project, SEGRA has constructed nearly 14 fiber miles, or roughly completing 61% of the construction activities. [03:09:27] The Loudon Heights and Philomont facilities are expected to be on the dark fiber network in Q3 2023. The third portion of our update is on franchise agreement negotiations. Staff are nearing completion of the renewal process with Comcast Corporation and are planning to bring the vendor-signed franchise agreement to the board in an upcoming 2023 meeting, either in May or June. [03:09:55] As you may recall, previous negotiations with Verizon were nearing completion at the end of 2022 and are now restarting. Staff is going to bring a Verizon six-month extension request to the board at the same time the Comcast agreement is ready. Finally, on the VADI telecommunications initiative project, All Points Broadband has completed half of the planned poll fielding activities for the Loudoun County project. [03:10:23] Each of the more than 10,000 polls expected for a project need their own site visit, application, and permit in order for fiber hanging to be allowed. While this activity continues forward, the project's middle mile partners are making best use of resources and have shifted their construction plans to commence after the majority of the poll permits are complete, slated for later in 2023. [03:10:49] This statewide strategic shift has led to a delay in our first broadband service launch from the originally planned summer of 2023 timeframe. Although some milestones have moved, the overall project completion of summer 2024 remains on track. [03:11:08] Staff meets with and provides monthly required updates to our VATI state-level sponsors who have not expressed any concern over the progress and direction of the Loudon project. We'd like to add that in our effort to address any questions as the project moves forward, All Points Broadband and their leadership have committed to attend our future broadband updates with the board. [03:11:31] Overall, staff continue to ask for patience on the VADEE project. Like ducks paddling feverishly underwater, the VADEE project has many construction activities taking place. But until physical construction begins, these efforts may not be outwardly visible to residents on county roadways. [03:11:50] Staff remain a resource. When any questions arise, we thank you for your time and are happy to take any questions you have at this time. Thank you, sir. Mr. Kirshner, I will go to you first. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I don't have a lot of questions. I do have a couple follow-up. But first of all, thank you for all the staff, all the folks from All Points. [03:12:09] We've been working this really diligently. You guys have met with me any time I need an update. I think we're actually kind of scheduled updates on a regular basis. So thank you. I know this is a gargantuan undertaking. I think it was mentioned that you have 10,000 polls that we have to check, or is that actual poll replacements? [03:12:25] Can I understand that? New polls that we actually have to, or just the number that we're checking? existing poles that are being identified, and we have to identify where on the pole they're going, where the fiber is going to be. Okay. And I know that completion, we're kind of looking at summer of next year. Are we seeing any homes being actually beginning to be lit up at this moment? A few that are actually getting service? Is that fair to say or no? No, sir. [03:12:55] None. Okay. So the middle mob providers, what I was trying to convey earlier was the middle mob providers, instead of doing, say, 50 miles of fiber, right, the overall project is 600 miles of fiber. Instead of doing it in small chunks, they would like to bring all their resources at one time to Loudoun County and knock all 600 miles out in a shorter period of time. [03:13:15] Yeah, and that totally makes sense. I just wasn't sure if some of the mid-service providers were, and that's great. It makes a lot of economic sense. So I just want to say thank you for meeting with me. Thank you for the regular updates. Thank you for the diligence on this this is a uh you know a 70 70 million plus dollar project and it's funded without any actual tax allowing taxpayer dollars so arpa and brought and a number of our partners that are involved in this so i'm really just pleased to see it move forward what a tremendous infrastructure project that's very important so thanks for all your hard work and i'll continue to meet with you regularly thank you thank you mr kirschner this is an um action item so before i [03:13:55] I will go to you for a motion if you'd like me to. Does anyone else like to speak on this item? No, actually, this is information. I'm sorry. It's not an action item. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My bad. My mistake. My mistake. Mr. Buffington. Thank you, Madam Chair. [03:14:10] Just briefly to thank you all, and please pass along our thanks to all points of broadband. I also appreciate that they're going to be at the following updates on this. So very much appreciated, and glad to hear that the overall completion deadline has not been delayed. [03:14:26] So what are we thinking on that? Is that going to be delayed? Are we anticipating that it will be? Or do we think we're going to actually hit that as of today? Seems like you think we're going to actually hit that? So a year from now, we'll be done? As of today, yes, I would agree. [03:14:43] 8,629 new connections? Yes, we believe that the project can still be met. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would associate myself with Mr. Kirshner's comments, and I thank you very much. [03:15:02] Supervisors, let's do supervisor comments, and then we're going to go to the University Center application item. Comments from supervisors. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. [03:15:26] I have a few disclosures. On Monday, April 10th, I met with representatives from Novi Partners on ZMAP-2021-0003 Ravana. On Tuesday, April 18th, my staff spoke with representatives from Dominion Energy about multiple substation projects in the Broderon District. [03:15:52] I just want to say that I think today was just a wonderful day with the youth here on for government day. I learned a lot from them, and hopefully they have learned a lot. [03:16:08] What we do at the local level, I was talking to one of the students, who goes to Broad Run, and he says that one of his teachers, they speak on local, state, national, and international issues, and he says that they speak about us all the time. [03:16:29] And sometimes we're with state-level work as well. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of disclosures. [03:16:45] One, a meeting on April 10th about the Ravonna development with Stan Knox, Andy Marshall, and Colin Chiaroto. Two, a meeting on April 17th about the village of Clear Springs with Hobie Mitchell, Jeff Lohr, Roger Vassiliadis, Mike Wilkins, Jeff Gilliland, Michael Warkoski, Aaron Swishelm, and Matt Leslie. [03:17:13] And that's all I have for disclosures. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. By way of disclosures, on April 10th, I had a briefing with the Ravonna developers. On April 17th, I had a meeting with Colleen Gillis and team on the Cascades Marketplace revitalization. [03:17:35] And on April 6th, I met with the folks from the Dogwood Farm Station, Mike Romeo with Walsh Kalushi. Regional updates. We had our COG meeting last week. We talked about the regional growth forecast, which is forecasting 1 million jobs and 1.5 million people coming to the region between 2020 and 2050. [03:18:03] Right now we have 5.7 million and 3.2 million jobs. So the population growth is expected to be 31 percent, and the employment growth is expected to be 26 percent. Sorry, the job growth dropped a little bit because of COVID and some other issues, and you can find more information about that on the Metro Washington Council of Governments website. [03:18:24] We also passed a resolution endorsing ERIC. ERIC's mission is to help states improve the accuracy of America's voter rolls, increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens, and reduce election costs and increase efficiency in elections. [03:18:42] Their website is ericstates.org, and it's quite fascinating the work they do and very valuable. We also announced the Loudoun Farm Tour. So the Metro Washington Council of Governments is coming to Loudoun. [03:18:58] I worked with the Department of Economic Development and COG to have a tour that's happening on May 12th, and we will be going to Longstone Farm, George's Mill Farm, Potomac Vegetable Farms, and Wheatland Spring Farm and Brewery. So we're very wisely ending the tour at a brewery, but this particular brewery actually sources its own ingredients right there on the farm. So I'm really excited that this is happening. Again, it's May 12th. As of today, Madam Chair, there have been [03:19:32] 164 mass shootings in our nation. Saturday topped our daily high with seven mass shootings in one day. We had six on January 1st of the year. We've had 12,487 total gun deaths in our nation. 