Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting and Public Hearing, Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 3h 41m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7631
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7631

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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[00:06:00] good evening. Whoa. Good evening supervisors. Good evening staff. Good evening Loudon. Can we turn this mic down just a little bit? Is it louder than normal? I think it is. Okay. I'm going to call to order the March 19th, 2024 Loudon County Board Supervisors business meeting. This room has a hearing loop. If you need hearing assistance, please switch 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 pursuant to virginia code section 2.2 that's 3708.3 of the board of and the board of and the

[00:06:40] board's rules of order supervisor caleb kirschner requested to participate in this meeting by electronic communication a physical quorum of the board is present and the board and um has made arrangements for the voice of supervisor kirschner to be heard by all persons in the board room Supervisor Kirshner made this request within the time frame, and the county attorney determined that Supervisor Kirshner's request meets the qualifications to participate remotely.

[00:07:06] The board will record in its minutes that Supervisor Kirshner participated remotely from a private location in Lake County, Florida, for personal reasons. I will also make it be known that Supervisor Kirshner will be dropping off the meeting after we finish the section of the meeting that is the additions and deletions.

[00:07:23] Mr. Kirshner, can you hear us? i can madam chair can you hear me we can hear you just fine sir do me a favor when you drop off to shoot me a text so i can so we can have a time stamp on when you drop off i have it after additions and allegiance which we're going to actually do in just a second but just go on a time stamp me when you uh send me that so i know when you've the actual time when you drop off okay yes okay sounds good supervisor sayings is not here yet he's supposed to lead us in the pledge of allegiance i will be it would be my honor to do that would everyone please stand and join me the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

[00:08:03] which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, supervisors, there's a lot going on in additions and deletions, which is really unusual. We usually fly by this part, but as of right now, excuse me, we have three different motions on the dais on additions and deletions. Supervisor Brixman wants just to add a proclamation, and so I'm going to

[00:08:39] go to her first for a rule of suspension. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to suspend the rules. I'll second that. Discussion on suspension of the rules. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass. I think it's 7-0-2. Yeah, because Mr. Kirsten is on the line.

[00:09:03] Ms. Bricksman would like to make another motion. Thank you. I move that the Board of Supervisors adopt proclamation to recognize March 21, 2024 as Save Soil Day, provided as attachment one to the March 19, 2024 Board Business Meeting Action Item.

[00:09:19] I will second that. Discussion on that motion. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. My colleagues can read the proclamation to learn about this movement of Save Our Soils. and I will be very happy to present this to the Loudoun contingent of Save Soil when the opportunity arises.

[00:09:41] Thank you, Madam Chair. Wonderful. Anybody else? Mr. Kirshner, anything on this motion? No, Madam Chair. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That will also pass 702. Okay, Supervisors Glass and Mr. Turner.

[00:10:01] I have no idea with two people missing how this is going to go, but Supervisor Turner, I'm going to go to you first for a motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to – I'm sorry, wrong motion. And bye.

[00:10:20] I move that the Board of Supervisors reconsider its vote on March 13, 2024, to deny LEGIE 2023-0048, Belmont Innovation Campus, ZMAP 2022-0021, SPECS 2022-0042, SPMI 2023-0013, and ZMOD 2022-0077.

[00:10:45] Okay, this motion is just on suspension of the rules. Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Glass. Discussion on the motion for suspension. Oh, I'm sorry. It wasn't the motion. It was actually the motion. I'm sorry. We're already messing up. Okay, I'm sorry. Mr. Turner, would you like to speak on the motion?

[00:11:01] I need a second. Ms. Glass seconded it already. Thank you very much. This is very unusual. This is going to be one of those things where you have to vote the right way, and you're going to get 1,000 emails from your constituents, and that's just the way it has to be. After the vote to deny the 2.9 million square foot data center at Belmont Innovation Campus at the last public hearing, I was contacted by the applicant and said, which resulted in a 1.3 million square foot data center that the board, that would simply go through a six-month application process by permit, that would not come to the board again. It's their applicant's buy right

[00:11:41] to build a data center of 1.329 million square feet. My assumption was the really spectacular sort of record-setting environmental package, which included a 300-foot linear park and the first effort to really, truly clean Goose Creek that we've ever had would fall by the wayside, as buy-write applications tend to do.

[00:12:04] But I was contacted by the applicant and said, if you will reconsider this application, we will build the buy-write 1.329 million-square-foot data center, but we will include all of the environmental package that we wanted to include with the larger footprint. That's a no-brainer.

[00:12:21] If we're going to, the choice, assuming everything works out in the interim between now and the public hearing when this will come back for a vote, assuming we work out all those details, the vote would be whether or not you're going to get a 1.329 million square foot data center.

[00:12:39] The question is, do you want the world-class environmental package or not? So a yes vote is yes, and a no vote is you give up the environmental packet. You're still going to get the data center. And so the details are still pending. There is some discussion about whether the application would be subject to the new zoning ordinance or the old zoning ordinance.

[00:13:00] And we'll iron that out. We'll need to see all of the proper language in detail. We'll need to pour over it in detail, make sure there are no loopholes. But it is worth a reconsideration to look at this application with the much reduced footprint with the environmental package.

[00:13:16] The vote tonight only votes to reconsider it at the next public hearing where we will vote on it. And in the interim, we can get the details ironed out and get the proffers in writing. So I request my colleagues to support the reconsideration. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Turner. Anybody else? Ms. Bricksman?

[00:13:32] Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand. Well, actually, I don't quite understand the reasoning behind the applicant agreeing to do everything by right that they could do if the denial stays in place.

[00:13:48] So I'm not going to be supporting this motion. I think that it's not a good look for us to deny something and then come back and reconsider and approve it. If I might, Madam Chair, I have a question for either Supervisor Turner or staff.

[00:14:06] Tell me which one. Let's say staff. Okay. Mr. Hempstreet, Mr. Rogers? I understand if you might not know the answer to this right now, and I'm willing to explore it further before the April public hearing.

[00:14:23] Do we know if the applicant can build the substation, the one substation they want by right? There is a site plan pending on that substation, and that substation would be viewed under the ordinance before the ZOR as it is grandfathered.

[00:14:44] So they would have the ability to do that as long as it's serving just this property. Do you know which parcel it's for? I do not. If it's the AR3 or the other? I do not know which parcel it's on. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mr. Kirsten, would you like to speak on this item?

[00:15:03] All I would say is I think Mr. Turner has seen what this is, and I appreciate him bringing this back, and hopefully we can get a lot of these things that they've asked for. And obviously the will of the board is that it would not be larger than the buy right, So I will certainly support this motion.

[00:15:24] Okay, Mr. Marchant, did you have something you wanted to add? Madam Chair, I'm sorry I didn't run down here fast enough. The substations they have submitted already were on the A3 portions of the property. Okay, thank you. I am not going to vote for this motion, but I want to be real clear.

[00:15:41] It is because I want to, when we get to the actual item at the public hearing that it's going to, there's a bigger point I'm going to want to make and a bigger discussion I'm going to want to have. And so this vote is two things.

[00:16:02] One, it's a messaging vote, and two, it's a conscious vote. And I'll have that discussion later because I don't need to have it now, and I will reiterate that the applicant has done more than what has been asked for in many ways. But there's other things going on that I feel like we need to address as well.

[00:16:21] And so I'm going to vote no for that, knowing that it's going to pass today. Mr. Turner, would you like to close him? Madam Chair, I'm not convinced. I'm going to wait until the other two minutes.

[00:16:37] It's going to pass. I'm not sure it is. Ms. Glass, are you voting for this? It's going to pass. Do you have you? It's going to pass. Did you ask Ms. Glass, is she going to vote for it? She said no, and you said it's going to pass. She said yes. Thank you. This is going to pass.

[00:16:52] The closing comments I have is the reason that this is in play is because the applicant has viewed whether or not if they go forward with buy-write, they have to go through essentially a six-month permitting process, an administrative requirement.

[00:17:11] If this is approved at the April public hearing, they can begin construction right away, and apparently that six-month delay is important enough, And they were felt comfortable enough with the environmental package to keep it included. So that's the motivation as to why they've said they'll do this.

[00:17:26] Thank you. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. That will pass 4-3-2 with Mr. what? That will pass 4-3-2 with Ms. Glass, Mr. Turner, Mr. Kirshner, and Ms. Umstead voting for it.

[00:17:52] Thank you very much, sir. All right. We have another motion on the dais, I think. Ms. Glass, are you making a motion today? Yes. I can't hear you, ma'am.

[00:18:08] Yes, Madam Chair. Yes, sir. So if the motion to reconsider, I'm sorry, before you get to Supervisor Glass's motion, the motion to reconsider on the Belmont Innovation Pass, so now it needs to be sent to the public hearing meeting. Oh, I thought the motion was due.

[00:18:25] Okay, Mr. Turney, want to make that motion? Yes, ma'am. I move that the Board of Supervisors forward Legi 2023-0048, Belmont Innovation Campus, ZMAP 2022-0021, Specs 2022-0042, SPMI 2023-0013, and ZMOD 2022-0077 to the April 10th, 2024 Board of Supervisors public hearing for action.

[00:18:50] Motion made, sir. Second on the motion. Motion is made. Second by Supervisor Umstead. Mr. Kirschner, on the motion? No discussion. Mr. Kirschner, discussion on the motion? No, ma'am, sir. All right. I'm able to say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. I got you. I got you, Mr. Kirshner.

[00:19:07] Same vote, 432, with Mr. or Ms. Glass, Mr. Turner, Mr. Kirshner, Ms. Umstead being on favor of the motion, and Mr. Sains and Ms. Letourneau being absent for the vote. We have one more item on the dais to motion.

[00:19:29] Okay. Ms. Glass would like to make a motion. Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors reconsider its vote on March 13, 2024, to deny LEGIE-2023-0031, TILSVU ZMAP-2022-0003.

[00:19:47] Oh, you're finished? Yes. Okay. I will second that. Discussion on that motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I've moved to reconsider the TILSVU application because after the denial of the application on Thursday, The applicant has come to me with changes that address the outstanding concerns that I had.

[00:20:06] The applicant has stated that they will reduce the unit count by 40 units by removing the remaining two over twos and replacing them with 16-foot townhouse units. Also, I will later be making a motion to amend the county-wide transportation plan to remove the Waxpool Road and Belmont Road intersection, which will address concerns I have about speeding and cut through traffic on Waxpool Road.

[00:20:33] I will continue to work with the applicant until this returns at hopefully the May public hearing. I would like to state that if the applicant does not amend the application as we've discussed, then there will be a different conversation in May. I ask my colleagues to support this as what is best appropriate for the portion of land in the Broadworn District.

[00:20:55] Okay, so this is not the main motion. This is just a reconsideration motion, everyone. This is a reconsideration motion only right now. Mr. Kirshner, do you have anything on this motion? I'll support the motion.

[00:21:11] Okay, I will support the reconsideration motion as well. All the people who say aye. Aye. Aye. I don't, you guys got to talk. Mr. Turner, do you say aye? And you said, okay. Opposed?

[00:21:28] Okay, so I think that is five, I don't know what that was. It can't be, yeah, it is 522. 522 with Supervisors Crony and Umstead voting against the motion, Supervisors Letourneau and Sainz being off the dais.

[00:21:49] Mr. Crony, I mean, Ms. Glass, would you like to make another motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors forward led G2023-0031 till its view, ZMAP-2022-0003 to the May 15th, 2024 Board of Supervisors public hearing for action.

