Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting, Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 5h 42m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7616
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7616

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 2026-10-19. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:08:09] Good evening, supervisors. Good evening, staff. Good evening, Loudon. What's happening down here? Mr. Sains is not coming? Oh, he's not coming yet. Okay. I'd like to call to order the March 5th, 2024, Loudon County Board Supervisors Business Meeting.

[00:08:26] This room has a hearing loop. If you need hearing assistance, put your hearing aid to the telecall mode. If you need a headset, we have those available as well. Please see the clerk to request one. This evening, Supervisor Letourneau will lead us in invocation, our words of inspiration, and the Pledge of Allegiance to Special Eternal.

[00:08:44] Thank you, Madam Chair. Heavenly Father, as we reflect on the service yesterday, the celebration of life for our firefighter, Trevor Brown, we ask that you look over him and his family. We ask that you look over the family of Firefighter Diamond, who's still recovering in the hospital.

[00:09:07] We ask that the entire community come together both to heal, to give each other strength, and we ask for your blessings. on all of our first responders and those throughout our country. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:09:39] Okay, Supervisors, before I read the consent agenda, I do have two additions to that I'd like to add to the consent agenda. And let me do those additions and deletions because I will have to suspend the rules and let me tell you why. So the first resolution is the resolution to honor the life and service of firefighter Trevor Brown.

[00:10:01] So I'm going to make a motion to suspend the rules. The motion's been made and seconded by Mr. Turner, as Trevor Brown was his constituent. Discussion on that motion?

[00:10:17] All people say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. And then I move the floor of supervisors to approve the resolution honoring the life and service of firefighter Trevor Brown, Provided as attachment one to the March 5th, 2024 Board Supervisor's business meeting action item.

[00:10:33] Motion is made second by Supervisor Turner again. Discussion on that motion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will also pass 801. The second motion I'm going to make, I have to suspend the rules for this too, is to change the number of people, the composition on the ACOI board.

[00:10:52] Most of our, I can't, let me just make the motion and I'll explain it when we get to the motion. I make a motion to suspend the rules. Motion is made and seconded. Discussion on the motion. All people say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801.

[00:11:08] Okay. I may with the Loudoun-Cambo of Supervisors increase the size of the advisory commission by youth by one at-large member in order for the commission to have an odd number of voting members. That's a motion. Okay. So what I'm trying to do on the commission of youth is this.

[00:11:24] We have been doing kind of a second deep dive on all of our commission's committees, And almost all of them have an odd number of people on them for the purpose of voting. It is fairly rare to have a tie vote, but it has happened.

[00:11:40] And I will tell you that I want to do this term a little bit more of the CSB board and the Commission on Youth as far as I'd like to bring to this board to give those two boards jointly the authority to do a white paper surrounding substance use with our youth in Loudoun County and why we think it has increased, if it's increased, and what do we do and hear from the commissions ourselves.

[00:12:09] So for the two commissions that I'm really going to do, put to task on those two things, and they will partner with Friends of Loudoun Mental Health, I don't want to have an even number of votes on that board because it just doesn't make any sense. And so it's just better to have an odd number so there's never a reason to have a tiebreaker.

[00:12:26] So I want to add one more position, one more at-large position. So that's what I'm trying to do right now. All right? Any other discussion? Question? Yes. How many will be on it then? It will be 11.

[00:12:42] 11. Okay, thank you. Yep. All the people say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass, 801. Thank you very much. And now I will read the consent agenda. Item R1, resolution to recognize Loudoun County employees for inclusion in its best workplace for Commuter's 2024 annual list.

[00:13:02] That's for approval and presentation. That should be passing through you all right now. I know we're signing a lot of things. That's one of them. R2, proclamation to recognize March 19, 2024, is Give Tuesday in Loudoun County, also for approval and presentation.

[00:13:19] R3, resolution to recognize Woodgrove High School as the first Loudoun County recipient of the Virginia State Wrestling Championship. That is for approval only. Mr. Kirshner will let me know when he's going to present that at the school. Item R4, approximation to recognize March 2024 as Women's History Month in Loudoun County.

[00:13:37] As for approval and presentation, item 1A, appointments and confirmations. Item 2, administrative items report for March 5th, 2024. Item 4, proposed establishment of temporary polling place. Item 5, Virginia Erosion and Stormwater Management Program.

[00:13:54] amendments to the Loudoun County Codified Ordinance in Durham 2024-0001, amendments to the Loudoun County Facility Standards Manual, and item 8A, Agriculture and Forestal District Program Annual Report. Is there a motion? I make a motion to approve the consent agenda, seconded by Supervisor Vice Chair Bricksman.

[00:14:15] Is there a discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, all people say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 8-0-1. Okay, the only organizational update I have, because really over the past two weeks since the last meeting, I think all of us have been very involved and very focused on helping our firefighters and helping them full combined system and the family of Firefighter Brown and the family of all the firefighters who were affected at all.

[00:14:54] So the only update I do have is MVTA has signed the lease, and as of tomorrow, we'll be moving into the new space. That is fantastic. I've also have been told, and I think we're going to hear this tonight, and Mr. Letourneau, I think, knows this, is that as of right now, we believe that the Metro funding is possibly going to make it through and get to the governor's desk, and we hope that it gets signed.

[00:15:26] So that's all I have on that. My voice for a cause today is Morbin Park 246-Year Project. Let me read about it. And this is, by the way, in Mr. Kirchner's district. He didn't know that earlier, I think. He just, I'm not sure he didn't.

[00:15:43] Stacey has to remind me. You've got pictures to prove it. The 246-Years Project is a social justice initiative being organized through Morbin Park that is dedicated to documenting and honoring the millions of enslaved men and women and children whose names and life stories deserve to be known.

[00:16:03] This project will assemble fragmented biological data of men, women, and children who were enslaved and organize it with a custom-built online database, reassembling the pieces to reveal the life events of those individuals.

[00:16:20] So I was going to have this come last meeting during Black History Month, but, of course, we changed to do the First Responders Foundation. So the Marvin Park 246 years was very, they agreed to do that, and we really appreciate that.

[00:16:42] They were literally probably on their way when they got a phone call, so we appreciate them cooperating in that way. I'm going to let the two members who are here today introduce themselves and tell us their titles at Morven Park. Hi. Good evening, everyone.

[00:17:00] My name is Stacey Metcalf, and I am the executive director and CEO of the Westmoreland Davis Memorial Foundation, which owns and operates Morven Park. And with me today is Janice Shafogos, who is our director of preservation and history at the park. Wonderful.

[00:17:16] Well, first of all, I went out recently. I came out recently to Morphin Park to see what you all have been doing. It's pretty amazing. I would encourage all the supervisors to go out and look at the presentation because it is quite groundbreaking. So let me just ask you, what's the goal of the 246 project, and what was the initial idea when you started the project?

[00:17:37] Well, I have to say that Jana has been spearheading this project since its inception. So I'm going to go ahead and have you answer that question. Okay, so the initial goal of the project is, like you said, to document the names and life events of enslaved individuals from 1619, when the first enslaved individuals arrived at the Jamestown colony, all the way up to 1865 with the 13th Amendment.

[00:18:02] And it really started when we were trying to learn more about the enslaved people held at Morvan Park and realized that to fully understand each individual, compiling data from multiple different sources throughout the region was really necessary to get a full picture.

[00:18:22] That's absolutely amazing. Do you have any idea, because I know it will be a lot, how many people will be, approximately how many people will be logged in the database when it launches? So we're not certain, but we've done about five months of data entry with 40 volunteers working seven days a week.

[00:18:39] And some of those are students, correct? And some of them are students, yeah, we have some 11th and 12th grade African-American history students working on this project with us. As of today, there's 1,926 documents loaded into the database, and those include a total of 9,608 names.

[00:18:57] Of those names, 4,961 are enslaved or emancipated. So we are moving along, we're entering about 30 records a day with our current volunteer corps. And just to be clear, that's not the number of people who were enslaved at Morgan Park.

[00:19:14] No. That's a genealogy, so reaching out to try to make the connections. Absolutely. So the database is created to link people to each other, to their families and children, so that descendants of enslaved individuals can jump into the database and find their ancestors.

[00:19:30] That is so amazing. And I might add that we're working with the clerk of the circuit court and their documents, So this encompasses not just Morvan Park, but we're starting with all of Loudoun County. So that's what this is working on currently. That is, Mr. Clements has been fantastic.

[00:19:46] The 246 project is currently focused on Loudoun. Do you have plans to extend the database beyond Loudoun? Absolutely. So enslaved individuals were rarely in one place for their entire lives. move throughout the region either through being bought sold loaned mortgage or through escaping from slavery and so we are reaching out to other organizations throughout the region and will continue to do so um this year and in the coming years to really bring as many documents and names into the databases and that's real important because a lot of times when they were bought or sold or loaned they didn't go that far right they may have never seen any seen their loved ones

[00:20:26] again for the rest of their lives but they could have been five miles down the road they didn't know where the person had been sold to and so to have a regional look is really important and i know there's a lot of a lot of high state alexandria and arlington and loudon county also yeah and fairfax and fairfax is there a plan launch for the database and what's the best what is there a plan launch let's do that first we are planning to launch a test of the public access side later this spring so okay an eye out for that i will and we should do some kind of fa-la-la around it. I don't know what that looks like. And we're planning that. Okay, good. Very good. And again, the magic of the database is that, again, as we continue to input these names

[00:21:06] and continue to connect all these names, the database is only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So at any point in time, there's going to be more information. Right, right. Amazing. And what is the best way if people want to get more involved or learn about the project? The best way to do it is you can go to our website at morvenpark.org, and you can search on the 246 Years Project.

[00:21:29] Right now, we have enough volunteers, but we do have a wait list, and we're relying on donors to help support us because one thing that I do want to note is that this database will always be free and accessible to the public, always.

[00:21:45] So this is our gift, and this is something that we want to do for the public. So we're always looking for donors to support us also. So one last thing. It took me and my staff a while, all of our heads together, to figure out why it was called the 246 Project.

[00:22:01] We were doing all kind of math, and we were like, that math doesn't work, that math doesn't work. And finally, I think it was you, Justin, that figured out why it was called the 246 Project. Tell us why it's called the 246 Project. So in August of 1619, about 20 Africans were sold to the colony at Jamestown.

[00:22:20] 246 years later, in December of 1865, the 13th Amendment formally ended slavery here in America. So we're looking to find all the names and create those relationships with all the people during these 246 years. And I think that's so powerful because I don't think people really realize how long slavery existed in this country.

[00:22:39] I think people think of slavery happening in 1776, but it was well before that. So thank you so much. Thank you all so much. You're doing amazing work at Kent. I was excited to see it, and I really do encourage everybody else to go see it. You're going to change families' lives when they see what's happening with this.

[00:22:57] So thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you for having us. Mr. Hemstreet, do you have any comments today, sir? Thank you, Chair Randall. I've got four comments for this evening. Not four. Wow. I always have four. But anyway, the first one is I'm pleased to announce that Loudoun County has launched the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative.

[00:23:20] The Housing Choice Voucher Program has opened a targeted wait list to provide housing assistance to young adults with a history of foster care who are homeless or at risk of being homeless. The program is a collaborative effort of the Departments of Family Services and Housing and Community Development. Details about the program may be found at loudoun.gov slash HCV.

[00:23:40] Second, Loudoun County child care providers and families with young children are encouraged to participate in a survey intended to help better inform the county's efforts to support the child care needs of the community. The survey and focus groups are part of the Child Care Needs Assessment, which, as you know, is exploring issues related to affordable, high-quality child care in Loudoun County.

[00:23:58] The survey, which can be found at loudoun.gov slash child care needs, is open through March 14th. Third, nominations are now being accepted for the 2024 Signatures of Loudon Design Excellence Awards. The program recognizes the buildings and public spaces that reflect outstanding design, renovation, adaptive reuse, and visually groundbreaking projects throughout the county.

[00:24:21] The nomination deadline is April 8th. Details and a link to the nomination form can be found at biz.loudon.gov. And then finally, with the change to daylight savings time this Sunday, Loudon Public Safety officials have two important reminders. The first is that when you set your clocks ahead one hour, you should also check the batteries and your smoke alarms.

[00:24:41] The second is for drivers to be aware that beginning on Monday, the morning commute will be darker than it has been in recent weeks. And please be extra alert in areas where children will be on their way to school. Those are my comments this evening, Madam Chair.

[00:24:56] Thank you, Mr. Hemstree. Appreciate that. We have one information item tonight, which I'm actually really excited about hearing, and it's the legislative report. And so will Mr. Freeman and everyone who's going to do that, please come to the table.

[00:25:19] I don't know if a couple of weeks ago you heard me say that Mr. Letourneau said to tell you you're doing a great job because you were on, you were virtual, but he did say that. He hurt you. Wonderful.

[00:25:35] All right. Ready for you guys when you're ready. Well, good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. We officially have four days left in session, if you can believe that. Yes. This one flew by. No, it didn't.

[00:25:52] An update on our county initiatives. Last time at the last board meeting, the expectation was that the job order contracting bill and the public notice bill would pass both chambers.

[00:26:07] That has happened as of last week. The job order contracting bill was passed before this past Saturday, which means that it is a seven-day bill on the governor's desk, meaning that he has seven days to consider it.

[00:26:23] So by March 8th, we will know if he's going to sign it or veto it. We expect him to sign it. So the public notice bill was signed by the LG on March 3rd, which means it's a 30-day bill.

[00:26:40] So the governor has 30 days to consider that bill because it was signed by the LG with less than seven days left in session. So budget negotiations for a full budget agreement between the House and Senate to send to the governor started earlier this week.

[00:27:00] While we're still trying to figure out exactly what will be in a full budget agreement, as you all know, the conferees meet privately on what will be in a full budget agreement. We do know, however, with some good news that in a public statement that Senator Lucas, who is chair of Senate Finance, put out a couple of days ago that the Metro funding, which is $65 million for the first year of the biennium, $84. 5 million for the second year of the biennium, will be in a full budget agreement.

[00:27:35] So she said that publicly. That was in the House budget as well. So we expect that to be in the budget with the 3% cap waiver, as well as the money for a study to look at long-term funding solutions for Metro. So that's very good news. It's one of our biggest issues that we worked on this session.

[00:27:55] so the arena bill did not get a hearing the house well the house joint resolution that was passed on the first day of session rule 17 within that joint resolution outlined that the bills must be heard in committee before midnight on the Monday the last Monday before session yesterday so yesterday so that bill did not get a hearing so we do not expect to see that

[00:28:30] bill for the rest of session the only way that we may see that bill is in a budget agreement which was the language for the arena bill was written into the house budget so we still remain watchful to see if that will be in a full budget agreement and with that madam chair I'll throw a lot of information that you also I'll pause for any questions thank you thank you and thank you thank you appreciate that thank you I'm John mr. Freeman's question supervisors if your

[00:29:08] questions please put your light on mr. Turner thank you madam chair thank you mr. Freeman SB 194 is the bill that will offer and remove the sunset clause authorizing local jurisdictions to establish a separate separate category category of taxer automobiles I'd like us to track that and I'd like us to support it and then I'm chair that'll need a motion on I mean we have four days to go I well let me just ask mr. Freeman then is there any value in the

[00:29:46] board directing you to support SB 194 is it basically out of your hands at this point well it's it's increased authority for us so I think it's supported by the the program. What I will say is that the conferees submitted an agreement, the Senate and House conferees submitted an agreement in the House to support removing the sunset provision. So I think that's what the General Assembly is going to go with. The other option, just so the board knows, was for the sunset provision to be extended from 2025 to 2027. But it looks like, again, that the conferees will go with just removing the sunset provision altogether

[00:30:25] and just giving localities that authority indefinitely. So do we need a motion? We do not need a motion. We do not need a motion, okay. What are the chances if the, well, since the arena bill is probably going to die in this session and get taken up down the road in a special session or somewhere else in the budget, what are the chances the governor will veto the Metro funding pending the outcome of the arena bill?

[00:30:50] So, the governor can do a line item veto in the budget if there's no money behind it. If there's funding behind it, then he can't do a line item veto from my understanding as well as Troutman's understanding. And so, my belief is that he would have to veto the entire budget in order to veto one separate thing.

[00:31:15] I just don't think he would do that. So, I expect to see the Metro funding in a full budget agreement. And then the last question for either you or staff in general, if SB 194, the agreed to version passes and the sunset clause is removed, what does staff need from the board in order to establish a separate vehicle tax in Loudoun County?

[00:31:37] A motion? I would have to, yeah, I would have to confer with staff. We need to do an ordinance. So we need a motion, a BMR. Yeah, but that's not him doing this. I know that, I know that. And I just want to get out there that we're going to have to do something if this passes, because it's going to pass this week, presumably.

[00:31:54] Well, Mr. Hemstreet. I'm sorry, I was conversing with the county attorney, but if this is on the legislation on vehicles, again, my recommendation is the same as it was last night, which is allow it to go into law. And then we will deal with this for tax year 25, which would be in the fall for the FY25 budget.

[00:32:15] Your tax bills are already out for tax year 24 or will be out after today. And so you can't really impact tax year 24. So this is a tax year 25 issue. Okay, so Madam Chair. I'm sorry, your time is up. Okay.

[00:32:30] Sorry. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the presentation. If the disclosure bill banning locally approved disclosures get signed into law, could we add to our legislative program to have an airport disclosure added to the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act?

[00:32:52] So that is something that EMWA definitely wanted to do, which was to add that mandatory disclosure under Title 55. 1, which is I'm assuming that's the same chapter that you're referring to under Title 55. 1, to mirror the disclosure for military installations, such as the disclosure required for purchasing a home around the base Oceania and Hampton Roads, where they hear a plethora of jet noise.

[00:33:29] And so to answer your question, we could do that, yes. Okay, thank you. Laura, I mean, Mr. Croning, I'm sorry. So I guess I want to follow up with what Supervisor Turner was saying.

[00:33:45] Can I ask him a question? Yes, you may ask, Mr. Hemstreet. Mr. Hemstreet. So, Mr. Hemstreet, the question is, can we do, what is the mechanism to do a budget adjustment in October or in the fall for tax year 25 on the personal property?

[00:34:09] So it depends on what the impact is to the current fiscal year. So I think what we would normally do is come to the board beginning in July, and we will come back for board guidance, preliminary budget guidance in October, and then final budget guidance in either December or January.

[00:34:30] As part of those discussions, we will be providing you regular updates as to where we are in the current fiscal year. Similar, we come to Finance Quarterly with quarterly updates. I would anticipate that the board will have fund balance that should be available for the purpose of covering any potential shortfalls within the current fiscal year.

[00:34:52] So we would incorporate that if that's the board direction when we get to the fall. And the intent is to impact or lower a specific personal property tax on vehicles, that that would be addressed as part of that December fund balance item and then also incorporated into FY26 budget planning.

[00:35:10] And at the same time, you would also pass the ordinance or whatever ordinance you need to pass to affect the legislation. Okay, but that means that we'd have to accept 415 for tax year 25. I do not agree with that statement.

[00:35:27] Okay, I think that is it, right, yeah. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. So what did happen with the AIOD vote in the Senate?

[00:35:44] So the bill passed 39-1 abstention. And, you know, that was a bill that Lyon County, as well as MWA, as well as MWA's contract lobbyist, Williams-Mullen, as well as our contract lobbyist, Troutman, we must have had 200 meetings last week alone on lobbying against that bill.

[00:36:13] And so, you know, I think what the expectation from the General Assembly is, is that similar to what Supervisor Glass noted, maybe adding a mandatory disclosure requirement for that noise disclosure and the noise contour to the state code is probably the best route.

[00:36:34] However, the realtors who pushed that bill, they don't want that amendment. They made that very clear. But that's, you know, what we have session after session after session for. So all the work we did on this issue when we were considering the noise contours is basically it's all a moot point now.

[00:37:02] Well, not yet. We can't require disclosures now. Well, not yet. The governor hasn't signed it. He still has 30 days to decide whether he's going to sign that, amend it, or veto it. So we remain watchful to see what will happen with the administration on this.

[00:37:23] Okay, okay. And when do we believe the budget conferees will be finished? By the end of this week. By the end of this week. I apologize if you already said that. And then another bill that we had been working on was the Oaks, Adam Oaks bill on anti-hazing.

[00:37:45] That passed, I understand. And so do you have any information on that? The information I have on that bill is that, well, so the bill from 2022 required education on hazing and higher education.

[00:38:02] This bill is to require education for 9th and 10th graders. okay on hazing oh is that all okay so they they were not able to um change at all the um the change it into a crime basically or have penalties applied if someone dies from hazing like adam oaks did not to my knowledge okay i think hazing is still a misdemeanor i believe it's yeah it's probably been still a misdemeanor which is which is unfortunate um after what happened to adam oaks Potomac Falls graduate but thank you I'm out of time thank you yeah I think you know I think hazing

[00:38:40] is hard to describe hazing such a large is a large I mean as somebody who who watched sorority fraternity things when you know when I was in college you know I think there's hazing and I think there's assault and abuse right and I think that there's a those are two different two different things I mean making people walk it not not be able to walk on green grass for the entire semester is considered hazing I wouldn't want that to be a not even a misdemeanor but yeah but so but and I

[00:39:15] think we're almost using a term that's too not it doesn't it doesn't get the full impact of what happened to him what happened to him was I don't know what to call it but it was much more than the hazing sounds not not robust enough to what they did to him to be quite honest um so I'm I You know, this whole arena bill thing has been just, I've just been so, it's been fascinating and confusing, and I don't think this session went past at all.

[00:39:42] So I think it's interesting that you do. So are you saying that although it didn't get a hearing in the Senate, thus is not part of the budget, the governor can put it in his budget? So the House wrote the entire budget, I'm sorry, the entire arena bill into their budget.

