Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting, Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 4h 46m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7744
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7744

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 2026-10-18. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:09:25] Well, good evening, supervisors, good evening, staff, good evening, Loudon. I'd like to call to order the September 17, 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 telecom mode.

[00:09:41] If you need a headset, we have those available as well. This evening, Mr. Letourne will be offering words of inspiration, our prayer, and leaving us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you, Chair Randall. Heavenly Father, we ask for your wisdom. We ask for your patience. We ask for your blessings as we go about the work for our county. We ask you to bless our first responders, our fire, our EMS, our sheriff's deputies, all of those that work on a daily basis to keep us safe. We ask that you bless our troops at home and overseas who are also working in a volatile world to keep us safe, and we pray for peace

[00:10:21] around the world. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:10:40] I just tossed this in the trash, because I think it came from this pen. What was the pen? Yeah, I can't. I've only picked up one pen, so I'm assuming it came from this pen. Yeah. Okay. Uh, supervisors, um, I'm going to do additions and deletions and, and, and then go through some things. Okay. Just to let you know, I, I'm going to make a motion in just a second to suspend the rules, to, um, add a resolution to recognize Emily Fox for her achievements.

[00:11:13] Emily Fox, um, is from, um, Stonebridge high school graduate, and she was a member of the Olympic soccer team. Now, just so everyone knows, we will be doing all three of the Olympians who are from Loudoun together, probably the second meeting in August. Emily Fox's coach from the National Soccer League asked that we did this for her today because every member of the U.S.

[00:11:42] soccer team is going to have a resolution given to them at a large event in Chicago. So this is for approval, not for presentation, and to be sent to the U.S. soccer team. Now that I'm saying this, I hope I'm not ruining any secret.

[00:11:59] But so the one for Emily Fox tonight is not that we will still be doing her and the other two Loudon Olympians later on. So that's just so that when I suspend the rules, that's what that's for. Also, legislative item 2023-0070, the Hiddenwood Assemblage, ZMAP 2023-0004, the applicant has requested to pull that item and to defer it indefinitely.

[00:12:30] When an applicant makes this request of me, I have never said no to the applicant's request before. I do not find a reason to say no now. So the hidden wood assemblage is deferred indefinitely.

[00:12:47] It will not be on the agenda tonight at all. I have no idea when it will come back or even if it will come back on the agenda because it was pulled by the applicant. It wasn't by the county, it wasn't by the supervisors, it was by the applicant. Having said that, I'm gonna make a motion to suspend the rules.

[00:13:06] - Second. - Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Bricksman. Discussion on the motion. All in. Paper, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 702. I move that the Board of Supervisors add item R4, resolution to recognize Emily Fox and her achievements to the September 17th, 2024 business meeting agenda.

[00:13:27] Mr. Turner, this person's in your district. You want to second that? Second. Okay. Motion's made. Second, Mr. Turner. Discussion. September 17th. I'm sorry, today. today. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 702 as well.

[00:13:50] Mr. Kirshner has called me. He will be here around six o'clock. He has a heavy work schedule this week. Mr. St. Julie arrives from his heavy work schedule at around five, and so we expect both of them to be here this evening. So there's a very long consent agenda, a very long page and a half of consent agenda, so please be patient with me as I read through the entire consent agenda.

[00:14:15] Item R1, proclamation to recognize September 23rd through 29th is Diaper Needs Awareness Week in Loudoun County. That is for approval only. Item R2, resolution to recognize John Champ Girls Soccer Team. That's for approval and presentation. Mr. Letourne will join me down front. Item R3, proclamation to recognize September is Hunger Month in Loudoun County. That is for, I thought it was for presentation. That's for presentation. Ms. Bricksman will join me down front. Item,

[00:14:51] wait a minute, wait a minute. I think diaper needs awareness is also for presentation, if I'm not mistaken. It says approval only on my agenda, but Justin, where are you? Is this for presentation also? It is for presentation also. That's what I thought.

[00:15:07] Okay, for that as well, for diapers recognition, diaper needs, I'll let, I'm going to have Ms. Brick Smith, if you don't join me, down front for that one as well. Mr. Kirsten was here, I have him since she's got six babies.

[00:15:27] He needs the diapers, exactly, he needs the diapers. Item R4, resolution to recognize Emily Fox and her achievements, approval only. Item 1A, Appointments and Confirmations. Item 2, Administrative Items Report of September 17, 2024.

[00:15:43] Bless you. Item 4, Allegi 2023-0088, Dominion Energy Loudoun Panel Wiring Shop, the CMPT 2023-0014. Item 6, Resolution of Intent to Amend to DOAM 2024-0002, Loudoun County Land Subdivision and Development Ordinance of the Loudoun County Facility Standards Manual Amendments to implement dam break, the dam, okay, not the dam, a dam break, big difference, the

[00:16:15] zone requirements. Item four, resolution of intent to amend DOAM 2024-0003 Loudoun County land subdivision and development ordinance and the Loudoun County facility standards manual amendments to implement the zoning ordinance. Item eight, response to board member initiative speed management study in the village of Philomont. Item 11A and these are all from the finance agenda. Item 11A, contract renewal, capital projects program management and reporting.

[00:16:49] Item 11B, contract renewal, geotechnical engineering and social sciences services. Item 11C, contract renewal, on-call land surveying services. Item 11D, contract renewal, site civil and Parks Design Services, Item 11E Contract Renewal, Traffic Engineering and Operational Services, Item 11F Contract Renewal, Operation of the Loudoun County Homeless Service Center, Item 11G Contract Renewal of the Lot New and Used Vehicles through Class VII, Item 11H Contract

[00:17:25] Award Vehicle and Motorcycles, Item 11I Proposed Amendment to the Codified Ordinance of Loudoun County, Chapter 860-06, Exemption for Farm Animals, Certain Grains and Agricultural Products, Farm Machinery, Farm Implements and Equipment. Item 11J, Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation for Federal Fiscal Year 2023 through 2024. Item 11K, Certified Development for the Rental Housing Acquisition and Preservation Loan Program. Item 11L, American Rescue Plan, ARPA

[00:18:03] Update, Child Care Needs Assessment Update and ARPA Recommendations. Item 11N, 2025 Health Plan Update, Premium Review. Mr. Hemstreet, is the staff in the room for that one if I wanted to ask a question while talking about the consent agenda on the health plan item?

[00:18:25] Yes. Yes, Mr. Krause. Okay, I might, on the consent discussion, I might ask you to come down for that. In fact, I will ask you to come down for that one. Premium review for countywide health plan, medical prescription, drug, dental, and vision.

[00:18:42] And item 11.0, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Pharmacy Program Implementation, FY 2025, Mid-Year FTE Authority. That is the consent agenda. I will make a motion to approve. Is there a second? Motion to approve, made, and seconded, discussion on the agenda.

[00:19:01] Will staff please come down to the table for the health plan update, please, if you were in the room.

[00:19:16] And is there a fire and rescue staff in the room? Mr. Chief, I can't, my glasses are not on. Can you come down to the table? Thank you, sir, Chief Rose. Hi, how are you? So, no, it would be a very quick question. It's the question I ask at the finance.

[00:19:31] I didn't know if you all had the answer yet. Have we looked at that medical plan as it pertains to mental health services, the offerings of mental health services, and whether or not which insurances are accepted for mental health services, and how many appointments somebody can have if the medical condition is a mental health condition?

[00:19:55] Yes, there are no differences between our mental health benefits and all other conditions. They are treated the same in terms of review and how many you can have depended upon what your condition might be. There is no difference between, well, listen, I understand mental health is health.

[00:20:13] Completely agree with that. There's no difference between what insurances can be accepted. Does everyone, does every insurance company who accepts insurance for a physical condition also accept the insurance for a mental health condition? Yes, correct. Okay. And there are the same types of limitations, because of course there are limitations, but the same types of limitations on how many visits one can have if it's a physical health condition or a mental health condition.