[00:22:10] That's the motion. Yes, Madam Chair. I will second that motion. Discussion on that motion, Ms. Glass. So I will let my comments from the previous motion speak for this motion as well. I look forward to finalizing the application changes before the May public hearing. And I think that will resolve many remaining outstanding issues.

[00:22:28] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner, do you have anything on this? No, Madam Chair. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to see this go back to public hearing. I'm disappointed that the 40 units are going to be removed.

[00:22:45] And I absolutely will not support closing the Waxpool Road and Belmont Ridge intersection. I don't even think VDOT would let us do that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. My question is, do we need to get an opinion from VDOT before we can make that request or even demand, before we can say anything?

[00:23:08] Is that not a VDOT request that we need to? Well, that's my first question while they're coming up. My second question is, Ms. Glass, how many units does this, how many homes are decreased, possibly decreased with these changes that are being made?

[00:23:27] It was about 57, I believe. 57 less homes. Yes. And closing the road. Yes. Is that road not the entrance to the school? No, it's not. It's Black Angus, which is where the school goes to to get to the road.

[00:23:52] Black Angus is the road that people get to the school with. That's what I just asked. Yes. That was my question. Yes. So then the answer is yes. Yes. Okay. Mr. Turner, I'm sorry. I've already called Ms. Bricksman and then myself. I looked. I'm sorry. Would you like to answer that question?

[00:24:09] Yes, Madam Chair. Just to clarify, to remove Waxpool Road would require taking it off of the countywide transportation plan. So that would be a CPAM. If there is a CPAM process, VDOT is involved and would have to opine on that during the review of that.

[00:24:26] Can VDOT opine on that in two months? I believe we could work with them. Feed up opining? I cannot speak for them, but I believe we could expedite that process and get a read before May. And staff will have an opinion on whether we should close a road that leads to a school.

[00:24:48] So, Chair Randall, I just want to make it clear what Mr. Moserak is talking about is a comprehensive plan amendment. That's not going to be completed in two months. No, I know that. I know that. Yeah, I got that. So while we can get a read from BDOT, that read is not going to be binding.

[00:25:04] No, no, no, of course not. Of course not. That's what the CPAM process would be. No, of course not. And just to clarify, the CTP road is Waxpool Road, and that is the focus of Supervisor Glass's motion. There is another road that the school is on, which is called Black Angus Road, which also connects to Belmont Ridge Road.

[00:25:26] I have the route number in my head, but Belmont Ridge Road. So both of these roads connect to Belmont Ridge Road in close proximity to each other. So our understanding of what Supervisor Glass is doing is closing the connection at Waxpool. And would that leave just one road in and out of the school?

[00:25:44] It would be the main road the school is on. The school is not on Waxpool. I know, but would that take another egress and ingress away from the school that we have there now? The way I look at it, no. The existing Black Angus is the only access.

[00:26:02] Yeah, it's not actually connected yet because the construction ongoing at Belmont Ridge. It is planned to connect. Okay. It is planned to connect such that if it connects and Waxpool remains, you would have two intersections that school traffic could use to access.

[00:26:21] But the primary access to the school is off. The school is located on Black Angus Drive. Okay. I'll take a trip out. And you're going to go with me. I will be happy to. All right.

[00:26:36] Thank you. Ms. Glass, would you like a closing? Yes, Madam Chair. um well um no madam chair no sorry okay all right um motion was made for supervisor glass i second the motion all the people say aye aye aye opposed that motion will pass 5-2-2 with um supervisor to crony and supervisor you did say aye didn't you supervisor umstead voting against the motion okay i don't think we have any more additions and deletions and i don't want to

[00:27:15] have any more additions and deletions. Mr. Kirsch, are you leaving us now, sir? Yes, Madam Chair, if I'm excused. You were excused at 427. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Bye. All right. Supervisors, let me read the consent agenda. Item R1, resolution of accommodation for Eagle Scout Sierra Price. Item 1A, appointments and confirmations. Item 2, administrative items report of March 19th, 2024. Item four, proposed traffic and comedy measures in the town of Levittsville. Item 5A,

[00:27:55] contract renewal, rural construction support service. Item 5B, renewal construction support services for buildings and parks. Item 5C, contract renewal, public safety, two-way radios and related equipment. Item 5D, town of Hillsboro traffic, common pedestrian safety, and infrastructure project request for funding. Item 5E, art advisory committee, interim report. That's for the 2023 term item 5a commission of aging annual report that's for the term also that ended 2023 go read those reports especially the commission of aging report everyone please go read that report

[00:28:34] item 5g parks and recs and open space board annual end of term 2020-2022 to 2023 item 5h town of Hamilton Emergency Funding Request, Hamilton Well, Number 14, Item 6A, Historic District Review Committee Annual Report. I will make that motion for the consent agenda. Is there a second?

[00:28:55] Motion is made second with Supervisor Briggsman. Discussion on the consent agenda. I will simply say that, you know, we are getting right now a lot of end-of-term reports. They say end of year, but they're really the end-of-term reports that happen between January of 20 and December of 23.

[00:29:13] They're really very helpful, so I would actually take some time and go read them. I do believe it's fine for them to be on the consent agenda, but sometimes things on the consent agenda don't get looked at, and they're important to get looked at, one, because of the work the staff has done, but also these are the reports that our citizens have put a lot of time in from our commissions, committees, and boards, and they say some pretty important things.

[00:29:37] I don't know if I was pleasantly surprised, but it was interesting to see that the Commission on Aging had the same concerns that the National Association of Counties had as far as caring for the caregiver and that whole discussion and what that's looking like in our country, that we're losing caregivers faster than the people that they're caring for and why that happens.

[00:30:04] And so it's real important to have some of those discussions. I think it will lead a lot of our decisions going forward. Anybody else? All right. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 603 with Supervisors Letourneau, Kirshner, and Saints being off the dance.

[00:30:27] All right. Madam Chair, I'm sorry, point of order. Yes. i apologize but i i did have one more motion to make um regarding um the the cpam at a third motion you have a okay um well no that's a problem because i get we let mr kirschner go and he wanted to be here for those motions so i have no idea what's about to happen right now um i'll go ahead and make it at another meeting then okay i think it's probably the best idea because otherwise i I think it's going to be a 3-3 vote, and then the motion.

[00:31:04] Yeah, okay. Okay, I have the following organizational updates. First of all, today is Give Tuesday in Loudoun County, the community foundation of Loudoun in northern Farquhar County. If you go on their site, you can choose which organization you want to give to for Give Tuesday.

[00:31:24] It is the annual day of giving for Loudoun County. Choose your favorite nonprofit. And as a TV, a televangelist would say, give to, it hurts. So do that. I'm going to pass out the report from the Loudon Coalition of Women and Girls, which, by the way, is one of the things you can do, you can do a give choose for the Loudon Coalition of Women and Girls.

[00:31:49] In case you don't know that, you certainly can. It's their impact report. I think it's chocked full of really important information. I will also make sure that I get a copy of this to Ms. Fernandez as well, to Ms. Fernandez. But I'm going to pass some down this way and pass a couple down this way.

[00:32:08] There you go. In fact, Mr. Amanda, do you mind to make sure we get – I'll pass one down to you and make sure that we get one to Ms. Fernandez, if you don't mind. So thank you so much. It's really a very important report to read. On Friday, July 8th, the Northern Virginia Science Center, which used to be the Children's Science Center, had an event on which they were presented a check for a half million dollars from Amazon Web Services.

[00:32:44] I was asked to speak at that event. I was joined by former supervisor Ron Meyer, who is actually on the board of the Northern Virginia Science Center. Of course, the Northern Virginia Science Center will be located in Loudoun County at Concora.

[00:33:01] We are being told that they should break ground sometime this year. They believe the August-September time frame is when they believe they're going to break ground. They also unveiled their newest exhibit that they're going to have at the Science Center. It was a very well-attended event, and so we will just keep you posted about that.

[00:33:21] And on March 13th, I spoke with a group from Montgomery County, Maryland, about they actually read the agriculture census that Mr. Crony has talked about so much. And as Mr. Kirshner said a couple of weeks ago, Loudoun has some very impressive numbers for our ag community and our ag business community in Loudoun County.

[00:33:46] And they came to their Montgomery Council, and a lot of their staff, I mean a lot of their staff, came to find out basically how we do it so well in Loudoun County. And so it was great. So I spoke at that event, as did Beth Erickson and Colleen from Mr. Reiser's office.

[00:34:09] And so it was a really good kind of regional collaboration when we discussed what is needed, not just in Loudoun County, but in the region of ag. And then Beth Erickson talked a lot about the tourism aspect and how ag and tourism relate and how important they are to one another.

[00:34:30] So those are really important events. Everything else I can talk about during my board comments. Right now, I want to do my voice for a cause, which is women giving back. If Lisa McGrail and Nicole Morrison come to the podium, Women Giving Back supports women and children in crisis on the first steps to stability by providing quality clothing to them at no cost.

[00:34:53] They serve more than 2,500 women and children in need every year and are connected with nearly 300 referral agency partners, which include shelters, medical facilities, group homes, schools, government agencies, faith-based organizations, all who send their eligible clients and residents to Women Giving Back.

[00:35:12] So thank you so much, Ms. Morris and Ms. McGrell, for being here. I'm going to throw a curveball at you and ask you a question that's not on the list right away. Today is Give Choose, and we know what that is. And when I look at the number of people Women Giving Back is serving, my question is this.

[00:35:30] So we often hear Loudoun's a well-to-do county. We're not the richest county in the country. That's not a true statement, but we hear that. And the assumption is that because people in Loudoun have a high median income, that there's not need.

[00:35:47] You all working with this population, how do you speak to that assumption that there's not need in Loudoun County? Well, I feel like it's Loudoun's best-kept secret sometimes. But good afternoon, Madam Chair and Board of Supervisors.

[00:36:03] Thanks for having us. We do talk about the enormous wealth that Loudoun has. And we are big on educating our volunteers, especially our youth volunteers that come in, which my colleague Lisa will tell you that a majority of them are from Loudoun County.

[00:36:20] And that we do kind of speak on the needs and that the people coming into our facility, a lot of them are Loudoun residents, and we tell the youth that you might be surprised to run into a classmate or someone, and how we use that discretion, but really kind of burst in their bubble to let them know that there is a lot of need in Loudoun. We just don't see the visible effects of poverty as well as we would in an urban city. So that is, and we have a great

[00:36:54] nonprofit organizations in Loudoun that are filling the needs, and what ours is obviously clothing, and we don't want people to look like the situations that they're in. I love that. Thank you. That's a great answer, and very true, very true. What are the main services and programs that women giving back offers in Loudoun County?

[00:37:18] Well, our main program is, our core program is clothing. So we provide clothing. And the way we operate is through referrals. So we have a facility in Sterling. Our boutique is about 8,000 square feet. And then we have a warehouse. So all of our donations come in from our warehouse. And then volunteers help us assist by sorting, hanging, and displaying the clothing in the boutique.

[00:37:45] And it does look like a real boutique, except there's no cash register, there's no price tags. A lot of merchandise can be new from our retail partners in the area as well. And we operate through referrals. So we partner with other organizations, other human service organizations, government agencies throughout the whole greater Washington, D.C. area.

