Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Finance/Government Operations and Economic Development Committee - Capital Improvement Program Work Session, Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Date: Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 1h 14m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7603
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7603

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 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:13:13] Good evening, and welcome to the Finance, Government Operations, and Economic Development Committee CIP work session. I'll call the meeting to order. This room has a hearing loop. If you need hearing assistance, switch your hearing aid to telecoil mode. If you need a headset, we have those available as well.

[00:13:29] Please see the clerk to request one. This meeting serves as our first work session on the proposed CIP. I think hopefully everybody on the board has had an opportunity to have a briefing with staff and to submit questions and projects that are in the CIP or maybe in my case, missing from the CIP.

[00:13:46] The goal for this evening's meeting is for the committee to look at scenarios, give staff direction that we'll use to provide feedback for the committee at our next meeting, which is scheduled as part of our finance committee meeting on Tuesday, March 12th. And we'll make a recommendation on the CIP at that time to the full board.

[00:14:04] So I will turn it over to staff. I do wanna mention though, that we are fortunate to have Kevin Lewis from Loudoun County Public Schools with us for the beginning part of the meeting. Kevin has another school board commitment this evening, so we committed to having all of our LCPS-related CIP questions up front so that Kevin can get on to his other business.

[00:14:27] Nikki. Good evening, Chair Letourneau, members of the committee. Last evening, you received the CIP work session packet. Included in that packet is an item which gives an overview of the proposed CIP.

[00:14:45] As attachments, you received responses to questions that staff received through February 20th. We've also included the question database, which includes all questions we have received, and there are a few questions that will have responses for the March 12th packet. You also have questions and responses from Loudoun County Public Schools.

[00:15:08] And lastly, you have a set of replacement pages for projects by election district, which corrects some errors with some projects. So Supervisor Letourneau, if we do have a brief presentation that we can hold on until after discussion with LCPS, if that is your desire.

[00:15:31] - It might be good just to have the brief presentation to kind of get everybody in the swing, and then we'll go right to any LCPS questions first. - Okay, okay, thank you.

[00:15:49] All right, so-- - We are monitors here, there we go. They just woke up. They were just slow. Okay. All right. Okay, so the CIP maintains the board's adopted CIP.

[00:16:05] This slide here just gives you a summary of the six-year funding, which is $3.5 billion, county projects at $1.1 billion or 32% of the six-year funding, transportation projects at $1.4 billion or 40%, and then school projects at $996 million.

[00:16:24] Project costs and schedule changes for existing projects have been accommodated and are represented in the proposed CIP. Some of those schedule changes did result in slight production schedule delays for some projects that created limited capacity for new projects.

[00:16:44] On this slide, this shows the board member requests that were accommodated in the CIP, the Cascades Library and Senior Center Complex, the Eastern Loudoun Community Arts Center, and the Indoor Sports Facility. And this slide also just shows all of the new projects that were added to the CIP.

[00:17:09] If we need to discuss any of these throughout the work session, they are all listed here that have been accommodated either by department priority, board priority. As I've already noted, project completion delays, particularly on road projects, those resulted in most of the changes to projects that are existing projects in the CIP.

[00:17:38] And the accommodated town project, we had one, which was the town of Roundhill-Airmont water storage tank. This project is accommodated based on its impact to county residents living outside the town limits of Roundhill affected by this water tank project. And finally, as far as funding scenarios, we did not receive funding scenarios in advance. We just want to remind the committee that all CIP revenues are fully programmed and that standing board guidance for funding scenarios is to include a project

[00:18:14] offset. Transportation projects leverage special revenue sources which are not easily moved to another project and production schedules may limit the ability of projects to move. So the Project schedules that are represented in the proposed document.

[00:18:31] These reflect the most updated expectation for how these projects will move, how their production schedules are set. And so there is not an expectation that we would alter those production schedules to accommodate newer projects.

[00:18:50] That is the end of our slide. We can certainly take questions or turn to Elkis. Yeah, and I have some and others have some, but I think let's start specifically with LCPS. So are there any members of the committee that do have LCPS questions?

[00:19:06] I have one, but I will yield to Supervisor Briskman first. Thank you. I think I just had one, and that was I saw the new item for a school replacement program. Is that anything other than Parkview?

[00:19:24] Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question. The school replacement program has now been the last school board put a policy in place for us to evaluate all of our schools and our inventory that reached the age of 75 to have a full-blown facility condition assessment at age 75.

[00:19:45] And then a short version of the facility assessment at the half-life, so in year 37 or so. So what that is in anticipation of that program becoming more of, as we finish building new schools at the rate we used to, and we're starting to reinvest in our inventory, then we need to be looking at whether or not a school needs to be replaced or renovated or restored.