[00:40:06] And so if the Senate conferees agree. If the Senate conferees agree that they do not, then the budget, then the governor cannot. The governor can still send down a recommendation on the budget, I believe, to, but I don't, I just.

[00:40:22] But there's no, he can't just find money on his own to. Well, the problem with putting the arena bill into the budget is that the budget is only in effect for two years and then you have a new budget. And so whereas if you put the arena bill into the state code, that, you know, even though the budget trumps code, it's not going to have that time.

[00:40:46] And he can do that? Well, so the arena bill would have to be heard by committee, then sent to the floor and voted on. So the committees are no longer hearing bills for the rest of the session.

[00:41:02] So when we get to, do you think there will be, do you think he'll sign a budget or do you think we're going to go to a special session? That's a difficult question to answer at this point. Okay. And if he went to a special session, the finance chair would still have to docket that on her agenda, right?

[00:41:25] Per the Constitution, I believe that is correct. Okay. So, okay. Well, that's all very fascinating. So do you have to have the veto session before you have the special session? And do you believe the veto session is going to be, he's going to veto a lot of things in this session, correct?

[00:41:45] Do you believe that? I believe that there are a lot of bills that were passed by the General Assembly this year that he is probably going to veto. I think that a special session will occur after veto session should a special session occur.

[00:42:03] I don't think that it would happen before veto session. Okay. And veto session is in April. Okay. Okay. Well, this is going to be interesting and fascinating to watch. Thank you very much.

[00:42:20] You've done an excellent job this year. You really have. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. So, President, let's go on and go to our first action item, which is the resolution for personal property tax relief. And the Commissioner of Revenue, who we were all going ollie ollie oxen free last night for last night.

[00:42:41] You're probably watching us from home. I was hoping you all would resolve this discussion right here. when you're having a discussion about legislation, but it doesn't sound like you were able to do that. Thank you, sir. We're ready when you are. Good evening, everybody.

[00:42:57] Good evening, board members. The item that's before you right now is to set the tax year 2024 personal property tax relief at 28%. Last year's personal property tax relief was 33%.

[00:43:13] We also applied an assessment ratio to vehicle values last year. Without that ratio, the personal property tax relief percentage would have been calculated at 29%. So it did go down from last year.

[00:43:29] The personal property tax relief applies to the first $20,000 of vehicle value on qualifying personal use, cars, trucks, and motorcycles. The resolution is required to be adopted in order to distribute the $48 million in personal property tax relief money that we get from the Commonwealth every year.

[00:43:55] The Commonwealth has frozen that amount at $950 million statewide for a long time, and you're required to adopt a resolution in order to distribute that. You'll recall in 2022 and 2023 that I made the recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to utilize an assessment ratio because of the unprecedented effect of the pandemic on vehicle values.

[00:44:29] I recommended an 80% assessment ratio for 2022 and a 95% ratio for 2023. It appears as though vehicle values have returned to normal, whereby it's they're decreasing at a regular rate, unlike what was occurring with vehicle values during the pandemic. A lot of that was associated with supply chain issues. As a result of that, I'm not recommending the use of an assessment ratio this year. We've contacted neighboring localities to

[00:45:05] find out whether they were contemplating the use of an assessment ratio, and it does not sound like Anyone that I'm aware of is utilizing that for assessment purposes this year. I will caution you relative to that statement that we're the first locality to be having this discussion.

[00:45:24] We often are the first locality because we have semi-annual personal property tax collections and we're often the first to bill with our first half installment due May 5. There was discussion during the last item regarding when you could set the tax rate for personal property you already affirmed tax rates for personal property for 2024 you could go back and I guess reconsider that decision but that decision was already made in January so I thought I'd make bring that to your attention and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might

[00:46:01] have thank you thank you thank you so much I thought I think I believe in my opinion you've given us very good guidance for the past couple of years when we were dealing with the impacts of COVID on the tax rate. So thank you. Supervisors, questions? Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for coming here to answer our questions. So what accounts for the difference in the tax rate for 2024 as compared to 2023? Why is the relief percentage lower this year?

[00:46:41] As the vehicle, this is a discussion we have supervisor class every year when the board contemplates its legislative agenda. Because Loudoun's amount of relief is fixed at $48 million annually, as our vehicle pool changes, the value of the qualifying portion of our assessment-based changes.

[00:47:06] It normally is applied to more vehicles, which results in the money doesn't go as far. as it did the prior year. So that's what results in the ratio or the PPTR going down over time. Okay, thank you.

[00:47:22] Yeah. Okay. Mr. Crony. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Wirtz. And I appreciate you speaking to my office about the personal property tax rate. I see in your write-up, in the staff, in your write-up, that one option to alleviate the vehicle tax burden would be to increase the PPTR.

[00:47:53] And I'm kind of wondering, can the county add to the $48 million in tax relief that's set by the state? Can we add to that to provide more relief? Some localities have decided that they wanted to address the increase in values by increasing their personal property tax relief.

[00:48:18] The calculation that we have done is based on a recommendation from the Department of Taxation. We use what's called a PAM model to look at the pool of qualifying value every year. This is our recommendation.

[00:48:34] You could decide to provide more relief, but under that scheme, the portion that's paid by taxpayers would be less, and it would result in less revenue to the county overall from personal property taxes. Okay, but we could provide more relief.

[00:48:51] You could. From the county. Okay. Okay, and then do we need an ordinance, do you think? If SB 194 is signed into law, do you think we need an ordinance? know a county ordinance or do you think we could just change they have two different classes vehicles and data center computer equipment the board localities are authorized to set rates on those various classes automatically okay it doesn't require the adoption of a local ordinance but the county

[00:49:25] attorney may wish to weigh in on that no I agree with what mr. Wart said and you can identify it in your budget as well okay and so for it to be implemented in tax year 25, what's the timeline? What normally happens is I bring information to the Board of Supervisors in October regarding your options. We're looking at the various tax categories and tax rates, and that will allow us sufficient time to bring you what the fiscal impact of proposed

[00:50:04] changes might be. And so that's what transpired in October of last year. But that's the normal course of business. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, Commissioner Wirtz. I just want to tease out a little bit more detail on what you just said to Supervisor Crony. So in October, you'll come back and kind of give us a tax picture and proposed rates. And at that time, we can, let's assume the bill passes, the sunset clauses are moved.

[00:50:36] The board's will at that point is to change the ordinance, establish a separate personal property tax for automobiles um then we would propose to you to do that and then you would come back to us with a recommended rate we're not i'm not going to make budget implications on that i'm not going to recommend recommendation regarding a rate that's the board's response responsibility however you can recommend to me or ask me for information about what the fiscal impact might be of those changes and i'll work with uh the county's budget office to provide you with information so okay you'll know how to handle that. Let me play that scenario through in detail to make sure I

[00:51:15] understand it. So the Senate bill passes, the will of the board, we pass a motion through whatever mechanism we say we want a separate personal property tax for automobiles. We leave the personal property tax for computers at 415. We make a recommendation to leave it at 415 for fiscal 25. We say we want a personal property tax for automobiles rate of 410. And then we recommend that to you that passes does that need to pass an emotion to come to you and then you give us the budget implications of those numbers now during the during the uh information item that

[00:51:54] i'll bring to the finance committee in october um the request can be made but i do want to caution you regarding there's a section b relative to rate limitations and which classes can be higher than others. I have not analyzed that specifically relative to the computer equipment in a data center, the 48, A, B, C, D, the items delineated in 48, and the computer equipment in a data center. There is a section that talks about which classes may be higher than others. I have not

[00:52:31] analyzed that, so I don't want you to think that you can automatically set a rate on computer equipment and data center that's higher than that on the class in 48. I think you're correct and that's what we've been working under the assumption that we can't set a computer rate higher than the general tax rate. Okay hold on let me check real quick 48 it looks like you may because 48 is not

[00:53:02] listed with a limitation so it looks like the cars can be more the vehicles can be more but I'm trying to think for that's right I'm about out of time yes 43 look at that downstream we know anyway But we're going to have to have that discussion relative to which classes can be higher than others.

[00:53:23] Okay, thank you very much. That's really very helpful. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to go back and correct the answer that I gave. The county actually has an ordinance on the personal property tax, so we would have to revise that ordinance. And then looking at the state law, and I'm aware that other localities are adding to the personal property tax relief.

[00:53:43] I have to figure out how they did it. Looking at the code section, I'm not quite sure. how that would be done. Okay, that's great. Ms. Bixman and I both went, what? Okay. Mr. Laterno. Yeah, well, to pick up on that, it also doesn't really make any sense to do that, right? Because you'd be transferring county dollars into the personal property tax relief. Why wouldn't you just lower the rate then at that point be a lot simpler way to achieve the same result, which is people paying more, probably have the same revenue impact. So I guess I'm not quite understanding what the logic with that would be, unless I'm missing something.

[00:54:22] It's the authority relative to set a separate rate, which relies on that separate class. Yeah, and maybe that was their way of handling it prior to having that authority. But if, I mean, I was going to say, as you were reading that, wait a minute, everybody, because as we just heard, the language, we don't actually know what's coming out of the conference.

[00:54:38] We just heard from Jonathan, we think that they're going to adopt the house language. But for all we know, they could amend that section and stick in the data center stuff as something you can't have a higher rate than. And then this whole discussion is completely moot, which is what I was saying yesterday, which is why we can't mess with it yet. We've got to figure out what they're really going to do.

[00:54:55] The other thing that I'll say, because it's always a good time to pontificate on the subject, is if you look at this item and you look at the percentage of tax relief we get relative to other jurisdictions, I don't know how anybody, anybody dares run for the General Assembly in this county of either party without that being the single biggest thing that they're running on.

[00:55:17] And I don't know, I've had these conversations with some of these candidates, and it's too complicated for them to understand. But we are getting so royally screwed by this, and it is directly as a result of how this was set up years ago, and the fact that we've had more growth than everybody else has. So it's literally designed to punish localities that have prospered.

[00:55:35] And it's totally unfair. And so now our residents are paying it, regardless of what we do, our residents are paying higher vehicle rates, even though our rate itself isn't higher. In fact, it's lower than most of our neighbors because other people are getting more relief because there aren't more of them like there are here.

[00:55:54] So I will just continue to say, you know, whatever we can do to try to call attention to this and get the attention of somebody running for statewide office when they come to Loudoun County, you know, and I think it's because it's not a grassroots issue. Like our citizens don't understand this.

[00:56:10] They just get the bill and they pay it and they complain about it and they don't really know. They think we're entirely responsible for this. So maybe it's on us to try to do a better job. I know I keep writing articles about this, but maybe all of us, maybe, you know, public information can help us or something to get more attention because it really, you update us on these numbers periodically.

[00:56:30] When I was looking at this last night, man, I mean, it just gets worse and worse every year. And even like compared to Fairfax at this point, in Fairfax City in its particular, it's really egregious and so just frustrating. But thank you for all the work you're doing on this, and I think come the fall, as part of our normal process, we should explore this, assuming it all lines up for us.

[00:56:53] Thank you. Ms. Brooksman. Thank you, and I'll echo everything my colleague just said. This item was a little bit complicated for me, but it sounds like we were achieving 70% way back in the day, and now we're all the way down to 28%.

[00:57:12] Correct. So those numbers are just appalling. The one question I had, and I agree, I think we're going to have to wait for the General Assembly to decide what they want to do on this bill. But when you say distribute the relief, what do you mean by that?

[00:57:30] It means figure out what port. It's only unqualifying personal use vehicles and the first $20,000 of value. And it's also for 100% relief on vehicles assessed at $1,000 or less.

[00:57:48] So, you have to figure out what portion of the vehicle pool that money applies to. Okay. And then those folks will effectively see a lower tax bill? Well, if the percentage were higher, that's correct.

[00:58:05] But as the percentage of relief goes down, the amount that the taxpayer pays, their portion goes up. Okay. So the tax relief covers $28,000, and the taxpayer pays 72% of the first.

[00:58:26] Okay, so you're not really distributing it to the taxpayers. When you say distribute. It's across the bills that are assessed. Okay, okay. So it is applied, and it will show up as a line item on the vehicle owner's bill when I'm saying distributing it.

[00:58:43] Okay, so it's like a subtraction. It's like a credit. A credit. Okay, that's what I was getting at. Okay, and it just gets smaller every year. it does gotcha okay thank you um all right i think that's all with the discussion i'll go ahead and make the motion i move that the board of supervisors adopt the resolution provided in attachment one to the march 5th 2024 board of supervisors business meeting action item allocating personal property tax relief for the 2024 tax year thank you a motion made and seconded any discussion on the

[00:59:15] motion all right all in favor please say aye any opposed all right that motion will pass 9-0 thank you very much. Thank you. I didn't hear any nays. Oh, 7-0-2. Thank you. 7-0-2. All right. I guess we'll go to the next action item, which would be CPAM number six. Do we have any staff for number six,

[00:59:51] the CPAM? Western Loudoun CPAM? Oh, okay. No, I don't think we have five o'clock public comment. We only have... Yeah, let's pause that. Why don't we start with nominations? If you have a nomination, please put your light on. Go ahead, Supervisor Glass. Thank you, Vice Chair Briskman. I nominate

[01:00:29] Ms. Ellen Skogsberg for a reappointment to the Housing Choice Voucher Resident Advisory Board. Ms. DeCrony. Mr. Chair Briskman, I nominate Bridge Littleton to the Communications Commission as the Little River District Representative. Anybody else? Okay, I have one nomination. I nominate Maria Brito as the at-large representative seat on the Art Advisory Committee.

[01:01:12] Yeah, actually, maybe we'll do that. Let's go to number seven then. Sorry, staff. We'll do the CPAM 2024-003 project plan for the five-year review. Same people, though. All right, why don't we just take a recess until they get here?

[01:01:31] Oh, he's here. Okay.

[01:01:42] I think we'll start with number seven.

[01:02:04] All right, apologies. We weren't expecting you to get to us quite this quickly. So the item number seven is the five-year review of the 2019 general plan.

[01:02:22] As I've discussed previously with board members, there's a state code requirement that we review the comp plan every five years. However, there's not really a requirement about what that looks like. So any comprehensive plan amendment we've done in the past five years would qualify to check that box.

[01:02:39] However, in this case, as Ms. King has joined me, she will lead us through what we're proposing to cover in this project. Thank you. As Dan was saying, I'm Rebecca King. I'm the project manager. so I'm going to start this slideshow on our 2024 five-year review of the 2019 General Plan CPAM.

[01:03:01] So since it's been five years, we're proposing this review based on a couple things. One, two issues coming up from the zoning ordinance rewrite we'd like to address. Four issues at least that staff have identified as we've been implementing the general plan, so as we've been putting this into practice, what we've found.

[01:03:23] And then implementing board direction to incorporate the alternative criteria for suburban compact neighborhood. So this slide gives a little bit more detail, starting with criteria for alternative use of suburban compact neighborhood place type.

[01:03:41] This is coming out of 2021 and 2022 TLUC meetings, where the TLUC board members identified revisions and recommendations to that criteria. Staff would like to take those and formally incorporate them into the general plan.

[01:03:57] For expectations for contributions for attainable housing units in proffer statements, we are proposing to address some inconsistency here across the countywide transportation plan and the general plan, work with management and budget, DTCI, and housing, and bring you a recommendation about how to treat all attainable housing units when it comes to expectations for contributions.

[01:04:25] So this is related to road improvements, also capital impact. To be clear, this is the only part of the 2024 review we're proposing to focus on the countywide transportation plan just to address proffer policy, no other piece of the CTP at this time.

[01:04:43] We would like to do some general cleanup to the text. We would like to address some formatting, add some graphics, update the implementation matrix. So that kind of covers improvements to text uniformity. For infill, we want to both ensure our language is consistent throughout the general plan and also accurate, especially given we're getting more of these infill applications. We'd like to integrate the unmet housing needs strategic plan that the board adopted in 2021, both by referencing it as a supporting document and also potentially pulling in specific policies from that plan

[01:05:20] into the general plan. So we'd bring that back to the board for consideration. For the last two items, these are the ones coming out of the zoning ordinance rewrite. And these especially are more of a review and consider. So for land in lieu, we're proposing stakeholder outreach as part of this. So working with the Affordable Dwelling Unit Advisory Board and the Housing Advisory Board to look at when it would benefit a developer and the county to get land instead of affordable dwelling units and potentially bring back policy language for the board, zoning ordinance amendment. We're really going to dig in and see what makes sense, if anything.

[01:05:59] And the last one is similar. We would do stakeholder outreach to hear from our partners. So thinking about NAOP here, NVBIA, and looking at also what's possible now in the new zoning ordinance, looking at the general plan policy, and also looking at the supply of potentially underutilized office and commercial in the county and see what, if anything, makes sense where we need additional tools or language so we bring that back as well this slide goes over our

[01:06:35] timeline we'd be starting now assuming you approve this plan doing stakeholder outreach research and some development of language for consideration and then putting that out for comment in the fall coming back to the planning commission in december and then back to the board in late winter and then just to wrap up this gives more about the project plan additionally interdepartmental meetings and collaboration would be part of this. And at a minimum, we'll be coming back with policy amendments,

[01:07:08] if not recommending a ZOAM or two, which definitely remains to be seen. And that's all I've got. We are recommending the board approve this 2024 five-year project plan that is provided as attachment one. And I'm glad to take any questions. I am sorry I had to step off the dais. I would do questions. And then I have a motion. Supervisor, I'm going to let you guys know right now that for numbers six and seven, I'm going to make motions to send both of these the TLUC, and we can talk about that in a second, but I will make sure we have questions before we get to those motions. Do we have questions from anybody? Mr. Letourneau.

[01:07:48] Well, there was some discussion on the county-wide transportation plan. Sounds like Supervisor Glass's office kind of brought that forward. I appreciate you copying all of us because I was going to ask the same question. You kind of alluded to there may be some other options, but we need to talk to DTCI. I will just say I have repeatedly been trying to talk to DTCI about timing of the CTP update, and I have brought it up in a couple of public meetings, so it shouldn't be news. I think the board wants to do this. Is your thought

[01:08:23] process on waiting until after the data center's OAM simply because of whatever road network implications there could be from that, or is it more just straight up workload for everybody working on that? So we were looking at it from the order of what makes the most sense given the work plan that we have right now. The data center CPAM, we know we will be doing some fairly significant changes to place type maps, or at least recommending that. And so after doing so, whatever ends up getting adopted, it's likely that there's going to be numerous properties, many acres, that perhaps when we ran the model five years ago, we're looking at hundreds of

[01:09:02] thousands of square feet of office that have turned into a data center, or land that we thought would be a data center that when we switch, the place type becomes appropriate for residential instead and so looking at all of those and making those changes in the model will help will help show where everything ends up moving around in the network holistically okay so it's kind of a little bit of both but um all right and then there's a couple other concepts that were raised here changes related to infill development and then repurposing of commercial retail and so on

[01:09:37] um i i think it's fine to explore some of these i will really want to have a deep dive on some guideposts around that you know all those types of products are very different depending on where they are and where in the county they are and things like that so um it gives me a little bit of heartburn i've already had some heartburn on some of the infill you know policy interpretations we've had on some projects as you know um just because of you know those projects sometimes although they're important for us they also create the most concern in neighborhoods because

[01:10:12] residents have been living with the reality of nothing being there for a period of time and then we come in with something different and if it deviates too much from what's there it causes some some heartburn so fine to bring those up and look at those policies again but just sort of fair warning that I'll want to kind of really pay close attention to it. Thank you Mr. Letourneau.

[01:10:33] mr. Turner thank you madam chair on let's see it was October 30th during the Zora the zoning ordinance rewrite we the board passed motion number 59 I want to read it just to refresh everybody chapter 9 generally I made the motion I moved the Board of Supervisors direct staff to return to the board with an item to update the county's policy regarding proper contributions for attainable housing units I can assume that what we're proposing here is this re-write incorporates that recommendation yes yes sir but the motion also said the item should establish an interim policy for the county to absorb the impacts of new attainable housing units

[01:11:12] on capital facilities regional roads and transit services by crediting the developer for the cost of each unit's impacts we continue to get applications where they haven't been given the credit you guys recommend denial for that reason and the board continues to reassert the fact that It's apparently a de facto, if not de jure, policy that we're going to give them credit for those things.

[01:11:36] How do we and can we get an interim policy to make it clear to the development community that the board does not expect capital impact proffers and regional transportation proffers and transit proffers for attainable housing units?

[01:11:52] So we can definitely bring back an item with that interim guidance in the near future for the board to take action prior to action on the CPM overall I will say that because something because an affordable unit is not providing regional roads or transit that in and of itself we would not make a negative recommendation about typically if you see that mentioned in the staff recommendation it's one of a litany of things that staff is under guidance that that issue since it has been up in the air for so long is not to be the tipping point one way or the other it should We just mentioned it so that the board is aware, but it's been an ongoing thing.

[01:12:27] So we'd be happy to bring that back in the near future. We'll coordinate with the county administration in the appropriate meeting. Is it possible to add, and I further move and just restate what I just state, to establish here tonight when we approve this motion to establish the interim policy guidance?

[01:12:43] I need to hear the exact language again, but potentially. But the motion is going to be to go to TLUC. Yeah, I let you guys know this earlier. And these reasons are why. Well, I've got 40 seconds.

[01:12:59] The reason is I've had a conversation with the development community. They're very uncomfortable with the fact that we don't have an interim policy when we're clearly executing an interim policy and have been for a long time now. So I would like to expedite, if we can, establishing formally this interim policy, however we do that.

[01:13:16] I'm just worried this will get tied up in TLUC for a while and we still won't have an interim policy. Well, you're the sheriff, too, though. Yeah, but I don't think it will. But I understand what you're saying. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Crony.

[01:13:33] Thank you, Chair Randall. So, Dan, when we talked, when we spoke, you mentioned that the county-wide transportation plan would be another item on the DPC work plan. Because I heard that it's not going to be part of this process.