[00:20:41] That is correct. Okay. Thank you very much. No issue at all. Good evening. How are you? I'm very good. So I don't, it's not so much a question. There are some people who, because they weren't on finance, are not on finance, and we talked about this once, I talked about this once before, kind of from a high level, and this is such an, what's happening here is ridiculous, and not your fault, and not our fault, but ridiculous, and I just wanted you to say it, I wanted you to explain to the whole board

[00:21:19] what's happening, so because supervisors, I'm putting this in our legislative agenda to oppose this, because what we are being forced to approve tonight is literally in direct contradiction to the legislative agenda, and we have no control over it because we're being told it has to happen.

[00:21:41] So if you do not mind, will you just quickly walk us through what the Rescue Pharmacy Program implementation is and why we're doing it? Excellent. Thank you. No tall order. I'm sorry.

[00:21:56] So very briefly, there's some legislative changes that involve the FDA and the DEA. Simplifying that essentially means that our current way that we use drugs here in Loudoun County, so we go to a call, if we use certain controlled narcotics, we go to the receiving facility of the hospital, and we exchange drugs one for one.

[00:22:17] We give them a drug that's used, they give us a fresh one, we put in our pouches, and we leave. The FDA change, because drugs need to be tracked from production to destruction, the hospitals are getting out of the business of exchanging drugs with EMS systems, meaning that now we, Fire Rescue, have to manage our own drugs.

[00:22:41] We bring our own drugs to the call, we use them on the patient, and we restock from our own internal pharmacies our own medications. We no longer have the ability to exchange drugs with the hospitals. So what that means for Loudoun County is there are eight pharmacies that will be standing up, one initially.

[00:22:59] We learned of this May of this year. It has to go live. Every EMS agency that is an ALS agency has to go live with this pharmacy program by November 27th of this year. So we learned about it in May, and November 27th, we have to go live.

[00:23:16] So we in Loudoun County, with the EMS division, they did an assessment of what it would take for us to open our own pharmacy. here in Loudoun County. We will start with one initially here at our headquarters facility, and then we will eventually build out seven additional sites, which will allow us -- we're fortunate here in Loudoun County that our -- we have fire stations in close proximity to hospitals, so if someone were to go to Lansdowne and drop a patient off, there will be a pharmacy located at Fire Station 22 in Lansdowne across the street from the hospital. So although we're not able to exchange the drugs with the hospital, we'd be able to do it on our own pharmacy. And

[00:23:54] the ask was for the four FTEs that would be required to stand up a whole new operation that did not exist prior to that new mandate coming on board. Okay. Thank you for going through that. Just in case anyone, again, who was not in finance has any questions, I'm sure this will pass, because it has to pass, but I just want to make sure everyone knows what we're doing. Any other comments on the consent agenda?

[00:24:18] Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. So it's not about that item, but it's about item number four, the Dominion Energy Loudon panel wiring shop. That is a by-right use on the property. I just want my constituents to know it's off of North Star Boulevard.

[00:24:35] And the panel wiring shop is crucial for maintaining operations of the substations in our area. And it's, you know, it is on existing Dominion and Novak property. One thing I wanted to bring to the attention of the applicant is that I will be in touch with Dominion because like Parks and Rec, I believe there's an opportunity for collaboration to complete a portion of the Bull Run Trail identified in the county's linear parks and trail system.

[00:25:02] The southwest end of Dominion's property contains approximately 500 feet of frontage along the Bull Run tributary and the eastern boundary approximately 950 feet of a tributary out falling into the Bull Run. So I believe a trail easement would help us meet the missing connections and help us finish up this critical recreational opportunity for residents.

[00:25:25] So I will be in touch with Damian about this opportunity. Thank you, Chair Randall. Thank you, Mr. Crony. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank my colleagues for supporting the child care needs assessment update and recommendations from staff. Excuse me, that we evaluated the countywide needs assessment on child care and staff has recommended that we expand the program to include families at 80% or below the area median income.

[00:26:00] We also are going to provide more market rate adjustments for providers who agree to participate in the program. Right now the program is a 50% reduction in child care fees that are paid to the child care provider, so staff is recommending even a market rate adjustment in addition to that.

[00:26:20] And then also to increase the capacity of technical assistance and marketing and publicity of the program, because unfortunately we found out in finance that only 15% of the first million has actually been used for fee reduction.

[00:26:40] And part of that is that we're just not reaching the audience that needs to be reached. And so we're going to work with our public affairs department to figure out ways to make sure that we're getting to that audience and some interdepartmental work will be happening. We also had a nice kind of brainstorming session yesterday talking about working with LCPS, the parent liaison officers at LCPS, and some other avenues where we might reach the families because we know there's a need. As 51% of Americans live in child care deserts, we know that child care for the average family takes up 8 to 19% of their income. And if you are

[00:27:18] a disadvantaged family, you are spending 35% of your household income on child care. And we know that for married couples, it makes up 13%. And for a single income household, It makes up 47%, up to 40% of their income is spent on child care if they want to get in and stay in the workforce.

[00:27:41] So if you have an interest in learning about the child care needs assessment, it is in the item. And I'm very much looking forward to continuing the program. The other thing that was added in finance is we added to the motion that we would consider continuing the program.

[00:27:56] Right now we're using ARPA funds. So we added to the motion that we will consider funding this regularly. in the 2026 budget cycle and or when the ARPA funds run out. So I'm very happy about that, and I thank my colleagues for supporting.

[00:28:15] Okay, I just want to go back to the Rescue Pharmacy Program, because on its face, when you say it as wonderfully as you did, it sounds logical, right? It sounds completely logical. A couple things. One, it is an unfunded mandate on localities, and we always push back against unfunded mandates.

[00:28:33] Two, it's not just narcotics, it's other types of substances as well, including benzodiazepines and other types of substances. Three, for some counties, including Loudoun, Prince William, Fairfax, where we have our own health department and we have a county that can do this.

[00:28:50] It may not be as difficult, but there are a lot of counties in Virginia that absolutely cannot afford to stand up their own pharmacy. There are some rather small counties, rural counties that do not have those funds, tend up their own pharmacy. Not to mention, it was hard for us to know how many substances to order, because we don't know what the use is going to be.

[00:29:11] Right now, as we use the substances or the medications for residents that need them at the time of a call, it's replaced. Now we have to order them in advance, and if we order too many, they may expire. If we don't order enough, we go on the call and no one has what they need.

[00:29:28] There are a thousand things, well maybe not a thousand, but there's a hundred things wrong with this program. And there was no discussing this with localities that have to implement this. Also, if we're doing this with localities all over Virginia, you have to hire, we're hiring four.

[00:29:47] Every locality in Virginia is going to be trying to hire these people. It could be probably at least six months before even Loudoun has people hired up. But for other counties, they're not going to be able to pay, not going to be able to stand it up in regions. I'm not sure how many people they're going to be able to hire and win.

[00:30:03] It literally wasn't broke. The system was working. No one had complaints, and somebody decided to fix something that wasn't broke. And the result is going to be a lot of more cost to the counties, unfunded mandates.

[00:30:20] And there's going to be times in some rural area of Virginia that you're just not going to get a medication that you need because the locality would not have been able to order it. And so it is a problematic program.

[00:30:35] And so since we are being required to do it, we will do what is required, but I will not do it without a fight. And I would not do it without talking it through, and I would not do it in -- when it doesn't agree with our legislative program already and not at least say something about it.

[00:30:54] So our fire department is wonderful, and you've done all the right things, but that's the fight we're about to have that I'm going to lose. But I still want to have a fight. So thank you very much. All right. The consent agenda was made and seconded.

[00:31:12] Anybody? Oh, well, no. that. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The consent agenda will pass 702. Okay. I have the following organizational or regional or national updates. On Thursday, September 5th, I met with members from the National Association of Counties, from LCPS, the U.S. Department of Education on the issue of the high absenteeism and high dropout rate among our Hispanic population, both in Loudoun and across the country, we are finding that

[00:31:51] our wonderful, precious, important Hispanic kids are absent at much, much higher rates and dropping out at much, much higher rates and not graduating. And some of the issue with that is when they don't graduate, they're just kind of disappearing into the -- we're not sure what's going on. We're not -- there's no follow-up. I understand that LCPS does have programs for ESL kids, for kids who are entering the system later.