[00:20:11] And so that's the beginning of that process. And we started in the out years, so that what you see there is the first installment of design money. - Okay, do you have any idea, you may not know this offhand, have any idea how many schools are going to be hitting 75 years? I do have that study. I'm not sure. There's probably 10 or 11 that are on that list that we studied. And so our staff does the first tabletop study, and then we hire consultants to help us with the in-depth stuff. Okay. All right. Thank you. I think that's all I have, Chair Letourneau. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. I don't see any other lights on. First one related to HS14. So I know Supervisor

[00:20:51] to crony submitted some questions about the timing of hs14 and had raised at our joint meeting the possibility of it opening for the 2027 school year and your response indicated that that would not be possible could you just elaborate a little bit more on what the challenges are there and i know you i think you were up for a commission permit last night from the planning commission and they actually sent it to work session which i'm sure is probably not helpful from a timeline standpoint But could you explain a little bit more what's going into that discussion?

[00:21:23] Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Letourneau. So the HS-14 project is in that commission permit process. We do fully anticipate that the project is a four-story. It's going to be our first four-story school. That campus is not an easy campus to build on because it's got a good bit of grade and it's solid rock.

[00:21:43] So we know it's going to be an extended amount of time to build on, which also adds to our hesitation to accelerate. But probably the most defining part of that is we are confident, we've already done a preliminary traffic study that was mentioned in the commission permit last night, that we do know that the road improvements on Evergreen Mills Road will be required for the opening of the school, and the timeline for that is even longer than the one for the school.

[00:22:11] So we're confident we can open the school in the fall of 28, and we're pressing as hard as we can to be in line and be ready for the road improvements as well. and those road improvements are not going to be in place or don't need to be in place for the opening of the new middle school that's in that that's correct so they're separate they are yes will they'll are we going to run into issues when the middle school opens because they're not in place um we don't believe so we've got a plan i mean one of the things that if you and i don't have an exhibit but the design of the middle school includes a good bit of road work on the

[00:22:46] campus so there's plenty of room for stacking the exit and entrance is off of red hill road and we have heard from neighbors that they're concerned about that but we are doing improvements right now that are in place probably 75 percent of the improvements are in place now at that intersection we're adding turn lanes both on evergreen mills and on red hill road so we believe we can manage that traffic but that's not going to be sufficient for hs14 it will not and and also you know the commission permit includes an elementary school as well and so that's down the road it's not been designated for a time to be open yet but so when you get all three schools there it will it will definitely need that that additional improvements okay just more broadly

[00:23:23] last year at last year's version of this meeting i brought up the sort of design standards that the county and the schools had agreed upon years ago that i think had sort of been forgotten or abandoned and it remains the case obviously we've had huge increase in construction costs across the board both county and school facilities but you know a high school today is a really expensive project so has there been any movement or progress on some components of value engineering

[00:23:57] but also just facility standards where we kind of have a set idea of going in and we're sort of fiscally constrained about all the things that are getting added into the projects? Yes, sir. So beginning with last year's CIP, the FY24 CIP, we have a chapter in our document that revisited all those standards and has looked at that. But those are more of a general design parameters and not specific design parameters. We are fully aware that costs are going up, it's getting more expensive. We have had a tremendous amount of inflation during the COVID

[00:24:37] period. The cost of materials, the delivery materials, the availability materials is getting better, but it's still not back to where it was. And so that's causing some more pressures on bids and a lot of pressure on contractors and subcontractors to give us a bid on bid day and then hold it for however long they need to do that. So those things are still there. We are taking that into consideration. We're looking at different types of systems, HVAC systems in particular knowing we have some some pretty significant goals on energy conservation but those systems are usually a little bit more expensive so we're going through those value processes right now with our engineers to determine as an example hs14 we haven't decided

[00:25:17] exactly what the hvec system is going to be because we know the costs are going to be significant okay and then i always raise sort of designing the schools with community use in mind as well So I think you and I have had some dialogue in the past about maybe some of the shortcomings of the current high school design.

[00:25:35] So I'm hoping we can maybe look at some of those things with HS14, particularly with access to restrooms around the theater area and that kind of thing, which is a continued problem at any event that's at Independence or Light Ridge. It is, and we've had conversations in-house about that very thing, but I will definitely go back and double-check on that.

[00:25:53] Thank you. We can always follow up offline. Okay, I saw Mr. Sains first, and then Chair Randall. Thank you, Chair. Good to see you, Mr. Lewis. Real quickly, in high level, can you give us an update on the Parkview redo? And then to clarify my question regarding the graduation rate, you said the graduation rate is 97%, so does that mean the dropout rate is 3% or is there more clarity that needs to be?

[00:26:16] I think that's probably an operating question for LCPS and not a CIP one for Mr. Lewis. All right, for that one. Hold on that one. Okay, on the graduation one, but can you give us a high level on where we're at with the Parkview redo? Yes, sir.