[00:38:09] More than 50% of our referrals are coming from Loudoun County because accessibility reasons that families are able to get to our facility. But we also have a program called our Emergency Bag to Go, and that provides clothing. A lot of times we don't ever get to meet the person that a volunteer is shopping for, and we work with the FBI agents, a lot of sex trafficking, a lot of domestic violence, victims that are fleeing in the middle of the night. It could be a witness protection type of situation. We had a domestic violence

[00:38:46] victim recently. She was actually in the home with the abuser, and he had put bleach all over her clothing in order to control her from being able to leave the house. So we see scenarios like us and we we help families that we don't often meet and the reason why we do referrals is because then another organ organizations assessing their needs and there's not all these questions asked from multiple organizations at the door and crisis can mean different things for different organizations some programs use us as an incentive so if they finish their financial literacy class

[00:39:24] they get a referral to women giving back or sometimes the clients will um will call us macy's can i get a referral to macy's to their case worker or social worker um and so really um and they get a lot of clothing up front it's 50 items because we don't know when the next time they'll be able to see us if they're in the shelter they have limited time um to get all the services to To their kids, too? Because I know you do kids, too.

[00:39:49] Yeah, we allow the referral partners to decide how often they can come, but we do limit it to four times a year except for emergency cases. Okay, you know, my gosh, that, yeah, wow.

[00:40:06] Tell me about some of the positive effects you've seen on providing women and children in crisis with quality clothing. Well, I'm glad you asked that because it is hard to measure the impact that we're making, especially because we're operating through referrals and we don't ever get to follow up as much.

[00:40:24] But immediately you can see the impact that clothing has on some of the women and the kids. Obviously kids get to fit in with their peers and not have to worry about being different. We know that that can have an effect on school absentee as well, not being able to get the clothing they need.

[00:40:42] We had one bag-to-go mom that had her child in a low-income child care assistance program, and she was literally washing the four-year-old's one outfit every night so that it can dry in time for him to wear it again the next day at school.

[00:41:00] And the thing is, that's a four-year-old, so they might go to school in the same thing, but if that is a 13-year-old girl, that's never happening. They would not go to school. They're not going to do that, right? So, yeah, they just wouldn't go to school. Exactly, exactly. And the same thing with mom. You know, I think there's been some scientific studies about clothing and how it affects your mental health and how it empowers you as well.

[00:41:21] We see that with the, we call it the power suit. When you walk into a boardroom with that power suit on, you feel like you are in charge and feel like you can make decisions and you're more confident. And that kind of, like, it just shows and reflects on the person.

[00:41:37] And we know how people are judged instantly upon seeing them, like within a minute that you're in the job interview. So imagine, like, not being able to present yourself the way you would want to. So it does cause a ripple effect of positive change in the woman's life.

[00:41:55] And then I'll have my colleague talk about the volunteer piece. Okay, please do that and help people. Yeah, that was my next question. How do people volunteer? Volunteers can go to womengivingback.org to find out information. On our website, you want to go to the section that says get involved and then volunteer.

[00:42:13] We are only nine staff members, so we couldn't possibly help the thousands of women and children that we do without the volunteers. We take groups. We take individuals. Students must be 12 to 15. They must come with a chaperone or a parent. 16 and above, they may come on their own. I'm happy to sign off on all those hours that all the volunteers need.

[00:42:30] It's a great opportunity, as Ms. Morris said, for them to see what is going on in the community. learn a bit more. And so we're happy to have those volunteers. We did have 40%. Last year we had 17,667 volunteer hours. We had 3,241 volunteers. 40% of those are from Loudoun, a great deal of students. And so we're happy to have more volunteers. They simply need to sign up online and do a half-hour orientation. You know, this is an incredibly powerful moment because, you know listen anyone you know who knows me knows I like clothes and like shopping all that

[00:43:06] but you're right sometimes we don't we don't think that we don't think about that that that how you want how you wish to look can be empowering no matter what that is no matter how you wish to look if you are able to look like you wish to look whether you're wearing dungarees or a power suit how you wish to look is is empowering and and we don't always see it like that and so you allow people to dress in ways that they wish to dress and by just doing that it gives them some life control. We actually, I had a volunteer approach me yesterday and I asked her to write the story up for us that she was helping somebody check out, no cost, but she was helping them check out and

[00:43:45] the woman said she had just gotten a job and she was so excited to start her job and it was casual clothing but she got the power suit and I'm going to wear this and so I asked her to record that because that was so meaningful to the volunteer and obviously to the client. And if you've ever gone there, it does look like a clothing store.

[00:44:02] It looks like a clothing store. It's very well done. We have shandlers and mirrors and we have a purple carpet for prom right now. Yeah, you have a whole prom program, too, when kids are going to go to work. Starting on Monday, we're open for 10 different shopping opportunities on our website. There's a list of all that. That's 11th and 12th graders.

[00:44:17] They simply show their student identification. They can get a dress, shoes, jewelry, new makeup. That's so wonderful. Isn't it awesome? Two military shopping days a year as well. No referral needed. And then a shop with pride day for any youth that wants female affirming clothing can shop in privacy as well.

[00:44:40] And I'm missing one other program. So we do holiday gifts for kids and back to school supplies as well. You guys are absolutely amazing and you're changing people's lives. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate you guys. oh nicole hold it you guys are give choose come back here you guys are give choose how people get to your give choose page tell them tell them give choose.org and look up women giving back that is what i'm talking about very good thank you and you can do commission for men and girls too mr hemstreet you know before i call on you mr hemstreet i don't know if you know that today that

[00:45:20] saturday was julie bricksman's birthday did you know that mr hemstreet i was unaware of that it was it was julie she's 25 and just beautiful and she's just going gangbusters and so when we have our break we have something in the back for miss bricksman that we're gonna give her we're excited about that but it's miss bricksman's birth it was miss bricksman's birthday mr did you also know that thursday is mr sains's birthday i was unaware of that yeah no there's lots of celebrations up here we'll do that when we get here i won't sing to you because i like you

[00:45:52] Matt, nobody asked you, but happy birthday, happy birthday. Mr. Hempstead, do you have any comments you'd like to make? Yes, Chair Randall, I have five comments this evening. To that, I'll add a belated happy birthday to Vice Chair Brissman and a preemptive happy birthday to Supervisor Sains.

[00:46:15] However, for my comments, the first is that Loudoun County's programs for first-time homebuyers will be among those featured at the Northern Virginia Housing Expo this Saturday, March 23rd, at Charles Cogan High School in Manassas. The expo will showcase a wide variety of programs and resources available for homebuyers as well as renters.

[00:46:31] Loudoun joins with several other jurisdictions in the region to put on the annual expo, which is in its 14th year. More information about the event is online at loudoun.gov slash housing. Second, Loudoun County has installed new electrical vehicle charging stations for public use at three county facilities.

[00:46:50] These are the Bluemont Community Center, the Middleburg Library, and the Sterling Community Center. These are the first county-owned EV charging stations that are not located at facilities used by commuters. We expect to add more publicly available charging stations at new locations over the next year.

[00:47:07] As you know, the county also offers EV charging stations at the Harmony Park and Ride Lot and the county's two Metro Rail parking garages. Third, the Fire Marshal's Office is encouraging everyone to exercise caution if they are participating in any outdoor burning in the next 24 hours.

[00:47:24] The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for Loudon beginning tomorrow morning and going through tomorrow night. The combination of dry conditions, low humidity, and strong gusty winds on Wednesday may result in favorable conditions for the rapid spread of fires. As a reminder, at this time, open burning is limited and only allowed between 4 p.m. and midnight.

[00:47:44] More information is online at loudon.gov slash openburning. Fourth, the 2024 Loudoun County Arbor Day Photo Contest is underway. This year's theme is My Favorite Tree. Entries are being accepted through April 15th. The winners will be announced at the county's Arbor Day celebration planned for April 27th at the Middleburg Agricultural Research and Extension Center.

[00:48:08] Details, including a link to the contest entry form, can be found at loudon.gov slash trees. And then finally, Chair Randall, I know that the board met him informally at the budget work session last Thursday. However, I would like to formally introduce Vincent Jones, who is our newest Deputy County Administrator, and introduce him formally to the board.

[00:48:29] Mr. Jones is here in the boardroom. He comes to us from Warren County, North Carolina. He will work with the Departments of Parks, Recreation, and Community Services, the Department of General Services, the Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure, and will be the liaison to the Loudoun County Public Library. So we will get him around to meet with each of your offices in the near future, and he is currently working to get up to speed with all those departments and doing tours and working with the departments.

[00:48:58] You're going to have him working with Ernie Brown, huh? He will work with Mr. Brown on a regular basis. You don't like him already or something? He drew the short straw as a new person. It's going to be great. Welcome, welcome. I've spent some time already being able to talk with you a little bit, and congratulations.

[00:49:19] Thank you for moving to the county, and welcome to the best county in the country. Okay, so, supervisors, it's a little early to do the 5 o'clock public comments, and I actually don't even think there is anybody here for 5 o'clock. Is there anybody here for 5 o'clock? I don't think there is. All right, but you know what? What we will do is go on and do the information item, which is a ledge report.

[00:49:38] We can get that knocked out, and then we'll go on from there. So with Mr. Freeman and anyone else who's doing the let's report, please come down. Thanks a lot.

[00:49:59] No, no. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. I will be brief as we are still getting through some of the bills that the governor has taken action on, which is about 134 bills as of today.

[00:50:22] Two bills that the board took action to support that has been signed so far, one of which I am happy to announce is our job order contracting bill to increase the limits on the job order contracting projects.

[00:50:39] So we are happy to see that. Another bill that was signed that you all supported was the eviction diversion pilot program that is already in place that is being extended to 2025 that Senator Locke and Delegate Coyner carried.

[00:50:55] So, you know, we are in that territory where we are remaining watchful on what the governor does in terms of signing bills, vetoing bills, or sending down recommendations to the General Assembly for reconvening, which is scheduled for April 17th.

[00:51:16] And he has until, he being the governor, has until April 8th at midnight to send those actions down. So with that, I will turn it back over. Okay, I have all kind of questions. I do.

[00:51:32] Questions for Mr. Freeman and everybody at the table. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. The bill on getting rid of the sunset for a separate car tax, is that on the governor's desk? That is correct.

[00:51:47] Okay, thank you. Mr. Letourneau. The MOA issue with disclosures, any progress with the administration on that? At least that you want to talk about in this setting.

[00:52:04] So the board did send a letter to the governor's administration asking for him to formally veto the bill. We remain watchful on what will happen. Again, he has until April 8th to do so. Thank you.

[00:52:20] Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Hi, Mr. Freeman. On the board priority, the Metro 3% cap exemption over the biennium, How much do we estimate that that will cost the county on top of what we were already planning to contribute?

[00:52:47] So that, I believe, was covered last week in the budget, and I'll turn that to Mr. Hemstreet if I can. But what I will note is that the money that was needed in the budget, the $65 million the first year, $84.5 million the second year of the biennium was included in the budget, as well as the 3% cap exemption and money for a study to look at long-term solutions for funding WMATA.

[00:53:19] Mr. Hemstreet. So we'll go ahead and verify the number. My recollection, it's in the $2 or $3 million range for next fiscal year. It's within the amount that we had anticipated. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Bricksman.

[00:53:35] Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Freeman, the bill that proposed fixing our public hearing issue so that we could actually vote on maybe Landy's issues in our business meeting, was that resolved at all?

[00:53:52] Is that on the governor's desk? So that bill is on the governor's desk. I'll add that when session first started, we started out with the House version only, and as the lobbying efforts continued through the General Assembly, I think we found that legislators took a huge understanding to the constraints that that put on us last year, as well as some other localities.

[00:54:23] And so Senate Bill, I want to say 413, was amended to reflect the House bill that we supported and introduced in the General Assembly. So we ended up with two bills, both mirroring each other, and they're both on the governor's desk.

[00:54:41] Okay, great. And has the governor, I know that we, I think we, the General Assembly passed a record number of gun sense bills. Has the governor given any indication as to whether he would sign those or not sign those? We still remain watchful on what will happen with all of those.