[01:13:52] So, I'm just following up to see if it'll be. So, we will list it. I will say CTP, if it's specific to the CTP, the workload is shared by DPZ and DTCI, but it's much more significant for DTCI. We kind of just help them corral things, keep up with deadlines and things of that nature.

[01:14:12] But the most recent one for Gloucester Parkway, when I bring the work plan back, it will be noted in there. If the board were to take action to initiate or to list another project specific to the CTP, we would show that there as well just so the board would see that regularly. Okay, so you're coming back in April, I guess, with that plan?

[01:14:31] I believe so. The email I'd sent out earlier recommending that DTCI leadership come to that meeting, we may have a little bit of a conflict, so it could be the first meeting in May, but that's still to be worked out. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, pursuant to what Mr. Letourneau said, you know, I think that our infill policies and how we do infill is fine.

[01:14:57] I think this question is how we explain things to people. And because when somebody's been living in the house for a very long, long time, and then something, you know, new development that goes up, you know, they're just not used to something new happening. It doesn't mean it shouldn't happen, and it doesn't mean our policies are wrong, and it doesn't mean that's not the right and appropriate place for infill.

[01:15:16] It just means people are not used to it. I said for a long time that when we moved into our house that the lot behind me, there was nobody there for a long time. I had a great view, it was wonderful. And then one day, the house moved there, and I was like, but that wasn't my lot. And so I lost my view, and that's how it goes sometimes.

[01:15:33] And so I don't want people to think that, you know, because I've heard things, people say things like, well, my real estate agent said it would never have anything behind me. I was like, what, you know, or, you know, so that can't happen. And so I think the issue is more for us to have those conversations with people.

[01:15:54] And so many times in our comp plan, I think that's been the issue, was just the communication, the communication, the communication. But, you know, other things, the road network and things like that, this is why I actually want to move this to TLUC, because I do think that, you know, listen, in 2019, when we were doing it, we were doing a lot at one time and doing it very quickly because the General Assembly requirement was that we did it in 90 days.

[01:16:19] And so, you know, so we knew we'd have to come back and look at things. Mr. Turner, I hear you. I don't want things kind of languishing in committee for the very reasons you're saying, and I hear that. I also don't know that we can work everything out on the dais here right now.

[01:16:35] And I think that giving it, TLUC at least gives the public another shot of just taking a look at it and seeing it. But, I mean, I'm joking with you that, you know, it's you, TLUC, but, you know, to some degree, have some trust of moving things with TILA because I know you're not going to let them language there. I know you're going to get us through that process no matter what that takes. And so I hear that concern. I don't think, I think we can trust one another to know we'll get those things out as fast as possible. But I do think longer discussions

[01:17:08] have to happen there. Why are you smiling? No, you can't answer. Okay. I know we have to supervisors who are off the dais and that they want to change the vote, but I don't think that they will change the vote to send it to T-LUC when they come back out.

[01:17:26] So I will go in and take the motion right now. All in people that send it to T-LUC, please say aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion will pass 702 with Mr. Sains and Mr. Eternal being off the dais. And again, if they want to change it when they come back on the dais, they can.

[01:17:42] I just have a feeling they probably won't. Supervisors, I'm going to hold on number six until we are back on the dais. I'm going to first go to do some other things right now. So before we do anything else, let's go to appointments and confirmations. If you have any nominations, please. We did that already.

[01:17:59] Okay. Well, you guys are being way too efficient for me. And if that's the case, what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to take a, because I want to get us too close to 530 to everybody to be here for resolutions, because we can't start resolutions until 530.

[01:18:14] So I'm going to take a, you know, about a 5 to 10-minute break to get us a little closer. We'll come back on, and then we'll do item, we'll do resolutions, we'll do public comment. We'll take a break, and then we'll do item 6.

[01:25:50] I'm going to call us back to order, please.

[01:30:45] I'm going to call us back to order, please. Supervisors, I'm going to call us back to order, please. Where is Ms. Bricksman? Okay, we are back, and we are going to do first our, we're going to do our resolutions, and we're going to do the Women's History Month resolution first because we do have some school board members in the room, and I think that they have to leave the room and get to another meeting, possibly another meeting at the school board.

[01:31:18] So we're going to do the resolution for Women's History Month first, and then we would do the resolution for Give Choose, And then we would do our last resolution, which is Employees for Inclusion at the Best Workplace for Commuters, the 2024 Annual List Approval and Presentation.

[01:31:43] Would Vice Chair Bricksman, Supervisor Glass, Supervisor DeCrony, Supervisor Umstead, please join me down front.

[01:32:02] Would everybody here for Women's History Month please come down? White and purple.

[01:32:23] Now you're a deuce. Ooh, Linda Dean. Ooh, Dr. Dean. Dr. Dean came strong today. There you go. Look at, hey, wonderful. You can say on both sides, just, yeah, let's just even it out. First of all, how lovely is this? How lovely is this? Is it not?

[01:32:48] All right, I'm going to read the resolution, and then a couple of people are going to be able to say what they'd like to say. Whereas, and listen to this number, whereas in 2023, 18 women sought local public office in Loudoun County, with 13 being victorious, to include eight new school board members of the Loudoun County public school system, And one new member of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisor, Laura DeCrony, from the Little River District, which is, by the way, the first Little River supervisor.

[01:33:39] And whereas in 2023, Women Giving Back, an organization that supports women and children in crisis by providing quality clothing, diapers and other necessities at no cost, served over 25,000 women and their volunteers clocked over 17,600 hours of service. And whereas the Loudoun Commission on Women and Girls won the 2019 Annual County Chamber of Commerce Annual Small Business Award for the 2023 Nonprofit of the Year.

[01:33:56] And whereas, having started her service in Loudoun County in June of 2025 as a Loudoun County Management Fellow and becoming a permanent staff in April of 2027, in 2023, Erin McClellan was named the Senior Deputy County Administrator, making her the youngest, it says youngest woman, it should say youngest person, to hold that esteemed position.

[01:34:22] And whereas in 2023, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton announced her retirement after serving for 10 years in elected office at the state and federal levels, Congresswoman Wexton has introduced legislation to support victims of abuse and domestic violence and champion issues like agritourism, human rights, and upgrading our region's infrastructure.

[01:34:46] Now, therefore, be it resolved that women have substantially and significantly contributed to the educational, economic, and social well-being of Loudoun County. Women in Loudoun are business owners, entrepreneurs, artists, educators, elected officials, and change agents.

[01:35:06] Since 1980, Women's History Month has been a time to reflect on the indelible marks made by women throughout our country. And the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim March 2024 as Women's History Month in Loudoun County and recognizes the impressive and invaluable achievements of all women throughout our county.

[01:35:34] I'm going to start with Nicole Morris, who I was going to bed the other day and I heard this voice and I was like, I recognize that voice. And I turned around, and it was you on my TV screen talking about Women Giving Back and all that you do.

[01:35:55] So I'm going to hand you this first so you can talk about that a little bit. Women Giving Back is a nonprofit located in Sterling, and we're proud to serve the Loudon community and beyond. We're providing clothing, and we have with us our immediate past chair, Denise Harover, And Sheila Singleton-Green is actually our Volunteer of the Year.

[01:36:21] She's actually getting her award presented to her in May, but she's one of our long-term committed volunteers. And then Lisa McGrill is our Volunteer Engagement Specialist. And I just want to say that we're just so proud to be able to serve under such great leadership in the county, such great female leadership in the county, and trailblazers. So we're happy to serve our vulnerable women in the county as well. So thank you for acknowledging us. I'm going to actually now hand the microphone to Erin McClellan. I will

[01:37:00] say I am extraordinarily proud of her, like big sister, no kitten, sister from another mother, proud of this woman she is smart she is kind she is so efficient she is funny she is stylish she has the best shoes the best shoes she is just a lovely lovely person in general and i was i you know i when when she became when she took this position last year the first thing i thought was i cannot wait to put her in the women's history month resolution for next year so i'm so proud of

[01:37:36] okay thank you madam chair you know how I love these things but now I have to speak so thank you madam chair and to the female members of the board obviously you set a great example for the organization and I'm very proud to be here and I'm proud to hopefully set an example as well That's what I'm trying to do. So thank you for the recognition. I really appreciate it.

[01:38:10] And to our school board members. Wow. Eight new school board members that are female. That is absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible. Arvin is a lucky guy that he gets to work with all this brilliance. All this brilliance. Does he know how lucky he is for all this brilliance?

[01:38:30] He doesn't know that yet. We have to teach him. So which one of you would be speaking for the school board. I bring you greetings from the Loudoun County School Board, where eight women are supporting each other. We don't have to think about or worry about the political sense. We just know that women support each other, and we have vowed to support each other in all that we do,

[01:39:00] and we are happy about that. This past year, some months ago, at the chamber event, when they called the name of the Loudon Coalition of Women and Girls.

[01:39:18] So when we're elected officials, we're not supposed to, like, take sides. We're supposed to be like, we're here to support everybody. We want all our nonprofits to win, right? So they called the name, and I saw a picture of me jumping about 15 feet in the air. So I kind of had somebody, you too, and crying.

[01:39:37] And if anyone knows the history of this nonprofit it and how hard it was for this to happen. I do want to call the name Elizabeth Bennis. We would not be here without her very, very hard work as well. So proud of the work you all are doing. I've always wanted this to stand alone and be separate from the chair's office, and it has done that, and you all have thrived, and you've been absolutely amazing. I'm going to let you guys just give you a microphone. Thank you. I'm Ferry Riore. I'm the chair of Loud and Coalition of Women and Girls, and thank you, Chair Randall. As she mentioned, Loudoun Coalition is a non-profit

[01:40:14] organization now that was founded years ago by really trailblazer women who really wanted to make a difference in Loudoun County. Our mission has been to promote leadership development and really create inclusive environment and community for women of Loudoun County and girls of Loudoun County through collaboration and education and empowerment.

[01:40:37] And here I have with me the vice chair of the Loudoun Coalition on Women and Girl, Amber Stiles. And as Chair Randall mentioned, we are honored to receive this proclamation and really through the Women's History Month. And I want to also take this moment to thank the board for their continuous support of Loudoun Coalition in terms of resources and also helping us reach across our community of Loudoun County women and girls. Thank you for that, and thank you for all the support. We are honored to

[01:41:11] be here today and also to be under your leadership. Thank you. Okay, my colleagues on the board, would anyone like to say anything? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll expound on this probably during board comments on World History Month. Sorry, Women's History Month. But I just want to say three letters. E-R-A. I love our nonprofits, but we might not need them so much if we had an E-R-A.

[01:41:43] And I'm super proud that we have so many women serving in office, but it shouldn't be that remarkable. And it wouldn't be that remarkable if we had an E-R-A. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Enshrined in the Constitution. Anybody else want to say anything? Yes. So thank you so much.

[01:42:00] I'm honored to serve the new Little River District. And I also want to say that mentorship is really important. Chair Randall is my mentor, and I wouldn't be here without her. So supporting women and helping each other is how we move ahead and how we achieve.

[01:42:19] So I just want to bring that up to everybody's attention that without Chair Randall's mentorship, I don't know if I'd be here. So I think it's really important to help each other along the way. Thank you. Thank you for saying that.

[01:42:34] You know, I say all the time, I don't understand, you know, women, some women go like, I don't have any female friends. I just have, I'm like, what? Like the sisterhood is no joke, right? The sisterhood is no joke. You got to have like those 2 a.m. female friends, right? I don't, I don't, I don't understand that.

[01:42:51] So thank you for, thank you for saying that. I am so proud of everyone up here. We will send the resolution over to Ms. Wexton's office. She wasn't able to be with us today and they are, they are on the Hill. so we make sure that Congresswoman Wexton gets one as well. We are so vastly proud of the work she has done in many areas and in many arenas in Loudoun County for the past many years, both when she was still a prosecutor in the court, when she was a state senator, and now in Congress.

[01:43:21] She is just a beacon of hope and light, and we are so proud that she is our congressperson, and we'll make sure that she gets a copy of the resolution. And now Glenn's going to take the most fabulous picture he has ever taken before right now.

[01:43:42] Would everyone here

[01:46:01] for Give Tuesday please come down? And that means women giving back are coming back. Wow. Amazing. By the way, on Give Tuesday, you can certainly give shoes to the Violin Coalition of Women and Girls.

[01:46:20] I'm just going to say that real quick right there. All right. There you go, Ms. Bricksman.

[01:46:30] Test, test, test, test.

[01:47:06] Okay. Welcome, everyone. So nice to see so many familiar faces. Okay, I will read the proclamation. Whereas Loudoun County recognizes the invaluable work of our community's nonprofit organizations to sustain and enhance the lives of Loudoun residents, and whereas thousands of Loudoun residents benefit from programs provided by local nonprofits, including human services, educational opportunities, animal welfare, nature preservation, and the celebration of the arts, history, and culture, while countless others benefit from the rewards of volunteerism through nonprofits in our community,

[01:47:43] and whereas our community's nonprofits, their employees, and the people they serve are an integral part of Loudoun County's economic development, contributing jobs, income, resident services, and tourism opportunities for those who live, work, and play in Loudoun.

[01:48:03] And whereas Loudoun County residents demonstrate they have and care for the community by generously donating to Loudoun's nonprofit organizations on March 19, 2024, through givechoose.org. Now, therefore, be it resolved, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim march 19 2024 as give choose day and and we have a lot of proclamations to give but um nicole would you mind thinking thank you so much i'm chair and supervisor briskman board of supervisors

[01:48:41] for recognizing our non-profit community on this special day this is our 11th year of give choose um just a pretty big accomplishment uh we're so excited this year we have 164 non-profits registered. That is a record, the most we've ever had. And we're on track. So last year we raised $793,000. If we can just get to that and maybe beat that a little bit this year, we would be able to say we've granted our five millionth dollar this year. So we're really hoping the community will support all of the nonprofits. Please check out the website. They've all worked

[01:49:17] really hard. They each have their own profile where you can learn about their services and their work. And I challenge you to find, you will find a cause you can care about if you just check out the website. So the big day is March 19th. Community Foundation and our sponsors has a $40,000 prize pool that we're awarding to all of our non-profits throughout the day. And many of them have secured challenge gifts too. So there's a lot of good stuff happening. And we just want to thank the board so much for your support of our non-profit community, especially Chair Randall.

[01:49:48] You have just championed the work of our charitable organizations in this community. So thank you. Do you mind explaining the challenges? Because they're really fun. They're really, really fun to do them throughout the day. I remember when the coalition of men and girls won the challenge one time.

[01:50:06] But I was like, woohoo. Can you explain how those work? Because I think it's like genius that you did. That's such a good idea. There's really two things happening. So if your organization has a matching challenge, maybe raise your hands. So these organizations have donors who have said, you know what, I will match at dollar for dollar donations made to your organization.

[01:50:28] So check out their profiles to learn more. And then on top of that, we give out prizes for things like most donors between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Or the most donations raised between 3 and 4 p.m. So you just have to read the emails from your nonprofits because they will tell you what they're trying to go for.

[01:50:47] And it's just a really fun way to encourage more giving. Our friends is Thomas. And I don't see them here today. I know it. Every year, the Love County Cat Coalition is like, what is going on with the cats?

[01:51:07] That's always the goal is to beat the cat coalition. It's insane. People do love cats. Is it possible to have one person from each organization introduce your organization? I know there's a lot of people here, so maybe not every person, but from each organization, can we do that?

[01:51:25] And, yes, I'm standing with you, Samantha. Sorry. Let's start with you. I know it's going to take a while, but you guys do such good work. I want you to be, like, pumped up here a little bit. Thank you, Chair. Samantha Clark with Equality Loudoun, Loudoun County's Pride Organization. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Melissa Hinton.

[01:51:41] I'm with Loudoun Serenity House, and we provide recovery housing for people living with substance use disorder and peer recovery services to help people along the way. Thanks. Hi, my name is Carol Smith, and I'm with Crossroads Jobs, and we help connect people with jobs in and around the county.

[01:51:58] Hi, my name is Sapna Hensensky, and I'm with Legacy Farms, and we provide a core vocational training and job program for neurodiverse individuals. Hi, my name is Manuel Vasquez. I'm representing A Place to Be, and we provide music therapy and performance opportunities for neurodiverse individuals as well.

[01:52:17] Hi, my name is Jennifer Seaford. I'm the founder of Pumpkins for Pigs, and our job is to reduce food waste one pumpkin at a time and reduce it in our communities overall. I never knew it. That's so cool. I love this.

[01:52:33] My name is Jennifer Montgomery, and I am with Loud and Hunger Relief. We fight food insecurity and help provide charitable food to our neighbors in need. Good evening, everyone. My name is Lance Farkas, and I'm with National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Noble Chapter, Northern Virginia Chapter.

[01:52:49] And we provide an outreach called Law and Community to the community and scholarships and things of that nature. I'm Joy Whitting. This is Ellen McDougall. we are with Food for Neighbors. We provide highly requested snack and sanitary items to our middle and high school students through our parent and family liaisons. Theo Stamatis, Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce. We're part of the largest business advocacy non-profit organization here in the county and we also help through our Loudoun Chamber Foundation. I'm Jennifer Sandova. I'm with

[01:53:26] Shelter House and we run the Loudoun Homeless Services Center here in Loudoun County for homeless folks and it's quick thank you to all of you because we work with a lot of you with all of our participants so thank you very much. Hi everybody I'm Katie Dugan Vargas with the United States Tennis Association Mid-Atlantic Foundation and we provide sport opportunities to the sport of tennis for youth and adults and soon-to-be pickleball at Village Pickle if you've heard about it check it out coming soon and then also through our program like Girls with a Court here in Sterling. Good afternoon my name is Karen Ergenbright I'm here with the Double South Food

[01:54:02] Pantry, and our mission is to help feed those folks in our neighborhoods and county that are suffering from food insecurity. And I'm Joanne Trimmer with the Community Foundation, and our mission is to increase community gifting. I'm Amber Stiles. I'm with the Loudon Coalition on Women and Girls. We are all about enabling personal and professional growth for the women and girls in our community. I'm here with Masa Riyar, who runs our Girl Empower program. They're going to be in their fifth year in September. It's a really fabulous event. And with Ferry Riyar, who co-leads our research arm, and we just put out our fourth year of data

[01:54:42] from our annual assessment today, so you should check it out. I'm Alva Dotson. I'm Tammy Carter with the MLK Diversity Engagement Foundation here in Leesburg. We are now supporting scholarships to our high schoolers, and we also are supporting youth with the reading program, our Children's Corner, and we're promoting early educational reading and comprehension, and we're also supporting the community and giving back.

[01:55:12] don't forget the MLK march. Hi, I'm Christine Meyer with Morven Park. It's a thousand acre private park open to the public. Beautiful. Come see the mansion. And we're raising money also for equestrian programs and to replace a pedestrian bridge that was washed out in a storm recently.

[01:55:35] We're women giving back. You already heard from us, but thank you. Hi, my name is Paul Gould. I work for OAR Nova. We do re-entry services for justice-involved individuals pre and post release from incarceration. Good afternoon. My name is Ben Warner. I work with Insight Memory Care Center. We provide care, support, and education for individuals dealing with Alzheimer's and dementia and their families. Good afternoon. My name is Jane Nash. I'm with the Nova Diaper Bank. And we've delivered, our volunteer staff has delivered

[01:56:14] since 2017, 1.1 million diapers to families in need with young children. Very proud of that accomplishment. Hi, Deborah Gilmore with Laws Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services, providing safety, hope, and empowerment to those who have experienced some of the most intimate forms of violence. Hi there, I'm Carrie Murphy, serve as the Director of Development for the Loudon Education Foundation, where we allow our LCPS educators and students to dream big

[01:56:47] through over, or support of over 36, seven programs. Hi, I'm Mara Walsh Copeland with the Hillsborough Preservation Foundation. We deal with landmarks and landscapes, arts and culture, and Neighbors in Need for Hillsboro.

[01:57:03] That's the zip code, not just the town. Good afternoon. I'm Mary Sue Conaway, View of Heaven Farm. Our vision and our mission is to employ special needs adults and to provide them year-round employment, paying a living wage.

[01:57:20] And the reason that we are here is because of Thomas. He's our inspiration. Thank you. And I'm Erin Gulick with Loudon Free Clinic.

[01:57:38] We provide free health care, medication, diagnostic services, and other health care services to low-income, uninsured people in Loudoun County. Hi, my name is Rory Mine, and I'm a board member for the JGH Foundation, which provides not only scholarships, but also mentoring programs here in the county.

[01:58:05] This is just a small sampling of the nonprofits we have here in Loudoun County. I say all the time, you know, there's a role for the government, and we do a lot. And then there's some things that the government just can't, either shouldn't do or can't do. And when the government can't, our nonprofits take over, and they can and they do, and they do it every day.

[01:58:26] And what I love most about our nonprofits, and I love a lot, is that everyone, when they come for services, are treated with such respect and dignity every single time. And so that's amazing. So I don't have enough for everybody, but I will pass out what I have, and we will make sure that your nonprofit gets one.

[01:58:45] And if we don't, send my staff an office, but we have the list, and we'll make sure that everyone gets one. If we had assigned them all tonight, my colleagues would have signed, I don't know, a lot more resolution, but we will get them to everybody before it's all over. So we'll pass them out on both sides, and then we'll take another fantastic picture.

[01:59:54] For best workplace commuters, will the T-Lex chair please join me down front?

[02:01:10] Transportation and land use? Commuters? Yes. Resolution for the 2024 Best Workplace for Commuters, and I'm having the TLUC chair join me because it's transportation and land use, and he's the TLUC chair.

[02:01:36] So he's coming to everyone for this resolution. Please come down front with me, please.

[02:02:12] No, this is you. Well, welcome all. I will read the resolution, and then we will give you an opportunity to speak.