[00:26:36] Thank you for that. So we are extremely excited about that. We've had a number of community meetings and we've met with the architects and the contractor we have. This is a construction management at risk project because of the complexity of having an occupied campus. And so we've had a number of those meetings we have brought to the community that are preliminary schematic designs. And so they have been very, very well received. I'm not sure if you've had a chance to see those yet or not but our comments and communications from the staff and from the community has been positive we are getting some terrific input on proximities and adjacencies inside from the school staff so we are well on our way to have the project start on in

[00:27:12] construction and beyond time for the the fall of 27 and then so we have at least one more community meeting that we're planning to go through. I'll also say that I give a shout out to Mr. Torpy and his folks for helping us work on how we're going to manage athletics during this period of time. And so we're working through partnerships with that and have a plan to have a place for those kids to practice every day and to play so that those plans are coming along. They're not completely defined yet, but it's been one of the focuses we have to try to have as little impact on those students as we can. Very good. Yes, I saw the designs. They look

[00:27:46] very uh well done um and i know there were a couple of feedback that the the principal and the community gave like one for one instance was i guess like a parent room um so hopefully that can be added into to the design and i know there are some questions or or pushback on some of the programming so um i guess in the next meeting you guys will hopefully address those those those concerns that were raised yes sir that's our plan okay very very good thank you yes all right

[00:28:18] thank you um and thank you for the park view redo or the park view update um i remember going to a couple of the community meetings around park view and there were lots of concerns and and i will say the school the school system has done a great job listening to the concerns of the students the parents, the admin, and, you know, I follow, I'm tagged almost every day in the Parkview redo page, and, you know, there's little things here and there, but for the most part, it seems to be a very positive experience for the Parkview community, so thank you for that.

[00:28:56] I thought Mr. Letourne was going to go on his question, because he asks this every year, and maybe it doesn't need to be asked anymore, but just in case, when he talked about the school some of the school redesign how are we and where are we put the school redesigned all the schools being redesigned for the safety issue I know the high schools you know you you know you you can't walk into the into some of the schools they have you are you are moved into an office first before you can walk into the school so no one can just walk into the school building of course that you know you see all the security outside you have to show your ID All of that stuff is very, very good, very appreciated.

[00:29:36] But have we refitted all the schools and so that you cannot walk straight into the school? You have to, you're the person to an office before you can walk into the school building. So thank you for that question. I appreciate the opportunity to, one, thank this board for the support for that program.

[00:29:52] It's been a five-year program and probably 112, I think, million dollars. And we will complete that project this summer. And so by the fall of 24, all of them will be done. And I don't know the exact names of the schools, but there are six more to be done this summer. And then we'll have those complete.

[00:30:08] And then everyone will have what we call a secure vestibule when they enter the building. That is so important. And thank you so much for that. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of those is John Champ, because that's where my kids go. And they haven't done it yet. And they just had a discussion with the parents about the fact that that project was coming.

[00:30:25] So, OK, two members of the committee are here with us this evening. So welcome non-members of the committee, Mr. Kirshner and Mr. Turner. I saw Mr. Kirshner's light on first, so we'll go to him and then Mr. Turner. - Thank you, Supervisor LeTourneau.

[00:30:42] It's good to be here. I don't always get to sit in on finance, but for this discussion I wanted to be here at least for a little bit tonight. I've been talking to a number of developers working on some of the schools, and I don't know if you can or can't ask, but I think this would kind of be wrapped in the CIP. It's a question of interest for me. My understanding is the schools have essentially gone every school is now the the objective is to become a LEED certified school is is that whether it's silver or gold I'm not sure but is that an accurate statement I'm not prepared to say that's a goal for every school it is a goal for the Parkview high school program we have committed to doing that there we're

[00:31:20] looking at that process right now for HS 14 it is something that we would consider I will also say that we have been designing our schools to meet the certification standards for years lead and green globes as well as the with the chips is the collaborative high-performance schools so we have all those standards in place and we've been each year our designers are designing to that in addition to the energy star program so I think it's a high probability that we will move that way we haven't made that commitment yet but I think it is something that's important to our students we're realizing how

[00:31:57] important that is to for to show that leadership with our students yeah and i appreciate that conceptually i will tell you i'm a little concerned about it and i'll let me tell you why obviously when you do a little research on this you realize that the certification process itself can raise the cost anywhere from 15 to 30 percent and obviously if we're spilling many millions and millions of dollars you go through a process that's going to cost us now i know at the county we have some requirements for this as well but i have and i'm just throwing this out food for thought um but i but i have talked to a number of contractors who say they build their buildings essentially with similar efficiency but don't go through the same process and save themselves 15 to

[00:32:35] 20 on those projects so just food for thought you know obviously we're we are anytime you program our cip is pretty tight so just um i don't know if you have anything to say about that but i have that was brought to my attention i do and i i appreciate the opportunity so um the i think Typically, what we have learned over the years of looking at this is that the 15% or 30% numbers that you hear in the market are based on an energy model that is the ASHRAE basic model that is not what we build to start with.

[00:33:05] So we are already building a better HVAC system, as I mentioned a minute ago, that we're looking at those. So we're already getting the savings on the cost per square foot on the energy conservation, and we're already spending those money to provide better systems. But I also say those systems are more reliable and better in control, and so they meet the expectation of our client, which our staff and our students and our parents.

[00:33:28] And so we are providing better systems. So moving to the LEAD certification process is not as big a leap, and it certainly won't result in a 15% to 30%. Likely we will find that the only change that's going to be for us at this point is the actual certification process, which is maybe a few thousand.