7,128 of those deaths were suicide and 5,339 were homicide. This includes 76 children under the age of 11 and 444 children between the ages of 12 and 17. Children are being killed by firearms at an alarming rate in our nation. [03:20:05] It is now the number one cause of death for children in our country, surpassing car crashes in 2020. Between 2019 and 2021, gun deaths among kids in the U.S. increased 50%, according to Pew Research data. [03:20:21] As we learned this week, you can't even accidentally knock the wrong person's door to pick up your twin baby brothers without getting shot in the face, as happened with Ralph Yarl in Kansas City. You can't accidentally pull into somebody's driveway in northern New York. This is how Kaylin Gillis, age 20, was murdered this weekend when she was a passenger in a car with her friends. [03:20:44] Four this weekend, and, you know, God forbid you try to attend a birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, where four were murdered and 28 injured at a birthday party. I keep calling for gun sense because we have gun insanity in this nation. [03:21:00] It's insanity that these innocent people have died. It's insanity when we have Jalen Walker shot 46 times while running from the police, and those are just the bullets that hit him. 94 bullets were shot at him by eight officers. [03:21:17] But we'll never know who those officers are, because during the grand jury investigation, they were anonymous, and there will be no charges in the case. We know the names of so many unjustly murdered in this nation, though, and we should continue to say their names. [03:21:35] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Brixman. Mr. Turner? Thank you, Madam Chair. Disclosures, Thursday, April 6th, my staff met with Matt Leslie from Walsh Kalushi to discuss the application for Lansdowne Boulevard rezoning. On Monday, April 10th, my staff and I met with Stan Next, Andy Marshall, and Colin Shirato from Timberline Real Estate Partners to discuss the application for Ravonna. [03:21:59] On Friday, April 14th, my staff met with Brendan McCarthy from Vantage data centers to discuss their buy-write application for Vantage VA3. I learned a little tidbit that I just wanted to share with the board today from one of my contacts at Dominion Energy. [03:22:15] The only area of the data center population in Loudoun County that has power issues is what they call the constrained area. The constrained area is the actual data center alley proper. So if a data center is going up outside the constrained area, there are no power issues. [03:22:32] They'll still have to run lines. They'll still have to build substations, but there are no power limitations. It's only the constrained area and such a concentrated area that has the limitations on the amount of power they can provide. I thought that was, that's a context that I hadn't considered before. That's all I have. Thank you. [03:22:47] Thank you. Mr. Buffington. Thank you, Madam Chair. No required disclosures, and I'll save my comments until the items when we get to it. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Two disclosures. On April 6th, I met with the applicant and representative for Defender Drive Residential ZMAP 2021-0023. [03:23:06] And on April 11th, I met with Tony Calabrese of DLA Piper and Eric Wells to discuss Firefox Dulles ZMAP 2021-0018. By way of regional updates, as I reported at the last board meeting, the Metro Board approved the fiscal year 2024 budget as it was presented. [03:23:24] We do have one amendment in process, which has to do with whether seniors have to pay for a smart trip card. Our senior program currently was set up in order to give them a discount, but they actually still had to pay for the card. And so we're going to change that and eliminate that fee. [03:23:42] Otherwise, it was exactly as presented, and that will sort of transition us. We always joke up here that we instantly start the next year's budget when we finish. Well, it's especially true at Metro when we're staring at a $500 million deficit. So you'll see a lot more and hear a lot more in the coming month or so, a month or two, about that, the scope of that problem and the impact to the region if it is not solved. [03:24:07] That's it for me. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mandatory disclosures, April 10th, I did meet with all the representatives previously mentioned by the fine supervisor from Leesburg. I'm not going to list them all in the Regana briefing. And I had a good briefing there. [03:24:25] Learned a lot about that project. Kind of looking forward as we see that project develop. And I just wanted to briefly state it was really great to have all the students here today on Students in Government Day. And, you know, it's quite remarkable to me that, you know, this is the next generation. [03:24:42] And I think they're in good hands after meeting these folks. I certainly hope so. I'm very proud of them. A lot of the questions up here were incredibly pointed. So I appreciate all the students who participated and came. And students sitting at my table during dinner and lunch. I was able to attend both. were very excellent questions and great conversations. [03:25:00] So thank you for those of you who participated and helped put that together. I think it's so important. I kind of cut my teeth at that age, probably 15 or 16, working in politics, and it has served me well throughout the rest of my life. Just kind of on the news from Catoctin, Loudon Wildlife Conservation is holding its spring native plant sale at Morvin Park this Saturday, April 22nd from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. [03:25:22] This is your chance to buy spring blooming flowers, vines, trees, shrubs, and ferns Four local nurseries will be there participating. Hill House Farm and Nurseries, Nature by Design, Seven Ben's Nursery, and Watermark Woods. The sale will take place in the Morven Park Visitor's Parking Lot. [03:25:38] It will be staffed with volunteers who would love to answer your questions about native plants and then help you pick out some options for your garden. Back to you. That is news from Catoctin. Back to you, Madam Chair. Yeah. [03:25:55] After you finish being an attorney and a supervisor, you're going to be a news broadcaster. Oh, no. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mandatory disclosures. [03:26:13] I, along with my staff, met with Ravana applicants on April 12th. On April 17th, my staff and I met with the Village at Clear Springs applicants. I wasn't going to say anything, but my spirit is telling me to do so, so I'm going to do so. [03:26:29] I wrote a letter, email to the editor-in-chief of Loudon Now in regards to an editorial picture that was in the paper a few weeks ago. I'll read the email. I'm reaching out about the sketch image that was released in reference to the current situation in Percival. First and foremost, I think Loudon Now is a great local paper that has done good coverage of many issues over the years, but the image that was run was done in an extremely poor taste. The town of Percival has its issues, and what is unfolding there surely deserves attention and coverage. However, never would I have imagined that my [03:27:07] local paper would run an image with a hanging noose and jail bars in a piece referencing an african-american official given the given the history and symbolism of a noose in our country and even in loudon county where we we have had multiple documented hangings in hangings the imagery in that piece is distasteful and harmful i'm requesting that you retract this image from your site and also encourage the editorial team to release a statement informing residents and the readers that Loudon now regrets releasing this image and apologize for the harm that it's [03:27:41] caused. I appreciate your consideration. Now, I had a, before that, I'll say what's happening in Percival, like I said in the email, definitely needs to be covered. However, what was displayed in the piece, as I mentioned, with a hanging noose to illustrate that there's a artocrat stances going on or a dictatorship or a monarchy going on, that's what they're trying to illustrate in the picture. You could have done that a lot of different ways without having a hanging noose, [03:28:16] jail bars, and a guillotine in the imaging. I had a conversation with the editor today. I won't disclose everything that we talked about, but I, after that conversation, just did not feel that we went, we had a good conversation. And I feel things are still not understood in certain images. And I know for a fact in certain demographics, if there is other images that were put in the editorial picture, they probably would have been caught and taken out. [03:28:46] Now, I believe that the noose was definitely, again, in bad taste. Was it missed in malice or was it an oversight and just didn't see it? It could be possible, but either way, I'm pretty sure there's a few eyes that saw that image before they approved it to be allowed into their paper. [03:29:08] So I'll just simply say this, we need to do better and stay woke, which staying woke means actually just being alert. I know that word is being tossed around and misdiagnosed and everything, but literally woke means to stay alert. Stay aware of what's going around in your situation. So again, stay woke, pay attention to what's going on, pay attention to what's being presented in front of you before you sign off on anything. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sains, and thank you for saying that. I don't, you are kinder than I am. I don't believe you draw [03:29:45] a noose on accident. I don't know how that works. If somebody draws a noose, they very much to draw a noose, and that's a problem. On April 12th, I met with the applicants for the Ravonna development for an update. [03:30:03] And on that same evening, I talked to, I think that was the same evening, John Peters from the Peterson Group, about the Commonwealth Center application. Something interesting has happened between last time we were on the dais and this week. [03:30:23] You know, we had that shooting in the Dulles Town Center Mall, And there's been a lot of talk about that shooting. And there are a lot of people in the county who are adults, who are community leaders, who are well-known, who are defending the shooter because the 21-year-old was getting on his nerve and being irritating. [03:30:46] I know we've decided that 21-year-olds are adults. They are not by their brain. 18-year-olds are not adults by their brain. 