[00:54:59] OK, OK. There was also a bill, HB 281, that was carried by Delegate Reeser. I don't expect you guys to have an update on that today, but I think that's also awaiting the governor's signature.

[00:55:14] That is child day programs and using office buildings and a waiver of zoning requirements in those cases. I would just like us to take a look at that and maybe get a briefing at some point, whether it's you guys or DPZ, on how that might impact our land use decisions in the county.

[00:55:36] It's HB 281. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Bricksman. Great session. Thanks for everything you've all done this session. A couple of things. So help me understand, the governor is signing bills right now that are or are not related to the budget.

[00:55:57] And so, in other words, can he still veto the budget? So, what I'll say about that is that, you know. I'm not asking will he, I'm asking could he. That is a potential, but what I will add is that, you know, no modern governor has vetoed the budget.

[00:56:20] And so, it would be an unprecedented move to veto the budget. So, it is the expectation that he will sign. He will sign the budget. The entire discussion around the arena bill, there is now, from chatter, a discussion about can the governor, well, can he do more than one thing?

[00:56:41] Can he send things back with the arena bill in a proposed budget that he sends down? Can he do any other type of use, any other sources of income for bonding? We're hearing something about housing. Have you heard that, that there's a move to use some money that had been set aside for housing for the arena bill to get that money through?

[00:57:05] Is there other ways, I guess I'm asking, is there other ways he can do that? And have you heard of any of these ways? So we would have to gather some information on the bonding piece. But he could send down a recommendation for the General Assembly to take up by putting the language that was in the House bill, House budget bill that we all saw and send it down to the General Assembly for a floor vote on his recommendation on April 17.

[00:57:38] He could do that on April 17th. Are we completely no longer concerned about any coupling or marrying of any Metro bill with an arena bill? That's been uncoupled. That has been uncoupled. Okay. All right. So that's all good news. We've had good news for the most part.

[00:57:57] Our eviction, well, the effort to make sure that everyone who had their rental agreement was in more than one language. That did not advance, correct?

[00:58:15] I don't remember what bill that was. We could double check that. I believe that is on the governor's desk. That would be really, I hadn't heard an update on that. That would be amazing if that passed. Absolutely. If that was signed, that would be phenomenal.

[00:58:33] It would fix a lot of issues that we are seeing right now. A lot of the housing issues we are having, it would fix a lot of those issues right now. All right. Thank you very much. If I may, Madam Chair. So I think in terms of the governor's budget, so it might be more accurate to say that he might veto portions of the bill, but it's still unclear how that might come down.

[00:58:56] And he doesn't have to decide until April, I mean, yeah, April 17th. April 8th. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Very much appreciate it. yeah all right um as it is five o'clock i will ask one more time is there anyone here for five o'clock speaking for the five o'clock speaking slot and i think we just have one person for the six o'clock speaking slot who's already in the room so mr tomatis if you want to come speak

[00:59:24] right now so that you have to wait another hour you can do that okay come on down hello sir you weren't gonna get rid of me this quickly but good evening madam chair members of the board my name Ms. Theostomatis, Government Relations Manager for the Loudon Chamber of Commerce.

[00:59:54] On behalf of nearly 1,100 employers that are Loudon Chamber members, I'd like to express our thoughts on the capital intensity factors item that is now subject to a vote by the Board this evening. The Chamber would like to go on record stating that for more than a decade, the Chamber has made the issue of attainable housing our top public policy priority.

[01:00:12] That is why the Chamber and our members are concerned about the proposed changes to the CIF that are before the Board tonight. Our concern is the substantial fee increases have the very likely probability of making it hard to bring more market rate and affordable housing to market in Loudoun.

[01:00:30] We believe this to be true because this proposal would increase the capital intensity factors significantly across much of the county. For example, it would go up by 186% in Leesburg District, 119% increase in Ashburn District, just to name a few.

[01:00:46] Over the past several weeks, the chamber met with Supervisors Turner and Letourneau to share our concerns with the CIF. These productive meetings led us to draft two friendly amendments to this item that were submitted for further consideration by the board.

[01:01:04] The first motion is to exempt on an interim basis income-restricted dwelling units from CIF, regional road, and transit contributions after the July 1st grant filing resolution which this board passed. The second motion details a what's called a phasing in concept for capital intensity factors over a three-year period.

[01:01:25] These motions worked on in good faith with our chamber members, and we strongly encourage the board to accept these motions and approve it with the item for this evening. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the chamber, Madam Chair, and to the board, and thank you all for your service.

[01:01:41] Thank you, sir. Thank you for all the help you've been giving the board. We appreciate it. Supervisor, let's go on and do our nominations. If you have nominations that you'd like to make, go on and stick your light on right now. While you're doing that, I'm going to remind everyone that at 6 o'clock we have to take a pause in the meeting, depending on where we are in the meeting, and actually technically recess the meeting, because by law we need to do our public hearing for the real property tax, notice of real property tax increase.

[01:02:12] I have to call that a public hearing to order at 6 o'clock. We don't have anybody to speak on that right now, but I still have to fulfill requirements to have to do that and call that to order. So just so you know that will be happening at 6 o'clock or soon before or soon after.

[01:02:30] In the meantime, if you have nominations, put your lights on. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. I nominate Mr. Enum Haider to serve as an at-large representative on the Family Services Advisory Board.

[01:02:47] Okay. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I nominate Omayid Sharifi to the Art Advisory Committee to fill an at-large representative seat. Thank you. Okay. I nominate Philip Gross to an at-large seat in the Family Services Board.

[01:03:03] I nominate Joseph Granada to a seat on the Family Services Board. And I nominate Suhea Cathery to a seat, an at-large seat, on the Family Service Advisory Board. We're doing a pretty good job filling up our boards and commissions this time.

[01:03:23] I will try to get some information to everybody before the next meeting to let you know what boards and commissions and committees still need to have nominees on them. Okay, let's go on and do the CIF, the Capital Intensity Factor.

[01:03:41] right now. Good evening. Staff does not have a presentation, but understands there might be alternative motions. Okay. Do you want to say anything at all before we start? Only that the board... Actually, do my favor just tell people what the capital intensity factor is and why you're doing this at all and that type of thing. Sure. The capital intensity factor is the calculation

[01:04:20] of the impact of residential rezoning on capital facilities. The board has been discussing the 2023 capital intensity factor, I believe, since last May. Proposed in your package is a standard capital intensity factor, age-restricted capital intensity factor, urban multifamily capital intensity factor, as well as a by-size differential capital intensity factor, and the creation of a roads capital intensity factor.

[01:04:58] You last discussed the proposals from staff at the February public hearing. Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, supervisors, what I normally do at this time is go with the packet motion, but I know that there's that there are well first of all let's go with this do we have any questions for staff and then and then we'll i i don't i think that the the motions will change so drastically from the packet motion we won't and i don't think there's anyone up here who is pushing to have the packet motion be what would pass this so let's go and just do questions first mr letourneau um two

[01:05:35] questions so i will make an alternative motion that supervisor turner and i walked on and you raise three questions for the board with that and provided staff recommendations, which I'm in agreement with, what is the best way for the board to sort of answer those questions within this process of these motions for you?

[01:05:59] I don't understand that question. So we have three questions we have to answer if this motion passes, and I'm trying to figure out how we should, should I just make it, should I just try to include them in the motion? So, Chair Randall.

[01:06:14] Okay, yes, Mr. Randall. So I would, my recommendation, so you should have on your sheet that's on the dais, the motion, which is followed by the three concerns or questions that staff has that are the follow-up questions.

[01:06:29] So we could do this with one or two things. My suggestion would be for the motion to be made, discussion on the motion to occur. If Supervisor Letourneau, if you're making the motion, if you would like to just include those in your opening comments, I think that would be fine.

[01:06:44] Otherwise, it can either come up during debate or if the motion is passed, Ms. Burke can then pose those questions for clarification following the motion if it's adopted or approved. Okay. Okay. I think I got that.

[01:07:00] I can raise those. And then the second question is, on the issue of income-restricted units, and Supervisor Turner asked this question last time, I think, but it was just raised again. So what is our plan, and maybe this is a question for him, to try to address those because I don't think we're doing it through this process.

[01:07:19] But just for the clarity of discussion, and maybe that's through the chair to Supervisor Turner on that topic. Do you guys want to take a shot at that before we go to Mr. Turner? I believe there's an item forthcoming in an April meeting in response to that area of policy.

[01:07:37] Mr. Turner, do you want to add anything else? No, we're talking about it now, and I had committed that I was going to talk about it and say that this is the policy we've been following for quite some time now, but a formal item, the staff asked if we could just give us some time and have a formal item come back in April that establishes that policy, and I suspect that will go on consent at the April meeting.

[01:07:57] Okay. Hint, hint. Hint, hint. Mr. Martin, do you have any other questions because your light was on earlier? I do, yeah. Yes. It took us like four years, correct me if I'm wrong, I could be, but didn't it take us like four years to develop the new capital intensity factor? First of all, is that right, that we've been working on the new capital intensity factor for the whole last term, correct?

[01:08:25] Yes, the Fiscal Impact Committee began meeting your last term, I believe, in October 2020. And I think the reason for that was first, we were interrupted by COVID. Correct. And second of all, this is the first time we've truly come up with an objective measure of capital impact that's unit-specific, which was quite an exercise, correct?

[01:08:46] No, this is the first time we've come up with a Rhodes CIF. That is a data-driven methodology that I believe what you're referencing is a size-based way to differentiate.

[01:09:04] So we've always had a capital intensity factor by type of unit. Now there is a proposal for a type of unit and to consider the size of the unit as well. Okay, but the point I'm getting at, it was not business as usual. There are a couple of really unusual perturbations in this period.

[01:09:21] Is your level of confidence pretty high that we'll develop the new capital intensity factor on a normal routine cycle two years from now, two years from April? Yes. Okay, thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Reading the proposed alternative motion, I'm going to say what it looks like to me, so please correct me if you disagree with the way I'm interpreting this.

[01:09:51] It appears that we're phasing in over a three-year period the full cost of development. Would you agree with that? Yes, by year three, the intent of the motion is for applications to be subject to 100% of the CIF.

[01:10:16] All right. Did staff, I assume staff, worked on this alternative motion with Supervisors Letourneau and Turner? At the request of the board offices, staff provided what would be an appropriate motion to accomplish their goals.

[01:10:37] All right. And then my assumption is if the board were to adopt this, and I guess final adoption would not be at this meeting, it would be at the April 16th meeting, if the board were to go this route for the next two years, the taxpayers theoretically will bear a larger burden of the full cost of the capital needs.

[01:11:09] Would that be correct? than would be the case under staff's original proposal. The capital intensity factor is meant to address the cost of the impacts of residential rezoning beyond base density.

[01:11:29] So, alternatively, yes, the tax rate would absorb the cost of additional residential development. All right, thank you. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. So to follow up on Supervisor Umstead's comments, it seems like we're going to be updating this every two to four years.

[01:11:55] So by the time this gets 100% of this is applied in 2027, FY 2027, year three, you'll be in the process of updating this. Am I correct? We're starting the process to update this next month with the Fiscal Impact Committee.

[01:12:16] So this takes about two years to update. So, yes, our plan is to bring an updated CIF to the board in two years. So why this phasing? Why didn't we do it two years instead of three? Because year three seems like we'll be looking at something new anyway.

[01:12:36] So it would make sense to just do a two-year phasing. This was the motion that we were asked to prepare for the board office. You're doing three years. Ms. Turner, put your mic on and say that again, because that was my question, too.