[00:32:18] I understand that. But truthfully, if those kids are in LCPS programs, they haven't dropped out. And so that's not the kids we're actually worried about. It was really interesting that when we had the discussion with the Department of Education, this didn't make any sense because I asked why are kids dropping out?

[00:32:34] And the answer was the two cohorts of kids are absent, I should say absent, 11th and 12th graders have higher numbers of absenteeism and they're dropping out, and first and second graders have higher absenteeism.

[00:32:50] So when I said why, they said, well, we believe they're going to work, and I said, well, that might be true for the 11th and 12th graders, but the first and second graders are not going to work. So back to the discussion that we keep having that Ms. Brixman brought up of child care. Whatever the issue is, and I don't know what the issue is, but at this point this issue has become large enough that the National Association of Counties and the Youth Department of Education is now having this discussion and we're all going to put their heads together

[00:33:26] and figure it out because we can't let this stand. On Monday, September 9th, I participated in a PBS interview on invasive species and the spotted lanternfly, which means I went outside on a path and saw some bugs.

[00:33:47] I don't know when the, and the whole PBS, that's like a whole hour PBS, and it was in and Loudon because we have, because Lyra, our invasive species, have done such a good job with this issue and that PBS caught their attention and then their whole documentary is being done on invasive species of plants and bushes and trees and the bugs that they bring with them.

[00:34:14] On Thursday the 12th, I went to the White House because it was a commemoration of the the 30th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act. Something that was really surprising that I had absolutely no idea about when I was there is the incredibly, incredibly high number of American Indian, Indian Native people who are victims of intimate partner and sexual

[00:34:47] partner violence. About 58% of Native American women and 51% of Native American men experience intimate partner violence during their lifetime. Intimate partner violence was a factor in 44% of the homicides in Native American communities and 11% of Native American women, 11% of Native men, and about 44% of Native American women have been raped or will be raped in their

[00:35:24] lifetime. 44%. I became aware of this because while at the White House, there were just so many people of Native American descent, and so I just said to somebody, can you tell me what's going on? And so she started talking to me, and then I went and looked at the numbers myself, and I was just, I was surprised and appalled. But I am also very, was very, well, I'm very pleased that the President Biden reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act.

[00:35:57] I'd be even more pleased when we no longer need the Violence Against Women Act, because that's really the goal. To not need it at all is the goal. So those were my activities over the past two weeks. All right. Our voice for a cause today is the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance.

[00:36:18] The Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance is a nonprofit that serves the Nova region through promoting healthy, sustainable, and equitable communities that meet the diverse needs of Northern Virginia residents. Northern Virginia Northern Housing Alliance does work advocating for affordable housing public policies, partnering with underserved communities to lift up their participation and our civic associations and our civic discourse and conducting research and providing technical assistance on housing needs to promote inclusive, equitable communities across Northern Virginia.

[00:36:49] Amanda Cochran has come today to speak with us. Thank you for coming. Can you tell us about some of the education and advocacy that you take part in and that happens at the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance? Yeah, absolutely. Good afternoon and thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.

[00:37:05] My name is Amanda Caron, and I'm the very new Loudoun Director for the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, or NAVAHA. At NAVAHA, we believe in a future where everyone has access to quality, affordable housing in a neighborhood where they can thrive. Our mission is to increase supply and equitable access to affordable housing in Northern Virginia through education, advocacy, and community partnership.

[00:37:24] We're working to meet the needs of the diverse housing needs of our Northern Virginia communities through alliances that are locally responsive and regionally united. Our strategies for doing this work include advocating for public policies and adequate financial investments to develop and preserve housing that's affordable, building political will to advance affordable housing through better understanding of the interplay between housing, health, equity, and economic development, partnering with underserved communities to lift their participation in our civic discourse, calling for the deconstruction of land-use systems and policies that perpetuate inequities, and the allocation of resources to address the disparities created by these systems, and providing technical assistance on housing policies to promote inclusive, equitable communities here in Northern Virginia.

[00:38:05] In June, Navaja and the Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Far Care Counties announced a new partnership to support local advocacy efforts for affordable housing here in Loudoun County. In 2022, the Loudoun Community Cabinet, a component fund of the Community Foundation, provided seed funding to launch Workforce Housing Now.

[00:38:20] As a community-wide public awareness campaign created by the Community Foundation, and partnership with local organizations and businesses, Workforce Housing Now highlighted the need for more workforce housing production, diversity and affordability in Loudoun. Recently, the Loudoun Community Cabinet awarded a $50,000 grant to Navaja to launch a new local alliance in Loudoun County to advocate for policies and resources that would advance the availability of more affordable housing.

[00:38:44] And I am happy to have accepted this position to serve as the Loudoun Director, officially beginning next month. We are grateful for this partnership with the Community Foundation and the Loudoun Community Cabinet. Earlier this year, we merged Arlington-based Alliance for Housing Solutions, which gave us the template to start other local alliances in Northern Virginia jurisdictions. We are thrilled to launch our second local alliance here in Loudoun, where there are many opportunities to partner with county stakeholders to achieve the goals of the Unmet Housing Needs Strategic Plan. Well, wow, thank you. You've just covered all my questions, which is great. I'm going to throw a different question at you since you've covered so many of them. Our Chamber of Commerce in Loudoun has done a great job advocating for attainable

[00:39:22] housing in Loudoun County. Just a fantastic job. Are you all used, besides advocacy, are you used as an advisory body? Would you work with the chamber? Would you advise the board? Besides being a non-profit, obviously, in what ways could we tap into your knowledge and resources?

[00:39:42] Yeah, absolutely. I have to go off my script a little bit, so I apologize. That's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Our strengths really are in convening and advising around affordable housing. So absolutely, we – let me go back to my script to make sure that I don't say the wrong thing. I don't want to stumble. Well, that question's not on your script, so you're off script now.

[00:40:01] I'm sorry, I threw your curveball there. No, it's totally fine. Absolutely, we do, you know, try to bring housing expertise in our convening so that we can advise both county officials, local partners, and state stakeholders and be a support as we all work together to build affordable housing here in Loudoun. So I'm going to go to the last question on your script because you really did cover all the other ones, And that is the best way for Loudoun residents to learn more about your organization.

[00:40:23] Absolutely. To visit our website, which is navaha.org, and sign up to join our email list. Our website is full of resources and information about our work and about affordable housing in Northern Virginia. Also to consider signing up to attend one of our very popular free monthly online lunch and learn events and to learn more about being an advocate for affordable housing in Northern Virginia.

[00:40:40] Well, listen, if anyone does any research on housing, they know that housing is the basis for everything else. I mean, the education system, health care system, everything falls, you know, when the kids who are not doing well, when we did the study here in Loudoun, it was the kids that were unhoused or precariously housed.

[00:40:56] So housing is just the basis for all other healthy behaviors. And so what you're doing is so, so important. We love it that we're second. We would have loved it more if we were first, but that's okay. We'll take second. And welcome to Loudoun County. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Mr. Hemstreet, do you have any remarks tonight?

[00:41:18] Thank you, Chair Randall. I have four comments for this evening. The first is that in the wake of a house fire in Ashburn this past weekend, Loudoun County fire officials remind residents that organic planting materials, such as potting soil, are capable of spontaneous combustion, leading to fires that can quickly spread into a structure.

[00:41:36] This has been an issue with the recent hot, dry, and windy conditions that allow mulch fires to start more readily. Officials recommend that at least 18 inches of clearance be maintained between the edge of a mulch bed and flammable building materials such as vinyl siding and wooden decks. Learn more about how to prevent fires at loudon.gov slash fire prevention.