[00:33:45] So we don't think it's going to be a huge impact on that. And if that's the case, then obviously that's better. But I appreciate, thank you for watching out for the taxpayer dollars. Appreciate it. Absolutely. And Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Ryan Road from Beaver Dam Drive to Evergreen Mills Road was delayed, and the reason was land acquisition and construction phases were delayed one year.

[00:34:08] Mr. Turner, is this a school question? We're only on school. I'm sorry, I thought we'd moved on. We have not yet moved on. Nope. Only school questions so far. We're going to have a. Yep, that's fine. All right. Any, well, any other school questions for Mr. Lewis? Seeing none, Mr. Lewis, thank you for being with us.

[00:34:28] I know if anyone has anything to follow up, we'll submit it through the process. But we appreciate you being here, and good luck with the rest of your evening. Absolutely. I appreciate the invitation and also get me in and out. I'm going to go back to the school board meeting. We can keep you here longer if you need an excuse. I mean, we're more fun to be with, if you ask me.

[00:34:44] I'll make sure they know that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, does staff want to say anything additional about the remainder of the CIP?

[00:35:02] I do not have any more comments. I was going to ask sort of one question to kind of prompt discussion, and then we can go to specific ones, which is there were some new projects added as a result of staff prioritization. I think you had a slide on that.

[00:35:19] Maybe we can just go back to that because those are ones that the board, some of them are board priorities, but others were, I think the term we're using is departmental priority, not necessarily board priority. The transportation ones there in particular, I do want to focus on because the Route 15 Hogback Mountain Road roundabout came out of the Route 15 corridor study that the board heard. And before the meeting, we actually went back and watched the tape on this. And I said

[00:35:57] something like, I want to make sure that some of these projects don't automatically roll into the CIP because the study is sort of showing there's not a pressing need for them. That was one of them that at the supervisor at the time, Mr. Buffington, was not particularly supportive of moving forward with that project. I don't even think Mr. Kirshner said anything in support of moving forward with the project. It's a relatively low volume intersection. I questioned putting an entire roundabout on Route 15 just because we're slowing down all the 15 traffic just for that one intersection and yet here it is so that's one of them and then the 7690 with everything going on

[00:36:34] in Percival I think there may be a bit of an update on that one but so let's start with those two maybe sure all right regarding the Route 15 Hogback Mountain Road that you're correct that But we did go to the board with that report in February of 2022.

[00:36:52] Our DTCI staff did review that same footage that you also did. The board at that time forwarded it to TLUC for further consideration. We also reviewed that footage. And TLUC did have a short discussion about Hogback Mountain is actually a public road.

[00:37:11] I think there was some discussion about how it is a public road. They talked briefly about the accident history. And then they sent it back to the full board recommending approval of the list, and it was passed on consent. The list, but not necessarily priority.

[00:37:28] So there were, as I understand it, there were departmental projects that exist out in the ether, and I know about one of them. But this one got pushed to the top of the list as a departmental priority over all the others. And so then when it came time for this year's CIP process, the department basically reviewed all of our corridor studies looking for the prioritization that the board had already directed for each of those corridors.

[00:37:57] In this case, for this corridor, that study identified number one priority was Braddock Roundabout and number two was Hogback Mountain Road. And so we forwarded this as part of a longer list of the next one down on the corridor list that had been prioritized by the board.

[00:38:16] So that's how it ended up on the list for consideration in the CIP. Okay. And then is there any update on the 7690? Yeah, so since this document went to print and since DTCI provided our update, including the recommendation for phasing 7690 and needing to come in with a second phase project, as the board likely recalls, that we held up for some period of time over the vacation of a floodplain easement we needed the town of Percival to act on.

[00:38:49] And it was appearing at the time when we sent this information that we would need to phase the project into two phases. And so the second phase was advanced in needing to bring into the CIP. Since that time, the town of Percival has actually vacated that easement. And so our team has put the two phases back together.

[00:39:09] And so is there anything you want to say, Nikki, about that? But it is true that we don't need that second phase any longer. The project is now one phase. Okay. So that can be something that is proposed for a scenario swap, which I will do at the appropriate time, that is currently in the CIP.

[00:39:29] We no longer need that project. And it is programmed for $3.5 million in 28, I think? It's one of the later years. That's correct. Okay. All right. Let's just kind of do questions first, and then we'll kind of get into specific scenario proposals, if others have them.

[00:39:51] So other members of the committee, anything else on this sort of priority list? The rest of them, I think, that are added. One of them is a PRCS priority. The others are public safety. All right. So reservoirs.

[00:40:08] Sure. I'm the only one with questions. A lot of you and me tonight, probably. Okay. I don't even have a lot, but on Table 3, changes for phasing, excuse me, purposeful delay in project deferrals.

[00:40:29] I know that staff mentioned that it's very difficult to reallocate funds to other projects because of the funding streams and those sorts of things. But in all of those projects, were we able to identify any savings that could be sent somewhere else or used somewhere else?

[00:40:48] for table three on page five I want to make sure I'm clarifying what your question is so I'll just start by saying that this year we went through so as the board is aware we've been experiencing delays related to utility relocation and and also some coordination on some of these projects coordination with local entities other other jurisdictions and that sort of thing so So based on the lessons learned that we've seen over the last couple of years, DTCI went through and re-evaluated and updated our estimates and schedules.