[02:02:32] Whereas, Best Workplace for Commuters is the National Authority on Recognizing and Assisting Workplaces to Provide Exceptional Commuter Benefits to Employees,

[02:02:59] And whereas select Loudoun County, Virginia workplaces sites, a hospital and a university received national recognition by offering outstanding commuter benefits and promotes options for commuting as both economically and environmentally beneficial to workers, employers and our communities.

[02:03:16] And whereas Loudoun County employers are committed to providing employees with access to progressive commuter programs, and whereas Loudoun County employers are providing options for commuting, such as transit, carpools, vanpools, telework, and access to biking and walking amenities, which are economically and environmentally beneficial, yielding value to workers, employers, and our communities.

[02:03:49] And whereas Loudoun County Transit and Commuter Services will continue to work towards increasing the number of participating Loudoun County employees who work for exceptional commuter benefits, now therefore be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does recognize the following Loudoun County employers and best sites who have been recognized as the 2024 best workplaces for commuters. Asurion, the Brambleton Group, Best Site, Collins Aerospace, Divine Mercy University, Best Universities, Elk Analytics, Environmental Enhancements, Equinix, Innova Loudoun, Loudoun Station, Best Site, Data Client, NRPA, National Recreation and Park Association, Quantum Park, Best Site, REI Systems, Incorporated, Stone Springs Hospital, and Telos.

[02:04:26] And let me just say, as a cyclist and as somebody who had an afternoon 15-minute commute twice a day in the job I was in before this one, and I was also on NVTC for four years, creating viable, attractive alternatives has a ripple effect and a multiplier effect throughout.

[02:04:53] it directly impacts climate change. It affects your quality of life. Advantages of workplaces go out of their way to create a benign commuter experience and even a positive commuter experience are having real multiplied effect of life in our community. We very much appreciate all of you.

[02:05:15] Thank you. Would anyone like to say anything? Really? Because I know most of you are not really a shy group. I'm Chris Kim from Equinix. I think, you know, our strategy with our employees has really been to let people be intentional about the way they commute, to give them opportunities.

[02:05:33] We are fortunate to have proximity to the W&OD trail. We offer fitness center with showers so people can commute that way. We offer free electric car charging to our employees and to our customers. We encourage people to form van pools and we subsidize transit passes.

[02:05:51] And we regularly allow our employees to engage in telework depending on the role that they're in. We have more than 500 employees in Northern Virginia, many of them in our campus in Ashburn, across a range of professional pursuits, and we're excited to be a part of this program, so thank you. Hi, I'm Kelly May. I'm with the National Recreation and Park Association, or NRPA. Thank you for having us here today.

[02:06:18] We have a location in Loudoun County on Nova Parkland that is adjacent to Brambleton Park, so Loudoun County Park Recreation Community Services Park. We are a national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting local park and recreation professionals and ensuring that everybody has quality access to parks and recreation.

[02:06:37] And so thank you for having us here today. We have the space there, but we are a fully remote workforce. And so if anybody does have interest in space, we have the building and would love to chat with you. I remember when I first came to Northern Virginia, I grew up mostly in Colorado.

[02:07:00] In Colorado, we have a bus system called the RTD. You can get an RTD and get almost anywhere, like, in Colorado. It's amazing. I remember thinking, there's no, everyone is in a car here. I mean, just surprisingly, how much people, and I made a decision some time ago that, you know, people in Northern Virginia, I think they just want to be in their own car sometimes because, you know, because we have more and more commuting options.

[02:07:27] I'm the chair of NVTA, and we talk about multimodal transportation options all the time. And we have more, the bike trails, the walk trails. In Loudoun County, we have the loan call buses. We have the metro. The one thing we don't do as much is, in Loudoun, we don't have slug lines, which, you know, that's the only thing we, although I've always thought those were interesting because, you know, all your life you're like, don't get in the car with strangers.

[02:07:50] And then a slug line is like, get in the car for any stranger that pulls up and puts you in the car with them. but overall the the the commuting experience you know i say this all the time the reason we do transportation in loudon county and the reason we do commuter and work on that is because it really is a quality of life issue and in the end what we're doing is getting you home to your families faster we're making sure you can go see your son play a soccer game or get your daughter to her dance recital that's what we're really trying to do so for all the other words that we use around community and transportation and transit really, really is, is getting people home to their families and to their own lives. That's what, that's what we're doing in the end. So thank you all. I know

[02:08:29] it doesn't always feel like that because it feels a lot more, you know, when you're just working on traffic patterns and stuff, but that's what you're doing in the end. You're taking care of people's families. And so I appreciate it very much. And I think I actually might have enough resolutions for you all for each of your programs. And Ms. Banks, are you trying to hand something out to us?

[02:09:13] because you can, we can, okay, all right, yours while we are talking, okay, oh no, it's

[02:12:09] actually right in front of me, Jules, yep, sorry about that, okay, we, I don't know why I'm talking about this, there we go, okay, we are going to go into public comment, we have, I think, 16 people for public comment right now, is what we have, when I call your name please come to the podium closest to you you'll have two and a half minutes when you finish

[02:12:46] speaking if you would yield the floor to the next speaker i would really appreciate that and i'll try to call names about three people in advance and so you know that you're going to be next and so you're ready to go okay our first speaker is steve bozo followed by jennifer bro followed by beth erickson mr very mysterious good evening sir i gave you what too much time no that's right

[02:13:19] So I'm the owner of Bozo Family Vineyards in Western Loudoun on Route 9. Not the first time I've met you all. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. My comments are directed towards the ZOAM and CPAM amendments that will affect rural businesses, in particular farm wineries, because that's my business.

[02:13:45] I really only have a few comments. The first one is, I'm sure you know, but in case you don't, Farm wineries are really important parts of the rural economy in Western Loudoun. They contribute to quality of life. Customers come to visit. We contribute to infrastructure investment.

[02:14:04] We build private systems that the county doesn't have to build. We build roads that the county doesn't have to build. They're important for tourism. They're important for local jobs. They're important for jobs at our suppliers.

[02:14:20] Many of ours are Loudoun-based. They're important for cost savings for government services. If you compare our land use to other land uses, which are more intensive and cause, to borrow a phrase, ripple effects and multipliers requiring expenditure of county funds.

[02:14:37] And we contribute a boatload of state and local taxes running from sales, excise, and employer taxes. Farm ironies largely depend for their survival. And I'm speaking about my business, but I think it applies to others as well on retail sales. Wholesale sales are low margin, and there's not a lot of them unless you're a very, very large enterprise.

[02:14:59] Retail sales occur predominantly at tasting rooms, at the farm, and that's important that we draw customers to the tasting rooms. One way to do that is with wine and food that we serve, and another way is with events that we sponsor or host.

[02:15:15] State laws encourage farm wineries to have those events, and they are very common, the ones that we have anyway, throughout the commonwealth and they're protected by state law to preserve dc wine country we hope that rural zoning regulations that apply to farm wineries will be light touch the current zoning code adopted just a short while ago is a light touch very light touch and we would like to see that continue if the board appoints as i've seen some communications suggesting it that you may be

[02:15:49] asked to, a working committee to work with staff on the CPAM and the zoning amendments. We would urge you to include in that business owners that include farm wineries, limited breweries, and distilleries. They're regulated differently, and we think that their views as businesses would follow.

[02:16:07] Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, sir. Your time's up, but you were fascinating, so I totally missed that you, thank you. Sorry about that. I'm all done, and I thank you again for having me here. Thank you so much. Jennifer Breaux, followed by Beth Erickson, followed by Toga Backe.

[02:16:25] Good evening. Good evening. The reason for my being here echoes my colleague Steve Bazo. In 1994, when my father, Paul Breaux, saw three acres of grapes in Western Loudoun County, which were originally planted in 1985, he saw something very special. Today, Breaux Vineyards has a 104-acre vineyard on our 404-acre piece of land.

[02:16:47] We opened to the public in 1997. we've been operating for 27 years, and we chose Loudoun County because of its business-friendly nature, and I plead with you to stay business-friendly. Within the Loudoun County 2019 general plan, it states that the vision of the rural policy area is enduring rural landscape that is characterized by unique composite of both natural and man-made environments, rural economy uses, working agricultural lands, and open spaces. It seems to me that the plan is working and that our businesses are helping the Board of Supervisors deliver on those promises.

[02:17:18] The RPA was designed for limited residential development and to support a robust rural economy. Check. My 404 acres are in ag use. They are not a housing development. Strategy 3.2 within that plan. Promote the retention and development of rural business uses that sustain the rural economy and support the county's agricultural, equine, and tourism industries.

[02:17:39] Check for Brough Vineyards. Strategy 3.3. Promote and expand agricultural enterprises and the rural economy and attract rural entrepreneurs to locate within Loudoun County. Check. My father is an entrepreneur, and today I have taken over the business as the second generation to farm my land.

[02:17:57] My eldest son is a business major at Christopher Newport University, and he is on track to become the third generation. Strategy 3.7, protect farming and farmers from nuisance complaints in accordance with the provisions of the Right to Farm Act, Code of Virginia, Section 3.2-301.

[02:18:15] This is where I have grave concerns. I'm concerned that the item before you infers that we are somehow not regulated. I'm concerned that the staff used comments, which I can only perceive as negative from the public during the Zohr process, as the starting point. What I can tell you is that my starting point is 1997, and I plead with the board to consider our local regulations to align with state regulations.

[02:18:39] The outcome of this process must help my business, or Lydon County will gain 404 acres for new housing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Breaux. Beth Erickson, followed by Toga Bakke, followed by Kareem Bakke.

[02:18:55] Good evening. There is an entire section in the comprehensive plan dedicated to the rural policy area with policies, actions, and strategies to help the rural economy thrive. You do not see any of those referenced in the project plan for Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards before you tonight.

[02:19:14] Instead, the item is complaint-based, and that is unfortunate, as there have been a total of 29 zoning violation complaints for wineries and limited breweries since 2018. The majority of customers that frequent these agritourism businesses are Loudoun County residents. Simply put, their customers are your constituents.

[02:19:33] These businesses matter to your constituents. They also help to diversify Loudoun's economy. If the process moves forward, I am recommending that Visit Loudoun is added to the list of stakeholders. The role of Visit Loudon is well defined, but it's really within that short-term residential rental commercial whole house rental process that it really became a best practice.

[02:19:53] Over the many years of that project, Visit Loudon worked closely with staff, and the result was one of the best short-term rental ordinances in Virginia. I am recommending that we follow that successful process if necessary. Within the project schedule, we need to add a presentation by Virginia agencies.

[02:20:11] During the short-term residential rental commercial whole house process, we were able to tap into a work group at the state level. We were able to pull information from them that was very relevant and helped with the Office of the Commissioner of the Revenue and the Office of Planning and Zoning. I am recommending that we do that again to help educate the public, our businesses, county staff, and the Board of Supervisors about state agency regulations.

[02:20:36] Regarding any committee seated, wineries and limited breweries have marked differences in terms of state regulations. They are simply not the same and deserve their own seat at the table. And a representative from a harvest your own farm needs to also be there.

[02:20:51] There's a distinct difference between farms that are open to the public and those that are not, which may be more likely represented by the Farm Bureau. Again, you're going to hear this evening that these businesses matter. The rural economy matters to all of Loudoun. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Erickson.

[02:21:09] Tolga Bakke, followed by Karim Bakke, followed by Kevin Anderson. Lots of Bakke, sorry. That's okay. Good evening, Madam Chair, Supervisor Kirschner, my supervisor, and all your esteemed rest of you supervisors as well. I am Tolga Bakke.

[02:21:25] I'm representing the 40-acre Hillsboro Winery, Brewery, and Vineyard located in Hillsboro. Since my last appearance in front of your family-owned operation has marked its 20th year in operation here in Loudoun County and the addition of my son to our team, which is the third-generation Bakke.

[02:21:41] Sorry, Jen, we win. We can beat you on that one. That's kind of cool. I do want to start plainly. I love Loudoun County. I love living here. I'm deeply invested in preserving the rustic charm that makes the West one of the most special places to live and play in the entire country.

[02:21:58] As a landowner, business owner, and longtime resident, I assure you that we're law-abiding stewards of the land, respectful of our neighbors, and committed to preserving the beautiful feel, the rural feel, that we have out here in Western Loudoun. I do stand before you today, however, to express my disappointment with the current tone of the project plan under discussion for the CPAP and ZOAM.

[02:22:21] It appears evident that staff disproportionately favor the voices of a small but vocal minority of residents while disregarding the feedback from the agritourism businesses, And most importantly, the millions of northern Virginia residents and down county voters that frequent these businesses on an annual level.

[02:22:42] I must also address some of the misconceptions perpetuated by this minority who claim, amongst a list of other lesser offenses, that we operate without any regulation. We grow nothing. We operate as bars in the woods. We're faceless, evil, greedy corporations. The list goes on and on. I mean, talk about creating problems to fit a solution here.

[02:23:02] Contrary to these claims, which I'm sure you'll be reminded of in a minute after I speak, our wineries and breweries operate responsibly. We contribute positively to our community. We dutily follow all federal and state regulations and do not substantially jeopardize the public's safety, health, or welfare, which is the benchmarks for making any recommendations by the county.

[02:23:24] This is all fact. So it's a little disheartening to see future proposed policies that adversely impact agritourism, driven by these criticisms and cherry-picked data. To this end, I do support the formation of the Western Loudoun Rural Uses Committee, but advocate that we have stakeholders for wineries and breweries separately.

[02:23:45] And also, I echo Beth here that Visit Loudoun ought to have a seat to represent all of agritourism in general. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Bakke. Kareem Bakke, followed by Kevin Anderson, followed by, give me one second, followed by Cherry Schultz. Yes. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Kareem Bakke. I'm the current chair of the Loudoun Wineries and Wine Growers Association. We're very happy to be working here in Loudoun County. We are actually celebrating our 40 years of Loudoun wine, and we're very proud

[02:24:21] of that fact. We couldn't have done it without the support of Loudoun County government and services. We work very closely with Visit Loudoun. We work very closely with the DED, and we make sure that we're in compliance as much as we can. Now, our industry has been growing for 40 years with your help and with the help of your predecessors, and we'd like to keep going. We'd like to go responsibly, and for that to happen, we really do need a seat at the table. The Loudoun wineries associated must be a stakeholder with these discussions. It's a complex industry that's

[02:24:55] very different than other forms of farming. Agrotourism is farming with a front of the house element, which means people come to our place to learn and to enjoy our products. That's very important. About 20 years ago, I heard this term for the first time, edutainment, education and entertainment. And that's what agro-tourism provides. It provides an educational and entertaining aspect using our products to share with our community. And I mean it when I say

[02:25:29] community. Our 2018 survey of our visitors to the wineries, over a million people, half of which came from Loudoun County residents. So when we ask what's the value, it's not just tourism bringing people in from out of state. This is your own backyard, your constituents' own backyard. They want us here, and we want to be here, and we want to make sure that we're together. So we're very grateful for your support. We're here to work with you. We strongly urge that any regulation you'd

[02:26:03] like to bestow corresponds with state regulation. This way, we keep our competitive edge in the county. Loudoun County, you know, is about an hour drive from end to end. Other counties have wineries as well, and we want our customers to come to our county, spend their money here, and let our businesses grow. You may have read in the newspaper, Charlottesville became wine region in the country of the year. Hey, we want that to be allowed in county next year. We need your help.

[02:26:34] Yeah, I did read that. I was not happy. Thank you, sir. Kevin Anderson, you'll be followed by Sherry Shields, followed by Hiba Sella. Good evening Chairperson Randall and members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Kevin Anderson and I'm Executive Director of the Loudoun County Brewers Association. I stand before you to talk about item 6, the project plan for Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards. Our association proudly represents over 45 breweries including those in the planning stage. They have chose to all make Loudoun County their home. Together

[02:27:13] we form a dynamic collective of craft breweries that have significantly contributed to enhancing the rural and agritourism appeal of our region, boasting some of the finest breweries in the state. Our efforts extend beyond the art of brewing. We are dedicated to crafting family-friendly experiences that both draw residents and other visitors to Loudoun County.

[02:27:34] However, my presence here is driven by profound concern regarding the proposed zoning amendments, which pose a serious threat to the rural economy and our limited breweries. The amendments prompted by a small number of complaints call into question the integrity of our already robust regulatory framework, a framework that has been successfully fostered in our industry's growth and our community partnerships.

[02:27:56] It's puzzling to me to observe that within a regulatory environment already characterized by the strictest controls that there are thoughts of imposing further restrictions on our businesses. These measures risk negating the core objective of the Rural Economy Strategy 3.3 as outlined in the 2019 Comprehensive Plan, which aims to promote and expand agricultural enterprise and rural economy, as well as encourage rural entrepreneurs to establish their businesses in Loudoun County.

[02:28:26] Therefore, Loudoun County Brewers Association strongly appeals to the board to reject any proposed amendments associated with the ZOAM, given the adverse impact to our rural businesses who have been underrepresented during this multi-year process. We remain hopeful and confident that Loudoun County will continue to honor its strategic commitment to nurturing the growth, development, and expansion of the agricultural enterprises, our limited breweries, and the rural economy.

[02:28:53] Should this zone advance, we, alongside our partners in the rural economy, pledge to increase our efforts in raising awareness, champion the cause of our members, our loyal customers, and other rural businesses. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Sherry Shields, followed by Hibba Sela, followed by Mauricia.

[02:29:14] I'm going to spell your last name because I do not want to. Actually, these two people are actually on the web, on virtual. It's B-A-D-E-R-S-C-H-N-E-I-D-E-R. Good evening. Hi, good evening. How are you? My name is Sherry Shields.

[02:29:30] I am the president of the Loudoun County Bed and Breakfast Guild. The Guild is a flourishing nonprofit organization with 95-plus member businesses and a 20-year legacy. lots of celebrations tonight. We represent a collective of small locally owned lodging properties and hospitality partners. That includes craft beverage businesses, each dedicated to creating memorable guest experiences within Loudoun's rural landscape and agritourism offerings. Together, we proudly contribute to Loudoun's rural economy, inviting visitors and locals alike to stay, play, sip, savor, explore, and more at our member businesses as they engage in the unique charm of Loudoun County.

[02:30:09] So thank you for the opportunity to speak. We believe the proposed regulatory amendments are unwarranted and potentially deprimental to our rural economy, our thriving tourism market, and our business's long-term viability and sustainability. Remember, the basis of these amendments center on less than 30 zoning complaints among 100-plus craft beverage businesses over the last five years.

[02:30:32] This actually validates and underscores that the effectiveness of the current regulatory framework can resolve any existing condition and thus makes us question the necessity of adding any new regulations. So what is the rationale behind the proposed amendments? If our businesses have not created significant issues, why allocate time, energy, resources, and costs to impose additional regulations that may inadvertently hinder our agritourism industry and our broader economy?

[02:31:00] Therefore, we respectfully request that the proposed amendments must not be supported, considering their potential unintended consequences. We believe that Loudoun County remains committed to its strategic goals of promoting the retention, development, and expansion of agritourism enterprises and the rural economy, and realize that our emergent hospitality destinations are not only instrumental to the rural economy, but that visitors support county-wide economic growth and employment through consumer spending.

[02:31:30] Should the CPAM and ZOAM proceed, we pledge to amplify awareness and advocacy for the interests of our members, rural businesses, and Western Loudoun County. Thank you for your attention on this matter, and if there's anything that we can do to assist, please let us know. Thank you.

[02:31:46] - Thank you, thank you. Let's go to, who's doing the virtual, is it Andy? Okay, Andy, do you have the next two speakers on? - Actually, Hiba just dropped the call, she might have done that on accident, and Marissa did not call in yet.

[02:32:05] Okay, then we'll go to Lacey Huber. Lacey Huber. Nice to see you. How are you doing this evening? Good evening.

[02:32:22] My name is Lacey Huber, and I'm here representing my family's business, Stone Tower Winery. We've been farming on Hogback Mountain for nearly 50 years and growing grapes there since 2009, now with 95 acres of vineyards on our 850-acre property. We opened our tasting room in 2013, and over the past 11 years have had the pleasure of hosting thousands of Loudoun County visitors, Loudoun County residents, for wine tasting, celebrations, weddings, and community fundraisers.

[02:32:51] We have wine club members from every one of your districts who regularly support our commitment to Loudoun County agriculture. The existence and success of our vineyard and winery is due in large part to the current regulations in place. And the events we host are an integral part of what makes our farm economically viable without the need of government subsidies.

[02:33:15] We encourage the board to recognize the importance of businesses like ours that allow Loudoun residents to actually use and enjoy open agricultural space, one of the unique features that make Loudoun such a great place to live. If this process must move forward, it's critical that the stakeholder committee have at least one representative from a farm winery a limited brewery and a limited distillery the regulations of these businesses are distinct and the county will need to understand the specifics of these regulations our businesses are already highly regulated by multiple organizations at

[02:33:52] both the state and federal levels and the development of any additional zoning regulations should be focused on things related to zoning only thank you all so much for your time in this process Thank you. Thank you. Rhonda Powell followed by Stan Israel. Good evening. Good evening.

[02:34:22] Wear the glasses. It has been a privilege to not only live in Loudoun, but to operate a successful business, Old 690 Brewing Company, which, by the way, will be celebrating 10 years in August.

[02:34:40] We are one of the few female-owned and operated breweries in Loudoun. My family goes back over six generations in Loudoun with strong roots just north of here in the little village of Taylorstown. I grew up in Lovettsville, coming from a family of entrepreneurs and risk takers. I've had the privilege to watch Loudoun grow, evolve, and settle into a pattern of welcoming everyone to experience the beauty of our area. We started the brewery with hopes and dreams, but were met with opposition and a fight to shut us down. We held our ground, pushed forth with our mission, became better

[02:35:19] neighbors and did everything that was asked of us. We are a highly regulated industry with our doors open at any time for surprise inspections from ABC, VDACs, the health department, as well as OSHA. Our small business is valued by not only our customers from towns and communities all across Loudoun, but also from our tri-state area, including Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

[02:35:50] We are so highly valued by them that we were recently approached by a neighboring state to bring our brewery to their area. They see the value in what we offer to not only our customers, but how we contribute to a robust rural economy.