21-year-old brain is much closer to a 17-year-old brain. [03:31:02] Her brain's fully developed, right about age 26 usually. But even if that was not the case, the fact that we now are not just having the normal shootings, we're having this spate of shootings in this country, including in Loudoun, that are because people have annoyed you. [03:31:23] Somebody is taping you at the mall. He was annoying, and maybe he should have been arrested for harassment. But to shoot him was completely inappropriate. Somebody accidentally turns around in the driveway. They were of no threat to that man who stepped out of his house, shot a gun into a car, killed a 20-year-old woman. [03:31:47] Young man knocks on the front door. No threat. No threat. Listen, whether or not you believe that everyone should be walking around armed or not, that's another issue. And whether or not you believe that every shooting is somebody with a mental health issue, and that's not true. [03:32:04] At some point, we have to be able to say that if someone is no threat to you whatsoever, your loaded gun should not come out and get shot. Just period. If we can't agree on that, if we can't agree that because you're annoyed, you shoot someone. [03:32:23] And I'm talking to Loudoun residents who have been telling me that that 21-year-old deserved to be shot. Thank God he lived. Thank God he lived. But what are we becoming when, I mean, I hate to say this, but punch him in the nose if you have to. [03:32:39] You do not shoot somebody because they annoy you. I am so disturbed by the, it's not even like just the regular gun discussion that we have or the very important and valid numbers that Ms. Bricksman reads every single meeting. [03:32:58] It's this new thing now that every confrontation, every problem, every irritation, everything is settled with a gun. What is happening? What is happening? I am speaking to the county that I love and people that I know in the county. [03:33:20] If you don't like what I'm saying, go to polls and vote against me in November. There is no reason that young man should have been shot in that mall. He was irritating. I get that. But there was no reason he should have been shot. And anyone who thinks he should have been shot in that mall, you need to reevaluate if you should even ever have a gun. [03:33:40] I am frustrated. I am frustrated with it. And by the way, I associate myself with Mr. Sains' comments as well. All right. Thank you, everybody. Supervisors, let's go to the University Center item. It's item number six. [03:33:56] It's in the Algonquian District. Ms. Bricksman, I will leave it to you to make the motion when the time comes. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the board. [03:34:15] The applicant is here. Don't come to the table. No, it's not, it's not. Yeah, no. Ms. Bricksman or anyone else, do you, has anything changed dramatically from the last time we've seen it? Does anyone need the presentation again? [03:34:31] Has anything changed dramatically from the last time? Has anything changed? There have been two revisions to the application. I'm happy to waive the presentation and just mention the two changes if. If that's okay, if that's okay, okay. I'm okay with, yeah, I'm okay. [03:34:48] That's your district as long as you're okay with it. Okay. So since this was at the board public hearing, the proffers have been revised so that $2.7 million of the capital facilities contributions will go to phase two improvements at Bless Park. That is to include funding for up to two off-leash dog areas, tennis and or pickleball courts, a boardwalk and a skate park. [03:35:14] And if this money has not been allocated to Phase II Bless Park improvements within 10 years, then it reverts back to the Ashburn Planning sub-area for other capital facilities improvements. And the other change that has occurred is that the proffer for the George Washington Boulevard signal at Lakeview Overlook Plaza at Highland Vista Drive has been revised to state that the secondary entrance will not be opened until the signal is in place. [03:35:44] That's it? That is it. That's it. Okay. Ms. Bricksman, do you have questions? Would you like to make a motion? I can go straight to a motion as long as my colleagues are okay with that, Madam Chair. Please do. Okay. I move that the Board of Supervisors approve ZMAP 2021-0022, ZMOD 2021-0086, ZMOD 2021-0087, ZMOD 2022-0042, ZMOD 2022-0043, ZMOD 2022-0044, University Center Lakeview, subject to the proper statement dated April 3rd, 2023, [03:36:22] and the condition of approval dated March 29th, 2023, subject to the findings of approval provided in attachments 1, 2, and 3 of the April 18th, 2023 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item. [03:36:39] Second. I'm going to take that second. Ms. Brixman? Thank you, Madam Chair. So, you know, I think I made a lot of my comments at public hearing, but I at first really want to thank the applicant for working with me on this particular project, and it wasn't the original idea for this parcel, and I honestly believe that they could have taken an easier route. [03:37:12] They could have taken a route that might have cost them less money. They could have taken a route that would have made them more money, probably. But I believe that they really appreciated the concern of my district and me as a district supervisor to do something that would be more beneficial to our community. [03:37:32] This project will develop up almost 600 multifamily dwelling units and a maximum of 116 multifamily stacked units. There is a good amount of attainable and affordable housing in this application. I'm really proud of the work that we did on this application. I'm only saddened that we couldn't get the path around the stormwater drainage pond, but that was not the applicant's fault. [03:37:59] We worked really hard to try and get the property owner at University Center to agree to that amenity and they just they just wouldn't agree to it so unfortunately that won't be in there but I had a conversation with the applicant about the proffers I know that staff was concerned that the proffers might not come in as quickly as we had hoped but we did the math and we believe that the 2.7 million will get to the bless park phase two fairly quickly and well within the 10 years And hopefully right as phase one is being completed. [03:38:35] And so I'm super, super excited that phase two of Blessed Park, which I thought was just going to be way down the road, like I might not even be in office anymore happening, that it's going to happen fairly quickly. So with that, I'll just thank my colleagues, hopefully, for your support on this application. [03:38:53] And again, thank you, staff, for your work on the proffers. I know that we changed stuff, you know, after public hearing, and I know that can be a little bit labor intensive. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate the applicant working with me on this. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Briggsman. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. [03:39:09] I support this motion. I believe it adds to the mixed-use area, and it will be a welcome addition for students and young people who live around George Washington University, and it will also help one loud and as we continue to grow as well. [03:39:26] Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I cannot support this, although I think the applicant did a very good job working with Supervisor Briskman, but these 600 residential units are being created on land that has been zoned for research and development, and I'm not going to give up on the possibility that we could get more research and development users in the county, but my main concern is It's an additional $3 million a year in school operational costs. [03:40:07] So, unfortunately, despite my admiration for the applicant, I cannot support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buffington. Thank you, Madam Chair. This could have been buy-write data on a part of Route 7 that we don't want data centers, correct, staff? [03:40:25] That is correct. Yeah, so thank you to the applicant for doing the work that you did and working with the board and working with Supervisor Brisbane. And thank you, Supervisor Brisbane, for putting a lot of effort into this. I love data centers in the right spots where we want data centers, but in the areas where we don't want them, especially in this part of Route 7, this corridor of Route 7, we just don't want them. [03:40:53] And so you guys could have done that without any need for approval by this board, and you didn't, and you worked with us to do something different, and I, for one, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to support the application a little begrudgingly, but the reason I'm a little begrudging about it is just a lot of the reasons that Supervisor Armstead said. [03:41:17] I mean, there's a lot of toll when we build homes on our tax base and our schools and our infrastructure and all of those things. This is a lot of homes, but as Supervisor Buffington put it, this does make a lot of sense to develop this area as homes. [03:41:33] And across the street, we've kind of, 7 is no longer a street. Across the 7, it's being developed very similarly, and so I think it does fit with the area. I'm going to support this application, but I continue to have these concerns as we build out some of these areas so quickly, especially the pressure that we have on our schools. [03:41:53] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I am wholeheartedly, enthusiastically supporting this application. One, we need homes. We need homes. We need attainable homes. We need non-attainable homes. We need low-income homes. [03:42:09] We need workforce homes. We need homes for senior citizens. We need homes for veterans. We need affordable homes. We need homes so that everyone's child can come home and live with them after college. We need homes so someone's mother-in-law can come live with them, not mine. [03:42:28] But someone's mother-in-law can come with them. We need homes. And I don't know who thinks we don't. I don't know. We need homes. And the fact that the data center community is 48% of our commercial revenue, 48%. [03:42:46] We don't need any more, we don't need any data centers right here. And, you know, we get a lot of talk from applicants who say that they're community focused and they want to do the right thing and they want to partner with us. [03:43:02] And we hear that. But it's not always that it actually works out that way. It's not always that that comes to fruition. You have applicants that could have gone and made a lot more money in a data center, with data centers in a place that they didn't belong. They just, in my opinion, just didn't belong there. [03:43:20] Two close residential homes and just didn't belong there. I am very happy to be voting for this application. If I could vote for five more of these applications, I would. It gives us everything we need. [03:43:36] It gives us all types of different types of dwellings, which is what we've asked for. We've asked for diversity of homes. We asked for more homes. We asked for data centers where they don't belong, especially with the struggles with power that Mr. Turner has talked about earlier. [03:43:55] This is a great application. There's not a thing wrong with this application. Proud to support it. Ms. Bricksman, I'd like to close. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. I don't know how much more I can add, So I will leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed? [03:44:12] Nay. That motion will pass 8-1 with Ms. Umstead voting against the motion. Thank you very much. Let's go to the item number four, the Human Services Nonprofit Grant Recommendation Item. Please, would you come down to the table? [03:44:32] Good evening, good evening, good evening. This item is a work of art. It really is. I was just blown away, just blown away. [03:44:49] Would you like to do a presentation? Does anyone need the presentation? No? No. Does anyone, would you like to say anything before I make a motion? Where's my motion? Oh, wait just one second. [03:45:06] You find the motion. Anybody? Nobody? Okay. I have a question. I can say it. Can you answer the motion? Okay. I move the board of supervisors to approve grant funding for the human services nonprofit organizations as recommended in the April 18, 2023 board supervisor's business meeting action item and direct staff to notify selected applicants and process payments for grant funding in the amount of $2,369,808 for FY 2024. [03:45:32] Portions made second by Supervisor Glass. So this is actually, you know when we had that last discussion about grant funding and when there was all this kind of discussion about whether we put a process in place and all that, well, that money was ARPA funding. That wasn't this money. [03:45:48] This is different. This is the process. This is actually the process we put in place for grant funding that is county funding. The ARPA funding was a one-off thing, so it wasn't the same thing. Not only is this a different pot of money and done differently, but when I look through how many of our nonprofits you were able to give almost full funding to, it is amazing. [03:46:19] And when I look at how many different nonprofits you were able to hit for various reasons, So I will pull out. I know OAR had received money before, and then they didn't, and then they did, and then they didn't, and they are in this one. I am looking at nonprofits that I know some two, three years ago would not have received the funding because they didn't know how to do the application. [03:46:43] They hadn't gone through the process. Not only have you done a good process, but you have put a process in place to allow nonprofits, who may not be large nonprofits, who may not have a grant writer, who may not know what they're doing to get enough education and training that they can submit an application that earns them a grant. [03:47:05] A lot of times some of the nonprofits that weren't getting it is because their applications were of poor quality, which was just about education. So the staff put in place, with the help of the Loud and Human Services Network, all the education that was needed to be put in place, And it shows, I think it showed before, but in this one more than ever, because you see so many nonprofits who have not received money before. [03:47:28] And then you have the many nonprofits, and I'm going to call out one that I'm very proud of, which is on page 14, which is a Loudon Coalition of Women and Girls, which I started, and I'm so proud of the work they are doing. They are getting $5,000, a mini-grant. [03:47:46] So this is very, very, very good work. And I'm looking at it, understanding how much effort went into this item. You all are to be commended, as are our partners in the Human Services Network and all of our nonprofits. [03:48:05] And I will tell you, I haven't gotten one email. I have not received one email. Now, I may get one tomorrow, but as of right now, I haven't received one email. So thank you, thank you, thank you. [03:48:23] Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to say I really appreciate our nonprofit organizations out here. They do a wonderful job for the county. And I just want them to know that I just am thankful for what they do and support them. [03:48:43] And it's wonderful that they help our residents in the county. And, I mean, what else can I say? They do such a magnificent job. When I've gone out and visited the different nonprofits out there, I'm thinking of Bobal Hope right now. [03:49:05] And I can, you know, name a few others that are out there. But, you know, to help those that are in need, that's just a wonderful gift that we have out here in Loudoun. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. [03:49:20] Boy, this is a very different feel from when we discussed this a year ago. And I think largely because we were, as a board here and as staff, able to work through a lot of the kinks and the difficulties that kind of this whole process brings. It's been a process for sure, but I want to first of all commend everyone who's worked on it, and I appreciate the effort that's been put in. [03:49:46] The one question I did have, obviously we have a few of the major grant applicants that did not receive money, and so my question basically is, do they score lower essentially and then the pot of money that's available just kind of get used up? [03:50:02] Would it be required? So if we wanted to increase the number of nonprofits that we're sharing in some of this, would that require us for next budget season to kind of increase that if we had a similar number of applicants? Is that simply a function of that, or is there something else going on? [03:50:19] So that is correct. If the funding gap analysis that's in the item would fully fund all of the applicants who met the 75% threshold. I got you. Okay, and to Chair Randall's point, I believe that probably the – well, let me actually ask this. [03:50:41] How much did – I know because I think last time we went through this, we encouraged some folks to come forward and work with our staff on the application process. How many actually participated and took advantage of that, and was that helpful? From nonprofits? [03:50:58] Yes. Yes. So we actually have regular communication with many nonprofits, and the majority of them are from LHSN. No, but in terms of putting their application together. Oh, applications together? Yeah. How many of them do we actually assist? We had somewhere in the neighborhood of 47 attend the training. [03:51:19] And then we also have individual technical assistance available before the application comes out. Yes. Okay. And that's fairly new, right? I mean, that was implemented this year. That's correct. Okay, thank you. No, it's not. The technical assistance is new. Oh, the technical assistance. [03:51:35] Okay, yeah. Ms. Bricksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually did have a couple questions. When you're scoring folks, are you looking at any sort of other relief they're getting from the county in other ways, and does that score them higher or lower on the... [03:51:58] Because during the ARPA funding discussion, We did have some complaints that there are nonprofits out there getting relief in other ways, and it's kind of like not fair. Yeah, so we actually don't take into consideration for funding additional funds that are available through grants for the county. [03:52:18] We do, however, once the awards or the recommendations are finalized or in draft form for the item, we do consult with our other departments to make sure that they're not supplanting any funds, that the organizations are utilizing the funds appropriately. [03:52:38] Okay. And then there's five groups that are affiliated with religious institutions that are getting county funding through this process. How are we assuring that those organizations aren't proselytizing? [03:52:55] because I actually went with one, and they basically are when they're passing out food. So how are we assuring that that's not happening? So we have in our assurances, in our MOU standard language, about no proselytization, no use for religious purposes, and we also do monitoring. [03:53:16] Okay. So we do have monitoring visits, and that's on a random basis. Okay, fantastic. And then the YMCA did not get funding. It looks like they were looking for funding for their summer camp. Do we know how many slots that they're not going to be able to provide because of that? [03:53:33] And I'm happy to get the answer offline if you want to talk about it a little bit more. Yeah, if we can get that offline. Yeah, we'll have that for you. Okay, fantastic. Thank you. I am obviously definitely going to support this. I truly appreciate our nonprofits. They do such great work in the community. [03:53:49] and I know that, you know, families are staying together and getting fed, and, you know, I go out with Mobile Hope fairly regularly to distribute food at Sugar Land Elementary, and I see the lines, and I see the faces, and Loudon Literacy is often there as well, so I really do appreciate our nonprofits, and I really like that we have tightened up this process, and obviously people think it's fair now otherwise we would be getting calls and emails so i appreciate that work that staff has done to make sure that this is you know fair