[00:41:25] And so we've done that for all of the projects in the CIP. And so when you look at this list and you'll see there's some projects based on what we thought we could actually deliver, some projects were recommended for accelerating, there were some delays based on our most recent experience, especially related to utilities.

[00:41:42] And so that's what this list reflects is those changes. So related to cost estimates, we didn't see a whole lot of costs going down. We did see cost increases related to some of these things. Jim, did you want to add something? One particular project wanted to point out our big Route 7 widening project from Dulles Greenway to Route 9.

[00:42:20] We were able to take advantage of a significant value engineering study that VDOT performed for us and built in a number of savings with the roadways planned cross-section and other methods to reduce the footprint of the project.

[00:42:47] So compared to what we would have had to do if we just did a total complete adherence to all the geometric standards, what I like to call the gold watch from a design, it's basically a value engineering process to generate some savings and reduce the project's footprint.

[00:43:18] Okay, but that's been absorbed somewhere. Yes, that's been incorporated into the current budgets, but it would have been worse otherwise without that study. And then this was kind of answered in the attachment, but if someone could just speak to how the projects were prioritized.

[00:43:44] For example, the indoor sports facility has its first million dollars for planning, I think, in 26, whereas the senior center and library doesn't get the planning dollars until 28, the million dollars.

[00:44:01] So typically, new projects do start at the back of the CIP and work their way forward. In the instance of the indoor sports facility, this is a project that the board has given staff direction on. A few years ago as a P3 consideration, and so in the process of being able to move that along, we need to define that project, and so in order to kind of keep that ball rolling in consideration of a P3, we needed to have funding allocated to be able to do some preliminary work to define that project.

[00:44:35] Okay, just one more question, Chair. So I do have a motion up here tonight about putting the Askegrins Park, Passive Park, in the later years list. And I didn't, I apologize, I didn't preview this question with you, but if I also wanted to make sure that we preserved certain buildings and structures that are on the property, does that have to be a CIP project, or how do we make sure that happens?

[00:45:05] And what I'm thinking about in the back of my head is the Sterling School that was used for a lot of training, and then we weren't really able to save it, which, you know, I would consider it kind of a historical structure. So if you guys could just let me know how I go about making sure that, you know, when we do finally own the buildings that we don't have them destroyed.

[00:45:27] I believe that as part of this motion that will add the project to the Project Identified Future Development, When we speak to you as to get your priorities and kind of understand what it is that you're looking for in that project, we can just make sure that we understand that that's a priority and consider that as part of that development.

[00:45:47] Okay, fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the noncommittee members in a second, but just one other question on the department priorities. So what were the rest of the projects that were under consideration? And the next department priority on DTCI specifically was, I think it was Buller on Post Office Road.

[00:46:08] But can you share that? Are you speaking specifically to the road projects? Yeah, for DTCI, because we just discussed the fact that we don't need the 7691 anymore. What were the other projects? We have a table that we can pull up for you that Ms. Boyd can speak to.

[00:46:26] There we go. So this is basically the top portion of the list that we provided to OMB. And so you can see 7690 because of that being the second phase of what we thought we needed to do for 7690.

[00:46:41] That was the number one. Number two and three, so you can see the ranking. Essentially, what is not shown in this table is that another factor that was used to consider where these were in rankings was whether or not it was in the future projects list.

[00:47:02] I can't remember the abbreviation for it. And so one and four were on that list. And then another primary consideration, and probably even more significant, was that there really wasn't a whole lot of room. And the OMB can speak to this as well.

[00:47:19] there was only what the 15 million roughly to be able to move any projects into the outer years and so some of the later projects that you see farther down the list were actually exceeding what our capacity was but this was the list that we provided and it was basically as you said this is a combination of as I mentioned before the top the next one down on the corridor priority lists that had already been done and then a couple of them had already been identified as board priorities in other ways. So it's a combination of board priorities and the corridor study priorities. How those two got into the...

[00:47:54] Those two got in there because they were part of corridor... Well, the first one was because it was the second part, the second phase of the 7690 project. Number four, Hogback Mountain, was the next project down on the corridor prioritization list. Alright. I think Mr. Turner and then Mr. Kirshner, or sorry. Can I just make one note? I just wanted to make everyone aware. There's asterisks noting the two red projects those are that's because those two projects are in the cip so their costs reflect year-over-year escalations the rest of the project costs are in 2023 dollars

[00:48:32] so that's why you'll see you know bull run post office road looks less expensive than number four but it just hasn't been inflated yet because yeah okay all right so mr uh thank you mr chair uh my questions on also on table three the ryan road widening it was delayed land acquisition and construction phases were delayed one one year i'm just curious as to why what the reason for that delay was and if it's related at all there's major development going in on one side of that stretch of road and i'm wondering if they've proffered any of the development of that road so land acquisition

[00:49:08] was delayed one year but the construction was not really delayed as long as what appears basically It was not fully, the construction phase wasn't fully funded until fiscal year 28, and we needed the full funding anyway. It was just how the funding was shown.