[00:41:56] Second, the deadline for Loudon farmers to apply for a $500 grant through the county's Farmers Assistance and Relief Measures Fund is October 2nd. As you know, the fund was set up last month to help farmers affected by the severe drought we experienced this summer and in response to Loudon's inclusion in the USDA primary disaster area list.

[00:42:16] Eligible farmers may apply for the grants, which are administered by the Department of Economic Development at biz.loudon.gov slash farm fund. And then speaking of the Department of Economic Development, DED has been recognized as an innovator by the International Economic Development Council, winning four prestigious awards.

[00:42:35] bronze for the FY23 annual report and the hop-on hop-off bus tour pilot program, silver for the farm tour map design, and a gold award for the Black History Month social media campaign. These accolades highlight the department's exceptional efforts in driving economic growth and community engagement. Details on these and other county award-winning programs may be found at loudon.gov slash awards. And then finally, the Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging will present Dementia Man at the Franklin Park Performing and Visual Arts Center on Wednesday, September 25th

[00:43:13] at 1 p.m. This is an award-winning autobiographical story of a man who faces his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The play is performed by actor and playwright Samuel A. Simon, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. More information is available at loudin.gov slash caregivers.

[00:43:31] Those are my comments this evening. Mr. Hemsworth, do you mind repeating one more time when that will play? It's Wednesday, September 25th, so next week. So just one show. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Supervisors, it is too early for us to do five o'clock speaking, and it is too early for us to do resolutions, and it's obviously too early to do six o'clock speaking, so I'm going to try to knock off some of these action items because we can. So Mr. Letourneau, you have a BMI in here? And so we don't need the staff for the,

[00:44:09] because it's a BMI. So I'm going to do that. And I'm going to go, if we still have time, Mr. M Street, I'll go to item number 12A after that, because I know that Mr. Sains wants to be here for the RISE program. So Mr. Letourneau, would you like to do your BMI? Sure. Would you let me explain it first. Sure take a second to do that. Okay all right so this is a BMI for proactive zoning enforcement which was unusual but we have an unusual situation at Pleasant Valley Road and Wade Drive. It's a commercial area on the south side of Route 50 right at the county line with

[00:44:47] Fairfax County. If you're familiar with more Cadillac it's it's near there. So for the last several years my office has been knee-deep in trying to resolve outstanding issues in this area. There are excessive parking that's occurring on lots. Many of these are car sales type of businesses, but many of the cars are not titled and not marked.

[00:45:13] The Sheriff's Office is there very regularly doing various enforcement. Mr. Hemp Street, I believe, even took a field trip to this particular area and saw for himself the conditions that we're describing. It really is kind of extraordinary.

[00:45:30] So this is a dead-end street, and in the last two years, there have been 26 accidents on this dead-end street that doesn't go anywhere, which is an extraordinary number that kind of speaks to the issues that we're having. because what happens is anytime somebody is trying to deliver something to one of the many businesses there, they have to stop in the middle of the road.

[00:45:52] There's no place to park in any of the parking lots. So we are working with VDOT on parking restrictions. We're working with VDOT to repave and mark the roads. But we're actually concerned that as they start sweeping the streets and moving cars off the street, it's only going to make it worse within the businesses themselves.

[00:46:10] So we've talked to zoning enforcement and talked about some of our issues. We had, as I said, Mr. Hempstreet, the director of building and development, director of planning and zoning. And we determined that this was the best course of action to try to really put a targeted enforcement on this area to get it cleaned up and make it safer for all the legitimate businesses there that are trying to make a living and not dealing with this amount of just vehicles everywhere, some of which are inoperable and otherwise.

[00:46:47] And so with that, I will move to the Board of Supervisors, direct staff to initiate proactive zoning enforcement for the commercial properties on Pleasant Valley Road and Wade Drive in the Dulles Election District and direct staff to complete an analysis of approved permitted uses and provided parking within each development included in that area.

[00:47:07] Motion is made and seconded by Mr. Crony. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Yeah, I don't have too much more. I'm happy to answer questions just to kind of reiterate that we're, we don't know for sure how much square footage is dedicated to a particular commercial use and whether those uses have adequate parking.

[00:47:27] So that's part of what we need to look at. We think it's possible that some businesses are using up space that's allocated to others and are not able to have a parking for their own businesses. So that is part of what we're trying to accomplish with this as well. Okay. This is item number nine, actually, everyone.

[00:47:45] Other discussion on this motion, item number nine, Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I looked at the actions we've taken already. Can you explain to me what proactive zoning enforcement is? Well, actually, Mr. Hemstreet, would you care to take that one?

[00:48:02] Yes. So, Madam Chair. Yes, so the board's policy, with the exception of a portion of the Sterling district, is that zoning is enforced only on a complaint basis. So zoning enforcement does not does not carry out any proactive enforcement unless we receive a complaint from somebody and then they will go out and investigate it.

[00:48:26] What Supervisor Letourneau is requesting in his board member initiative is that the staff be directed to engage in proactive enforcement in the specific area that's defined in the board member initiative, which means zoning enforcement would patrol the area. And when they see a zoning infraction, they would go ahead and start the process with the property owner to address whatever their zoning issue is.

[00:48:50] So, Madam Chair, can I ask a question? Yes. So the follow-on question then is, are we resourced to do that? Are we comfortable that we can do that with additional resources? I believe staff has indicated, at least initially, that we believe we can handle it. It depends on how big an issue it is. We may come back and ask for additional resources.

[00:49:08] But I think the initial reaction is we should be able to manage it with existing resources. Okay, thank you. Ms. Friksman? So is the issue parking, if I might ask Supervisor Letourneau, is the issue parking on the street?

[00:49:23] It's both. On the street, there is frequent parking of vehicles that are inoperable and can't be moved. And the sheriff's office has difficulty when those vehicles aren't registered and aren't titled because they have nobody to assign them to. So there are sometimes they tow them and they never get picked up.

[00:49:42] We have some suspicions about what may be going on in some of those instances. But beyond that, in the actual defined parking areas, the same thing is occurring. And there is no parking space for many of the businesses. There's different types of businesses.

[00:49:58] Some of the car sales and car repair businesses, and I will note that there's differences in our zoning ordinance about those type of uses, but some of them are taking up seemingly the whole parking area. And we believe that they're supposed to just be confined to a certain number of spaces.

[00:50:16] Just to elaborate a little, although we have a complaint. You're in her time. I can stop, but I'll just tell you one little, this is a complaint-based system, yes, but the businesses are so overwhelmed that they would feel like they would be calling every day, so that's why we're doing this.

[00:50:33] And are there already no parking signs on the street, and they're violating that? There are some, and then we're working with VDOT on some additional ones, but we're concerned that when we put more on, those cars will just migrate into the parking lots, which are already full.

[00:50:49] I'm happy to support, thank you. So I'm happy to support. I think this is one of these moments where as county chair I have to ask how much could we have, could this happen in other places too? Because I imagine that many of you and many of my colleagues probably get these kind of questions.

[00:51:11] And, you know, if we want to start dipping into proactive zoning, we eventually will need more staff. We absolutely will. So I don't mind supporting this one, but I also want to just let it be known that I have a feeling that when we hear the next one, it's going to be, well, we support the one in the Dulles district and then we're going to go further.

[00:51:30] So this is fine, but let's just be aware of how we do this because I have no issues hiring staff for proactive zoning, but I do have issues stretching the staff we have. If we want to start doing proactive zoning, we won't have enough staff to do that.

[00:51:48] So if this becomes in this neighborhood, in this neighborhood, in this neighborhood, I want us all to be aware that we may have to hire more staff, and I'll be willing to do that. So, okay. We have closing, Mr. Letourneau? Yeah, just to clarify, though, staff will inform us if more resources would be needed on this particular.

[00:52:09] There are 14 cases active already that staff is working on in this area. So we believe that those same staff members are going to be working on this. But I understand the chair's point. I will say in all my years doing this, I've never seen anywhere a circumstance quite like this.