[01:12:51] It's a two-year phase if you look at the schedule. It looks at three years, but in year three, when we've got the new FIC, it's 100%. So it's really 60% in the first year where we're working on the FIC, 80% the second year when we're working in the FIC. By the time the new capital intensity factor hits, we'll be in year three, which will be 100%.

[01:13:08] What he said. Which will take a while for us to approve. Yeah. All that means is... We're in Mr. Kony's time. Yeah, and the second thing I had is we in the five-year, the project plan for the five-year review of the 2019 CPAM, we're looking at the expectations for attainable housing unit contributions and proper statements.

[01:13:39] So I think that the expectation is that all attainable housing will potentially not have to contribute. So do you see this kind of coinciding with this phased approach? The board's policy regards to the CIF is that it is meant to calculate 100% of the impact of residential rezoning on capital facilities.

[01:14:03] If you choose to deviate from that policy in other parts of your land use approach, that would be the board's purview. But the CIF is meant to calculate 100% of the impacts. Right, right. But I know that's being discussed with the five-year CPAM, you know, looking at attainable housing and the contributions in the proffer statement for that unit, all types, attainable, affordable for that unit.

[01:14:31] And the same with the roads CIF. I know that that's being discussed, too, is how, you know, whether there be a contribution or credit given for the roads CIF. Go ahead, Sharon. Yeah, your time's up.

[01:14:46] Do you want to do what you have? I'm not sure what the question was, but what I said previously is. Can you quickly restate your question, maybe a little? Yeah, I just was questioning, like, it seems like we're going to be giving lots of credits and contributions to developers over the years, so I'm just wondering why we're phasing in.

[01:15:07] Staff's recommendation is to have 100% be started on July 1st, 2024. Okay, Ms. Brixman? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm fine with the phasing. I just want to stress one point that I think gets a little bit lost in this conversation, and that is that the CIF only applies to density above base density.

[01:15:36] So it's not like we're doing 60% of the entire cost of a development. It would be anything above base density. So I just want to, did I state that correctly? Yes, it's applicable during, yes, you're correct.

[01:15:53] Okay. So, and the last time we did this was 2017, correct? Yes. Okay. In, by the way, we went to an apartment ribbon cutting today and the organization Fitch Eric said that Loudoun County is a great place.

[01:16:10] They built the LIHTC building for age-restricted, affordable. They said Loudoun County is a great place to do business. So I'd like us to continue that and continue building great housing. This is a little bit kind of, I don't, I think it's on topic, so I'm going to ask it anyway.

[01:16:30] But in our reassessment, FIC, going back and looking at these items, are we going to be looking at how we require applicants to pay for intersection improvements and signals, like signals at intersections?

[01:16:48] I don't believe that is the purview of the Fiscal Impact Committee. Okay, where would we be discussing those things? I'll back up.

[01:17:05] I don't think that any applicant who is contributing 4% of traffic to an intersection should be required to pay for all of the intersection improvements of an intersection that's already failing. And so I'd like to, if it's not through the FIC process, I would like to discuss with staff a way to fix that so that we are pulling funds from developments that are contributing to the traffic of an intersection as we go.

[01:17:34] If there are specific impacts from a development that are identified in a traffic study for a rezoning, we would look at those via the policies in the CTP at the time of rezoning and negotiate that through the proper process.

[01:17:54] Okay, we can have another discussion offline because we're getting a little bit off topic of the motions that are coming, but I'll get in touch with you guys. Thank you. So I don't have issues with phasing, but like Mr. Crony, I'm not sure that I understand your answer when I look at them.

[01:18:10] So in year one, so January to December of year one, you want to get to 60%, yes? Not them, it's us. Well, whatever, 60%. Okay. And year two, you want to get to 80% from January. And then in year three, you want to get to 100%. So it is taking three years. So the question of, is it not taking three years? Help me understand how it's not taking.

[01:18:40] Well, the third year, you're there. So the phase occurs for the two years. At the end of the third year, you're there? No. Okay. Okay. Well, that's the end. The beginning of the third. The beginning of the... So for the first two years, July 1, July 1, 60, and then 80, and then 100.

[01:18:58] So it was... July 1 to July 1, 60. Yeah, so this year... July 1 to the second year, July 1 to July 1, 80. Yep. And then the third one, July 1. July 2 on 100. Yeah, which should line up to about when the new FIC takes place.

[01:19:19] Okay. But we did, at least I felt it was important to actually get to 100%, first of all, to have the baseline. Second, we don't know exactly how long it's going to take the new FIC, not anything other. That's what Staffs of 10 is.

[01:19:35] Okay, all right. That's all the questions I had. So, Mr. Turner and Mr. Letourner, you all do this to me every time. I don't really care who makes the motion. I really don't. Okay, Mr. Letourner is going to make the motion. Mr. Turner is going to second the motion. Madam Chair, hi, how are you?

[01:19:52] Well, how are you doing? Hi, I'm doing good. That's great. Mind if I ask a couple of questions before we make a motion on this? No, because you just walked on the desk, I will allow that. Thank you. So, yeah, I see there's a phased approach. But I guess walking in the tail end of, I guess, your commentary or questions, it's, to me, it was like, well, what was the point of the FIC going through this whole process, making a recommendation?

[01:20:17] Then if we're going to come around and say, nope, we're going to change everything, do a phased approach. And by the time this phased approach is actually fully implemented, we're going to be coming into the process of going through another whole FIC review process. Is that accurate? I would defer to Supervisor Letourneau or Turner on the phasing.

[01:20:37] Please walk me through that because I'm a little confused. I mean, so this is the third person that asked the same question. Well, this is because variation is a little different. So I think the point was to recognize the formula and essentially approve the numbers and the formula as the outcome of the process.

[01:20:58] But sort of like we did with the car tax, the personal property tax rate, also recognize that it would have, I think in this case, a very uncertain and very significant impact when you increase something year to year by over 100%.

[01:21:14] And in this particular case, I think it's fair to say we don't really know what that's going to do to the market, other than probably encourage a lot of buy-write development and potentially shrink the amount of land available because landowners are going to have to adjust to the fact that costs are suddenly double or triple in this category.

[01:21:34] So in recognition of the fact that we don't know what's going to happen, and I think we appropriately set up a grandfathering process by a timeline that makes sense, the point of phasing it in is to actually be able to see what's happening with the market and then line up to when the new one, the new process is going to be complete.

[01:21:56] I mean, you may or may not agree with that. Yeah, I don't agree because, again, you know, maybe I'll probably ultimately not support this motion because we have a stakeholders committee that was part of this group that represent developers, different entities, and they came with the process.

[01:22:13] This is what that whole recommendation came from. It was a majority vote. Yes, obviously some people are not going to be happy with the vote, but ultimately the vote was taking place. So to me, unless you can propose maybe phasing in a little faster, then I might be able to support.

[01:22:28] But what's being presented, I just can't support it. Okay. Okay. Would you like to make a motion? Yeah. Okay. I move the Board of Supervisors direct staff to amend attachments 2 and 5 to the March 19, 2024 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item to reflect a phased implementation of the 2023 standard, age-restricted, and continuing care, retirement communities, and urban multifamily-attached CIFs in the 2023 by-size differential CIF over a three-year period as follows.

[01:22:59] FY25, year one, 60% of the CIF. FY26. Year 2, 80% of the CIF. FY27. Year 3, 100% of the CIF. Implementation of the 2023 road CIF should occur on July 1, 2024, as currently proposed in Attachment 7. I further move that staff should return to the April 16, 2024 Board of Supervisors business meeting with updated attachments consistent with this motion for final action on the 2023 capital intensity proffers. Second. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Letourneau. Yeah, so I think it's important to

[01:23:34] kind of take a step back and understand a little bit about how the land development process works. And what really happens is a negotiation between a developer and a landowner over the valuation of a property, how many units are going to be produced. Baked into that is this, is sort of the CIF process. Currently, we're collecting clearly much lower than what the actual costs are to us as calculated through our process, our CIF process. When we take an action

[01:24:08] and increase it as much as we have, the follow-on effects of that, I think, in the marketplace are going to be very, very uncertain and have a very significant impact potentially on the entire affordable housing strategy, land development in general. And so I believe in these numbers, And I'm not questioning the integrity of the process, but what I'm trying to do is avoid, and Supervisor Turner and I are trying to do, is avoid a shock to the system, a very sudden shock to the system.

[01:24:41] We already have a quite diminished pipeline of units. What I'm afraid is going to happen is when you start pushing this number so high, you're going to incentivize by right development in which we're collecting absolutely no proffers. And we're already having that problem in parts of the county that are experiencing the most growth.

[01:25:00] it's generally to our benefit to get somebody in for a rezoning because we have the ability to control the pace of growth. We have the ability to, you know, I think create better communities. Yes, higher density, but oftentimes we can get profits that help offset those impacts, which we are not going to see with buy rate development. So this is such a shock to the system, the number being so high, so much higher, up to 150% higher, that it makes sense to not do it suddenly and all at once. It makes sense to phase it in over a couple of years to give the

[01:25:35] market, to give land values a chance to react. I do believe the biggest impact here is going to be on land values because developers will no longer pay what they're currently paying for some of these units. I think it's going to take landowners a little bit of time to catch up to that. That's not necessarily a terrible outcome if that's what happens here, but it's very uncertain to me how this is going to play out. I will also point out, and I remind my colleagues, that the last time the board of supervisors adjusted these numbers we ended up in a fight in richmond over the amount of those numbers and we had to work very hard to ensure that that control wasn't taken away from us

[01:26:11] and this is a much larger increase than that was so i do think we should be mindful of that and the fact that we are trying to work with uh industry a little bit in implementing this um for the for the greater good of the entire proffer system not everyone was here when that happened but it was not good. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Everything, I associate myself with all of Supervisor Turner's comments. I do want to acknowledge staff's role in this and their extraordinary good work on this. The discussions in the Fiscal Impact Committee were, I thought,

[01:26:47] far less contentious and controversial than I expected it to be with the numbers when they came out. And I think the reason for that is the logic staff used was unassailable. It was very good solid logic. It made perfect sense. It didn't make sense to basically request a proffer for a capital intensity factor on a house that's 2,000 square feet and a house that's 10,000 square feet and asked for the same impact fee. It just didn't make any sense. And so staff really bent over backwards to do a different way that makes a lot more sense that really captures the impact of

[01:27:21] building and when the i think the vote was eight to one wasn't it in the in when we voted this out of thick it anyway i think it was it was not that controversial because i think this the thick members understood this is a logical way to do it um uh however after four years of hard work by staff to have the first shot out of the barrel after we've accomplished all that work to be to decremented down for two years, I can understand that can be frustrating. And so I sympathize, but it's absolutely, Supervisor Leitero said it, it's not a reflection on the caliber of the work

[01:28:00] at all. The work is superb. It's a reflection on all the factors that Supervisor Leitero pointed out, is that the industry has said this is a huge impact on the industry, and we would like a couple of years to kind of figure out, first of all, absorb this and build it into our performance, but secondly, to see what the unintended market consequences are going to be of this kind of increase. And I thought that was a reasonable compromise. I talked briefly with Mr. Hemstreet, and to his point, and Ms. Burke and Ms. Spade's point, and Supervisor Umstadt's point, make no mistake about it. If we're charging 60 percent and we should be charging 100 percent, that other 40

[01:28:36] percent is picked up by the taxpayer. So that is a true statement. We are asking the taxpayer to absorb part of that increase for the first year and a little bit less the second year, and then and none of it that'll get passed on to the developer. But that is the stakes of the game.