and and um you know everyone understands the [03:54:28] process thank you happy to support mr turner thank you madam chair so kudos i remember when this program started as before i was a supervisor and i did my two and a half minutes of public comments. And it really has come a really, really long way. I really commend everybody. [03:54:46] It has all the earmarks on a very, very objective and very balanced approach for scoring. So my question is, is it? This superficial feeling of the model, the balance of the awards and the grants, the fact that we haven't gotten any pushback at all from the community, those are all circumstantial indications that the process is very objective. A, is that your sense as well? [03:55:15] And B, has it gotten substantially easier to grade and score these and then apply this grant money in an objective way? That's a really good question. And as you know from your experience in grants, that there will always be some subjectivity to the ratings. So we do not, We want to be very transparent about that, but we have increased our objectivity and increased the reliability with which our reviewers score. [03:55:48] We have reviewers who are year over year the same reviewers, and that consistency has really helped create that objectivity and the ease with which these applications are scored. Also, the applications are of very high quality. [03:56:05] And that's the other thing is that clearly the education has taken place, so that's kudos on you for that. Thank you very much. So I want to remind everyone, because some of the questions, I do think that there's some confusion about the ARPA money versus this money. [03:56:23] They are two different parts of money. I think the ARPA money is done now, right? Are we done with that? Okay. And it didn't fall under this criteria in this way. And so when people say, I remember before with that, you know, we've been doing it this way pretty successfully now for for a couple of years now, for three, four years now, that ARPA money was kind of a blip because it kind of came in from nowhere. [03:56:49] And so the staff and the Human Services Network has been have been I think the last time we had with this pot of money, a major blip was last term. This term, we really haven't. And so don't get the two processes confused or the two parts of money confused because it's not the same thing. [03:57:08] We haven't not had any issues with this part of money in this process, this term, not at all. I just want to make sure everyone has that difference. Again, thank you very much, and hopefully the no e-mails from nonprofits will continue tomorrow. [03:57:26] We'll see, though. All in favor, if you say aye. All opposed. That motion will pass unanimously. All right, item number five, the work plan, Department of Planning and Zoning Work Plan. Good evening. [03:58:02] Good evening, Chair Randall and supervisors. I think it's seven slides, and I think we probably need those slides for this because it talks about the zoning ordinance and some of what we're about to do with that and how we're going to go through that. [03:58:22] So let's go through those slides, please. [03:58:35] At the end of this, just to you, Chair, if you'd like to make a motion, that's fine with me. Can you check and see what's presenting? It's acting odd. [03:59:00] Thank you, Jackie. Apparently, it's been a few months since I've done this. And that is why you can never leave right there. Press the button once. Apparently, I had to press it twice. [03:59:18] Okay, good evening. We are here to present the Department of Planning Zoning Work Plan. It's been slightly less than two months since we were in front of you last. And that is because we are going to get on a firmer quarterly schedule of coming to you in January, April, July, and October to try to avoid holidays and the August break and other matters throughout the year. [03:59:43] We think that's a pretty solid calendar to try to stick to, again, subject to the chair's management of sometimes our overly lengthy agendas. So the last time we were formally in front of you was February 21st. Prior to that, we had not been in front of you before September. [04:00:01] So if it would please the board, I'm happy to focus on updates that have occurred in the past two months or I can touch on each of the items in the work plan if there's a preference. Mr. Turner, do you have a preference? I think each of the items in the work plan would be, I think we're about to walk into some heavy duty lifting and people need to know what we're getting ready to do, if you don't mind. [04:00:26] No problem. So staff's recommendation is that the board approve the current projects which are listed in tables one, two, and three. And we have added a respective staff recommended project prioritization for the village of Luckett's small area plan that the board requested us to add last time. [04:00:45] And I will cover that when we get to the appropriate table. So to start with, we will cover our zoning ordinance amendment work plan. The first and main item for the entirety of the department that's occurring right now is the zoning ordinance rewrite. [04:01:03] And this is the comprehensive revision and or replacement of the zoning ordinance to implement the Loudoun County 2019 general plan. It's also including other updates to modernize, simplify the zoning ordinance, streamline processes, and address challenges that we've faced over the years of working through the ordinance. [04:01:21] Since we were last in front of you in February, the Planning Commission has continued their work. They've established a uses subcommittee to develop recommendations for uses, use-specific standards, and related definitions. The subcommittee has met on March 16th, March 22nd, the 30th, and April 10th. [04:01:39] They have two meetings remaining on April 25th and May 11th. At this time, staff is expending some significant efforts to address the various revisions to the ordinance based on public input, commission guidance that's been received to date, and just the overall need for clarification of the draft document as it moves through the review process. [04:02:00] And this has required the estimated completion date for this project to move from July 2023 to the fall of 2023. We've begun to informally discuss this with a few of you, but this is probably the first time that the full board is hearing. [04:02:16] Our tentative schedule for the remainder of this project is as follows. The Planning Commission would very much like to be done with their process in June. So early June. Is that on the next slide, I think? Tentative zoning ordinance schedule? [04:02:32] Yes, ma'am. There you go. They would very much like to be done with their part of the process in early June. If that occurs, we are targeting the end of July for the board's public hearing on a special public hearing that would be devoted solely to the zoning ordinance. [04:02:49] Then through September and October, after the August break, the board would meet to review the draft ordinance, essentially to the extent and at the number of meetings that you all would prefer. And then we're shooting for the board's adoption of the new ordinance in early November. If you could just pause for a second. [04:03:06] Supervisors, you should also know that as I'm looking at the agenda, it would be almost impossible to do zoning ordinance work in the middle of regular meetings. And so there will be some meetings that are special meetings just for the zoning ordinance. [04:03:22] As I look at our very complicated schedules, they probably will have to land on Mondays because there are so many regional meetings on every other day of the week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I don't want to put them on Fridays, but just please expect some zoning ordinance-only meetings in the fall that will land on Mondays. [04:03:42] Thank you. Thank you. Any further discussion on the rewrite before I move on? Our second priority for zoning ordinance amendments is the Prime Agricultural Soil and Cluster Subdivisions OAM. [04:03:58] This is a zone that proposes to amend the cluster subdivision option in the AR1 and AR2 zoning districts to prioritize the preservation of prime agricultural soils to support the long-term viability of farming as outlined in the 2019 general plan for the rural policy area. Just before our last work plan update, the board had appointed a group of four individuals to work as a work group that would be kind of focusing on some of the ongoing division between members of the community on this project. That group has met five times since February, and their last meeting was on [04:04:36] April 6th. Staff, I know it's noted in here that we tentatively scheduled them or expected to report back to the commission in May. After talking with the planning commission chair, we now believe that will be June, just because of the heavy workload to get through this last roughly month of zoning ordinance rewrite related items. So action with the board would likely be ultimate action in September unless the board chose to take action at its public hearing, for example. So I'll ask Mr. Stoltz if he has anything he'd like to add on that item. No, I don't have anything unless you [04:05:10] have questions about that. I don't have any additional things. No. Okay. Item number three is one that has yet to begin. It would be data center design standards and locations. This is built off of TLUX previous work last year. We are including some new specific standards for data centers in the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite project, but this later project would be a combination of a Conference of Plan amendment and Zoning Ordinance amendment that would look at proper [04:05:44] locations for data centers. It would also look at a greater look at things that are of environmental nature rather than just sort of building design standards, which is what we primarily have in the draft zoning ordinance right now, so we would anticipate that there would be