[00:52:27] I have a lot of industrial area in my district along the 606 corridor, and we did have issues there, significant issues. We didn't get to this point because we were able to handle it through the sheriff's office and through the unit owner association, which doesn't really exist here.

[00:52:43] So in most cases, we can handle these other ways. This is really kind of an extraordinary case, but I certainly take the point. And I do think this is a core function of our government that we need to be able to ensure that the zoning ordinance is being followed and that every legitimate business has an opportunity to survive here.

[00:53:02] So, you know, this is one of these things I think we should be doing as a county in extraordinary circumstances. Okay. Great. the motion was made by Mr. Letourne, seconded by Mr. Crony. All I have to say aye. Any opposed?

[00:53:20] That motion will pass 7-0-2. And we are still running really, really ahead of time, so we're going to do one more action item. And I'm trying to hold number 9 because we -- I'm sorry, number 5, because we are going to do number 5 tonight. We're absolutely going to do number 5.

[00:53:36] I'm trying to hold that until Mr. Kirshner gets here, because it's in his district. And I can't do number 11 because it's a BMI that was initially put forward by Mr. Sains, so I can't do that one.

[00:53:52] So, but I can, if staff is in the room, do number 12. Is staff in the room? Oh, wow, lots of staff is in the room.

[00:54:10] Good evening, everyone. - Good evening. - Good evening, so you have a presentation. It is nine slides.

[00:54:28] I hate that Mr. Kirshner is not in the room for this either because it's the rural policy, but we need to kind of move things on a little bit. And so many, well, if you're in TELUC, you've seen this, but I'm assuming, well, I shouldn't do that. Would you all like to see the full presentation?

[00:54:47] Yes, Mr. Crony? But Mr. Crony, would you like to see the full, especially, well, let's let. Okay, guys, don't tell me if you don't want to see the full presentation. Tell me if you do want to see the full presentation. Okay, because we've done the TLUC, we've done the TLUC, so okay, all right.

[00:55:07] We don't need the presentation, thank you, anyway. We've either read the item or in TLUC already. We are, can I assume you have new information to give us? Oh, there we go.

[00:55:25] Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Board. Good evening. I can give a brief summary of what TLUC decided. Obviously, this was in front of the Board in March, was sent to TLUC. we had two very productive tluck meetings in june and july as a result of those two tluck meetings we have essentially proposed substantial changes to the project plan there was concerns regarding

[00:55:55] the method of stakeholder input how that would be received we also had concerns about who would be taking uh the uh the input as far as uh from the public um so so those issues were discussed by tluck it was determined that tluck would actually end up basically hosting hosting the uh the stakeholder sessions we amended the the process to essentially create a system where

[00:56:33] We would be hosting subject matter experts at each of these TLUC meetings. There would be three from three subject matter groups. You would have a business and tourism group, an agriculture and conservation group, and a residential group.

[00:56:54] Three representatives from each group going to each TLUC meeting. And those members would participate in a discussion with TLUC. There was concerns about who would be appointing or proposing the membership for those individual stakeholders.

[00:57:14] TLUC decided that there would be a coordinating lead that would present the selected stakeholders for each subject matter.

[00:57:31] So essentially, TLUC is recommending that Beth Erickson be the coordinating lead for the Business and Tourism Group. She would recommend three representatives for each one of those TLUC meetings. Chris VanVleck would represent the Agricultural and Conservation Group, and he would recommend three representatives for each TLUC meeting.

[00:57:53] And then for the residents, TLUC has proposed that the three individual board members represent Western Loudoun districts, propose an individual for each one of those meetings.

[00:58:12] So with that, we also had discussions regarding the expansion of the scope regarding ordinances. Supervisor Tacroni, Supervisor Kirchner both had a lengthy list of items they thought would be relevant for this project.

[00:58:30] TLUC discussed that, we whittled down those lists so that now you'll see in attachment three, there is a list of proposed additional ordinance amendments that would be part of this project.

[00:58:45] So we've added those, that resulted in an expanded timeframe. So we're now looking at essentially seven TLUC meetings for a completion date that goes into early 2027.

[00:59:01] So essentially now how it lays out, 2025 would essentially take care of the TLUC meetings. 2026 would be the time when language development and review occurs, bringing it to the Planning Commission in the fall time of 2026 and leaving roughly five months for board discussion and final adoption for the proposed amendments to the zoning ordinance. I can answer any

[00:59:35] questions that you may have, but that's a general summary of what was decided. Thank you. Amazing. Thank you very much. Questions? Mr. Turner, I'm going to go to you first, and I'm going to go to the motion as well as Chair of TLUC.

[00:59:54] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm doing questions first, if you have questions. Yeah, I don't remember a whole lot of whittling on the additional items. And it's a pretty long list, and I'm fine with that. We haven't looked at rural CPAM zone stuff in a long time, and so I'm okay with that if we take as long as we need to take.

[01:00:15] We had an old saying in the military, any task will expand to consume all the time available. Is there an opportunity here, as we finish the TLUC meetings, if it becomes obvious that we resolved items on this list, can we shorten this timeframe?

[01:00:31] - Yeah, absolutely. If you look at the timeframe, you've probably got nine months just for planning commission and board review. So we've baked in a lot of time for this to expand or contract if needed. We've also got, I think four to five months at ZOC.

[01:00:49] So there is, if we move this along, opportunity to chop several months out of this great thank you miss uh miss brixman oh i'm sorry by my mr crony yeah thank you chair randall um so the outstanding issues the outstanding issues meeting i've kind of fallen up with what uh supervisor turner said if we address them maybe we wouldn't need meeting seven is what you're saying like that's just

[01:01:24] kind of ad hoc if needed. That's just in case there's too much debate and we can't we can't come to a happy medium and we have to we have to have additional discussion yes. Okay. So it is possible we wouldn't need that but you never know. You never know. Yes. Okay and then where is the tenant housing farm worker housing seasonal dormitory in the meeting topics because I didn't see that in meeting one through six.

[01:01:51] Originally, we were just going to do the agricultural issues during, it was set for one meeting, but after we had the discussion at the second TELUC meeting and we did the expanded scope, you'll notice now that there's two agricultural-based meetings, I think it's number two and number three.

[01:02:12] And you'll notice on both of those it says other agricultural issues. We've got a lot of just general agricultural based issues to discuss, so we as staff need to figure out, you know, which ones go at which meeting so we can at least divide the time up, try to divide it up evenly.

[01:02:32] So it would go in one of those meetings. Yeah, and I think the coordinating leads would want to know specifics just because they were going to put people on that have, that need farm housing or seasonal. Yes, it's our intention to hopefully sit down with the coordinating leads as well as the stakeholders that they select prior to these meetings so we can get a handle on exactly what their issues are and also let them know what we're looking at as far as our list goes.

[01:03:01] Okay, and then the lodging uses, is that going to be addressed in meeting five? Is that with events? I'm just wondering where that one goes. We could either do that in that meeting or also in the events or in the agricultural, the catch-all meetings, yeah.

[01:03:20] Okay, so thank you so much for your hard work, and I definitely support the extension of this effort because I think it's been, you know, like what Supervisor Turner said, it's been years. I mean, the comp plan, we really didn't make any changes to the rural policy area, And then with ZOR, you know, it was kind of kicked to this board.

[01:03:43] Yeah, all of the rural uses and standards. So I think it's worth getting it right. And any fit, you know, that way we can avoid having to make fixes down the road if it's comprehensive. And we're really taking a thorough look and including all the stakeholders. So I really appreciate all your hard work on it.

[01:04:00] Thank you. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you. barring a pandemic how confident is staff that we will be able to take action on this by april 2027 because it was really stressful toward the end of last term trying to finish this or i don't think i could give you a number i mean we've built in a lot of time here to try to work believe it or not we always try to pad these at least a little bit because we know things will take extra time yeah uh i think we are reasonably confident Honestly, we will know within the first couple of those TLUC meetings how well it's going and if it's going to be feasible or not.