[01:28:51] So if you don't think we should do that, then by all means. But I think the combination of unintended consequences and the size and magnitude of the increase really warrants kind of an easing into this over a two year period, thank you. - Okay, Mr. Crony. - Yeah, thank you, Chair Randall.

[01:29:07] So I don't know that I'll be supporting this. I do wanna remind everybody that we did reduce the road CIF, by a range of 2,100 to 4,900, depending on the housing unit type. So that actually decreased during the FIC meetings, so not everything increased.

[01:29:28] Road construction costs have increased. The overall expenditure in the six-year planning period have increased in the last five capital budgets, and transportation costs have historically been the largest portion of our CIP. right-of-way and land costs have increased, and in my view, decreasing the road CIF increases the cost burden to the taxpayer for improvements that are needed to support the additional vehicle trips.

[01:29:59] I agree with what Supervisor Letourneau said. The taxpayer has to pick up that difference, And I do think FIC had extensive meetings, four years of meetings with the development community, having a large voice in the methodology.

[01:30:17] So I think, you know, this has been 10 years since we've updated it. You know, I think it has been 10 years, at least for the road CIF. That was in 2014, the last time we updated the road CIF. So I think it's time that we update it.

[01:30:33] um i don't know that a phasing is really necessary um as i said i do think um credit should be giving given for all affordable housing i'm all about getting affordable and attainable housing and i think there should be credits so that that um the developer doesn't have to contribute towards those units i do support that so um but i can't support um the motion tonight because we are reducing uh the road CIF from 6,000 to 2,100 or 4,900.

[01:31:06] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Crony. Mr. Sainz? Thank you, Madam Chair. Can staff give us the vote from the FIC? I don't think they answered Mr. Turner's question or I don't know if there was a question when he was making a statement. It was 8-1-2. 8-1-2? Yes.

[01:31:21] So majority of the board voted for their study that they did. Correct. And can you give us, what is the, you don't have to give us names, what is the makeup of that board? What industries or experts are on that board, if you know offhand? We do have developer representatives as well as those that represent HOAs.

[01:31:45] And as part of the new FIC membership, there will also be environmental interest as well. And so how many developers are on there, again, if you know offhand? Four. Four. Okay. And so, okay, yeah, right. Thank you. That, again, proves my point why I'm not supporting this because we have four developers, as what staff just indicated, voting for all that work that they went through.

[01:32:09] And how many years did it take for this study? The Fiscal Impact Committee for the board's last term started meeting in October, November 2020 and concluded midway through 2023.

[01:32:26] And that work included updates to the Fiscal Impact Committee guidelines, facility standards, capital intensity factor, and the capital needs assessment. Yeah, they put in quite a lot of meetings and time into this. Again, we have developers for on this board, so to say they didn't have representation is not 100% accurate.

[01:32:46] All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sains. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to ask staff one question, if I might. Sure, absolutely. So going back to the idea that this is only for units that are over the base density, the base density units, the cost is assumed, right?

[01:33:06] It's not a proffer. it's like it gets paid correct yes okay so i just want to remind my colleagues this is only for units that are over the base density so um take that for what it's worth i will associate my comments with uh supervisor turner and supervisor letourneau however um i will say that i am motivated or driven to support this motion and phasing because of recent events as well.

[01:33:42] I want Loudoun County to continue to be considered a good place to build homes and develop. And we've had recent events that might send the wrong message. And so I like the idea of just trying to help out a little bit more because we need the housing.

[01:34:01] We absolutely need the housing. We've had several applications where the property was bought up out of our control, and that was thousands of units. And we recently voted down what I thought was a very, very good application.

[01:34:18] So I want this message from this motion and this initiative to be that we want to be open to business, especially housing. Thank you. Thank you. I will associate myself with Ms. Brixman's comments.

[01:34:35] You know, we cannot, for those of us who say we want to see housing, and not everyone does. I mean, the truth is not everyone on the board says they want to see housing. But for those of us who do say we want to see attainable housing be available in Loudoun County, then we have to make votes to back up that claim that we want to see attainable housing.

[01:34:54] Mr. Letourneau didn't kind of go into it a little bit more, but what he was referring to was, was it 2018? It was 2018 when the General Assembly passed basically a law that we were able to get overturned that said we could not even talk to developers about proffers because developers were feeling like that we were, for lack of a better word, squeezing them, and they went to the General Assembly and had that changed.

[01:35:18] And we were not even able to talk to them about things that we might want. And even if they came to us and offered, we were not legally even able to have those conversations. And what it led to was a chilling of all development of housing in the county until that got overturned, which I'm sure wasn't the intention, but that was actually the result.

[01:35:41] We do not want to see that again. Since it is over the base density, I know you don't know what those numbers are, but I think the point Ms. Bricksman is making is that it's not for the base housing, so those numbers change dramatically. to Mr. Sainz's question, when they met, when the board met, and it was 8, 2, 1 vote, or whatever it was, were they voting on numbers? Were they voting on methodology?

[01:36:06] What were they voting on at that time? Because just to say that was the vote doesn't maybe tell the whole story. Yes, the FIC voted on the methodology used to produce the... They voted on the methodology used to produce it. So, okay, so I think that's an important point to be made, that that's not the same thing.

[01:36:24] And I think that overall, the development community has been working with the board. They have. At least this development community, the development community that develops homes, has been working with the board.

[01:36:41] The communication's been good. They have done what we've asked. They've helped. And so this is us meeting them. This is us saying to them, we want you here. We want to have attainable homes. We know it's over the base density.

[01:36:57] We want to go over the base density sometimes because that's how you get those attainable homes. So we're going to meet you halfway. And so this is how this looks by doing that. Mr. Letourneau, okay, I'm sorry. One more time. The first year is, I'm sorry.

[01:37:14] I'm sorry, but. 60, 80, 100. I know that. Stop saying that part because that's not answering my question. So the first year, July 1st to June 30th is 60. And then July 1st to June 30th is 80, and then the July 1st hits and it goes to 100 right away.

[01:37:34] Yes. Gotcha. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. We need to understand. Okay. So by way of closing, a couple of things. First of all, I want to point out that 60% of the new CIF is still more than the current CIF, more than we're currently collecting and have been collecting for all this time.

[01:37:54] So that's an important point. The second thing is 60% of a CIF is infinity more than by right development is going to give us. And so if you take policy positions or you impose certain things that drive more by right development, then the consequence potentially is that we get less and nothing instead of 60% in the first year.

[01:38:20] And that is one of the things I think that it's worth trying to protect against. It is also that more than one thing can be true. So the methodology can be correct. FIC could have done its job, and there could be consequences, impacts to that.

[01:38:38] It is fair to say that this FIC process was a little bit weird. It happened partly during COVID. The meetings were not typical. There were some concerns about when some information was posted and all that kind of stuff. I'm not going to get into that because I'm not questioning the FIC process.

[01:38:54] But I don't think that that means everybody was in complete agreement with the outcome. I'm not questioning the outcome. That's not what I'm here for. And honestly, I'm not even trying to send any message. I'm just trying to say, other than we need to be fair and we need to be careful about making very, very big swings in policy and what all the follow-on effects of that are.

[01:39:14] We should be measured in doing that. Now, there are these three additional considerations here. I didn't get to it in my opening. But staff's recommendation on capital facilities credit would be to reduce the credit, which I agree with. As far as timing is concerned, we've already set forward the clock with the grandfathering discussion we had at the hearing.

[01:39:35] But staff is recommending that the date at which the application is officially accepted for review will drive which CIF the applicant will be subject to, which I also agree with. And then finally, staff's assumption is that any CIF calculated under the by-size differential approach would be subject to the 60 or 80, and I also agree with that.

[01:39:55] I don't know if there needs to be any more formal discussion about that or if anybody disagrees, or perhaps after the motion is passed, the chair can just ask. Otherwise, I think that direction is the direction that we should. After the motion, if anyone has any questions that they don't understand, we can go to a round of questions.

[01:40:16] Okay. All right. The motion was made by Supervisor Letourneau and seconded by Supervisor Turner. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 5-3-1 with Supervisors Sacroni, Sains, and Umstead voting against the motion and Supervisor Kirchner not being here for the motion.

[01:40:36] Supervisors, do you have any questions on the last three discussion item points? Okay, seeing none, thank you. I just want to, if you don't mind, for the capital facilities credit, I just want to make sure that staff's interpretation of what Supervisor Letourneau just stated out loud is the board's consensus as well.

[01:41:01] So if I could give an example of what we mean by the capital facilities credit. So should a CIF be calculated to be in the amount of $6 million, for example, and a developer would proffer $5 million of improvements, even though it has a $5 million value, 60% of that would be $3 million, and the developer would only be subject to a $3 million credit, even though the value of the improvements are $5 million.

[01:41:35] That's what the intent or staff's recommendation would be. But I just want to make sure I'm clear that that was what we were communicating. Supervisors, one more time. Do you have any questions? Maybe I'll jump in.

[01:41:50] So the first, the only thing that confused me about your example there is you said there's a six, what was the six million in that equation? The standard CIF for a development could be calculated at $6 million. Okay. Well, we would expect the developer, oh, you're saying if the developer is then proposing five million of improvements and plus a million dollars in cash but they would still owe the other million in cash right but in this if they're getting 60 of that credit they would provide three million dollars plus the balance and plus the balance of cash that's the part that i wanted

[01:42:22] to make sure about okay yeah yes that that is consistent yeah yeah i think we're good you okay yes thank you okay thank you very much mr turn looks like it's your um your eagle scout is in the room and so if you would join me down front and we would do a proclamation

[01:42:42] so we're here to celebrate eagle scouts sierra price of troop 2970 and 2970 right type of one

[01:44:13] there we're gonna need to fix okay whereas sierra price of troop 2970 has earned the rank of eagle scouts and whereas sierra is a founding member of troop 2970 oh i see 2970g for girls yeah i think this may be one of the first female eagle scouts we've had here yes that's what it is okay 2970g and is the trump's third eagle scout since its founding in 2019 as a member of troop 2970g she served in the leadership roles of patrol leader senior patrol leader troop guide oa unit representative

[01:44:47] and then chief to pack 905 and whereas in addition to scouting sierra's prioritized her studies at john champ high school go nights while playing on the junior varsity basketball team and varsity girls softball team which last year won the cedar run district championship she is a member of the john champ high school marching band and concert band and whereas for her eagle scout project sierra designed and constructed three eight-foot benches atop the cinder block base to replace the benches surrounding a fire ring located next to the athletic fields at John Champ High School.

[01:45:21] And whereas being awarded the rank of Eagle Scout requires determination, perseverance, hard work, maturity, and integrity. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does commend Sierra Price on achieving the rank of Eagle Scout, which is scouting's highest honor and a culmination of years of service and dedication.

[01:45:41] Congratulations. Can you just share with us a little bit about what your journey's been as it getting to this point oh this is my first time talking into a microphone so like stated before i started my journey in 2019 but my dad will argue differ that i have started it since my brother joined cup scouts going to his den meetings so once i was officially able to join in 2019 we started and founded the

[01:46:15] girls troop for 2970 then that same year we went to Lynn Hawkson which is a council high adventure and we became the first all-female crew to have completed Lynn Hawkson and then COVID hit and we had to figure out how scouting what scouting will look like during COVID for us and I along with the boys senior patrol leader and the adult leaders were able to figure out how to do that then once we got back in person, I got roped into going to Lynn Hawkson a second time, but this time to

[01:46:53] be a leader to the newer girls or the newer scouts in the troop and be able to guide them through Lynn Hawkson. What's next? And then in 2023, I had the opportunity to do three different things. The first of which was going to NYLT, which is National Youth Leadership Training.