[02:36:08] I invite each of you to come for a visit. See our operation. See what we grow. See how we work with local farmers and bringing Loudon ingredients to our product. Talk with our employees. Talk with our customers.

[02:36:25] Talk with our musicians, our food truck operators. Get a feel for how our business is so that when we go into a stakeholders' meetings, you have a better idea of who we are and what we do. And heck, we'll even let you pour a beer or two.

[02:36:43] Thank you. Thank you. Stan Ezra, we're going to go back to the virtual, and we're going to do Hiba Sila, And then we're going to go to, I think he's in the room, Philip Olonovsky.

[02:37:02] Olonovsky, I think that's right. Good evening, sir. Hello. We need governments, agriculture, industry, and I don't mean just Loudoun County. I mean the whole world is at risk at this point in time.

[02:37:20] Education, culture that works for humanity. We are in this shape because Franklin Roosevelt died in the last months of World War II and the British Winston Churchill removed Henry Wallace from the vice presidency and replaced him with Winston's lackey, Harry Truman.

[02:37:43] Churchill's Iron Curtain speech explains how to return the United States to the empire, which is what his goal was. We are responsible to put the pieces together now. On July 17, 1945, three months after Roosevelt's death, Churchill, Truman, and Stalin met to plan the war's end.

[02:38:06] Churchill knew of the atom bomb development and ordered Truman to arrange the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki both before the emperor was able to surrender. Over the years, the U.S. has led dozens of uncalled for acts of war, including Vietnam, Korea, killing many thousands of Iraqi citizens and their head of state, Saddam Hussein, to stop the nuclear weapons production that never happened.

[02:38:40] Afghanistan, Serbia, Palestine, and other innocent lands.

[02:38:55] Within the United States, the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr. , civil rights activists from young school children up to the grand and great grand, notably the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, asked by CBS about killing 500,000 children in the bombing, answered that it was unfortunate but necessary.

[02:39:11] Mike Pompeo, Victoria Nuland, and other officials have spread the word on how dangerous Russia, China, and other growing nations are. LaRouche has formulated replacement measures since the 1940s.

[02:39:30] The LaRouche plan or the OASIS plan will provide for the world harmony that we all require. Since LaRouche's passing in 2019, we have known that new people must be found to continue his work.

[02:39:45] Mr. Ezra, thank you. Your time's up, sir. You can send those comments. I was about to tell you my time was up. Okay. Well, we're going to agree on that then. Thank you very much. Philip Olonofsky, followed by Kate Zershmied.

[02:40:02] Good evening, Madam Chairman, members of the board. My name is Philip Olonofsky. I appreciate your dedication to our well-being here in Loudoun County, my home since 1985. I address you as fellow citizens, adding to what my colleague Mr. Ezreal said. In a period of history such as this, the responsibility of our nation's policy falls even more greatly on the citizen of our once great republic. Recall the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, a republic if you can keep it. It is no secret that our elected government continues to fail us and humanity here and abroad.

[02:40:39] Over decades, we have descended now to such a point that our own Congress, except for a minority of voices, including Representative Wexton's recent statement, has yet to demand a ceasefire in the face of the genocide in Palestine. However, some 70 ceasefire resolutions have been passed in U.S. council chambers like this, including Harrisonburg's, with another two dozen awaiting action.

[02:41:04] Ideological, religious, racial, and other divides manipulated by a few are driving humanity to an existential precipice. In Congress and the Pentagon, some are even cheerleading for direct confrontation with Russia. This is madness. And silence condemns us and our children to its consequences. But the Gordian knot can be cut.

[02:41:26] Nearly 50 years ago, the late American statesman, Lyndon LaRouche, a Loudoun resident for decades, whom I knew well, proposed the Oasis Plan to benefit Israeli and Palestinian alike, indeed the whole region, by solving the water shortage for consumption, agriculture, and industry, a basis for peaceful cooperation and healing, still entirely feasible and more desperately needed than ever.

[02:41:51] In the same spirit, my patriotic colleagues have outlined a Swords to Plowshares program for restoring our country's scientific and technological talent to service the infrastructure, industry, agriculture, health care, and education needed by current and future generations, enabling them to happily address the most pressing challenges.

[02:42:13] In this moment, I implore you to raise your voices for humanity for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East, followed not only by aid, but the basis for an enduring peace through development.

[02:42:29] Thank you. Thank you, sir. Kate Zershmead, followed by Donnie Walker, followed by Theos Tomatis. Good evening. Hi. How are you?

[02:42:46] I didn't drag a huge picture of my family in today, but I think you may remember that from my last speaking. Good evening. My name is Kate Zerschmid, and I'm one of the founding family members of Bluemont Vineyard, Dirt Farm Brewing, and Great Country Farms.

[02:43:02] I've shared my story of how the realtor laughed at our dream of farming in Loudoun when we bought our first parcel of fallow farmland in Bluemont in 1993. She told us to come back when we were ready to build houses. Fast forward 31 years, and we have purchased several of the surrounding properties and have reassembled close to 800 acres that we now farm, with 19 family members ranging from the age of 14 to 62, making their living on our farm, winery, and brewery.

[02:43:39] We have been part of building the rural economy and a sense of place that is rural Loudoun. I was on the REDC as chair in 1993 during the last significant zoning ordinance rewrite, and I'm still here and still proud to be farming in Loudoun.

[02:43:58] We've provided the first jobs for countless students who have grown up, gotten married at our vineyard, and are now bringing their own children back to pick strawberries, peaches, and pumpkins. It's not clear to me why we need this ZOAM, as Loudoun already has a model rural economy, as evidenced by the previous speakers.

[02:44:19] But as an operator of a farm, a winery, and a brewery, I am here to help you understand that each of these businesses is unique and distinct, with very separate inputs, seasonal production, staffing requirements, and clientele.

[02:44:37] Each is defined and regulated separately at a state level. And if this process does move forward, it is imperative that each of these business farm types have a seat at the table and have an opportunity to be heard. If this does move forward, I request that you amend the proposed Western Loudoun Rural Uses Committee, as outlined in attachment A of tonight's packet, to add three seats.

[02:45:04] One for a real working farmer and two additional winery and brewery seats, so that there is one for each, a winery, a brewery, and a distiller who work in this industry and can supply their very real experience.

[02:45:20] Our small businesses are part of the fabric that is Loudoun. We're the strawberry farm that Loudoun families visit each spring. We are a farm vineyard where families celebrate life's milestones of a shared glass of wine and a farm brewery making award-winning craft beers from our own tart cherries that we'll harvest hopefully again this June.

[02:45:43] We want our children and my newest grandchild to be able to continue to farm in Loudoun and to ensure a bright future for all small farmers who want to bring their dreams to life in Loudoun as well. And we ask for our seat at the table.

[02:45:58] Thank you. Thank you. Donnie Walker and then Theo just give me a second. Mr. Ma just give me a second. I'm going to go to Hiba Sela, who will be on the phone after Mr. Walker. Good evening, sir. Good evening, board. I've actually been around since I think LaRouche probably was in the boardroom.

[02:46:15] But I can't tell you any specifics. I don't even remember what it was about. But I just wanted to pretty much say what everyone here else said, that I think the rural economy is doing really great. I don't know if new regulations are really going to be beneficial to continually promote these businesses that are reusing, repurposing these farms and these fields.

[02:46:36] And I know that businesses are great and successful, but when they're gone 20, 30, 40 years from now, we'll have the fields back. If it wasn't for these businesses, we'd probably have a lot more houses and different uses of the property. So when we put these committees together, if you can ensure that there's people actually on the committees that are going to these farms, going to these businesses and studying how it works so we don't end up with some unintended consequences, and we can continually make the rural rest, the Western area thrive.

[02:47:08] So good evening. Thank you, and thank you for all that you do, Mr. Walker. Hiba Salaf, followed by Theo Stamatis, followed by Tia Ehrman. Good evening, Chair Randall and Board of State Supervisors.

[02:47:24] My name is Hiba Salaf, and I'm here to just discuss the item number six and listening to everybody that has spoken in about wineries and farms. I'm actually new to Western Loudoun, specifically the Blumont area.

[02:47:41] Me and my family used to live in Percival, and we lived behind the Harris Peter Shopping Center, which used to be Coal Farm. We decided to move out to Blumont to, you know, get to a more rural community. And we love it out there, and we definitely love all of the businesses that have spoken tonight.

[02:48:03] Some of them, my kids have worked at their farm. So I definitely would like to voice my opinion in terms of them having a seat at the table and having that type of representation because it's definitely important to have all stakeholders at the table.

[02:48:19] I think a lot of us who are living out in the rural communities definitely enjoy all that we currently have. For me and my family, I just want to, you know, where do each other align in terms of new development?

[02:48:38] and new businesses and for me I'm already seeing it happen off of Ridgeside Road with a wedding venue directly behind our house and you know there are some things that we've witnessed in terms of the attendees that are coming down Ridgeside Road very quickly and some of the buses and just some of the congestion that happens in terms of public safety if there is an emergency how can you know, apparatus come through that area in terms of one of the residential homes that need that kind of attention. So just kind of wanting to touch upon, you know, the amendments

[02:49:17] that are being suggested and all the stakeholders that need to be together, really just to keep the rural community in the way it is, to continue that Loudoun County charm and not lose it in terms of just overdevelopment. I mean, we have a lot of beautiful farms and breweries that are, like everybody said currently bringing in that charm to the area um it's just a matter of that that continued development and continued growth and uh creating some kind of balance just to make sure that we continue to harvest the charm of loud and specifically um thank you very much for your time

[02:49:54] tonight happy evening thank you very much theos tomatis you'll be followed by tia ehrman followed by jim bingo good evening madam chair members of the board my name is theos tomatis government Relations Manager for the Loudoun Chamber of Commerce. On behalf of the nearly 1,100 Loudoun employers that are Loudoun Chamber members, I would like to express our thoughts on the draft rural CPAM and ZOAM project plan that is being considered by the board this evening. The chamber would like to go on record in stating our concerns that the initial basis for this project plan for western Loudoun rural uses is predicated on the random public comments offered during the most

[02:50:33] recent ZOR, which was specifically designed to exclude the rural policy area. Our concern is this plan and the staff's perspective may already be influenced towards one set of viewpoints before the community at large has had the opportunity to meaningfully engage on this effort. The chamber also would like to engage the board on the Western Latin Rural Uses Committee that has proposed to work with staff on this project. Specifically, we ask that the board provide for additional business community representation from the brewery and winery sectors on this committee.

[02:51:07] While often grouped together, breweries and wineries are distinctly different uses, and this effort will benefit from having diverse perspectives from these uniquely important economic sectors. We also recommend the board direct the Western Latin Rural Uses Committee to involve the relevant state regulatory agencies that have oversight over these rural uses such as Virginia ABC and the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. We also support adding a representative from a harvest your own farm sector and a seat for visit Loudoun. Madam

[02:51:42] Chair, thank you for taking having us here this evening and having us take the time to speak on this important issue. So thank you for your support. Thank you, sir. Our last two speakers are Tia Ehrman and Jim Bingle. Good evening. Good evening.

[02:51:58] Back to the start. My name is Tia Ehrman for the record and I'm the president of the Loudoun County Farm Bureau. Let me start by saying we have been really delighted to see the rural CPAM-ZOAM moving forward. We hope this board will keep the promise the county and many of the people still on this board made to our agricultural community, rural residents, and numerous stakeholders and move forward this long overdue update in its entirety. Just as the nature of land use in eastern Loudoun has drastically changed over the past decade, in particular since data centers entered the chat, the nature of land use, rural

[02:52:34] businesses, and the economy of western Loudoun has also dramatically changed since the last time we updated our ordinance. As the 2022 Census of Agriculture shows, Loudoun's production agricultural community is growing, pun intended. We've added 73 farming operations during a time frame when both our state and nation lost them, and we have more young farmers than any other county in Virginia.

[02:52:58] However, during that same time, we lost nearly 12,000 acres. It is vital we get this ordinance correct, and it is very important for all of you to understand our current ordinance favors non-agricultural businesses in Western Loudoun and not agricultural operations. We need to stick with the CPAM ZOAM as was proposed to the citizens and stakeholders, promised to the citizens and stakeholders of Western Loudoun, and has been laid out by the staff and recommended by the previous planning commission. In short, our volunteer and citizen-led groups, private citizens, and concerned professional organizations came out during the entire four-year zoning

[02:53:37] ordinance rewrites and gave more input collectively than any other unpaid stakeholder group. And most of our issues, almost all of them, were pushed off onto the CPAM-ZOAM. For us, this is our ZOR. Stakeholders, farmers, environmentalists, and Western Lattice citizens were here for every minute of the ZOR process, and we were told we could not address our issues because not everyone was here.

[02:54:02] Well, this evening, we all thought this was moving forward without any questions, and we're not here because we thought this was just going to move forward. I don't have my farmers here tonight to voice. It's me representing 1,300-plus working farms tonight. So we're hoping that you will continue to follow through with this.

[02:54:21] Our 1,300 working farms all represent dozens of distinct industries, many leading their sector in the state. They have distinct growing seasons, issues, and needs. And so far, we have one seat on the stakeholder committee. Ms. Erman?

[02:54:36] Am I out? You are out. I am so sorry. Thank you. And the last pick will be Jim Bingle. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and board members. My name is Jim Bingle, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

[02:54:55] I have two topics. For the Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards discussion and the proposed membership of the stakeholder committee included in the staff report, please consider a combined environmental and conservation seat on the committee. These interests do not appear to be covered in the list of stakeholders.

[02:55:14] It could be someone from one of the many member organizations of and put forward by the Loudoun County Coalition of Conservation and Preservation to represent their varied interests. REDC, which is an appropriate economic advisory committee, also appears to have been overlooked.

[02:55:35] With several potential additions, consider having a single representative each from the board and the planning commission. For the five-year update to the comprehensive plan, which I understand you've already addressed this evening, please include expanded sustainability policies and other missing or inadequate environmental policies.

[02:55:54] In particular, the sustainability policies need beefing up. The strategies under the second sustainability policy, which includes long-term water conservation, green building principles, sustainable site design, renewable energy, preservation, and adaptive reuse of historic structures, which I realize mostly has been addressed, and integrated energy management planning, they need specific actions to accomplish them.

[02:56:20] I can't speak tonight for the Environmental Commission without having specific authorization from them. Unfortunately, we did not realize that this would be coming to the board tonight when we had our February meeting, so we took no specific action or recommendation.

[02:56:36] Speaking unofficially as a member of the commission, however, I will share that two and a half years ago, we discussed and had included a comp plan update in our draft initiatives document on page four in the first quarter of our work. But since the plan had only recently been adopted and with so many other things to do, we put it aside for later discussion.

[02:56:57] It came up again last year, presumably again too early, so we put it aside. In January, we had a presentation by the planning and zoning staff about the process. We had brief comments about the need for additional sustainability policies. We look forward to any discussion at TLUC and hope you'll consider this as an addition to the list and recognize the potential for the Environmental Commission to be a partner in the process.

[02:57:22] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, we're going to take up this item right now. I don't have a, I don't have a, is Marr Wash Cope? No, not until I get a list, not until I get a sheet on you first. Did she sign up? You didn't get it back?

[02:57:38] No, no, no, no, you cannot. Did she give it to you already? She just said she didn't get it back yet. Do you have it? Do you have the yellow sheet? Just walk over and sign up for me, please, Ms. Copeland.

[02:57:57] thank you, Ms. Walsh-Coplin. I'm only saying no because I do the same thing all the time for everyone, and so I'm just, I never want somebody to say that I did something different because that just creates drama, and I am very non-drama.

[02:58:15] I am very non-drama. Okay, thank you, ma'am. I appreciate that. We're ready when you are. Sorry, I wasn't planning to speak tonight. I just wanted to make a couple of observations and corrections for comments that were said tonight. The public was told that the ZOA had holdover items and that they would be addressed in this ZOAM,

[02:58:52] and for zoning issues identified similar data centers almost 10 years ago. But I'd like to point out what you've already seen in the Kimley-Horn report analysis. As opposed to what you heard just a few minutes ago, it's not a handful. There was input from 80 organizations submitting 3,380 comments. There were individual citizens' inputs of 358, submitting 1,397

[02:59:25] comments. The Kimley-Horn report did a summary and showed that they reinforced all the issues that have been mainly included in this ZOAM. The individuals and organizations all in this room and throughout the entire county had an equal opportunity to participate throughout ZOA over the past four years.

[02:59:48] No one was left out. Input has been documented and reviewed by ZOC, RADC, Planning Commission, and staff, and every citizen has had the opportunity as well directly within Code Plus. So there really is no need to reinvent all the input.

[03:00:05] And I think that that is what was also in the project plan, that they were planning to use these thousands and thousands of comments that were already submitted. I also had the luck to talk to Bob Wertz this evening, and he confirmed some math I did this afternoon, which surprised the heck out of me, that showed that approximately 90% of all tax dollars for AR1 and AR2 are from residential, 90%.

[03:00:34] And per Visit Loudon reports, sales tax receipts are in the range of $50 million for businesses and local tax receipts in the range of $30 million for businesses. So this is basically a matter of equitable representation in proportion to the entities that are involved, and that's both business and residential.

[03:00:59] so that really in terms of looking back as to what we have already done for four years the project plan is only nine months we can't do another four years i'm going to leave it at that thank you ma'am so i i feel the need just to i there was there's been so many things that have been stated incorrectly i don't want to start this process at all before staff comes down without level setting us so two things were said on both sides neither entirely true um yes

[03:01:33] miss copeland is right everyone could have come in the room but we specifically said we were holding this rural zone we am for next year and so people were told yes you could have but they were also told don't yet because we're not doing it yet so i need to say that because i don't want people to think that people could have come and they just chose not to. The message was we're not doing it yet. At the same time, Mr. Stamata said we were specially designed to be excluded. That wasn't true either. We didn't especially design to exclude. We just said we're going to do this

[03:02:07] next year. So we are literally what we're literally now doing what we've always said we're going to do. And whether or not people chose to come in in the last four years or not, okay they chose to but we said to rural businesses hold up we're going to handle this next term and that's what we're doing right now and i need to just level set that staff can you come to the table please how are you well here we go you're good all right we do have a presentation and we

[03:02:47] do want the presentation it's an eight slide presentation and then we'll go to questions and then i'll go to a motion madam chair just briefly let me introduce brian wilson he is a relatively new senior planner on our community planning team.

[03:03:03] And believe it or not, we chose to make this his first project for the county. Oh, welcome, Mr. Wilson. Hopefully by the end of the process, you will still be here with us. That's what we hope. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board.

[03:03:20] Tonight we'll be discussing the Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards Project, a draft project plan. I feel like it's already done, and we were just receiving public comment for public hearing. It's not.

[03:03:35] As you all know, we spent four years working on the zoning ordinance rewrite. It was a massive undertaking. During that time, we had a lot of feedback and input, as was just previously stated.

[03:03:53] When we were taking the zoning ordinance rewrite task on, it was clear that that was going to be a product of the comprehensive plan that had been adopted in 2019. That comprehensive plan did not spend a lot of time and effort in updating rural policy plans.

[03:04:16] So because of that, the zoning ordinance rewrite did not allocate a lot of time to the rural ordinances in the community. However, during that process, the committee, the zoning ordinance committee, the planning commission, the board, all received quite a bit of extensive feedback related to concerns, hopes, thoughts, and dreams relating to the western Loudoun rural area.

[03:04:49] And I think it was a prudent decision by the board to, in October, basically make the decision that you were going to pull all of this, all the western Loudoun-related ordinances out and address that as a separate project in the future, which is what has brought us here today.

[03:05:07] Looking at what the ZOAM side of this project hopes to accomplish, we are going to build off of the input that was received during the zoning ordinance rewrite, but I would like to emphasize we are going to build off of that. That is not going to be the only input we are looking to receive. It's important to note that a lot of the people in the rural area did not think that there would be a lot of time and effort spent on the rural area with the ordinances during the zoning order to rewrite and we would and therefore it would be an opportunity now to receive additional

[03:05:45] input from from those those citizens whether they be business owners or residents some of the main items that that came up that were discussed wineries limited distilleries and breweries definitions extensive list of definitions related to things like wineries and breweries farming, farm processing, rural signage, livery stables, indoor recreation, and the mountainside overlay district. As far as the CPAM side of things, the CPAM is essentially going to follow

[03:06:21] the zoning ordinance, meaning the main bulk of the work will be zoning ordinance amendment work. The plan amendment would essentially be any amendments necessary to essentially facilitate and justify the zoning ordinance amendments that come as a result of this project.

[03:06:40] In addition, I know you just earlier tonight talked about the five-year review. We thought that it would be appropriate, since the plan was adopted in 2019, to also engage in the five-year review of the rural area policies.

[03:07:00] Essentially, I would look at that as a tune-up. Are there any minor issues? What's been happening in the rural area is the plan operating as we originally hoped it would. And basically doing a review of that to ensure that the plan is current.

[03:07:16] If there were major amendments necessary after this endeavor is done, that would certainly most likely be an additional project that the board would have to discuss. How are we going to do this, the process?

[03:07:35] So what we're doing tonight is asking the board to establish a committee to help the planning staff develop recommendations. And I want to emphasize that we are going to work with the committee. The committee is going to help the staff develop ordinance regulations, but ultimately the staff is going to bring those ordinance regulations to the planning commission, who will then go through the standard process before it comes to you as a board.