[01:04:40] Okay. And we've got an opportunity where staff can be working on, as these TLUC meetings are occurring, we as staff can be working on the draft language. So if things get behind, we can kind of overlap, say, ZOC meetings on one group just to keep things moving along.

[01:05:01] Okay. And then I only had one other question. What does conservation easement density mean? So that was the issue that was brought up during the prime ag, prime soil, prime ag farmlands, I'm sorry, prime ag soil issue.

[01:05:22] And Supervisor Tacroni, I believe it was, discussed this at the July board meeting. It was an issue that was not resolved during that project and the thought was that it would have a spot here in the Western Loudon project just to address that issue.

[01:05:44] I don't know what the issue is. The concern is that some of the older conservation easements don't explicitly state that the land cannot be incorporated into a subdivision to allow more density on a larger parcel.

[01:06:00] So if you have 200 acres under easement and 200 acres otherwise, potentially you could put all 400 together and get the density out of that, even though you cannot put those lots on the 200 acres under easement. Okay, so from my understanding then, because when I've seen that happen before and I've questioned it, it has been when they use floodplain to count all the acreage.

[01:06:24] And I'm saying you can't build in the floodplain, so how can you use a floodplain as counting toward your acreage for density? So it's kind of a similar issue. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Thank you. So if Mr. Van Flack and Ms. Erickson want to attend all the meetings themselves, can they do that?

[01:06:45] We discuss this. It would be up to the board, Supervisor Turner. But the thought is right now, no. They would be, I suppose they could. I think they like that answer, actually. propose themselves as a stakeholder and attend in that capacity, but it's the understanding right now that it's their job to basically recommend stakeholders.

[01:07:13] Judy, we talked about, thank you, we talked about this last week. I think we're getting down to the wire where Mr. Crony, Mr. Kirschner, and I need to put names in, yes? Don't you think? You're right. You're absolutely right. We are working through the county administrator's office to coordinate some dates so that we know know who to reach out to okay we can look at their schedules as well well i have my names ready so when you guys are ready to go just let me know yes ma'am all right thank you anybody else mr um no mr uh mr turner would you like to make a motion

[01:07:47] uh make some closing comments first uh sure um i just wait wait it's a motion it's a motion you can have i move the board of supervisors prove the project plan no no no no no no i'm sorry no you haven't made a motion i'm getting whiplash okay well yeah but you have you made a motion already no no then make a motion like i said thank you madam chair closing the board of supervisors approve the project plan for cpam 2024 0002 and oam 2024 0002 western loud and rural uses and standards provided as attachment one motion is made second by mr crony discussion on the motion mr

[01:08:25] Turner. Thank you Madam Chair. I really want to commend the group, the staff done a great job on this. I know this has been a tough long slog and our goal from the very beginning both from TLUC and from staff was to try and replicate as closely as possible the very successful discussions we had at the end of the zoning ordinance rewrite process at the end of last year which was a really helpful dialogue and really accelerated the process and we're trying to institutionalize and capture that process in this larger CPAMs OM for rural Loudoun.

[01:08:59] And I think the model that staff has presented does exactly that. I personally guarantee here right now on the dais that we will finish on time in this term. You can take that to the bank and hopefully sooner than that, but I just want to commend everybody.

[01:09:16] You did a really terrific job. I'm very pleased with this plan. Thank you. Mr. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I just wanted to save my comments for the motions as well. I had a quick call with Supervisor Turner yesterday, and I think this is a great plan.

[01:09:34] I really like the idea of keeping these working sessions in TLUC so that we don't kind of go off the rails by either group. And I think that staff and TELUC have done a really great job of balancing the stakeholders so that we don't have an issue with that.

[01:09:52] So great work, and I look forward to the progress. Thank you. Now, would you like a closing statement, Mr. Turner? No, close. Okay. All in people say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass, 7-0-2.

[01:10:07] And we have made it to having public comments for the 5 o'clock public comment time. Now, for 5 o'clock, I only have three people signed up. That's what I have on my 5 o'clock public comment time. Is James Russell here?

[01:10:27] I'm sorry, that's not 5 o'clock. Patricia Cave, Madeline Skinner, and Nicola Costa. That's the 5 o'clock time I have in that order. Patricia Cave, Madeline Skinner, and Nicola Costa. Good evening. Hello. Ready when you are.

[01:10:43] Okay. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Patricia Cave. I'm a resident of Hidden Wood Lane. I was last before you during the public hearing in July, and I'm here this evening to thank you for deferral of our Hidden Wood Assemblage application.

[01:10:59] While we appreciate you granting this deferral, we're eager to come to a swift, positive resolution of our rezoning application. We'll continue to improve the rezoning application based on the feedback that we hope to continue to receive from you. We especially would like to thank those of you who have been able to visit Hidden Wood Lane, meet with us, and understand more fully the negative issues that we deal with on a daily basis.

[01:11:25] We look forward to continuing to meet with you individually to confirm we are making the progress and positive changes needed to garner your support. This rezoning is the only solution that will allow us to leave our current untenable situation before the holidays. We have been enduring this uncertainty for the past several years, and our patience has worn thin.

[01:11:48] We are not asking for anything from this board other than for your support for our application. It's a reasonable request and a reasonable solution to which we've made numerous revisions to address your requests and concerns. Any other option would take many more months and possibly years to realize, and we can't bear any more lengthy delays.

[01:12:11] Our mental and physical health continues to decline as this process drags on. We know you understand our plight, and we sincerely appreciate your concern. But please work with us to realize our proposed solution that will allow us to move on with our lives as soon as possible.

[01:12:28] Thank you. Ms. Cave, thank you. Thank you. Madeline Skinner and Nicola Costa, good evening, Ms. Skinner. Good evening, Chair Randall, Supervisors. I had, like, two different speeches tonight because I saw that we were on the consensus agenda for the speed study, but just in case it came off, I wasn't sure what to do.

[01:12:48] So, I am here to basically thank you on behalf of the Philomont residents for your support for the funding of the Philomont-Snickersville Turnpike Speed Study, residents throughout our county and beyond consider the Snickersville Turnpike one of the most scenic drives, and of course, I wholeheartedly agree, but we must keep everyone safe.

[01:13:08] I did send you all each an email, and I did include a picture that was one of the really crazy accidents that occurred on Snickersville Turnpike this past summer where two cars overturned just past Hibbs Bridge. So, just in case you hadn't seen that yet. Unfortunately, many don't understand the challenges or the patience to fully appreciate slowing down and enjoying the view along our scenic byway. There have been many accidents, especially at the intersection of Snickersville Turnpike and 611 and 690, as people truly just ignore the stop signs.

[01:13:39] I personally have been nearly hit twice so far. Fortunately, no one was hurt when some our friends left our house and actually got hit at the flashing light. At one point we had about three accidents in one week at the intersection of Snickersville, that same intersection with the flashing light. London County Sheriff's Office has every now and then parked a car there to watch the intersection, but of course we need a more longer term solution.

[01:14:08] There have been many neighbors as well who have contacted VDOT to talk about that particular intersection and we just really keep hitting a brick wall with that. So we really appreciate that you have done this and approved the funding for this study. So thank you. Thank you. And our last speaker at this time is Nicole Acosta. Good evening, Ms. Acosta. Good evening, Madam Chair, Board of Supervisors, Nicole Acosta with the Community Foundation for Lauderdale and Northern Fauquier Counties. I'm here tonight to express my support for the RISE Economic Mobility Program.

[01:14:44] I trust you received my written comments by email yesterday, which detailed my support and feedback for the proposed plan. If the proposed RISE plan is approved tonight, I encourage us to leverage the program design, best practices, and lessons learned from neighboring counties who have implemented similar pilots, including Fairfax, Alexandria, and Arlington.