[00:49:24] Okay. Do we know if that development that's going in on the south side of that stretch of road has proffered any widening on that road? I don't think I can answer that question. I don't know if I have, oh, there we have Mark here.

[00:49:44] Okay, there we go. Thank you. My understanding is that is actually in, just came out of work session from the Planning Commission, and it is now preparing to go to the board in a public hearing. And the last update that I heard is that the developer is still thinking that they are going to proffer some of the improvements on Ryan Road.

[00:50:06] So that is also one of the issues that we're dealing with on the development of that. And we didn't want to get out too fast on the development as that scenario is still developed, as well as coordinating with HS14.

[00:50:21] I suspected that. I just want to confirm it. Great. Thank you very much. Mr. Kirshner? Thank you, Chair. I'm glad I'm here. Mr. Return, I was trying to mess with my projects in the West a little bit. We'll just call it Mess of the West a little bit. First of all, I want to thank staff for all the hard work.

[00:50:39] I know this is a big project to put together every single year, and you guys do a tremendous job with it. just a couple of comments that I have I want to the Hogback Mountain project and why that was decided in large part my recollection from when we went through this what a year or two ago is that there were a fair number of accidents there and there was can you speak to that briefly and while you're looking that up or yeah I'm going to ask Jim to start and then perhaps Susan to add to it. And why it was needed? Just overall terms, high crash rate because of a lack of turn lanes

[00:51:17] at that intersection where, you know, there are some pretty significant attractions up on the top of the mountain and a fair amount of traffic, you know, turning off and on Hogback Mountain from U.S. 15, and just, you know, over time has established a track record of a fair number of crashes, some of them severe.

[00:51:48] Okay. And Susan may have some additional information to add there. I did not bring the study with me, so I cannot, I don't think, have it, the number of crashes at my fingertips, but it was a crash hotspot that was identified during the Route 15 South study, and it was.

[00:52:09] Well, I remember it being, like, red, and that's why, I'm assuming that's why, maybe we can get that answer later, that's one of the reasons this was put higher priority in the CIP, and in the project itself, the corridor. Yes, you're correct. Yes. Okay. There have been several, so.

[00:52:26] And I know the wineries back there, there's a lot of traffic, they travel, especially on weekends, I would assume, as well, more even so than during the week, but that was my recollection. Yes, and the road connects to Mount Gilead Road, which Gible can take to head west. Thanks. So, I just want to make sure I understand in the brief discussion that was had earlier on the Route 7690 interchange.

[00:52:49] That was divided into two, but now we've combined it to one. Correct. Is Mr. Letourneau's proposal to change that or just to take the second phase out? Yeah, the section here is no longer needed, so to take it out, I will propose a swap, others may as well, to put something else into that.

[00:53:09] But if that happens, will that impact the project in any way? No, it was a later phase for a future year. This project is going to be bid in the next year. Okay. It's a different funding year. Okay, fair enough. The next thing I just briefly want to address, thank you for the work on the Roundhill-Ermont water storage tank that was critically needed.

[00:53:29] I know I worked with them and Mr. Hemstreet and staff here to make sure that this is really, really critical. Obviously, and I really appreciate Supervisor Umstead and the work that she did. Back during the October meeting, we went back. My staff went back and looked at it, really advocated well. was unable to make that meeting um but i did notice unfortunately nothing else from any of the towns at end of this year um is there a criteria um by which that maybe i can and there are you know several in lovett'sville that were pretty low ticket items as well as the hamilton sewer rehab project perhaps that could be done through the wastewater program phasing etc

[00:54:05] but is there a criteria um when staff gets together and looks at the towns do are they looking for the town to put in a certain percentage of skin in the game here is there um you know because we obviously get these on a regular basis and when we only get one funded because i specifically work pretty hard on it my question is how do our towns get some of the needs that that they're looking for can anyone speak to that um so that has been a criteria for town projects that we would prioritize um requests that the town is also putting up their own funding in

[00:54:40] addition to requesting something from the county. Overall, the board's standing direction has been prioritized county projects over town requests. And then as far as what we've typically funded for towns are transportation related that we can leverage MBTA 30% funding and also public health safety issues. So in particular, like the water sewer, the route, I'm sorry, not route, town of Round Hill, Aramont water tank was one of the projects that kind of rose in priority because

[00:55:18] of its impact on county residents, which is also another factor that we look at is, are any of the town projects impacting county residents as well? So those are just a number of different criteria we look at and then of course just overall capacity available in the CIP too right and I think that may be the largest factor but I would and I appreciate the answer I think this is maybe something that I would ask the chair and both the chair of finance and the chair of the board maybe as we go into future discussions and future years as to how we view the town my thought process

[00:55:53] obviously is the all these town residents are obviously county residents and they have limited budgets and obviously we have if it makes sense then we need to maybe change our criteria a little bit and how these actually get these get funded because I would know that a number of these projects did have town funding that we did not fund and I don't know if there's I can work we can work a little bit offline it's a little hard to do in a forum like this to see if there's any other pockets of funding to get some of these smaller projects or we can go back to the town and say hey if you pony up X number then then maybe we can find

[00:56:28] these contingency funds so um that would be perhaps helpful through that process thanks miss miss burke i also just wanted to add that every fall staff does solicit any town requests that have to be approved by town council and transmitted to the board via the finance committee and so every fall we do bring these town requests to the the committee for guidance and this year The only guidance we got on town requests were to prioritize water sewer and serious public health requests.