[01:47:17] So it's a week-long course, and it was all about leadership and how to be a good leader. And then two weeks later, I got the opportunity to go to the 2023 National Jamboree Hallat Summit, which was the first national jamboree that BSA had female scouts in.

[01:47:36] And then a week later, I went to Korea and went to the 2023 World Scout Jamboree. And I had an amazing time there and got to meet a bunch of cool people, both in country, in state, and across the world.

[01:47:56] So that's been my journey in scouting. Thank you. You're a real trailblazer, Chair Randall. You are a real trailblazer. Congratulations to your parents as well. Can you tell me a little bit about why you chose your project? So I chose my project, which was to build the benches in front of the athletic fields, because I noticed that nobody was using the benches or the fire pit.

[01:48:26] So I went and I asked the principal and the athletic director why people aren't using it. And when I took a closer look, I realized the benches were unsafe to sit on or to be near. So I told them that I'm willing to fix the benches and make it safe so that if the school wants, they can have a fire in that fire pit or that people can sit down on the bench a hot day during band camp or during football camp or whatever they may be sitting down on the bench for.

[01:49:00] And as a champ parent, I'm sure that is going to be coming in handy for me and a lot of other folks.

[01:50:41] We are just rocking and rolling on time right now.

[01:52:18] We're doing really, really well with time. So what we're going to go in and do, because we cannot open the public hearing until 6 o'clock, and we do have two closed sessions. So how about we go on and do our board comments, and then do the public hearing, and then when we come back out from public, I'm sorry, and then do the close, do the board comments, do the public hearing, go to closed session, come out of closed session, and we'll be done.

[01:52:43] So how's that sound? That sounds like we can get home and watch some NCAA basketball tonight. That's what it sounds like to me. All right. Public comments. I'm sorry, board comments. Mr. Crony.

[01:53:11] Board comments and disclosures, of course. i think we can all say we've met with ron meyer a couple many times just give that for everybody we can all just a blanket we've all met with ron meyer many times over the past week you ready and that's okay um on thursday february 29th i met with colleen gillis um oh wait that's not right am i doing that right yeah yeah calling steve schulte um

[01:53:51] And with Brambleton and Angela Rojas and Timothy Rowe with Toll Brothers regarding Oncola Farms and Fleetwood North application on Monday, March 4th, I met with Caitlin. Oh, wait, this can't be right. No, you're right.

[01:54:07] No, no, actually, that isn't. It's, I think I did do that. Are you? 11th? No. 19th? I need to go back. No, if you're starting from the, from, you should be starting from Tuesday, from Wednesday the 6th is where you should be starting from. Yeah, let me do it. Okay. I got to get my documents.

[01:54:33] Here it is. Sorry. That's okay. Pulled up the wrong one. Okay. Yeah. On Wednesday, March 6th, my aides met with Tillots View representatives David DeMarco and Amanda Williams. On Monday, March 11th, I spoke with Ron Meyer regarding the Belmont Innovation Campus application. like chair randall said today is give shoes i was really pleased to donate to loudon first responders foundation today so i'd encourage everybody to get online and donate i see chief johnson i think there's 138 organizations on it so you can go and look and pick your favorite organizations to give to and they have like a leaderboard which is really cool so you can see

[01:55:10] um, who's, um, uh, donating where, um, I also had the pleasure of, uh, yesterday meeting with the Birchwood community at their annual, um, HOA meeting. Um, they had a lot of questions about, um, airport noise mitigation and, um, uh, just different things going on in the community, um, that they can look forward to different amenities. Um, it was a real pleasure. And,

[01:55:39] And, in fact, we have a senior Miss USA that won, got her crown on Monday, so that was awesome, so we got to see her, too. And we have a meeting with Willowsford on Thursday at their annual HOA meeting, and I look forward to talking with the Willowsford HOA on some of their needs in the Little River District.

[01:56:04] My team plans to reach out to all the HOAs in my district. So please, if you have a meeting coming up or something that you'd like us to attend, please reach out to my office and we will come to you and would really love speaking with you about your needs and whatever else you want to talk about.

[01:56:27] So I look forward to meeting everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Crony. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have one disclosure, which is a meeting on the 13th of March with Anthony Vinafro of Luckstone on LEGIE 2023-0060 and 0084, and no other comments.

[01:56:57] Thank you. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. On Wednesday, March 6th, and Wednesday, March 13th, I or my staff met with representatives for the Belmont Innovation Campus rezoning application.

[01:57:16] On Wednesday, March 6th, I met with representatives from the DASH-N to discuss potential gas station application on Loudoun County Parkway. On Wednesday, March 13th, my staff met Denise Hanover to discuss the Stone Ridge Section 40 rezoning application.

[01:57:31] And on Friday, March 15th, March 18th, and today, March 19th, IMR staff met with representatives for the Till's View rezoning application. Thank you, Madam Chair. No board comments. That's it. You got it. That's it. Okay. Thank you very much.

[01:57:46] Mr. Letourneau. Thank you. I had discussions with Ron Meyer of RMA on Bellman Innovation on March 12th and 13th. That's it for disclosures. Regional updates, just briefly, Metro, we are, as Jonathan reported, very pleased that what was in the budget, it was what we asked for.

[01:58:11] We're obviously awaiting for the governor's work on the budget, but dialogue has continued with the administration on that. So we are preparing to begin to kind of reconcile those numbers that we have from the three jurisdictions and finalize the Metro budget for the coming year, for the coming fiscal year, with the understanding that it may need revisions down the road.

[01:58:35] I do want to note that the District of Columbia's public safety bill is now in effect. It's something that Metro worked closely with the D. C.

[01:58:51] government on, and it does allow us the ability to stop and require positive ID for any individual who might be fair evading, which essentially allows us to enforce the district's civil fair evasion or NETS, which had not previously been something that we were able to do. So we're very pleased about that from a public safety standpoint, very positive feedback from customers on that as well.

[01:59:10] So, things are going pretty well there. The metrics continue to be pretty good. Ridership, February to February on the Silver Line, was up very significantly. It varied by stations, but over 30% to 40% in each station. So, that continues to be good news.

[01:59:28] So, everything's going well there. And that is it for my comments. Thank you, sir. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. On Wednesday, March 6th, my staff and I met with Ron Meyer from IRMALC, Matthew Baker from SDC Capital Partners, and Aaron Swisholm from Walsh-Kalushi to discuss the application for Melbourne Innovation Campus.

[01:59:47] Later that day, my staff met with Mike Romeo from Walsh-Kalushi to discuss the application for North Star Square as well as Belmont Land Bay KK Data Center. Thursday, March 7th, as well as Friday, March 8th, my staff and I spoke with and met with Colleen Gillis from Cooley LLP to discuss the application for Ecola Farms Residential.

[02:00:03] On Saturday, March 9th, I met with Michael Capretti from the Capretti Land Inc. to discuss the application for Mount Sterling. Monday, March 11th, my staff met with Packy Crown from Bowman Consulting to discuss the application for Goose Creek Retail LLC. Tuesday, March 12th, my staff and I met with Denise Harrover from Van Meter to discuss the application for Stone Ridge Section 40 and Broadland Section 104.

[02:00:25] Later that day, my staff and I met with Anthony Vinofrio and John Riley from Luckstone to discuss their application for Luckstone Leesburg Plant. My staff also met with Amanda Williams from Cooley LP to discuss the application for Tillotsview as well as Aaron Swisholm from Walsh Kalushi to discuss the application for Belmont Innovation Campus.

[02:00:43] On March 15th, 18th, and 19th, my staff spoke with Aaron Swisholm from Walsh Kalushi to discuss the reconsideration of the Belmont Innovation Campus application. Then on Friday, March 15th, as well as today, I spoke separately with Aaron Swisholm from Walsh Kalushi as well as Ron Meyer from RMA LLC to discuss the reconsideration of the Belmont Innovation Campus.

[02:01:03] And something happened to me which was really disturbing on Saturday night. I wanted to relay it. There's some lessons learned here for all my colleagues. I was shopping for some clothing in Macy's and had some pants and some shoes. And just prior to 9 o'clock, the Macy's people announced that the store was closing and make your final purchases, which I did.

[02:01:22] And then I moved to the exit to go back out to my car. And when I looked up, I was looking at the inside of the mall, not the parking lot. And I didn't know what to do. And I thought, they're going to lock Macy's, and I'm going to get locked in here for the rest of the night. Maggie's never been home alone.

[02:01:38] I don't know what I'm going to do. And I started to panic, and I thought, I know what to do. And I called Chair Randall. And Chair Randall said, calm down, take a deep breath. I said, but I don't know what I'm going to do. She said, just turn around and tell me what you see.

[02:01:55] I said, all right, there's some ladies' slacks and some blouses, and there's some jewelry, and there's some business suits over here. She said, look straight ahead. There's an aisle on your left and an aisle on your right. Move down the right aisle. You'll see an herbal ointment display on the right.

[02:02:10] You'll see ladies' watches on the left. And about 10 yards up on the right, you'll see women's shoes. By the way, there was a pair of classic black pumps on sale for 30% off, and that ends on Thursday. Is that still there? And I said, yes. She said, okay. You're on the right path.

[02:02:27] Move further down past the shoes. When you get past the shoes, take a right and look 15 yards in front of it, and you'll see doors, and that will take you to the parking lot. And there I was, and I was saved. I was saved. And this was from a woman who, she was at a four-way stop sign with a big green sign that said north, and an arrow straight ahead would call somebody to ask which direction north was.

[02:02:51] The essence of this story is absolutely true. So, the next time you're lost in any mall in Northern Virginia, any mall, don't call 911. Call Chair Randall. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's my superpower.

[02:03:09] He's not lying, actually. He's totally telling the truth. Mr. Sains. That is a very good story, Mr. Turner. Let's see. The mandatory disclosures, I spoke with Mr. Ron Meyer regarding the Belmont Innovation.

[02:03:30] Heck, to be honest with you, I can't keep track of all the time. But I know it was the day of the vote. I don't have that in front of me, unfortunately. Sorry. And I know that was two days before the vote as well that I spoke to Mr. Meyer regarding the Belmont Innovation application.

[02:03:52] and I do have a nomination to make, if that is okay, Madam Chair, since I missed that portion. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. I would like to nominate Mr. James Smith to the Health Systems Agency of Northern Virginia at large position. And comments after we took the vote last week on Belmont Innovation, I received an anonymous email from, I'm assuming, a resident of Loudoun County.

[02:04:26] They didn't give too much information, so I don't know if it was a constituent or which district they lived in or whatnot. But to cut to the chase, in their email, they pretty much were saying that they are shocked at my vote and pretty much saying that I'm taking bribes for my vote.

[02:04:56] So this all came in. I got home. I don't know what time I got home, but maybe we all got home very late. So it was around about close to 12, 31 o'clock when I was reading this email. And that shocked me because I take what I do up here very, very seriously.

[02:05:13] Read my items, have meetings, have my staff do analysis and give me information, meet with staff. And so on and talk to my colleagues as well. And so for somebody to allege that I'm taking bribes on on votes that I'm making up here, that was very, how can I say, hurtful, definitely not part of my character and shocking.

[02:05:41] I've been up here for a few years now, I guess you could say, and I don't recall ever receiving anything like that. I've been called many things, received a lot of dirty emails, but never alleging taking bribes for a vote.