[01:15:02] An exciting element of these guaranteed income pilots are how community involvement and collaboration between nonprofits, philanthropy, and local government are leveraged to lift up the families participating in the programs. I see the RISE program as a way to help Loudoun families secure more financial stability and also an opportunity to bring together the county government with the non-profit community to strengthen support services while we work towards a common goal. Many communities with guaranteed income pilots have gone on to launch expanded services with innovative longer-term programming addressing economic mobility. This includes the community foundations and localities

[01:15:39] serving Alexandria and Richmond who are now participating in a national economic mobility Action Network, led by CF Leeds and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with other foundation and government colleagues in Buffalo, North Texas, Wichita, and Rochester, just to name a few. And I just want to say, I understand and appreciate there are diverse opinions and schools of thoughts on the best ways to address economic stability and justice. No matter the outcome of tonight's discussion, I still think there is a great opportunity and potential to come together as government, philanthropy, and nonprofits to have a deeper dialogue about what innovative

[01:16:15] economic mobility program models we could look at here in Loudoun and explore how we could get there in this community. I know our nonprofits would appreciate that discussion, and I just want to thank you all for considering it and for your leadership. Thank you very much.

[01:16:32] As is my practice, and I think what is appropriate and professionally courteous, I'm going to hold the rise vote until Mr. Sains gets here, and I'm holding the Valley Commerce Center annexation vote to Mr. Kirshner gets here because I think even though we don't have to hold votes for our colleagues, I think it's the right thing to do, to be quite honest.

[01:16:56] And so I'm going to hold both of those votes until they get here. We are going to do item number 10, which is the transmission line undergrounding item. It is a BMI of which there have been -- thank you, everyone, for coming in.

[01:17:13] I appreciate it. We'll just wait until they clear the room.

[01:17:40] Item number 10, Mr. Letourneau. Want to get ready to a motion? Can you be really brief in your -- in your explaining? So this is a board member initiative that came about after discussions I had with Mr. Rogers and Mr. Hemstreet and then some of my colleagues after that about the various efforts going on to try to figure out a strategy around underground transmission lines.

[01:18:05] Obviously, I don't have to tell anybody here that we have two current applications for transmission lines that there is significant community concern about, and as we've kind of continued to have those discussions, it's become clear that we have potential regulatory hurdles, and then there could also be financial hurdles to undergrounding, such that even if we came up with a way to defray the costs of undergrounding power lines essentially transitioning

[01:18:38] that over to the state corporations commission process is not a clear path for us. So the intent of the BMI is to bring a focus group of staff together including the county attorney, the county administrator, Mr. Reiser and others to develop a comprehensive strategy that is both legislative and potentially financial to assign the cost to those that are using the most electricity, namely the high voltage customer data centers in the county.

[01:19:12] I can stop there. Yeah, why don't you go into a motion? Okay. I move the Board of Supervisors direct staff to develop a strategy that would allow for costs associated with underground and transmission lines to be assigned to data center customers. Second. I'll give that second to Mr. Turner.

[01:19:27] Discussion on the motion, Mr. LeTourneau? Yeah, so I want to be clear that I'm very cognizant of the fact that any effort in this area will require collaboration, I would even say, with the data center industry, given the realities of Richmond and otherwise.

[01:19:43] And it is my full intent that we engage the industry in this discussion, because I think they recognize as well some of the concerns in the community about overhead power lines and what could potentially happen. I don't actually have neither of these projects that are active or in my district, but I have been through this process. And until redistricting, I did represent a significant part of the impacted community in the Mars to Golden Line. And some of those paths, you know, literally are going through neighborhoods and significantly impacting homes. So we do need to come up with a way to

[01:20:22] handle this. And the fair way is for essentially the reason why we are in this position of needing all these large transmission lines to bear some responsibility for the cost as opposed to spreading it around all of the rate payers. Because as we know, you know, a single data center obviously is using a significant amount of electricity. And so this is intended to really be a comprehensive of effort, but the legislative piece of this, the motion does say, I didn't read it, so let me go back and read the, I further move, which is, I just realized, as I'm about to talk

[01:21:00] about it, I further move the Board of Supervisors direct staff to include within the strategy any potential state legislative changes that would be needed in all financial instruments to include personal property tax, special tax districts, service districts, or other mechanisms that may be available and report back to the Board of Supervisors in time for inclusion in the 2025 state legislative program no it was part of the original motion I just didn't read it on that section specifically time is of the essence because our state legislative program is is is approaching and we will need potentially legislation enrichment I have had

[01:21:36] some discussion with Mr. Hemstreet and Mr. Rogers about what approach that could take but I think the whole board should be involved in those discussions and we should really do some work and have a finished product that we can hand to our General Assembly members with all the backup they need and hopefully the support that they need to have some success in Richmond. So that's what this is. I don't know exactly what the outcome will be in every facet of this. There's a lot of ideas out there, but we definitely need a focused, organized effort within county government and since we follow the mantra of uh of of ask not task uh i think we needed a bmi

[01:22:14] in order to be able to to have that much work being done by by staff yeah mr turner thank you mad chair a couple of things first of all i think this is a good this is a good motion i think this is a good motion um and i fully support it um but there's some there's some key pieces here i want I wanna really emphasize.

[01:22:40] One of the things that I emphasized in my paper was we've gotta start working together instead of in silos. It's no one's fault that it's been working that way. This is a fast moving train of data growth and power demand, but we've gotta start working in silos. So something Supervisor Letourneau just said is absolutely essential here.

[01:22:57] We need to work with our legislative delegation, with the data center community, and let me add in PJM and Dominion in working through this issue. Now, it's entirely possible that Dominion is going to fight this tooth and nail, maybe so, but we all need to work together as a collaborative team. And towards that point, I've been working with Delegate Reed for the last month on some data center legislation that he's interested in putting forward, and we've been talking about this issue for quite some time.

[01:23:27] But that same holds, that same thing applies. We all got to be on the same page. If we're all going to be on the same page, and we want to get this in this session, and I think Loudoun County cannot afford to wait another year before we have legislation that supports our authority in our jurisdiction to control what's going on right now in terms of power.

[01:23:47] If we're going to get this in this session, we need to move as fast as we possibly can as a coordinated team to come up with a coordinated plan. And that plan needs to be a county plan that's coordinated with the state legislative plan, with our legislative delegation. And we need to work in lockstep from this point forward with, and time is of the essence on this if we're going to get this seriously considered.

[01:24:10] If we wait, in my judgment, until November when every other legislator drops their legislation in draft form, this could very easily get clogged up in committee and it will get pushed off until the next session. And given some of the stakeholders involved in this, I wouldn't be surprised if that's on some people's agendas anyway.

[01:24:27] So we need to guard against that and really work together as a team, collaboratively and and with some sense of urgency. The last thing is just I thought about whether I should say this or not but I am going to say it. I think this is doubly important because we need to start a new way of doing business in Loudoun County with power lines and this is a good major first step in a new way of doing business. Getting the prime stakeholders that are causing the new power lines to be built to have to bear the burden of that infrastructure. We just some quick numbers

[01:25:00] to illustrate how urgent this is in 2023 the county used 3.4 gigawatts of power i saw a chart just last week that indicates that we are probably going to use five gigawatts of power in 2024 we used 3.4 gigawatts in 2018 it was not enough we're bringing three more gigawatts in with these all these new lines we're building it's not going to be enough they're going to be more lines this is the first of many thank you uh miss glass thank you madam chair and madam chair may ask

[01:25:38] mr hemstreet a question yes you may mr hamstreet mr hamstreet um do you believe that um uh that we can have this report back in time you know for this to be added as part of the our county legislative program so i believe we'll be able to well i'm going to work with mr rogers so i'm mr rogers we have talked about this a little bit we think we can have a legislative position for the board it will take us until a november meeting to do it so i do not want to because this

[01:26:14] is the end of september i mean so it'll take us about 30 days to put something together which based off the board process would be the first meeting in november so it will take us that long to put a legislative position together but yes we can do that thank you and i i would agree with um uh supervisor turner and supervisor letourneau on on their comments made and i will be supporting this thank you madam chair thank you miss um um thank you madam chair if i could um speak to

[01:26:50] supervisor letourneau through the chair that's fine okay um one of the potential ways of funding this i think in the bmi was uh tax districts is i know nothing is is set in stone at this point but would it would you envision those tax districts impacting only data centers as opposed to any residential or other commercial uses uh through the chair uh yes supervisor

[01:27:26] that is certainly the intent of the BMI, it's to assign the cost specifically to data centers only. Okay. I mean, I will be supporting this, but I am concerned, and I might offer a friendly amendment to also include our federal representatives. As you all probably know, on September 12th, the White House issued a report in which it stated that the need for data centers, especially

[01:28:04] those that can process large amounts of data, is a national security issue. So I think we probably need to reach out to our senators and Congresswoman Wexton at this point and also our federal lobbyists not just our state lobbyists and not just our state representatives dominion has stated i believe on the record that they do not charge residential

[01:28:38] or other commercial customers for services needed by data centers so that is one area we would want to explore. But other than that, I would just ask if Supervisor Letourneau would accept a friendly amendment to add to state representatives and state outreach, federal outreach as well.