[00:57:08] And so that was the guidance that we executed for this round. No, I appreciate it. Obviously, both with the exception of Chair Randall, obviously the two Western 11 supervisors who represent all the towns are not on the finance committee. So maybe we need to pay a little more attention to that, make sure that happens, and work on the guidance.

[00:57:28] So I appreciate that answer. You walked into that one. Chair Randall? You did, since the chair asked you that you want to be on finance and you chose to be on T-Lex. Not that. Okay, okay. The chair always says that the chair... Randall, I told you, I do.

[00:57:44] But let me also say this, though. There is something called COT, and I don't know what is discussed at COT. I think last year was Supervisor Umstead, Supervisor Kirshner on COT, and this year is Supervisor DeCrony and Supervisor Kirshner. So, you know, I agree with what you said, Mr. Kirshner.

[00:58:05] The towns obviously are our constituents, and I don't see them any different than somebody who doesn't live in a town. I see it just the same. And there has not been a time that the towns have not called us or reached out or said something that they needed that we didn't try to accommodate both in the CIP, but also, as you know, in the operating budget, as you know, very, very recently.

[00:58:30] So, you know, I would say that I think everyone is more than willing and has over and over again bent over backwards, and will continue to because we should, to make sure our towns are strong and soluble and doing well.

[00:58:47] But it's also up to the towns to tell us what they want, and code is a great vehicle to have those conversations and bring those things in. And the chair of the county does represent every single person in Loudoun County. And I learned yesterday there were 446, 516 people in Loudoun County.

[00:59:05] And I represent every single one of them. So there you go. Thank you, Ms. Chairman. Yeah. So I would just say, like, it's always difficult doing this because the priorities we're all going to bring are a little bit different, you know, and the towns will feel that way.

[00:59:24] I will look at this list. if you go to attachment four and look at the county projects by election districts the two fewest the election districts with the two fewest projects are dullest and little river where the most growth is the newest parts of the county that i would argue have the most need it's a function of sort of how our process works and what we're doing when but you can parse it up anyway and that's why we all kind of come here and and do this but certainly open to further discussion on how to prioritize and all that um the concern i had just to answer supervisor Kirchner on 15 and Hogback Mountain was more why it's a roundabout. Because typically, I have a lot

[01:00:00] of experience with roundabouts, as I guess Mr. Hemstreet, you know too, Mark. I've been around here a long time. You know we've done some pretty prominent roundabouts in my neck of the woods. And usually, in a roundabout, you want to see roughly equal traffic coming from every direction. You don't want to disturb the throughput traffic and make them slow down to 25 miles an hour and go around and roundabout unless you have a roughly equal.

[01:00:26] So like at 50 and 15, that's what we have. Some of the other ones that we've done. In this case, there can't be anything close to that. You know, Supervisor DeCrony and I are the two that take this all the time. We're on 15 in this stretch all the time going back home to here. So, I mean, I just took it, just was through it.

[01:00:44] And I'm sure at certain times of the day at peak hours when the winery is really popping, yes, there's a lot of traffic coming out of there. But during a normal rush hour, there's not. There's almost none. So I question the whole concept of the roundabout in this location as opposed to some other safety improvements such as turn lanes or a signal or something like that.

[01:01:04] So that, I guess I'll submit that as a question. And I'm not trying to go after Supervisor Kershner's project. It was a board corridor study that came to us, and I raised some of these things. But I do think, actually, Supervisor Kershner, if you were to pull your constituents who use 15, a lot of them probably wouldn't be thrilled about having to slow down here just for the relatively minimal, it's not an equalized amount of traffic.

[01:01:31] That's all I'm saying. You want me to answer that? Sure, go ahead. I mean, I know that we had a committee that was all put together of stakeholders in that corridor, and I think that was the majority request. So I can't speak on, I haven't taken a polling of everybody else, but I do know.

[01:01:49] Yeah, well, I mean, we have time to talk about it, But I will say the Harmony was the one that actually had a higher number of crashes and bigger issue. And then 50 and 50 itself did too. But go ahead, Nance. So my two cents. I'm not speaking specifically about this particular roundabout.

[01:02:06] But just in general, roundabouts, one of the biggest benefits of roundabouts is from a safety perspective. Because it minimizes the left-hand conflicts, right? So in a typical intersection without a roundabout, there are multiple, multiple conflicts with the left turns that are allowed.

[01:02:22] With a roundabout, it's all right turns. And so from a safety perspective and from an operations in terms of actually handling traffic, it doesn't necessarily have to be equalized on all legs. From an operational and a safety perspective, there are almost, in many, many cases, the vast majority of cases, a roundabout is going to be a very efficient and safer alternative.