[03:08:03] We are looking at the committee to essentially host six public input sessions. And those public input sessions are going to be broken into three different categories. Wineries, limited breweries, and distilleries, farm processing, signage, mountainside overlay district, and other general miscellaneous concerns.

[03:08:24] And then finally, livery, stables, and indoor recreation. Each meeting will have one meeting in the rural area, one meeting at the county offices. And we heard a lot tonight about, you know, concerns about handcuffing the businesses. This is just going to be something that, you know, it's complaint-driven.

[03:08:43] From my perspective, when we go into these public input sessions, my first question to the businesses would be, what can Loudoun County do to help you further thrive in the community? What can we do? You know, what are some of the issues that you have with the ordinance structure currently?

[03:09:01] and what can be done to maybe loosen some of those handcuffs. In addition, though, we also have to be understanding of the other side of things, which is the resident side.

[03:09:18] And so we need to make sure that if there are ordinance amendments that can be done to help the business side, we also have to make sure that the resident side is protected. We want the resident community and the business community in the rural area to not only get along, but consider each other an asset.

[03:09:39] We don't want, you know, a business opening and all the residents to say automatically, well, there goes the value of my property. At the same time, we don't want the farming and agricultural community to open up a business and say, well, let's see how long it takes before all of the residences are beating down our door complaining about us.

[03:09:57] You know, as was stated several times tonight, if we want Western Loudoun to maintain its rural character, we need a thriving agricultural community. Because if the ag business owners aren't making a profitable venture of their land, then everybody knows what comes next.

[03:10:16] And the change will be fast and hard. So having said that, we're going to have two input sessions. They're probably going to be extremely long meetings. So that's a warning to anybody ready to come, but we're going to have a conversation and I don't want it to be, you know, I don't like this. This is my concern. I, we're going to, we're going to talk about this and we're going to find out if this is an issue, what can be done about it? You know, maybe talking to the business owners, if you're allowed to do this, would you be willing to do this to make sure that there's no impacts

[03:10:55] of it? And that's the kind of give and take that we're looking to, looking to go for here and threading the needle where, you know, maybe the business owners don't get everything they want, maybe the residents don't get everything they want, but ultimately, you know, from the county's perspective, you know, we're doing something that will be a net benefit to the county and better than the current ordinance structure that we have in place right now. Looking at the committee, we want a broad spectrum of representation. We are recommending 11 members. Certainly the board

[03:11:32] can structure this any way they feel fit. But we felt like once we start getting into higher numbers than 11, it may be like corralling a group of wild pigs. Essentially, it's a...

[03:11:49] Pigs, but maybe not wild pigs. That's a bad choice of words. Herding cats, how about that? Herding cats, thank you. But, you know, we're essentially looking for a broad spectrum of representation.

[03:12:05] We've heard comments tonight about, you know, we need representation from the wineries, you know, the Farm Bureau. This isn't going to work if we don't have that representation. Because I want to come back to you in the year and a half, you know, and say, look, we all got together.

[03:12:23] Everybody didn't get everything they wanted, but we all discussed and we came to compromises and we think this is what's going to work for us. and these are all the groups that are behind it and if we can do that i think this will be have been a successful project if everyone's beating the door down and screaming about how you know they weren't heard and this didn't work then quite frankly this is probably not a good idea to even get involved in this project right now just leave everything as it is maybe after we do all of this public input everybody says you know what how it all is right now is working and let's just leave it as it is. I don't know. I don't know the

[03:13:01] answer to that. Tacey, stop it. Just Tacey's back there at Chassie at Dina's. Do you see? Caleb, get her. Okay. Looking at the project timeline, this is an aggressive timeline. We're going to change that tonight.

[03:13:18] Well, in Brian's world, this is the project timeline right now, and it's aggressive, and it's still a year and a half long. There's going to be a lot of meetings, especially front-loaded through the summertime, anyone on this committee can probably expect close to a meeting every week just to get this done in a year and a half. We're looking to bring this out of the committee probably around August, September, and then send it forward to the, or have the ZOC review it

[03:13:54] starting from August through February, get some comments back from ZOC, and then bring it back to the committee to final things out before we bring it forward to the standard planning commission and board of supervisors process, which we are at least anticipating to end summer of 2025. It just seems like it was 2020, and 2025 is not that far off. So that's the

[03:14:27] timeline. We are recommending that we approve the board approves the draft project plan for Western Law and Rural Uses and Standards provided in Attachment 1. In addition, we are also asking that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to initiate a public input process for the CPAM and the ZOAM with the stakeholders in accordance with Attachment 2. Thank you. Any questions? I am available. Very good job. Thank you very much. Fantastic job. Okay, so we are going to, so

[03:15:03] suppose I'm going to make a motion to send this to TLUC, but I do want to do questions before that motions made and then we'll talk about why why I'm making that motion to send this to T luck but let's go to questions first and I will have I will go to mr. Kirshner first thank you madam chair thank you staff thank you for everyone who came and spoke I greatly appreciate it I'm obviously I represent I think about 80% of the rural businesses in Loudoun County in terms of the being in the Catoctin district so this is really the heartbeat quite frankly of my district i'm really really really concerned about this um about this project in this item got a

[03:15:42] couple questions and brian by the way great presentation i like your style i like jokes it lightens things up everything doesn't have to be so serious but let me um let me just quickly it's fair to say and it's fair to say we that in the night 2019 general plan right before i joined the board. They left the rural policy alone. So really, any comments that were made during the whole process of the ZOR were really not comments that were even supposed to be addressed. Is that fairly accurate? It was not the intention to do absolutely nothing. If there were simple things to clean up to fix, we were open to that. But largely, if there were significant changes, no,

[03:16:22] that was not the intention. Right. So no significant changes, no broad sweeping kind of CPAM process. Now, I brought this up in a meeting last time. I think you brought the project plan or whatnot. We chatted about this. And one of the questions I asked is, why are we doing all this if we haven't really addressed the CPAM process or the general plan? I didn't really get a full answer, but I think I just got my full answer in this item. And that says, hey, we've got to go through a five-year, this is going to be considered the five-year plan review process. I don't think, at least personally, that was never my understanding, that that was the task that we

[03:16:59] were giving i thought we were going to kind of talk about some of these very specific things that were maybe talked about maybe kick it to the planning commission not create a whole group so that that alarmed me a lot when i read this now maybe that's not what's that the the message that staff got and that's fine listen you've put together a really great slide i i certainly do not support this i think all those folks who are um rural businesses have not ever weighed in despite what some folks said here today. They just haven't. And we saw a lot of them come out tonight. So if we were, it sounds like this is going to TLUC. If we were to narrow this down when we're in TLUC

[03:17:38] to address just those specifics, does it make sense to kind of eliminate the kind of five-year review process? Or is there a specific reason that is in this item? So the five-year review process was added for a couple of different reasons.

[03:17:54] One, the board had spoken to Mr. Hemstreet, who spoke to the staff about working on the rolling review and starting that process. So because this project was going to be touching on so many different things out west, the thinking was that you're practically halfway there. So this could be an opportunity to look at that since we already have many community members involved in the committee as well as staff working on it.

[03:18:15] But again, that's optional. The content of any of this is optional for what the board wants to include. Thank you very much. appreciate that last comment. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. The general plan was rewritten in the revised 93 plan in 2001. ZOAM was written two years later to align. That became the revised 93 zoning ordinance. I was on the Stakeholders Committee in 2016. I spent two years on the Stakeholders Committee, which had 26 members in it. We met twice a month for at least the last year, maybe a year and a half of that two-year process. Our charter at the beginning,

[03:18:54] though I've heard various descriptions of this, was hands off the West. We're not here. We're not going to touch the West. So stakeholders didn't touch the West. The 2019 plan came out and basically codified what had existed in 2001 in the general plan. We did the ZOR and the rule was hands off the rural West. We'll cover that in a rural CPAM and ZOAM. So the rural section of the Loudoun County general plan is basically dated 2001. I think it's a reasonable statement to say that Western Loudoun has changed somewhat in the last 23 years, and we probably should look at that.

[03:19:28] There were several references tonight to the draft ZOAM. I don't know what you're talking about. I asked staff, there is no draft rural ZOAM. We're starting from scratch. We are starting from scratch. Yes, I understand there was some heartburn when we were in the ZOA process that some people in the rural community showed up, while the other part of the rural community was told, you don't need to show up. We're not going to talk about that. I brought some issues up that I thought were issues that I was told had to be fixed right away. They're relatively minor issues, and I brought them up so we could discuss them. I think virtually every single one of those was deferred until this

[03:20:04] discussion about the rural Zoan. No one is being excluded. Everyone is really upset right now because they're being excluded we are at the very beginning of this process everybody can join the stakeholders group i have no problems with that as a chair of t-lock i'm going to invite everybody to get on on the t-lock uh stakeholders group i'm happy with that and i want to look at everything i do not want to no i don't think so i don't think so we can move this along and we can focus on it there are i i'm i'm a layman here but there are roughly i believe two strident groups that are

[03:20:41] fighting for their parochial interests, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's totally okay. We want to create an environment that we hit in the latter part of the ZOR process where the stakeholders can talk freely, the county staff can be there to hear that, make changes and take notes and adjust on the spot, and there's some supervisor representation to hear that going on and codify that. We learned a lot during the ZOR. This can be a very good, a very inclusive process, and there's absolutely no need for us to start off with, my God, the sky is falling. How did we get here? We're not here yet. We haven't even started this

[03:21:15] process yet. I looked at this plan and heard some of the comments and I looked at this item and I'm thinking, did I not read the right item? We are fine. This is going to go fine. Everybody will get a chance to speak. Thank you, sir. Mr. Letourneau. Okay. We're doing questions, right? Yeah. Just clarifying. The stakeholder, the timeline list, can you go back to that? So do you realistically think that a committee a stakeholder committee is really going to complete their work and send a

[03:21:52] recommendation in one month to the planning commission is there anything but about any of the committees we've ever had that would indicate that happened that quickly that may be one thing that's unclear here so in the middle green section it ends in september and then it jumps to february so the intention is there's work during that entire period that is just the end hopefully of when the committee would wrap up their work to move it forward to the public hearing process.

[03:22:17] Okay, so the committee works from September through February. Well, even earlier, because they'd be part of the public meetings. But then, when you look at this, that means the committee has this from September to February, and the Board of Supervisors gets this July through September.

[03:22:35] So whenever we develop project plans, we essentially build in a public hearing and a work session or board business meeting, and that's it, because we can never guess how long the planning commission or board will want to have any particular item but is it not true that in our previous experiences what ends up happening is that it's it's always difficult to get the committee to finish work and then at the end of the day the board of supervisors ends up being rushed at the end because we're trying to finish something because everybody else in the process took so long would you not agree that that's what's happened it is and that was why brian highlighted earlier that the intention was that the committee would be supplemental staff this would not end with a is this like a stakeholder committee like the other stakeholder

[03:23:14] committees we've had not if i have anything to say about it no okay how's it different because they're they're there to be a sounding board they're there to have those conversations that brian discussed and but staff would be the ones ultimately making the decision about what gets included and sent forward to the the commission the committee the stakeholder group they will they can they can express they can vote they can express their interest but the actual content of what's getting recommended to the commission coming out of this would be staff's evaluation of this entire process okay because the issue we ran into with the general plan stakeholders committee is that it was not clear who controlled that final decision when we were working with the stakeholders group, whether it was staff that ended it or the stakeholders ended it.

[03:23:51] So moving forward and including in this project, staff would be the one that makes that decision unless the board has us include in the project plan otherwise. Okay. I might have some comments on the motion, but thank you. All right. Thank you. Mr. Croney. Thank you, Chair Randall. So I support some of rural outing too.

[03:24:09] I just want to remind Supervisor Kirshner of that. And I think that we really need to look at a balance between maintaining a strong rural economy and ensuring a high quality of life for residents. And I think that's what this is about.

[03:24:26] It's about trying to find that balance. You know, up here on this board, we don't want to hurt any rural businesses, but we also want to look out for the residents and the community because, you know, they did come out for the ZOR.

[03:24:41] We have lots of comments from people, and I like the idea of building on those comments versus starting from scratch. And that's what was promised, frankly. During the ZOR process, that's what was promised. You can shake your head, but that's what was promised. And I know that a lot of businesses came out and gave their feedback, but this will give them another chance to give their feedback.

[03:25:07] I do like the idea of it going to TLAC first so that we can try and put together a stakeholder group that represents everybody so everybody has a voice at the table. But I also don't think it should be a huge group. We'll try and make it manageable.

[03:25:25] But I also want everybody to understand what Supervisor Turner said is correct, that we haven't looked at the rural policy area, what, 20 years? 23 years. So now is the time to do a five-year review of the rural policy area.

[03:25:43] I think that makes sense. And as I said before, we don't need to start from scratch. We can use some of the input that we have from the ZOR and then work on the process. I have some comments on the different rural uses that I'd like to look at, like adding in some of the tenant dwelling, adding that into what we look at, and maybe the processing, you know, agricultural processing, you know, that use, and why do we have, I think I questioned you before, indoor recreation, maybe that's excluded.

[03:26:22] But I think we can discuss that on TLOC, at TLOC. So that's why this is going to go to TLOC. Again, the balance is where we need, that needs to be our ultimate goal, is achieving the balance. And I do feel it's important to go through this process and get this done.

[03:26:41] So thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't have a question until some of Mr. Coney's statements. Please clarify, because we did the comprehensive plan update during my first board term, i thought we did look at the rural area everything in the general plan was revised so it's not the exact same language that was in the revised general plan however it's the same the same ideas written in a different way there were some small updates and tweaks but largely the

[03:27:19] overarching policy guidance remains the same as what's been in the county's plans for decades so which one is correct that we did we went and updated or we didn't because we've heard 23 years we've heard we did not spend significant time on reviewing it we rewrote it to make it match the format of the entire document but the we did not spend with the stakeholders or any other group that we worked with meeting after meeting going over the RPA because from the beginning in the charter it was the intention was to not make revisions okay thank you and I do have a suggestion when that time comes madam chair since you said this is just the time for questions right now

[03:27:57] thank you okay um miss brixman okay y'all listen people listen i'm not putting my head on a swirl miss glass thank you madam chair so and i need some clarification so when you talk about this the timeline here and what we're discussing are you talking about the five-year review or are you talking about the certain things that, as Supervisor Turner was saying, that we had discussed

[03:28:32] during the ZOR? So it is not the five-year review project that we talked about earlier tonight. The bulk of this project is to look at specific topics that were raised during the ZOR process and look at them both from a policy and regulatory standpoint. However, as I mentioned, because we would be creating a group that's focused on Western Loud, and we'd be touching on numerous different issues in western loud and the thinking was that that same group and staff could look at the rpa section of the ordinance and review it in quotes the five-year review of that section but it's not it is different from the earlier project if that's was not clear so basically sounds like that's what

[03:29:11] we're trying to determine now if we're going which way are we going regarding the western the western loud and rural uses and standards if we're going to look at the whole thing or are we looking at those specific things are y'all looking at me like so both are currently proposed but again it's if the board wants to add topics take topics away keep that that larger generalized review or take it away that is purely a board decision okay thank you miss berksford thank you

[03:29:44] madam chair um my mike one kind of big question i i do have a little bit of heartburn over the bullet number two on slide five, where we're going to be doing a general plan type review of the RPA. I know staff said it would just be a few tweaks and maybe we should go in and adjust it.

[03:30:07] But I also heard that we did actually look at it in 2019. But that is a little bit of a concern to me because I think that part in particular is really going to slow down and elongate this process. In my mind, when we said we were saving the ZOAM for Western Loud and the RPA, that was the ZOAM, right? That we need to bring the zoning up to the general plan that was passed in 2019.

[03:30:39] So just to confirm, we did some sort of review in 2019. Yes. Okay. Do you absolutely feel as if you have to do a full review in order to do a ZOR style project for Western Loudoun?

[03:30:56] No, that bullet there does not need to be included. You handle the other portion of the project. Okay. And do you feel as if an 11 member committee is the absolute most, or do you think maybe we could do 13?

[03:31:18] 13 is probably the absolute most. So the reason I say that is I do hear, and we've heard from Visit Loudon, that they are concerned that there's not a brewery seat on there.

[03:31:34] And they're also concerned that there's not a pick-your-own type of farm on there being represented. I've sort of circulated that amongst my colleagues as a possibility to either do the at-large seats as those two seats or add those two seats.

[03:31:53] Um, I, I hear what everybody is saying and I think, you know, underlying all of this of course is we don't want overdevelopment or development in Western Loudoun, but also we do want our businesses to thrive there. Otherwise we'll get the houses. So I think, you know, that that's the underlying issue here in a way. Um, and from my perspective, you know, I don't, mom, I'm a vice chair, so maybe I half represent. But I am very concerned about diversifying our economy and making sure that we have other types of industry and businesses in the county that can contribute

[03:32:32] to our economy. And hopefully that will come out of this. Thank you. All right. I'm going to try and work on a motion here. I move the board of supervisors move the draft plan for CPM 2024-002 and ZOEM 2024-0002, Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards, to the April Transitation and Land Use Committee, I'm sorry, May Transitation and Land Use Committee of the Board of Supervisors.

[03:33:05] I further move the Board of Supervisors direct staff to initiate a public input process for the CPAM 2024-0002 and ZOEM 2024-0002, Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards, with stakeholders that will be decided, that the stakeholders to be decided at a further date.

[03:33:34] Can I do that, Mr. Rogers? Is that okay? All right, that's my motion. Second. All right, motion made and seconded. Okay, a couple of things. One, I largely agree with a lot of the stuff Mr. Turner said. I would say this, just in general.

[03:33:50] When you have one side of something where everyone's totally happy and doesn't want to change a thing and the other side where people are really, really unhappy, and I'm sorry, but there's been way more than 30 comments in my inbox, then probably something needs to be looked at.

[03:34:06] So I can't sit here and say we won't look at anything because one side thinks nothing should be looked at, nor will I say that everything needs to be changed because one side wants everything changed. Neither of those things are going to happen right now. They're just not. it is true that many of the comments that we need we have received but not all of them and no one ever said we've received every comment we're going to receive we're not going to look for any more comments no one ever made that claim and so are there lots of comments lots and lots of comments absolutely will we take those in absolutely do we need to get other comments too

[03:34:39] absolutely yes we do we did say to to everybody everybody i want you all to stand down in fact i went to the Loudoun Wine Awards, and there I said, next year when we do the rural policy, please come join us and have this discussion. People came up to me and said, yes, we will. We'll be there. So I know we told people this. So people weren't not interested. People understood that we said, we're going to do this next year. So we need to put this in some kind of perspective. We learned a lot during the Zora processes of how to do this. What we did with the chamber toward the

[03:35:16] end and all those discussions went really really well and that it's a way to listen to the stakeholders and everyone from both sides and kind of almost do things in real time so we never again have to take four years we don't have four years and we're not going to take four years to do this somebody said more than once almost in the kind of a if you don't do this we're going to do this We will get all of our speakers to come out.

[03:35:43] Good. We want to amplify voices. Please go get people who come to your business to come talk to us. That's not a kind of a threat to us. That is what we actually want to happen. That's the goal is to get those voices because, gosh knows, we've gotten, no kidding, thousands of comments from other people.

[03:36:04] So that's not a bad thing. We are going to encourage people to come out. I've always said, and let me just say, I'm the only person up here that represents 100% of all of our businesses, everybody, right? But I will always say that I don't know what I don't know.

[03:36:22] And so I've just learned in the past couple of years, like, what a distillery is versus a brewery. Some of this stuff is new to me. I do think those wineries and breweries need two separate voices. I agree with that because they're very separate things, and I've learned that more recently.

[03:36:38] So I think some of the things on this list will stay, other things won't, and I'll finish the rest while I do my closing. In the meantime, I'll go to Mr. Sands. I think I saw his light. Come on. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'll support this going to TLUC.

[03:36:56] It's evident that there's still some stuff that needs to be flushed out before we can move forward in this process. My office earlier was shopping the idea around of looking at making some suggestions to the advisory committees that were being suggested. I think there are some organizations and entities that were left off the list, mainly residents, business owners.

[03:37:21] It was mentioned earlier, distilleries, breweries, wineries, separating those folks out, conservation, environmental folks as well, maybe even folks from the village and the towns. So I think we still need to have a greater discussion regarding the advisory boards and who possibly can be on there, how many.

[03:37:41] So I'm glad this is going to TLUC again to kind of flesh out all some of these ideas. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Crony. Yeah, thank you, Chair Randall. I also will be supporting the motion because I think it is important to look at this and make sure we've got all the uses we want to look at, all the rural uses that we get the stakeholder committee right.

[03:38:07] I do have also some recommendations on the stakeholder committee. I don't know if we're going to be able to keep it to 13. My hope is that we can, but we may not be able to because I know Supervisor Turner would like more representation, and I'm all about getting as many voices as possible to the table because we do want to get this right.

[03:38:31] I did see in the staff report that, you know, we would be looking at any policy issues that need to be addressed in the 2019 comprehensive plan. So I know it may not be like a thorough comprehensive review, but there are some policy issues that I think need to be addressed.

[03:38:54] So I would say it should not be just the ZOAM, but also a CPAM. I think during the 2019 comp plan, I was around, there weren't many changes to the rural policy area because the focus was mainly on the suburban policy area, the urban policy area, and the transition policy area.

[03:39:15] So this is our chance to really focus in and do some policy changes. But I will be supporting this, and I encourage everybody to get involved. You can reach out to my office. any time, and as Chair Randall said, we have been getting lots of emails, but we do read them.

[03:39:34] So your voice is important. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Madam Chair, will you accept a friendly, outside of my time? I can tell you what the friendly is. Friendly would be to remove the five-year review process. I'm not going to accept any friendlies. We're going to go to your luck. No.

[03:39:50] Okay, then I could, outside of my time, could I ask that as a standalone? I'm sorry? Could you do what? I would request that as a standalone. You want to make a, you want to? Yeah, I understand. Actually, I think that motion is largely opposite of the motion on the floor.