[02:05:59] So I'd just like to say to the person, if you're watching, if you want to have a conversation with me, please reach out. As I mentioned in my email response to you, I respect you a lot more if you were not hiding under being anonymous and just used your correct information.

[02:06:20] Like I said, we're all adults. You don't always have to agree with everything that we do. That's fine. Even up here, we just saw it where I didn't agree with my colleagues on emotion, and that's okay. We have votes. They go up and down. Sometimes you win.

[02:06:36] Sometimes you lose. but you take a breath turn a page and move on to the next item at hand and continue to do business and that's the way i have always operated up here and i've always told people that when they ask questions about how do you guys work and suggestions on how to be on a board that's my suggestion every single day if somebody wants to ask me that question but again to the person that anonymously sent me that email alleging these uh these these acquisitions you know it's it's i would say it's ridiculous. So again, if you want to be an adult and have a serious conversation with me, please reach out. Clearly, you know my email. And also I like to point out, you know, I asked my, you know,

[02:07:15] I'm an African-American, if you haven't noticed. And I asked my Caucasian colleagues, hey, that voted with me. By any chance, did you get anonymous email? And one by one, they all said no. So that kind of stuck out to me as well so was it personal or was it because of my genetic makeup that you felt so cavalier to throw around the words of me taking a bribe um so i'll just throw that out there food for thought but i i think we can i know loudon's better than that and uh let's let's

[02:07:55] continue to do better um and also i'd like to make mention also of some other comments that were made during another vote that was being taken to Chair Randall. I know the gentleman probably meant no harm by it, but we need to watch our words because those words have meaning, and the words that were used were not right.

[02:08:19] And if you watched up here, a lot of us were gasping. I know a lot of members in the public were gasping to those words either. So again, Loudon, please choose your words carefully, and let's treat others as you want somebody to treat your family. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sains. Thank you. Ms. Brixman.

[02:08:38] Thank you, Madam Chair. By way of disclosures on March 13th and March 14th, I had phone conversations with Amanda Williams about the Tillots View application. By way of regional updates, I did sit in on the NACO CEWD meeting where we talked a lot about housing.

[02:08:57] Some numbers were put out there from a Harvard study that said housing is unaffordable for half of U.S. renters. and that 10 million families are losing homes to evictions and foreclosures annually. However, this data may not be necessarily accurate.

[02:09:13] We may be missing some of those statistics because it's very difficult for localities to get this data. But we also got a presentation from New America and Data Find that has a tool called Foreclosure and Eviction Analysis Tool, where we can upload our data and produce consistent insight on who is impacted by foreclosures and evictions.

[02:09:37] So I'm looking forward to having a conversation with staff about if we can upload our data there. It might involve getting some information from the court system. Now that session is over, I want to address the offensive and failed, quote-unquote, transparency bill carried by my senator.

[02:10:11] Despite knowing that we took action as a board in two public meetings with duly publicized agendas on our sister city-county relationships, and despite knowing that before session began, our board formally adopted a travel policy that governs our staff, which we were following already. And despite apparently not seeking additional information from staff or supervisors about the success of our sister county relationships for economic development and diversifying our economy and the impact of the original bill on our attempts to operate efficiently as a board and a county with 5,000 employees.

[02:10:42] And despite the fact that we were all reelected, even though we were targeted with a disinformation campaign from a former Trump appointee and a Sinclair Media reporter, I say in air quotes, our senator brought what she called a transparency bill that further falsely implicated our board for lack of transparency and misuse of funds, all of which is not true.

[02:11:04] To her and those that supported this bill, I say, how dare you use our board to score political points? Our board is already subject to a higher standard of transparency than the General Assembly when it comes to financial reporting, FOIA laws, and disclosures, which we all do during board comments.

[02:11:28] These senators went on as well to vote against a bill, effectively killing a bill that would have required more transparency from General Assembly members on campaign financing. The hypocrisy is offensive and palpable.

[02:11:47] Fix your own house before you come and look at mine. But I will tell you, if you do come to look at mine as a former reporter myself, I will be fully transparent about my votes and my decisions.

[02:12:03] and my office budget, because I'm required to. On gun violence, three and a half months into 2024, there have been 3,431 total gun deaths and 80 mass shootings. The deaths include 52 children under the age of 11 and 242 teens, ages 12 to 17. We've already heard that gun violence is the number one killer for children in our country. But also, according to Everytown's data gathered

[02:12:37] from open sources last year was record-breaking and not in a good way. In 2023, we had the highest number of unintentional shootings by children. Children shot and killed 157 people in 2023 and injured another 270 because of access to firearms. In about half of those cases, children shot themselves. Others killed siblings and friends. In most cases, the child pulling the trigger is under the age of five or between the ages of 14 and 17. For those in Congress not taking action on

[02:13:16] this, shame on you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Bricksman. Like Mr. Sands, I actually lost count of how many meetings I had with Mr. Meyer on the Belmont Innovation Campus in the past two weeks. I had at least four with Mr. Meyer and the applicant that bought Belmont in the past two weeks. Um, Ms. Bricksman, I understand your frustration. I feel frustrated as well, but some time ago I, I read something and I think it really helped. Um, it said, as bad as you want to address it, sometimes it's best to let God defend you. He saw it too. And that's

[02:13:56] kind of where I've, I've, I've left things. Um, I know, I know who I am and I've, I've, I've, I've left it because I've left it. So just, I understand, I understand the frustration, but I've left it. I know who I am. The only thing I want to talk about, supervisors, I kind of hinted at this a couple times. Today, I met with the chair of our CSB, the chair of our ACOI, and a lady named Katrina Cole from Friends of Loud and Mental Health. And I talked to them about

[02:14:30] the whole discussion we're having right now in our county or coming from our country around mental health substance abuse and suicidology as it pertains to our young people what I'm what I've what I find missing from this conversation is the voice of our young people so there's a lot of discussion around why what's happening might be happening but but and I and I you know I read these articles and these research papers all the time and so often there are hypotheses of why

[02:15:04] something's happening, and not one have I read that said, and they talked to this number of young people, and this is what they thought. Most mental health experts agree that COVID is receiving blame, like it's all COVID's fault. COVID maybe manifested stuff that was there, but COVID didn't cause it, and so that's probably not, that's not the issue. There's a lot of discussion about social media, and what our kids are looking at, and what we should do with that, and how when a young person looks at social media, they are comparing how they feel on their

[02:15:41] inside with how somebody else looks on their outside, and you can't make that comparison. And so I talked to these groups, and they're going to go back to their organizations, the CSB board and the ACO board, and just have a discussion about how we in Loudoun can kind of get our arms around what is happening with both mental health stuff, especially anxiety.

[02:16:05] The anxiety seems to be the thing that is most prevalent. Increased suicidology. We're seeing suicidology amongst kids who are as young as nine years old. What's causing it, and more importantly, how to address it. I don't think there is a, quote, solution, unquote, but I do think that we have to figure out how to start addressing it. There's also a discussion around, and this has always been true, that, and I say this all the time, we believe that kids, because they hit a

[02:16:41] certain age, should have a certain maturity. And if anyone has had, you know, children in their lives, you know that one kid at age 14, you know, may be ready to go buy a house and, you know, very mature kid and another person at age 21 is not you know has not gotten there at all but what we do know is that so often kids don't know what suicide actually is and there were you know you know quotes from kids that said things like I can't wait to see how upset my mother is when I commit suicide because she made me mad because they're kids and they don't get then they're not

[02:17:17] going to see how sad their mother is because they're kids and so um so just that whole discussion and so i'm going to and i i don't know what it's going to look like and i'm not quite sure it's going to happen but i am going to bring something to the board for us to um kind of kind of have our csb board acoy the williams center and our friends of loud mental health do i'm calling it the white paper, because I don't know what other word to call it right now, and talking to young people themselves to find out what they think is the problem and what they think

[02:17:55] are the challenges and what they think some solutions to the challenges may be, because I can no longer just keep hearing about how upset our kids are or how depressed they are or how anxious they are or suicidology and not do something.

[02:18:10] And I feel like as a board, there are things, we're not the schools, but this is not a school issue. This is a young person issue. And so I think we can do more, and I'm going to try to bring some things to the board. So please just expect that when it comes.

[02:18:27] Thank you very much. And Ms. Brickspin, will you please meet us in the closed session? Oh, wait, wait, wait. Let's take a break. Supervisors, I need to recess this meeting. so I have now recessed the public, the business meeting, and I need to call to order a March 19, 2024 Loudoun County public hearing. It's a public hearing on the notice of real property tax increases. Now, I can say all the things I always say, like this room has a hearing loop if you need

[02:19:02] hearing assistance and all that. If you are in the boardroom and you wish to address the board, you have two and a half minutes if you are not here you signed up to speak um i will go to the webex and see if there's anybody on the webex to speak um and if you see a number scrolling across your screen you can call that number now so is there anybody in the room who'd like to speak on this public hearing is there anybody on the remote on the webex like to speak i think it's jacklyn yes madam chair there's nobody online there's nobody on the web online okay having said that I'm going to call I'm going to adjourn and call to close the public

[02:19:41] hearing supervisors let's before we go into closed session let's take about a ten minute break and then go to close we'll read in the closed session for two closed sessions and I'm going to I'm going to do a fire or closed session I'm going to close session number two first I'm never gonna take a break and we come back when we're in closed session. We're going to do closed session number two first. All right,

[02:20:11] let's take a break. Okay, we are back. I did not say we weren't going to do both closed sessions.

[02:32:25] I said we're going to do closed session number two first. So we're going to read into both closed sessions. I was just saying that for staff can be prepared. So we're reading into both closed sessions. Ms. Bricksman, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to section 2.2-3711 A3 of the Code of Virginia to consider acquisition or disposition of a property or parcels of property for public use in the Dulles Election District.

[02:32:57] I further move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into a closed session pursuant to 2.2-3711A8 and A29 of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel pertaining to the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement where public funds are being expended and where negotiations in open session would adversely affect the bargaining position of the county. Second. Mr. Letourneau takes that second.

[02:33:27] Discussion on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass.

[02:33:36] 8-0-1. We are in closed session. I'm trying to find my pen. Okay, we are back. I'm going

[03:38:54] to ask Ms. Bricksman to read us out of closed session, please. It would require glasses. I move that the closed session be adjourned, that the Board of Supervisors reconvene its public meeting, that the minutes of the public meeting should reflect that no formal action was taken in closed session, and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting.

[03:39:20] Motions made and seconded by Supervisor Letourneau. Discussion on that motion. Before we affirm, all in favor say aye. Aye. That will pass 801. Will you please all affirm? Ms. Umstadt? Affirm. Affirms. Affirm. Affirmed.

[03:39:35] Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. And I affirm as well. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau, would you like to make a motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I move the Board of Supervisors authorize the County Administrator to execute a purchase agreement approved as to form by the County Attorney with Glasscock Field at Stone Ridge LLC, CO Van Meter, for a total of 17.23 acres of real property identified as PIN 203195001 at a purchase price of $7,700,498 and authorize the expenditure of $200,000 for due diligence and closing costs.

[03:40:10] I further move the Board of Supervisors direct the amendment of the fiscal year FY24 Capital Improvement Program by directing staff to execute a budget adjustment to move $7,900,498 from the county land acquisition contingency account to a newly created Glasgow Field that Stone Ridge Land Acquisition Due Diligence Project.

[03:40:28] Second. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Letourneau? No discussion, Madam Chair. Anybody else? All in favor to say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. Before we go, March Madness has begun. My whole goal is to beat Jared.

[03:40:45] And Matt, tell Jared, tell him I'm coming for him. I'm coming for him. I'm coming for him. We are adjourned.

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