work on that, and some of that may touch on design standards that we would have to bring back, but we're trying to separate the two a bit with our ongoing work and the later work. [04:06:10] This is something that we assume would be formally initiated after the adoption of the zoning ordinance rewrite, and so because of that, we've just moved the projected end date back a quarter to the spring of 2025 the last item currently on the zoning work plan is a source water protection this is also a joint conference of plan amendment and zoning ordinance amendment and it is related to a bmi that was brought forward the goal of this would be to establish permanent 50 foot [04:06:44] protection buffers along a number of creeks and rivers in the county as i mentioned do you have an eta for that we do not not at this time okay uh the last thing i'll mention we and i mentioned this a couple of months ago. We are anticipating there will be some work needed on the floodplain overlay district. The Department of Building and Development has a third-party review that's ongoing. We're expecting this month that we will receive a set of staff will receive a set of recommendations. And so once we've had time to look at those and talk internally at a future [04:07:22] DPZ work plan update, we will bring back a projected time to get started on that and when it may wrap up. So everything on page six is for a new board to do then? On page six. On slide six? [04:07:49] Yes. Yes. So getting to slide six, and this starts on page four of your item. Our two current community planning initiatives of a non-historic nature are the St. Louis Village Plan and the Purchase Development Rights Program. The St. Louis Village Plan is a project to develop a community plan for the rural historic village of St. Louis to support the community's goals and address issues related to land use, economic development, environmental and historic resources, and a number of other matters to maintain the character of the village. [04:08:27] The task force is still meeting, and their most recent meeting occurred on March 30th. At this time, we believe we are still on track with the board's previously adopted timeline for an estimated completion date of February of 24. For the Purchase of Development Rights Program, this is an initiative to revive a program that the county previously had that would enable the county to purchase development rights related to pieces of property from a voluntary and willing private landowner for land conservation purposes. [04:08:59] So since we were last in front of the board, staff has completed some preliminary mapping of potentially eligible properties based on the draft documents we're working with last month, and we've used that to try to help determine some of the potential scope of the program. we are currently, DPZ is currently working in conjunction with several departments on program development issues, such as the property valuation matrix, continuing to map those properties as previously mentioned, research on the potential value of development rights, and things of that nature. We currently anticipate bringing the PDR program, a draft of it, to the finance committee for review in the fall when you're also starting to look at budget items [04:09:38] for next year. I'll add that at the last work plan review, the board also directed staff to report to the Transportation and Land Use Committee regarding the feasibility of including the development of a Transfer Development Rights Program as part of staff's work on this PDR program, and we would currently anticipate bringing that to TLUC in the fall, although I know that Supervisor Turner has had some conversations with us as well related to that, but there may be some changes. [04:10:07] For the remainder of the table, the Data Center Design Standard CPAM is what we previously talked about, so I won't cover that again. The Suburban Compact Neighborhood Criteria Comprehensive Plan Amendment is also something that's built off of previous TLUC work, and it's regarding residential development in the suburban policy area and the specific criteria that applicants could use to utilize the Suburban Compact Neighborhood Place Type on a parcel that is currently designated as Suburban Mixed Use or Suburban Neighborhood Place Type. [04:10:43] This was deferred with the board's last review, but this, as I'll note later on, is also something I think we could potentially tackle when we do our more holistic review of the document. Something that has been newly added based on the board's previous direction is the Luckett small area plan. [04:11:02] So we are proposing to slot it in as the fifth priority in this table. This would, we would recommend that this would start after the St. Louis village plan has been adopted, and that's primarily to try to incorporate lessons we've learned from working with that village. [04:11:19] We anticipate a number of the same staff that's working on that project would work on the Luckett's project as well. At least as things stand right now, we also anticipate that that would have a similar two-year timeline. Once that project wraps up and we get closer and we work through things, we may be able to fine-tune that a bit, but those are our preliminary projections as things stand right now. [04:11:42] Priority six would be a solar arrays input process and policy initiative. This also goes back to a BMI from April of 2021. However, this was one of the matters that was deferred in a far earlier work plan review in June of 2021. [04:11:58] And when and if we are to begin efforts on this again, we will definitely bring an item back to the board to get your direction to reinitiate the project. And priority seven is the source water protection CPAM, also related to the proposed zoning ordinance amendment that we have previously discussed. [04:12:21] So as the board members will recall, when we were here two months ago, Supervisor Returno had noted that next year will be the five-year anniversary of the adoption of the 2019 general plan. And the board previously discussed whether we should review the document wholesale, if we should start looking at policy areas or specific topics, and that's something that we have started talking about internally as well. [04:12:43] I did want to highlight, though, that I think there's a lot of merit to doing something like that and taking smaller bites at the apple on a rolling basis next year because we have never truly had an opportunity as a staff to bring things to you that we know need to be addressed. I think where we're going to lean to is advising that for this first review that we go and tackle a number of those things we've kind of collected over time, fix a lot of them, and then in later years we can start rolling through looking at policy areas on an individual basis, something of that nature. [04:13:13] so we wanted to put that out there now. When we have a firmer proposal, we'll bring that back to you as a future work plan update. Our third table are community planning initiatives that are related to historic planning. The first is the Preservation Equity Initiative, and this is an effort to collaborate with the Black History Committee and collaborate with other organizations. [04:13:40] Phase one is currently underway, and they are looking at updating the, or they're actually working on updating the 2004 African American Resource Survey. Phase two has only generally been discussed, but it's anticipated that that work will focus on specific historic resources and communities that need and merit a deeper level of documentation or preservation. So some of that work may build on phase one work that's ongoing right now. Phase one is anticipated to be completed in August of this year. The second priority is the Courthouse National Historic landmark designation the purpose of this effort is to prepare and submit an [04:14:18] application of the National Park Service requesting the the historic landmark designation for the historic courthouse that the board recently approved the renaming of the consultant has been engaged to complete that nomination and we are planning to formally submit it to the National Park Services Landmarks Commission for consideration at their next meeting in November we had hoped that they would meet in the spring but that did not occur so November seems to be when we will get a formal action on that item. The third and last priority at the moment on our historic initiatives is the Courthouse Grounds Path to Freedom, and this effort is to engage the [04:14:55] public in a community dialogue regarding the design and placement of memorials on the grounds of the Loudoun County Courthouse Complex. Obviously, there's work ongoing there now. We've previously discussed with the designers that we can still do this work after what they're doing is completed, so when the project that's currently ongoing is completed, do not think that that precludes us doing this work in the future. There's still room for the kinds of memorials and things that would be discussed as part of that project. And again, that was something else that was deferred by the board when the community planning initiatives work plan was [04:15:28] reviewed way back in June of 2021. So the last thing I'll touch on is our staffing capacity. And we talked about this at the last work plan review. And then when I was before you for budget deliberations, DPZ currently has 78 authorized full-time equivalent positions. You've just approved two more that would come in the next budget cycle. When I wrote the staff report, we had nine vacancies. And in the two months in between, we had actually filled five of those vacancies, but three were with internal promotions and two external hires. That was leaving six senior planners that were still vacant. And that's the bulk of the kinds of employees that [04:16:06] we typically task with project management. In the past two days, we have received four acceptances for senior planners, I'm happy to announce. The good and the bad is that three of those are internal candidates only one is actually adding capacity so yet again we're running into the same kind of issue of we have good people and we're happy to raise them up but we do need to attract external candidates that we can hire in to build more capacity to do the work that you would all like us to do so I just want to put that out there as well but now we are at eight vacancies as things currently stand okay well that's one lesson you had improvement we'll take it better than one more yeah thank you very much appreciate that supervisors you have questions and [04:16:45] Mr. Turner, get ready to make a motion when it is time for a motion. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you were to fill those eight positions, would this schedule change at all? We'd be able to initiate more of these projects. We could not tackle everything listed here all at once, no, but we'd be able to initiate more. [04:17:03] Okay. And did you say the data center, CPAM, and design standards was initially predicted for a certain time frame, and now it's been delayed again until spring 2025? So what we've kind of sketched out is essentially a 15-, 16-month time period, but it was intended to start after the rewrite would end. [04:17:24] We're anticipating that ending in the summer, then we would be able to start it in the fall. Now that that's ending in the fall, we'll start it in the winter. That's all that that reflects. I see. Okay. And just to comment on the rolling policy area idea, I think my only comment on that would be is I think it would be really nice if we could live for a while with our zoning ordinance being in alignment with our general plan so you know if we end up being a little bit tardy from the five years then you know i just think it's going to be easier on [04:18:00] everybody and even applicants if if our general plan actually matches our zoning ordinance so but that that's my two cents i would kind of have to see you know i don't know i'd kind of have to see what the repercussions would be if we were to make adjustments to our general plan and what the fallout would be in the zoning ordinance so that's that's just my two cents my initial reaction to that thank you thank you mr mr you you're gonna make a motion might mr mr turner i would like to ask questions yes sir um so my impression of the of your recommendation and nothing's in concrete [04:18:38] obviously not even in cold jello at this point um uh is the first roll through of the comprehensive of plan look in 24 is basically clean up. We have the cats and dogs that are kind of hanging out there that we know are hanging out there and clean those up. And then we go into the rolling incremental every two years or so, or every year we do a portion or every two years we do a portion. [04:19:01] My impression when that concept, which I agree with, was first described was that that would enable us to do both the CPAM and the zoning orders, ZOAMs, sort of simultaneously. So we don't end up with this one and then the other because we're taking an incremental bite. We can actually work on both almost simultaneously is that reasonable i would love to make that sort of our standing practice i think that it's a lot more efficient to do things that way in the past i believe it's kind of been a staffing constraint that we've kind of forced to break things apart at times okay but i would definitely like to work towards doing that more and more okay um the other thing for the benefit of my colleagues um and i have a little [04:19:39] bit of time I was at the the mayor Littleton's summit conference that we had the other day and in that discussion they brought in the TDR expert from Montgomery County and there was a long discussion about TDRs and the concept of normally a transfer development rights is the high-density area buys that's a receiving area and they buy land development rights from the sending area and shut down those development rights permanently in the sending area and they acquire more density in the receiving area. That doesn't work in Loudoun County because we've [04:20:18] already given all the density away in eastern Loudoun County, so there's nothing to buy. There's nothing to transfer. The new concept that Mayor Littleton proposed was, and I mentioned it briefly at a prior meeting, was transferring development rights in the west for FAR in the east. So a data center that wanted to increase FAR could simply buy that FAR by purchasing and extinguishing development rights in the West. I think it was Supervisor Luturno that correctly pointed out, so we give up all our rights and oversight in the legislative process. And that was the correct, I think, response and accurate. And as soon as you said, I thought, you're absolutely [04:20:55] right. At the summit, we said, however, we could shape the TDR program so it's only allowed in areas where we want data centers to continue to expand because we've set that aside for data centers. And we don't offer it in areas where we don't want them to expand. So it becomes a very big incentive to build data centers where we want them to build. And that's an interesting concept. [04:21:19] I would like to talk about it at TLUC. Obviously, no commitment, but just have an information item at TLUC. In order to get it on the TLUC agenda, I just need the consensus of the board. And I'm asking for that here tonight what can i ask a question no she's gonna think about it first no um i don't think that you can i i don't with the respect i think that there's probably people who need more time to sit with that and a little more education about it and it's it's hard to do that [04:21:54] right now right here um so can i clarify madam chair no we're no i mean because we're in the middle of an item i'm about to make a motion and you and you kind of brought up a whole different topic in the middle of an item that was really not not about this item really so I'm going to I'm going to respectfully say no I could clarify it okay I don't need clarification no you're no Mr. Saints thank you madam chair I might get swatted down too but had a question um in this [04:22:30] we're talking about the courthouse grounds path to freedom which is a board initiative you know item to look at putting uh sermon on a plaque statues etc on the courthouse grounds correct it's it was just as much about where they were located but also by having a conversation about what memorials where they'd be located on the grounds what memorials would be included okay so and we have item number three proposed installation lafayette trail marker slash plaque courthouse ground so why is that handled separately and not kind of folded into this [04:23:08] Can anybody explain that to me? Because that's almost the same thing where it's being identified for courthouse grounds, even though, yes, I know a separate entity is paying for it. Well, the county is paying for it a little bit of it, too, for the installation. But why is this not together? Unfortunately, I don't know that I have a firm answer for that. [04:23:26] I believe the other one is really about signage more than memorials. But beyond that, I don't know that I have an answer directly to that question. Madam Chair, can I ask Mr. Hemstreet a question? Sure. Mr. Hemstreet, do you want to take a possible stab at that? [04:23:44] or I'm not sure I was following the complete. So, okay, so we have in the item for this, for the planning and zoning, we have the courthouse grounds path of freedom, which is to discuss putting placards, memorial statues, possibly on the courthouse grounds and having a whole process with that. [04:24:05] But then today in our packet, we have item number three, proposed installation Lafayette trail marker slash plaque on a courthouse grounds. So to me, it's almost, you would think that it goes hand in hand. So why are we having this item separately? [04:24:21] Shouldn't this be rolled into that? So they can be rolled together. I think the difference is that the item three, the site has been identified and the site is being requested. [04:24:43] My understanding of DPZ item is that the request was to design a path along with a series of markers that would go along with areas that are historically significant, which is a larger effort. That involves the staff doing it. [04:24:59] Now, certainly if the board wanted us to hire a consulting support and use a consultant for that, I could move it to another department such as DTCI and have them handle that and bring it to the board as opposed to running it through DPZ and having DPZ staff handle that item. [04:25:18] Or it could just make a, pick a location kind of like what the item three is. They're picking a location on their own in a sense. All right. I just, to me, that kind of baffled me. So I just wanted to ask that question, get some clarity, but thank you. Mr. Turner, I'm going to make a motion. [04:25:37] Mr. Turner, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I think that what you're proposing is a fairly new concept from what we're talking about here. And I know you want to explain the concept, but we're actually in an item. And so it's not really the right time to do that. [04:25:55] Not that it's not an item worth talking about or hearing about, but not while we're in the middle of this item. So would you like to make a motion? I move that the Board of Supervisors approve the current list of projects listed in Tables 1, 2, and 3 in respect of project prioritizations on the Department of Planning and Zoning work plan as identified in the April 18, 2023 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item. [04:26:19] Second. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Turner? No, I have none. Anybody else? I have a question. Mr. Staines. Thank you. Again, Madam Chair, if I may ask Mr. Hemstreet. So, Mr. Hemstreet, we can vote on this tonight, but say, hypothetically, say if i do some homework and research and talk to the staff behind the scenes we possibly could take out the um the courthouse grounds and and do it another another way possibly that subject matter yes if you would like me to move into another department i can definitely do that [04:26:55] and then but that will involve us hiring a consultant to do the same work that the planning staff was going to do so the difference is the proposal here and where it was assigned by the board was to do it internally utilizing dpc staff if the board is okay with with me hiring a consultant then i can move it to another department that regularly works with consultants to accomplish the same effort let me let's have some conversations offline and if i want to do [04:27:27] that can bring it back in a separate motion thank you so um i i think we we as it as it relates to the comp plan and what we discussed i think that we might be forgetting that it's like the law to look at the comp plan every five years and the and the fact that you know what happens when you don't do it is a lot of things come along and it's easy to get involved in doing other things and so then you look up and it's uh 18 years you haven't looked at your comp plan which is what literally what happened last time i'm not blaming anybody it's just that you know in a county that is still growing really quickly and the county that's created a whole urban area. [04:28:07] I do think that, you know, I liked your idea, to be quite honest, Dan. I think it's a very good idea and a smart way to do it. I think, you know, it was 18 years before we did the comp plan, and I think it's now more than that before we did, how long is it since we did the 93 revised? [04:28:23] So it's 2003, right? Yes. It's the 93 revised. You know, it may take a couple of iterations to see, to watch that come into alignment, but I don't think it's a good idea to just kind of sit on the comp plan we have now when we know for a fact that there are some concerns with it and we know there are concerns with it as i said before that you know if you run the last body you know we we got that thing with 90 days to go after 18 years we had 90 days and so we were you know we were rushing rushing to get through it and and there are you know we we look up all the time and and think why didn't we address that in the comp plan or why is that partial such a mishmash because we just because we just didn't sometimes have time to [04:29:02] walk through it and i'm hearing you say you want to go back and address some of those things which i think actually makes perfect sense and i don't particularly um ever want to put another board in a moment where a comp plan is that far out of date because it was really really hard to bring it um bring it in line and and made it even that much harder to bring the zoning ordinance in line and it's also the law so that's what i would say mr bufferton says so what to the law the lawman says no [04:29:40] Mr. Turner would you like a closing no closing all the people who say aye any opposed you're going to abstain that motion will pass 801 with one abstention Mr. LeTourneau is abstaining Mr. LeTourneau thank you very much Mr. LeTourneau would you like to go straight to a motion on item 11 I would be happy to I'd be happy if you did. [04:30:10] Okay. I move the Board of Supervisors approve ZMAP 2021-0018 and ZMAP 2022-0081 Firefox Dulles subject to the proffer statement dated March 23, 2023, and the conditions of approval dated February 10, 2023. [04:30:26] And based on the findings for approval provided as attachments 1, 2, and 3 to the April 18, 2023 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item. Motion is made and second by Ms. Umstead. Discussion on the motion. So this one's probably fresh in everybody's mind since we talked about it last Wednesday. [04:30:44] It is a data center on the north side of Route 50. As I said last week, I find nothing objectionable with the application. It is in an area that is conducive to industrial development and data centers. The issue that was raised by staff, the only outstanding issue, was related to the setbacks for a future road. [04:31:06] The future road alignment has not been determined, and so the setbacks may not be necessary. It's subject to a discussion with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority that we continue to have about Route 50 North Collector Road. So even in the worst case, I don't think the setback reduction is particularly impactful. [04:31:30] Again, there is no residential development near here. This is going to be a very heavy industrial area forever. There's a quarry. So I think in talking about places that we would want to see data centers versus places we wouldn't, this is one where we would want to see it, and therefore I am supporting the application. [04:31:51] Thank you. Ms. Brixman? I will not be supporting the application because of staff's concerns. Thank you, Madam Chair. Would you like to relay what those concerns are, and do you have any concerns about powering? [04:32:16] So staff's only objection was, again. The setbacks? Yeah, which is the setbacks. And you have no issues with power? No. They have no issues with power that you see? Okay. Mr. Leterner, would you like a closing? Yeah, again, on that setback issue, I mean, if I was truly concerned about it, I would have not supported the application. [04:32:35] But, in fact, the applicant worked really closely with DTCI to make sure that we had the reservation we needed for the road. And they didn't even necessarily have to request a setback exception, but they did so to be conservative and to give us some flexibility for our future alignment. [04:32:52] So I just don't see that as a showstopper. Thank you. Okay. Motion made by Ms. Letourneau, seconded by Ms. Umstead. All the people who say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 8-1 with Ms. Brickspin voting against the motion. [04:33:09] Thank you very much. Supervisors, if you have nominations, would you please turn your lights on? Seeing none, I think, do you need a break before you go to closed session? [04:33:26] Because closed session is going to be a while. Okay, let's do that. Closed session is going to be a while. Madam Chair. Actually, we have two closed sessions, yes. Item number three, I don't believe. Did I miss an item? I'm sorry. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. [04:33:43] That was what I was going to put on consent, not for the kids, but then the kids weren't, but then we ran over anyway. Would you like to make a motion, Ms. Umstead? I would love to make a motion. [04:34:00] I move that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to facilitate the fabrication and installation of the proposed trail marker plaque on the courthouse grounds to honor General Marquis de Lafayette's contributions to the U.S. Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War as described in the April 18, 2023 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item. [04:34:25] Motion was made and seconded by Ms. Glass. Discussion on the motion, Ms. Amstead. I would just thank the Daughters of the American Revolution for bringing this request forward. Thank you. I can't help it. [04:34:41] Laquita Marquette, in my head, was the actor in Hamilton. It's just who he is in my head now. Although, truthfully, if you've actually done some reading up on him, he was a pretty amazing man and did a lot of things both here in France and in France and back and forth doing that entire time, to be quite honest. [04:35:01] So anybody else on paper, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion passionately. Thank you very much. Supervisors, let's take a five-minute break, come back and read in the closed session. [04:40:22] All right, we are back. [04:45:31] Mr. Sands, will you read us into both closed sessions, please? I can. I move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter in the closed session pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A3 of the Code of Virginia to discuss the disposition of real property in 2011 and 2022 Leesburg Election District, where discussion and open session would adversely affect the bargaining or negotiation strategy of the county. [04:45:57] Closed session number two, I move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to sections 2.2-3711, A8, and A29 of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel pertaining to the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement where public funds are being expanded and where negotiations, wait, wait, wait. [04:46:19] Second. Okay. discussion on the motion no it's fine it's fine bargaining part threw me off [04:46:34] but yeah we're fine okay say aye aye any opposed okay we are out of closed [07:00:33] session mr. Sainz will you read us out of closed session I move that the closed session be adjourned that the board of supervisors reconvene its public meeting that the minutes of the public meeting should reflect that no formal action was taken in closed session and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting Most remain second by Supervisor Umstead discussion on the motion Would you everyone please affirm, mr. Letourna from the firm From a firm firm firm, and I affirm as well on people say aye any opposed that motion will pass 9-0 [07:01:11] All right, we have a motion on a closed session and with the board supervisors direct staff to advertise for and hold a public hearing on the Union Street Resident curator lease with the Loudoun Freedom Center for the June 14th and 23 public hearing. Motion is made in second with Supervisor Umstead. [07:01:30] I will have more discussion on this motion at public hearing. It's 10.30 at 11 o'clock at night, and I was watching this right now. This is a really important thing that is happening, and I do want to kind of walk everybody through what this is, why it's important, who's worked for this, and how we got here. [07:01:50] But I'll do that. I will do that when we get to the public hearing. Anybody else? I'll give this a aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 9-0. Surprises were adjourned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com