[03:40:19] That's fine, Madam Chair. We can discuss it in TLUC. I mean, quite frankly, I think this is really the will of the board, and this is ultimately what staff talked about. I think this is a motion that should be voted on now, and then we can have further discussion if it fails. You actually didn't let me finish my statement.

[03:40:36] Oh, I'm sorry. You should do that. I think that motion is largely an opposite motion, But I also think that you do have 80% of this area. I have 100, but you have 80. And I think that there are times when an exception can be made.

[03:40:56] And I'm going to make that exception right now. You should, next time, let me finish my whole sentence. Paul, you paused. Can you say period next time? No. So if you want to make one, make it down. Yeah, mine would be to remove the five-year review process CPAM from the review process that would ultimately result in the staff report.

[03:41:21] Motion made, so second to that motion? Second. Motion made and seconded by Ms. Briskman. Discussion on the motion. Madam Chair, I think there's a lot said today, both by staff, when the question was posed by Vice Chair Briskman, as well as myself, that this review process does not require the five-year CPAM that is being contemplated in this.

[03:41:48] I think this is what is, quite frankly, alarming to a lot of the folks who have talked today, as well as myself. And first of all, there were never any promises made by me or my office that this is going to happen. We said we're going to look at a couple of these things, but a CPAM process where we're going to completely review the whole rural policy area was never, ever promised.

[03:42:08] So anyone who thinks that's what was going to happen, I also had to fundamentally disagree with some of my colleagues up here that this hasn't been looked at or redone in 21 to 23 years. It has. It was looked at in 2019, and the will of the board at that time was, let's leave the rural policy alone.

[03:42:25] Why? Because when I make my comments during the chair's motion, when I get to that point after this motion is done, I'll explain why. Because we are blowing it out of the park in Western Loudoun in terms of how much success we have. As a matter of fact, we have the ag statistics that just came out last week, and I'm going to share some of those in a minute.

[03:42:44] But in terms of opening this up, this whole CPAM, I think that will relieve, we can address some of the specific issues that were brought here by staff, because what happens in the staff report, it says, we're going to address these specific issues, which were brought out, and I think that's fair game to discuss in TLUC, but then it says, but not limited to, and I think that's what everyone is very, very fearful about, and very concerned about.

[03:43:05] If it's not a problem, why are we going to, because I think it's just going to open up a little bit of a basket, and so I would ask my colleagues to support removing that process for that reason. But also, this is going to take a lot of stinking time by staff. And there's a lot of things that we have on our work plan that they could get to, rather than kind of wholesale opening up the rural policy area to a brand new CPAM, which was just reviewed in 2019, despite what has been said here today. So I'd ask for support.

[03:43:37] Okay. That's an interesting argument. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, let me clarify a couple of things first. To my knowledge, as I understand, and staff correct me if I'm wrong, the desire here, and we have said from the beginning that the review of the rural area that was a corollary to the zoning ordinance rewrite process was going to be a CPAM-ZOAM combination.

[03:44:02] It was never just going to be a ZOAM. We have decided in several cases already that the proper way to do this, instead of doing a CPAM and then doing a ZOAM sequentially, that we should do them together so that there's a holistic solution to a CPAM-ZOAM change.

[03:44:20] I don't think the intent has ever been from the beginning to suddenly do, and I misspoke, the words that came out of my mouth were not the words that were in my brain, let me put it that way, so it was a misspeak. I'm not saying that we haven't looked at the rural policy area for 21 years, and it's in total vacuum, and now we're going to go completely redo the rural policy area.

[03:44:43] That was not what I was saying. What I was saying, which I think is what staff is saying, is ZOR said we need to look at CPAM-ZOAM for the rural policy area as part of the ZOR process, and we're going to defer that process. And since we're doing that anyway, it will probably qualify as essentially a five-year review for that portion of the 2019 plan.

[03:45:07] So it is not a separate five-year review of the rural policy area from scratch because we haven't done it in 21 years. Yeah, we haven't done a scratch rewrite, and you're probably right. We haven't done it because it didn't need to be done. But since we're going to look at the ZOR process for the rural policy area with a CPAM-ZOAM combination, if we're going to go through that work, then why not just consider that part of the five-year process, which was briefed earlier tonight, and then that part will be done.

[03:45:36] We're going to do all that work anyway, and all the conclusions we're going to come to probably would be part of a five-year review. So it's a coincidental alignment of two functions in the same time period. I'm determined as Teluk chair that we're going to meet that timeline.

[03:45:52] What we learned in the Zohr process, which I think was really valuable, is if you get everybody in the room, and we can have 11 people or 13 people on the stakeholders group, but if I remember correctly in the Zohr process when it really worked well is when we had clusters of people who had similar interests and they would talk among themselves, share ideas, and then have a spokesman come forward and say, on behalf of this group, there was group five, group six, whatever they were, here's an input.

[03:46:19] And staff would take that input and capture that input and then make changes on the spot. That's kind of what we're trying to capture here. We're not trying to go through a formal structured stakeholders process again. We're trying to recapture that very interactive, very real-time process that we have at the end of the Zora process.

[03:46:39] Am I correct in that? I think we're trying to recapture that successful month and a half here. So that's what we're trying to do. So I won't support the motion. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Crony, did you talk already on this item? Okay, Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall.

[03:46:56] So I won't support it either because I do think that I agree with Supervisor Turner that it was talked about having it go together, the ZOAM and the CPAM. And that's, you know, if there are changes, I think it states clearly that if there are policy issues that need to be addressed, that that's the time to do it.

[03:47:17] And, you know, the last time we looked at the comp plan, it was 2019. every five years we're supposed to do a review so it just happens to be the rpa right we talked about some of the changes we're doing earlier in other areas but this is the time to look at the rural policy area and to just make changes that need to be addressed so i i don't think it will be a full review because there are some policies that are in the rural policy area that we want to keep but there might be areas where we need an update where we need to enhance based on what we're doing with the ZOAM and what we heard from the public.

[03:47:57] So, again, it's all about public input, but I do think they need to go together. Otherwise, it'll be one, you know, we'll have to do it later, and it makes sense just to do it together for efficiency's sake. So I won't be supporting this. Can I have a point of clarification from our attorney?

[03:48:13] Mr. Rogers, by law, we have to do a CPAM update or an update to our CPAM every five years, by law, right? Yes, Madam Chair, that's correct. Okay.

[03:48:30] So if we say that we, whether we say we have or haven't done one since 2019, if we say we haven't for the rural policy area, by law, it's due right now, is it not?

[03:48:46] And if we say we have in the 2019, then it would be coming up pretty fast anyway unless we're rolling it into item 7 that we discussed tonight. The state code does not differentiate between policy areas.

[03:49:02] It just indicates that you do a review of your comp plan every five years. So then, by law, we're up on five years anyway. That would be correct. But item 7, I know, but it, yeah, okay, all right.

[03:49:22] Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Sainz. Okay, thank you. Not for Caleb's motion. Not for Mr. Kushner's motion, no. Okay, so we always have lovely discussions up here about things, which is okay. So staff, if we, and forgive me, I missed the discussion on the CPAM when I was in my absence here, so if I'm asking a question that was covered

[03:49:59] earlier i apologize so what is the time frame to look at as it just was discussed and now that we're going to be decided when we did the comprehensive review to do it in bits and chunks and not wait to do the whole thing all at once again that was a very fun experience but i don't want to do that again what is the time frame to do suburban urban rural transition you know etc what is that time frame that we have laid out right now so we don't have it laid out formally right now. We are working on that with the intention of bringing it back as part of a DPZ work plan update to have a general plan laid out for the board for some board buy-in. I think

[03:50:37] largely we're looking at a cycle of one-and-a-half to two-year projects on a rolling basis and to try to determine what topics are intended to be reviewed at each of those points. That's not to say that other things can't be added or things can't be taken out. It's always flexibility, but that's our intention is to bring something forward that the board can buy into for.

[03:50:59] So, hypothetically, we could be looking at urban, suburban, whatever, probably later this year or early next year, possibly, depending on time frame and everything, and you're just, from the staff's point of view, since we are going to be looking at the rural standards and you figured, so go ahead and do the rural review now, get it out the way, and then we can move on to one of the other areas down the road.

[03:51:24] That is what we're thinking. And I'll add one other thing is that in retrospect, after briefing just about all of you in your offices, I think one thing that I'll admit a flaw in the plan is that it's very good about saying the things that we intend to work on. It did not mention anything that we specifically did not want to work on.

[03:51:40] So if there is anything that the board wants to essentially limit discussion on, then we can include that in the plan as well, either by motion tonight at TLUC when the board ultimately takes action. The biggest thing out there we haven't really heard about tonight is typically density. So, again, if we want to just have no discussion about density and place types.

[03:51:58] We just take it out. So, yeah, so to actually get to my next question, our point is, hypothetically, staff would come, say, if we were to do this, whichever rural, suburban, urban, wherever, you would say, okay, if this is, we just, for example, data centers, we just updated this, we're going to take this whole section out, we're not going to touch it.

[03:52:13] This is what's left on the table to review. Kind of the same thing in the rural area. We've all identified we won't do a whole bunch of housing developments in the west. So that's going to be kind of taken out, making sure that's protected and an update on some other things that have kind of that need to be updated.

[03:52:29] Is that kind of the thought process and how you might present your first review? If I'm following everything you said correctly, I think so largely. I mean, the intention was the intention was to use this as an opportunity to slightly broaden beyond just these specific things listed in ZOR to use the same set of knowledge to see what updates need to be done for this particular area.

[03:52:50] All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sainz. Mr. Letourneau. So it sounds like there's a question of definition here and how Mr. Kirchner has interpreted what the CPAM update really means versus Mr. Turner's.

[03:53:07] So I guess the bluntest way to ask it is, do you agree with what Supervisor Turner said that effectively we're doing it and saying that we're doing the five-year update on this is just a matter of checking the box to note the work that's already been done? Or is there additional work as a result of this being a CPAM update that would not otherwise be included in this work plan or this work process?

[03:53:33] So there would be some additional work. The intention of separating these topics out from ZOR and moving them to a separate project was that some of them need additional conference of plan support for whichever way the regulations go, softening, tightening them up, adding things from scratch.

[03:53:49] So there's some comp plan work that goes along with that. That was the intention of a CPAM-ZOAM combined to start with. The other bullet and other thing mentioned in here for sort of the five-year review was to look a bit broader than that and see if there were other things that needed to be touched to update and, again, not to do wholesale revisions, but to see if there was anything else out there in this, honestly, relatively limited section of text that needs to be updated.

[03:54:15] So it is beyond just looking at the XOR topics listed that were recommended by the Planning commission and if we don't do that then this does this get added to the work plan good question from item six seven no it would not get added to that it might get added to a future version of that but not the one that was discussed tonight okay okay mr briggsman please thank you madam

[03:54:47] chair so um i seconded this motion because i'm really worried about slowing down the process And I'm really worried about having sand thrown in the gears of just getting, I mean, to me, we haven't done the ZOR completely until we do this project.

[03:55:09] And opening it up to an entire look at the rural policy area, to me, will cause this process to drag out. I believe that item number seven tonight satisfies our requirement by Virginia Code to review our general plan, and we will be doing that.

[03:55:41] So item seven covers doing that, so I don't think we're going to get into any trouble. I'm completely open to having a review added in a year or two later after we do what we agreed to in item number six.

[03:55:56] After we do this project, after we do the Davis Center CPAM project, that we roll back as staff recommended and do a policy area five-year review. So I think that's all I have to say, and I will be supporting the motion.

[03:56:13] Thank you. Gosh, this is really hard. This is really hard. You know, when we talked, first of all, Mr. Kershner, with due respect, I was here for the 2019 comprehensive plan update, and we didn't do the rest.

[03:56:28] We just didn't have time. I mean, when we got it, it was just so quickly. I know what we focused on and what we didn't focus on. We just didn't have time. I wish we had had more time, but there was just not time enough for us. We were, like, down to the wire because we get, what was it, 90 days to do the, it was insane.

[03:56:46] We were like, I mean, Matt and I, Mr. Turner and I were talking like 14, you know, to every night we're texting each other trying to get it straight because we just, it wasn't time. If, you know, when we talked about this last year, I never remember saying CPAM and ZOM.

[03:57:02] However, when I went back just now and looked back at the documents from last year, if you look at the documents like from 726-23 that I just did, it actually does say CPAM and ZOM. So what we said and what was written by staff are two different things.

[03:57:19] This is tough. I don't want to slow down the process, but I also don't know that if we're going to open it up right now, like saying, we're going to open it up two-thirds and not go the rest of the way because we're going to slow the process down. That doesn't make much sense to me either, to be honest.

[03:57:35] If we're going to be doing this anyway, it almost seems like let's just do it. To Mr. Terno's question, I didn't quite understand that answer when he asked, if we don't do this now, will it just roll into item number seven?

[03:57:51] And you all said no. So then, isn't that what you said? No? Then when will we do it? So item number seven, as we've mentioned in previous work plans, is the intention is to look at a distinct number of things that we have seen as we've implemented the plan.

[03:58:07] And so as Ms. King said earlier, there were two from the zoning rewrite, four or so that came from staff's experience. So what Ms. Bridgman said is correct, it will fulfill the legal definition, but it won't fulfill the actual what we're trying to do. It'd be my recommendation that the board not get hung up on trying to meet a legal definition.

[03:58:26] Yeah, exactly. That's one sentence of text in the Code of Virginia that just says it should be reviewed. Okay, all right. Well, I like that sentence of text. We wouldn't be here if past boards had actually reviewed it when they were supposed to, to be honest. Um, it's true.

[03:58:40] This was hard. This one, this one's hard. Mr. Kate, Mr. Kirshner, I understand what you're saying and I hear you and I respect why you're saying it. And I do think that there has been mixed messages because what was written and what was said were different. But I don't, I don't know that it makes more sense to go this far and do as OM and then not do and not do the rest. I just don't.

[03:59:06] And I'm going to once again push back on everything's going great. Everything's going great for a lot of people and not going great at all for other people. And I'd like to actually try to see, you know, what we can get together. Having said that, I will talk when we get to the closing on the next part about my support for our rural businesses.

[03:59:25] Mr. Kirsten, would you like to make a closing? I would. So the real purpose of this motion is to really try to limit or bring some sort of... What I am concerned that we are doing in this motion is really opening up a fishing expedition. And I know that we all say, well, I don't think, well, that's not my intention.

[03:59:43] That's not what I said. But that's not what the item says, guys. And that's what I'm trying to prevent here by saying, let's remove this. Let's be very specific to the things that are listed in there that are enumerated in there. That's really my purpose behind what I'm putting forward here. And, you know, we can be as good-intentioned as we want, But staff's going to have instruction, and they're going to have direction from this.

[04:00:06] So I believe my motion essentially is limiting this in scope to address just the specific issues that were talked about, not to open up a large CPAM to address the policy area. And I want to ask Mr. Rogers, because I know he was asked this before, Leo.

[04:00:27] It's fair to say that we meet the five-year requirement from the state. I just want to make sure everyone heard this, because everyone talked differently, a lot of, several folks did, that if you make one change, you do a ZOAM in one zoning district, it satisfies the state requirements, right?

[04:00:44] Yes, yes, that is correct. So, back to Chair Randall's point, which is, hey, we just didn't have time. I was there, I wasn't on the board, and I know the board didn't have time, but the committee that looked at this had a lot of time. And it wasn't really a time issue, it was a, there's no problems in the West.

[04:01:01] i mean listen there's always problems everywhere but there's no major issues that we need to address right and that was why they left it alone and that's why i'm saying we're just asking for pandora's box here when we get into this whole process of a let's look at a c pam and other options that are here we staff's time is limited every time we put forward another option they've got to they've got to deal with this and so it's not only just what i've said here but it's also So, you know, we have limited resources here with staff, and I think it's probably a really good idea to pass this motion as I've put forward.

[04:01:34] It's a really good idea to pass your motion. He made a motion. It's a really good idea for us to pass his motion. Surprise. Motions made and seconded by, this was a great discussion. Thank you, everybody. Motions made and seconded by Supervisor Bricksman. All the people who say aye.

[04:01:51] Opposed. Nay. Okay. If you're opposed, please raise your hand. Oh, it's a 6-3 vote with supervisors Umstead, Kirchner, and Brixman being on the losing side of that vote.

[04:02:10] Okay, back to the main motion. The main motion is sending this to T-Luck in its entirety. Okay, I honestly do not remember who spoke to the main motion. I was on Haley, but he didn't speak to it because he made a... You created a lot of extra time.

[04:02:26] No, no, it's good. That was a great discussion. That was a great discussion. We need to do that. Would we like to speak to the main motion, sir? Yes, I would. Okay. So obviously everyone knows where I kind of stand on this, but I just want to put forward a number of different things for those of you who are listening and who spoke. And, you know, I do believe there's a bias in this motion.

[04:02:44] I know there was some discussion that, oh, well, you know, we're going to start from scratch, but that's not true. That's not what the item says, Mr. Turner. It actually says we're going to start from here, from all these complaints that already come. I know that's in your mind that we're going to do, but that's not what the item says.

[04:03:00] So I do believe there's some bias built in to this whole process, and I hope we can address that in TLUC. And as chair, I appreciate your comments that says that's not my intention. Also, I'm concerned that this item doesn't address any of the rural economy strategies or the rural policy area that are included that are as part of our policy, including mentioned tonight by a number of speakers, promoting the retention and development of rural businesses, promoting and expanding agricultural enterprises.

[04:03:26] That's not addressed here. So, again, I hope everyone is saying what they're saying. We're not going to let the C-PAM explode, and these things will continue to be considered, because I really feel like this is a where can we regulate the West Park aspect. And the reason we've already talked about it's working, let me give you some statistics.

[04:03:44] This blew me away when I read this. The USDA Agriculture Census just was released a week or two ago. Listen to this. Loudoun's agritourism revenue is $495 million, number two in Virginia. Our market value of Latin agriculture products sold increased 14% from 2017 census to $50.2 million.

[04:04:07] Loudoun has also increased the numbers of farms by 6%, 1,332 farms, and that includes wineries and breweries. Loudoun County is number one for vineyards, horses and ponies, horse farms, honey production. Number one, guys, this is number one, Loudoun County, that's right.

[04:04:24] Fastest growing county for a long time in America and in Virginia. cut flowers, farms growing peaches, plums, Bartlett pears, and pawpaws. I haven't eaten any of those recently. Loudoun County is number two in Virginia for grape production, Christmas trees, alpaca farms, llama farms, llamas and goats.

[04:04:41] We're in the top 10 in a number of other areas. We're number two in land under conservation easement in the state. We are number one new or beginning farmers, number one in veteran-run, Asian-run, Hispanic-run farms, number two in women-runs farms. Loudoun also leads the Commonwealth of Virginia and visitors spending topping out at $4 billion in 2022.

[04:05:01] You combine our rural economy and our wineries with our airport. We're knocking the socks off visitors. Loudoun, Visit Loudoun had a survey that they did. 65% visit Loudoun because of our wineries and our historic areas was 40% and breweries was 32%.

[04:05:21] I have 14 seconds left. I had a lot more I wanted to say. Obviously, time gets eaten up. But the whole point here is let's not regulate our successful rural economy out of business just because we can. I hope when we get to T-Luck, we can really address those concerns. What's a pawpaw? It's gross.

[04:05:36] You don't want to know. You've never heard the Mowgli song? You pick a pawpaw? Oh, God, no, no, no. I've never heard the Mowgli song, and we're not. No, no, no. I mean, come on. Baloo sings it. No, no, no. You ever heard of Grandma's Flash and the Furious 5? No, I'm just kidding. My kids watch that one.

[04:05:56] Mr. Crony, I don't know what that is, Mr. Crony. Yeah, thank you, Chair Randall. So I do think there are obviously things that need to be addressed or we wouldn't be here today. So saying that there are no problems, I think there are things that need to be addressed that we heard during the ZOR, that we heard from emails.

[04:06:19] And, you know, as far as limiting the scope, I think that, you know, the scope will be determined in TLOC. So I don't think we can say that we're going to limit it, but I do think the rural economy is an important piece of rural Loudoun County.

[04:06:36] So, of course, we'll be looking at that, you know, to come up with ideas for enhancements or, you know, just I do think that'll be a piece, a very important piece of the discussion. And I do want to make the point that we have lost 12,000 acres of ag land.

[04:06:56] that was part of that census so um i know you brought up the great uh horse farms and and um but i do think we've lost a lot of agricultural land too um so you know that that that's kind of the the downside of the ag census um but i am going to support this and i look forward to the discussion in tlac um mr latourno okay so even though i voted against the last motion i do have some of the same concerns about mission creep and timeliness so um i just thought on that case

[04:07:34] it's sort of pay me now pay me later and we might as well just do it all at once but i'm really concerned about the timeline particularly on the stakeholders group don't get me wrong public input is fantastic but if you look at how the zoning ordinance amendment process played out the board ended up having sort of its own group at the end we we were working with because a lot of that stuff didn't get resolved in what was a much more extensive process, and we wanted to put our own stamp on it.

[04:08:06] And the problem with these processes, one after another, is we don't get to put our own stamp on it. We're the ones that have to vote on it and make the decision, but by the time it gets to us, we've already invested so much time and effort and energy and all kinds of stakeholders have given their inputs, and we don't get to shape it.