[01:02:43] But that said, there are many different, you know, as we evaluate different intersection options, intersection control options, there are many different ones. Does anyone here on the team want to add anything specific to this intersection? No. Okay. I'll just leave it at that then. All right. So what I was going to do is we'll start maybe the scenarios unless anybody else has questions.

[01:03:04] Do you have another question? I do. I'm sorry. Yeah, sure. That's fine. Go ahead. So I did submit this question, and I was, I don't know, the answer was a little bit murky for me, and that's the one about the sidewalks and trails on Potomac View Road.

[01:03:21] And I believe it is the west side that's going to be completed first because it has a higher rating in the sidewalks and trails program. But then the east side is also a fairly highly rated section that needs to get done.

[01:03:38] And so my question was, if we're going to have the project on the west side, wouldn't it make sense to do the project on the east side while you're there? And the answer was, we always look at combining projects. So I guess my question is, like, when does that happen?

[01:03:57] And at what point would you evaluate any sort of cost savings that might occur, you know, resource time, resource savings that might occur if you were just to do the projects at the same time? Because they're, like, right across the street from each other. Yeah, these came in under different studies.

[01:04:15] So the one was a higher-ranked priority, and it came in a different year. So it is already in the design process. So it is further ahead than the other one, which is still in the planning stages and not yet into design. So they're funded in different years, so we would either have to advance the funding to get one earlier or to delay the other project to have them go at the same time.

[01:04:37] But there are no real efficiencies in doing them because they are on opposite sides of the road. And when we were saying combining projects, we're really saying when one sidewalk segment kind of leads into the next, so you have continuous sidewalk path, we'll look at both of those at the same time.

[01:04:55] But on opposite sides of the street, not a lot of operational efficiency. Oh, really? Okay. And I would add that there's something to be said for not having them both under construction at the same time. Yeah, that thought crossed my mind as well. Okay, all right, thank you. Okay.

[01:05:11] Mr. Kirscher, did you have a pressing question? I just wanted to ask staff one very, very quickly. I know I talked about the towns. I don't know if it's possible between now and when we come back to the full board to possibly look at because there are a number of really small fairly inexpensive projects in the town just look at them come back maybe discuss with me if there are possible funding scenarios for any of those especially lower lower level ones thank you so what they'll kind of say is is also if you have ideas within your own district yeah that's correct all cip revenues are fully

[01:05:48] programmed so if there is a funding scenario to add projects we would request a project offset Yeah. So I was going to try to see if I could get the Bull Run Post Office Road realignment projects up into the slot that the 7690 project was in, specifically the design phase of that, which I think is about $1. 675 million.

[01:06:20] just some background on this this has kind of been an issue that's popped on us suddenly and i'm sure everybody's kind of has some of those where um south of braddock road bull run post opposite if you look at it on a map it has a 90 degree turn i'm not exaggerating it's literally a 90 degree turn um curve and we've had a great deal of by right development that's come in down here and so just in the last year or so the volumes have really started increasing and accidents have started coming and the residents are kind of bewildered by this alignment which is a remnant

[01:06:56] of when this was all farmland and country and of course it doesn't help that they were sold a bill of goods by their developers who told them that this was all going to get fixed and of course there is no cip project so we've been working with staff for quite a few months on what it would take to fix this and basically we've got to realign it by fixing that curve so i would like to at least you know, since this was on the priority list, move it up and try to use the $7,690 money that's

[01:07:27] now open for that purpose. So that is a scenario. Supervisor Letourneau, because you asked the question of what the cost of that project would be, I just corrected the slide to show the project cost that we gave you in the packet for that project segment. So we're all talking kind of apples to apples. Yeah, but so does the design money specifically, how much does that go up by then? The dollars that are in the packet are the escalated dollars out to the, they're the correct

[01:07:59] time frame that you would need. So the design funding of 1.675, that is an FY20, $30. So that's roughly the target. And what was land acquisition? Sorry. Another million dollars. So we could do potentially both of those, right? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I would put that forward as a scenario. We're not voting on these tonight, but that's something to come back for us that we would vote on.

[01:08:30] Are there other scenarios or requests that folks have? You did want to do this. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to make your motion? Thank you. I move the Finance, Government, Operations, and Economic Development Committee recommend the Board of Supervisors, direct staff to add a passive park project on the Askegrins property to the projects identified for future development in the future development section of the FY 2025-FY 2030 Capital Improvement Program.

[01:09:04] Second. Thank you. Second by Chair Randall. Thank you. So just briefly, this just adds it into our future list. It doesn't, you know, displace any projects. It doesn't even add it into the program that we're going to be approving except to add it to the future years list.

[01:09:24] So we've got it there. Thank you. Further discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Hi. Anyone opposed? Motion's 5-0, so direction there is to add that into the future projects list. Are there any other comments, questions, scenarios on this CIP?

[01:09:45] Seeing none, so I think what we'll do, given that the work session on this following should not take very long, is we'll just have our normal finance committee meeting and add this as an item in it. I don't think we need to come early or anything like that. Okay, anything else that staff would like to bring to our attention or discuss?

[01:10:06] I do not have anything to add. All right. There is food available in the lowest room that was just delivered, and we are adjourned.

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