[04:08:24] So I hope that we can do it differently this time and if there's going to be a stakeholder committee that it's used as an advisory committee truly and not a committee that thinks it's dictating policy to the board of supervisors because sometimes that's what's been happening and it elongates the process it creates a whole lot of fights that really sometimes don't even make their way to us you know i mean we we know like there's all these people out there that have all these scars from the stakeholder committee that mr turner served on and i don't even you know i was to hear about it but when we were actually working on it it wasn't even that relevant to us because it happened by that point so long ago and we're

[04:09:02] dealing with different issues at that point so the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting something to happen different so we've got to we've got to do it differently and in this particular topic there is really strong opinions and incredible people out there that have varied viewpoints so that could really really take off on us if it isn't really tightly managed so i'm not on t look i'll let t look do its part here but my advice would be to really try to try to narrow and tightly manage the scope of what's actually being looked at and

[04:09:38] what's happening and you know being decisive and not allowing sort of debate to just linger that you know at the end of the day we have to make decisions on these things so put us in a position to decide at the end of the day and put the planning commission in that decision too i mean And that's the thing.

[04:09:56] Like, they're watching this thing. Wait, I thought we were the stakeholder group to the Board of Supervisors. I thought we were the advisory group to the Board of Supervisors, right? So why are all these other ones end up having more time with it than we get with it? So that is kind of a flaw in our processes, and I think we have an opportunity here to do it a little differently.

[04:10:15] Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really agree with that. And the breakthrough occurred in the ZOR process when stakeholder groups and county staff and supervisor representation were all in the room together and we could talk through it real time that's my desire i want to replicate that process so everybody not only feels like they're being in fact i heard many comments that we submitted 1200 comments but this is the first time we felt heard that's not to make me it meant to be a slam on anybody it's just we set up a process that went uh that went through a two-year process and we didn't really

[04:10:51] have a breakthrough until the last three months for whatever reason we just happened to hit it like three or four meetings in a row where all the key players were in the room and we rolled up our sleeves and we got it done and I think we can replicate that goal is to replicate that process but I totally agree with you there's got to be supervisor representation in the room so that we're part of the decision making process what what struck me most about that is there were several moments on many key issues I think with some of the chamber representatives where they would say what about this and your team would say we can do that and you'd take down some notes and

[04:11:28] you'd make that change right on the spot and i i remember one meeting in particular that happened like three or four times and we really accomplished a lot that's what i want to try and recapture in and i think we can do that i think really think we can do that and i don't i don't blame a lot of the members that are here tonight for feeling disenfranchised um it was not deliberate it was not a it was it was just you got one group got a message we're not going to do it now and another group got a message show up and so we kind of set that up ourselves for that kind of attention but that's not the intent that really is not the intent and i wasn't being flippant before we really are

[04:12:05] at the start of this process everybody's going to get a chance to talk everybody's going to get a chance to get hurt and and make an input into the process um but i really i really am focused on trying to recapture what the success we had in the in the latter months of the Zoar so that's what we're trying to do thank you thank you miss Brixman thank you madam chair I will support this motion I just want one clarification the stakeholder seats are not defined by this motion correct no okay no no that'll happen I'm not on T luck so I'll just say my opinion now I do think that visit

[04:12:42] Loudoun should be the tourism rep on the Stakeholder Commission Committee. I think we should have a brewery, and I think we should have a pick-your-own-farm. I don't like the idea of seeing us go over 11 or 13 members. I think that we can accomplish what we need to with that number.

[04:12:58] I think when you're in TLUC, please double-check. I believe an ad hoc committee counts under our rules for serving on more than two committees. In other words, if you already serve on two advisory bodies, you can't serve on an ad hoc unless the ad hoc is a subcommittee.

[04:13:19] This ad hoc is not a subcommittee. Also, I believe that any other advisory body needs to come to the board if they want to set up a subcommittee.

[04:13:35] It might depend on the bylaws of that committee. But we now have ZOC, a project committee, the planning commission, and I believe EDED or EDEC said they were going to set up a committee on this.

[04:13:51] So I will lobby against any other advisory body in the county trying to set up another subcommittee on this topic. Because another subcommittee on this topic, again, will just put sand in the gears of this process.

[04:14:13] So, I just wanted to put that out there. That any subcommittee that wants to come to the board and ask to put a subcommittee together on this project, I will lobby against it. I think we have enough advisory bodies on this project, especially with the ad hoc being set up.

[04:14:34] I think, so anyway, I will support the motion. I think Mr. Hemstreet wants to correct what I said about ad hocs being a third committee for somebody. Mr. Hemstreet. Thank you, Chair Randall, Vice Chair Brissman. I would like clarification from the board if the board agrees with the vice chair's interpretation of more than two committees.

[04:14:59] And the reason I ask that is because as staff, when we go through and determine if someone has been on more than two committees, we are looking at the board's regular, permanent advisory boards, committees, and commissions.

[04:15:15] We have not traditionally interpreted temporary, term-limited, and purpose-limited ad hoc committees as being a part of that criteria, and to do so would create an additional burden for us because we would have to constantly look at that before anybody could be considered.

[04:15:39] Additionally, the board, when it creates ad hoc committees, does quite frequently include members of their advisory bodies. So it's not uncommon, for example, to see an ad hoc committee name or ask for someone from the REDC, for example.

[04:15:55] or from the EDAC, for example, or from another advisory body. And so when that occurs, if that person is part of their regular permanent committee has already served on two committees, are we then expected to go back and advise them that they need to either resign from one of their committees or they need to turn down the appointment from that committee to this purpose bill committee?

[04:16:23] So that's what I want to ask because we have not been interpreting these ad hoc or temporary specific purpose committees as part of those two. So I think if it's an actual seat from that advisory body that's named, for example, if REDC has a seat on the ad hoc, then it wouldn't count as a third committee because they're serving as an REDC member.

[04:16:48] I'm okay with T-Luck discussing this, as long as T-Luck is hearing my concerns on it. And everyone's hearing my concerns about subcommittees. Okay, guys, we have a lot of lights on. And we don't need all these lights on for this discussion. We really don't.

[04:17:05] He asked a simple question, and we can kind of say without objection, because we don't have to have a whole, I don't know why I'm choking. I'm just so emotional about the West. I'm just crying. We can say, like, without objection, do we agree that a person serving on this committee can serve on this committee if they serve on two other committees?

[04:17:32] Any objection to that? Okay, thank you. All right. Then I'm going to do a closing, and then we're going to vote. First of all, Mr. Turner, I could not disagree with you more strongly. We did not give two groups of people two different messages. Everybody got the same message.

[04:17:48] One group of people chose to come in no matter what, and that was on them, but everybody got the same message, everyone. So I want to make that real clear, real, real clear, because I think that saying that type of thing could be really dangerous to get out that we gave messages to two group of people.

[04:18:03] That did not happen. I want you guys to remember back to when we were all elected, and I was trying to put these committees together, and I was calling everybody. And when I did TLUC, I literally said, I'm going to put Laura Tacroni and Caleb Kirshner both on TLUC because a rules OM is coming.

[04:18:22] And I didn't say CPAM, to be honest. I said rules OM is coming, but it's still in the thing. And they have differing opinions, and they represent the West, and I want them on there. So to a large degree, and I know you all know this, it was always the plan to put this in TLUC so we can have this discussion.

[04:18:40] I had that exact discussion with every single one of you who were going on TLUC for this reason. In fact, Mr. Kirshner, you and I talked more than anybody. We were back and forth between you and finance. You asked to be put on TLUC for this very purpose and then said, after two years, can I go to finance?

[04:18:56] Like, you literally asked me this for this very purpose. And so can we not all be extra surprised when we're sending something to TLUC? There was always a plan to send to TLUC. There was always a plan to do this. I am completely in agreement with Mr. Letourneau.

[04:19:12] I didn't vote for Mr. Kirshner's item, but I do want to be very careful about mission creep, as he calls it. What is the other word you do? Something like when you look at something too long? Paralysis by analysis.

[04:19:28] I don't think we should do that either. I do think Mr. Kirshner's comments are valid. We have a booming, booming Western economy, and we do not want to do anything to harm that. That should be the most obvious statement in the world. The other most obvious statement is you cannot say we have no problems at all when there are people who say we have problems.

[04:19:49] And we have to be able to hear more than one thing at more than one time. And that is our goal, to try to have some balance, to try to have balance with as little regulation as possible. That would be the goal. I do not agree that there is any bias in this motion.

[04:20:06] This motion is to go to TLUC. That's the motion. And to get it in and out of TLUC as fast as possible. And to everyone who keeps saying, well, I'm not on TLUC, but you can come to TLUC if you want to. Everybody in this day is going to come sit on TLUC and be heard.

[04:20:22] So even though you're not on TLUC, feel free to come because you all know when TLUC meetings are. So if anyone wants to say anything, I don't want to hear anyone say, well, I didn't say that because I'm not on TLUC. accommodate luck and enjoy yourself with all the rest of us okay finish crying now thank you okay i made the motion and it was seconded by who seconded this motion a thousand years ago mr turner oh mr crony second this motion all right for this to go to the may t luck meeting and that is at mr kirschner's um request the may t luck meeting i'm able to say

[04:20:59] aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 9-0. Thank you very much. Before we get ready to go into our, thank you everyone. Thank you everyone for coming out and to talk. We really appreciate it and we look forward to all the discussions we're going to have. All the very poignant discussions that are not going to give us mission creep in the future. Before we go to closed session, I was off the days for appointments. I had two.

[04:21:27] Melanie Sarifetel to an at-large seat in the Community Services Board and Josette Millman to an at-large seat in the Community Services Board. Okay, do we need a break before we go to closed session? I actually think we need a break before we go to closed session.

[04:21:44] Let's take a five minute break and come back and read and go to closed session.

[04:21:47] Let's take five minutes. Okay, we're back and Ms. Brickspin is going to read us

[04:31:48] into closed session. Ms. Brickspin please. I move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to section 2.2-3711A3 of the Code of Virginia to consider acquisition or disposition of a parcel or parcels of property for public use in the broad-run election district. Motion made and seconded by Supervisor Glass. Discussion on the motion?

[04:32:14] All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's 9 to 1. We're in closed session. We

[05:24:13] are back in session. Ms. Brixman is going to read us out of closed session, please. Thank you. 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 the closed session and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting. Second.

[05:24:35] Thank you. All the people who say aye. Aye. Does it, will everyone please go down the aisle and that's a 9-0 vote. Everyone please go down the aisle. Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. And I firm as well. Thank you. We are going to do board comments. You don't need to do board comments if you don't want to, but we are going to do board comments. And so if anyone, I'll call people on

[05:25:06] board comments and disclosures. Don't forget disclosures. Mr. Kirshner? I don't, Madam Chair, I have lots of comments I can make, but in the interest of the evening where we're actually getting out here in a pretty decent time, I'm going to forego those. And I have a disclosure.

[05:25:25] My staff and I met with Aaron Swishelm of Walsh Kalusi about the Villages of Clear Spring application on March 4th. Okay. Ms. Umstadt? Thank you, Madam Chair. On February 26th, I met with Aaron Swisshelm and Ron Meyer on the Belmont Innovation Campus, and no board comments.

[05:25:51] All right. Mr. Crony? Randall. My disclosure is on Monday, February 26th, I met with Matt Leslie, Stan Allison and Greg Peterson Peterson regarding the landfill solar project on Thursday February 29th I met with Colleen Gillis Steve Schulte with Bramilton and Angela Rojas and Timothy Rowe with Toll Brothers regarding the Alcola farms and Fleetwood North applications and on Monday March 4th I met with Caitlin McCormick and Colin Lomastro with NextEra

[05:26:26] energy resources regarding transmission lines in Loudon the only thing I wanted to say is that i was honored to attend the celebration of life for trevor brown earlier this week um loudon first responders foundation is participating in give choose to support our first responders who were impacted by the february 16th house explosion incident and it's an opportunity to support our local heroes so i hope you'll participate in give choose thank you thank you um mrs glass thank you madam chair i have a couple of disclosures on um thursday february

[05:27:05] 29th my staff met with representatives from the Brambleton group to discuss the Silver District West site plan on February 29th I met with representatives from Finmar management and the Regency at Belmont Chase HOA to discuss the Telos data center site plan and since I have my voice back I can talk about a couple of things that I did in mid-February I attended the NACO legislative conference back in mid-February one of the committees I'm on is the International Economic Development Task Force.

[05:27:38] The meeting was focused on global connections for your local economy, a hands-on training to attract foreign investments. There were several speakers, Mr. Singh from the Department of Commerce, Mr. Mazzeer from FDI Intelligence, Mr. Crouch from Choose New Jersey.

[05:27:56] The discussion was how successful local economic development efforts are increasingly aimed at the global market and how county leaders can better engage the world's economy and international business leaders to bring investment to their local communities.

[05:28:13] I'm also part of the Human Services and Education Policy Steering Committee where presentations are preparing for an aging population, federal policy considerations for counties, working across systems to support youth with complex needs and combating summer hunger tools and resources for county governments.

[05:28:36] And I just want to let the Brown family know that I will continue to pray for them as well as our county firefighters, and thank you for all that you do. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Mr. Letourneau.

[05:28:54] One disclosure, March 1st, met with Ray Burnett and Denise Harrover of Ann Meter to discuss Stonebridge Section 40 application, which is LEGIE 2023-0042. That'll be in front of the board next week. What's up? Mr. Sains? Mandatory disclosures.

[05:29:11] My staff met with the applicants on Atlantic Boulevard yesterday, March 4th. Board comments. We all attended the celebration of life for firefighter Trevor Brown.

[05:29:28] That was a very moving ceremony. Heard a lot of inspiring words about our first responders from Chair Randall, Governor Yunkin, Chief Johnson, Chief Short, from Mr. Brown's father.

[05:29:48] It was amazing to see the first responder community. As we know, they're a very tight-knit community. They show up in good times, and they show up in not-so-good times. Overall, it was a very moving service altogether.

[05:30:05] I definitely will not forget that moment and definitely will not forget his sacrifice for our community. So I encourage Loudon to continue to show support for our first responders by making a donation to the Firefighters Fund, to the residents who lost their homes as well.

[05:30:27] Please go to their legit GoFundMe pages, And I believe many of us have put that on our newsletters and our Facebook pages, our social media. So make sure you are going to donate to the proper one. And unfortunately, I forget the names of the other firefighters.

[05:30:44] But next time, I will make sure to say their names because we cannot forget the other firefighters who were injured in the line of duty as well, but are still in recovery. And we also want to show our support to the first responders who don't have any external wounds, but we might be having some internal wounds.

[05:31:09] And we want to make sure that they are thought of as well and make sure they're getting the assistance that they need to make sure they heal internally. So with that, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Turner.

[05:31:26] Thank you, Madam Chair. My disclosure is on Friday, February 23rd. My staff met with Packy Crown from Bowman Consulting to discuss the application for Goose Creek Retail and Goose Creek West. Thursday, February 29th, my staff and I joined Supervisor Tukroni and her staff for a meeting with Colleen Gillis from Cooley LLP, Steve Schulte from the Brambleton Association, as well as Angela Rassus, and Timothy Rillo from Toll Brothers to discuss her application for Fleetwood North and Arcola Farms Residential.

[05:31:53] On Friday, March 1st, my staff and I met with Packy Crown from Bowman Consulting and Colin Stiles from Cypress Real Estate to discuss their application for Avon Moore. We were all at Firefighter Brown's Celebration of the Life ceremony, and I was struck by one line in Chair Randall's comments where she said, first responders answer the call never knowing if that's the last time they will answer a call.

[05:32:18] And the whole service, I was struck by the fact that Firefighter Brown left the house that day and never came back, and it was instantaneous. He was here one minute and he was gone the next. And all I could think about was what if he had said something or done something bad to a fellow human being right before he passed?

[05:32:38] And that was the last thing that happened before he passed. And I was just continually reminded of that it's incumbent upon us to treat each other decently and to strive to do that every chance we get, because it might be the last chance we get to do that.

[05:32:54] And I just, the suddenness of it was really, really struck home to me. Thank you. Thank you. I think that's it, I think. Mr. Kirsten, your lights back on. Yes, Madam Chair, I forgot to make two nominations. Is it too late to do so? No, go on and do it now.

[05:33:09] All right, thank you real quick. I nominate to the Agricultural District Advisory Committee Eleanor Meredith as the at-large representative, and I also nominate Janice, I think it's with a C, but it's spelled Czarnecki as an at-large representative on the Arts Advisory Committee.

[05:33:28] Thank you, Madam Chair. I apologize for taking that out of order. Thank you. That's okay, thank you. Ms. Brixman? Thank you, Madam Chair. I echo all of my colleagues' comments about the celebration of life for Firefighter Brown. I also attended a celebration of life for a constituent, Seijin Mao, last week.

[05:33:48] He died in a pedestrian collision by Cascades Library about four days after the February 16th incident. He was literally living his best life, 81 years old. He volunteered at the Senior Center.

[05:34:06] He's well-known, ate lunch there every day, had a best friend that helped him learn English while he was helping that best friend learn Chinese. He lived with his son and his family and helped with the kids regularly. There were videos of this man rollerblading and body surfing and all of the above.

[05:34:26] And so I have to agree with you, Mr. Turner. He was an integral part of our community and their family, And he's gone in a moment. So we will be working on some safety measures, hopefully, for that area, and figuring out a way to honor Mr. Mao.

[05:34:44] By way of disclosures, I spoke with Colleen Gillis on the phone today briefly about the Tillots View application. In honor of Women's History Month, I would like to, again, talk about the Equal Rights Amendment and the fact that it has not yet been enshrined into our Constitution.

[05:35:04] The Equal Rights Amendment, if enshrined, would provide equal protection from discrimination for all people, regardless of sex. It would provide a clear federal judicial standard for deciding cases on sex discrimination. It would provide a strong legal defense against any rollback of women's rights, including decisions like Dobbs or the Lilly Ledbetter Act or even IVF.

[05:35:28] It would improve the United States' standing in the world community. The governing documents of many other countries already affirm the legal gender equality. Without the ERA, the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee that the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex.

[05:35:49] The first and still the only right in the U.S. Constitution that specifically applies equally to both men and women is the right to vote. The Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment was first applied to sex discrimination only in 1971, and it has never been interpreted to grant equal rights on the basis of sex in the uniform and inclusive way that an Equal Rights Amendment would.

[05:36:14] The Equal Rights Amendment would provide a clear judicial standard for deciding cases of sex discrimination. Not every state in the U.S. has ratified the ERA. Virginia did, though, becoming the 38th. And therefore, federal state courts are inconsistent on rulings regarding claims of sexual discrimination.

[05:36:33] The Equal Rights Amendment would help clarify sex discrimination, jurisprudence, and conclusively invalidate the claim of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, does not protect against sex discrimination. The Equal Rights Amendment would provide a strong legal defense against any rollback of significant advances in women's rights that have been achieved since the mid-20th century. Without the Equal Rights Amendment, women regularly and occasionally men have to fight long, expensive, and difficult battles in an effort to prove that their rights are equal to those of the other sex. The Equal

[05:37:11] rights amendment would improve the United States standing in the world community, as I said earlier, and it should be part of our governing documents as it would empower Congress to pass federal laws that address systemic gender discrimination and inequality and level the playing field for women, especially women of color. As of today, there have been 2,782 total gun deaths and 70 mass shootings, now 71, according to something that came across our transom this evening while we were on the

[05:37:44] dais. 206 were teens ages 12 to 17, and 44 were children ages 0 to 11. I get these stats from the Gun Violence Archive, which has temporarily removed suicides from the total deaths tally until they can get better data from the CDC. So we will have to keep track of that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I have no disclosures. I do want to recall, recount something that happened in one of our schools a couple of, I guess, two weeks ago. I was asked to speak at Black History Month, and it was many of our high

[05:38:21] schools, Broadway and Riverside, a couple more doing Black History Month events together. And kind of just by themselves, the kids brought up, the young, the kids, they were but mostly juniors and seniors brought up the whole thing that we all just went through with the incorrect information that we were teaching critical race theory.

[05:38:42] Well, now critical race theory is, it is not something that we're teaching in our school. It is an academic legal framework that discusses racism in part of America and racism and how it's shaped America. It has nothing to do with making one group of kids feel bad or one group of kids feel good.

[05:39:01] That was all just a political lie. I didn't realize, though, how that whole thing had really impacted some of our African-American kids to the point where they're still in tears, saying, like, you know, one, we're not teaching it, and two, what is bad about it, and why can't we talk about what happened in the past, and why is my history and what's happened in our community not something that we should ever discuss?

[05:39:26] Really, you know, critical race theory is usually taught in high school, I mean, in grad school or college. It's not even taught at a secondary school level. But, you know, it was a very hard time for Loudoun County because a governor was running on this issue when using us as his cojol and beating us up with something that was not true.

[05:39:50] And never, not even I, at one time thought, how is this affecting our kids who are here? And when I heard, you know, kids who at the time were freshmen and sophomores in ninth grade talk about what that was for them, it was shocking.

[05:40:06] And I think we have to remember that when we are doing politics, that our kids are watching us. They know what we're doing. They see what we're doing. They feel what we're doing. This stuff does not happen in a silo. And just because an election's over, it doesn't mean it goes away.

[05:40:23] It's still there and long lasting. So it was a very powerful lesson for me because I didn't expect that at all when I walked in that room. I didn't bring it up. They brought it up to me, and they wanted to talk about it, and I let them. We had a fairly intense discussion.

[05:40:41] But for people who do public office, what we put out there and the things we say in order to win an election, the lies and the disinformation we say in order to win an election, we have to remember that we whether we want to be or not where we choose to be we are role models and people our kids are looking and watching us and so just kind of a it's kind of a cautionary tale for me that you know i'm not sure i'll ever seek another public office maybe i will maybe i won't haven't had that discussion with god yet but but how we how we conduct ourselves in a campaign

[05:41:18] um in office but in a campaign really does impact people who are watching us and that was a really it was it was just kind of it was shocking to me and sad and upsetting how much it had impacted at least these group of kids that brought it up to me and i just want to share that having come to it having just come to another very tough campaign i just want to share that with us and anyone who might be listening so that's it all right thank you i think we're done and i believe we are now adjourned i'll see you on thursday

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