[01:29:03] Supervisor Emerson, could we just make it, in the last sentence of the motion, 2025 state and federal legislative program? Absolutely. Okay, I would accept that. sense. Okay, thank you. Mr. Crony. Yeah, thank you, Chair Randall. So I'm happy to support this initiative. I will say that when John Freeman asked for ideas for the 2025 state legislative program, I did mention undergrounding of transmission lines must be paid by data

[01:29:35] center customers, so I sent that a few months ago to him, but I do think that we need a strategy, and I would caution using our personal property tax as a way to fund undergrounding transmission lines.

[01:29:53] I think that puts us in between. It gets us paying for utilities, kind of like we pay for transportation, and I don't know that we want to, as a county, be paying for utilities or to be in the middle.

[01:30:09] I actually think it should be a direct charge from Dominion to the data center, maybe with the SCC involved in the middle. But I do caution that because I would like to see us lower the vehicle tax for customers or for residents because, you know, they want to see the results.

[01:30:32] They've had significant impacts from that industry, and I think lowering their taxes would make sense. And also mitigating, potentially mitigating some of the impacts that have been going on from data centers through our personal property tax.

[01:30:49] So I just caution using that as a funding source, because I do think that puts us in a position where we're getting involved with using our taxes for utility infrastructure. but i'm happy to support this thank you um supervisor letourneau thank you mr um briggsman thank you madam chair um yeah i was surprised to see this as a bmi um i too have attempted at least last session and maybe the session before to come up with a way to do a pilot program

[01:31:26] similar to what um uh senator rome did i believe on was it 66 or 50 um and our delegation i believe basically said with the makeup down in richmond it wasn't worth trying to to do an undergrounding pilot this is a little bit of a different animal i'm glad to see it um i think that uh it's it's a little bit of a different take so i'm happy to support um i had a question does and mr freeman isn't here so maybe supervisor letourneau knows the answer to this maybe not if i might ask him a

[01:32:03] question madam chair sure do we know if the jlark study is considering power because that's supposed to come back in november or maybe mr mr turner i mean mr mr rogers do you know that yes um vice chair brixman we've been working with the jlark group and actually have a draft of their report that I'm working with them on and answering some of the questions.

[01:32:31] It's about power, it's about data centers, and it's about the growth of the data center industry. So it's all those features, factors. So do you think that this will already be suggested in that report and kind of back us up, or do you think that we'll just be able to use some of that data to make our argument?

[01:32:49] It would be the latter. The latter, okay. All right, well, that's good that we already have that looped in. Yeah, so I am happy to support, And I think once we do get the authority, everything will probably have to go through finance committee, but I don't think it's worth a friendly tonight for that.

[01:33:07] And I will see where it goes. Thank you, Supervisor Letourneau. Thank you. Mr. Hemstreet and Mr. Rogers, how much, if any, work have you done on this item? I've spoken with Supervisor Letourneau, and that's about it.

[01:33:25] I mean, I've done a ton of work on undergrounding of power lines and data centers, but not specifically on this item. Mr. Hemstreet? I would say the same. I mean, we've done a little bit of taking a look at some of the legislation, existing statutory legislation on special districts and special tax districts and service districts.

[01:33:49] So we're kind of familiar with that, but we haven't done an extensive amount of work. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, this is an obvious item and happy to support. I'm a little – I have no trouble putting it on the agenda. I think that we need to be real careful with ask-don't-task that it doesn't get kind of a little ahead of us more than we wanted to get ahead of us.

[01:34:10] When Mr. Rogers wrote up talking points for us to talk to the SEC, this was a talking point that he wrote up. This was one of them once he wrote up, and so this is not a new thought. It's now in, you know, in BMI form, but I've, gosh knows, I've heard Mr. Turner talk about this, Mr. Crony, Ms. Bricksman.

[01:34:32] Really everyone talked about this for a long time and I think that sometimes coordination on these discussions is important. I don't know what Mr. Reed is exactly looking to do, but I know he's looking to do something and I need to kind of try to understand what he's trying to do and how this meets it or lays into it or doesn't.

[01:34:51] So I don't want us to work -- I don't think we're working in cross-purposes. I don't think that. But I think -- I don't want us to work in silos and do more than one thing. I think that, especially at the General Assembly, causes confusion, and confusion is the one thing we do not need, right, at the General Assembly for right now.

[01:35:11] And so let's all of us, you know, we can support this and let's try to get on one page. Let's talk to Delegate Reed. Let's actually find out the questions that were just asked about what the study in Richmond is doing. look at Mr. Rogers' comments that he has written up for us so that we're all just singing off the same page of music at all times because I think we're much more powerful and have a much stronger voice when we're all singing together. And I'm a little concerned sometimes that we're kind of

[01:35:47] jumping over each other a little bit and everyone has great intentions, but we're missing each other a little bit. So on this one, let's get behind this and then have all those other conversations. And so when we do, you know, go to the legislative, go to both agendas, both state and federal, we are all in one solid place. Thank you. So I could close you, Mr. Letourneau.

[01:36:13] Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I mean, I think that really the intent of the item was to get at what you said, which is I had certainly heard a lot of discussion about this topic and knew that various board members and members of the community were working on it. But the conversations I did have with the county attorney and county administrator realized that staff was really not looped in the way that I think we maybe thought or should be.

[01:36:41] And then as we talked a little bit, realized there's a lot of complexity to this in terms of what the SEC processes and the state regulatory process, what authorities that we currently have for tax districts and things like that, and how the mechanics of that would work, what sort of revenue would be generated.

[01:37:02] And those are all questions that we have a very, very capable staff that we're going to need some help with and ensuring that everybody has that information and can approach this fully informed, including our members of the General Assembly, because they oftentimes are trying to help us, but they don't necessarily have the resources that we do here in terms of trying to get all this information.

[01:37:27] So hopefully this kind of gets us all together and gets us moving forward in a staff process that can be, I think, multidimensional in terms of timing and the different regulatory issues and so on that we're dealing with with this topic.

[01:37:45] So I appreciate everybody's support. Mr. Sains, welcome. All the people say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass now 801. Mr. Kirschner should be here in a half an hour. We are going to go into resolutions because it is 530.

[01:38:02] Supervisors, I'm going to encourage us to try to figure out the resolutions a little differently. What we're going to try to start doing is putting them on the counter upstairs where Janet sits at least a couple days in advance. So as you come through, stop through, just stop and sign the resolutions would be really, really helpful.

[01:38:23] Also, we are doing a little bit more of taking resolutions to the site. I like that because more people can be involved. But let's try to decrease the confusion on the dais with resolutions because now you're handing me three resolutions.

[01:38:40] I don't need this one right now. I don't need Ms. Fox. Yeah, so we have three resolutions that we're doing tonight, though, that we are excited about that are all going to be for presentation. One will be for the Diaper Needs Awareness in Loudoun County.

[01:38:56] Ms. Bricksman will join me down front for that. The John Champ Girls Soccer Team seems to have joined the room. Ms. Letourne will join me down front for that, yay. And the Hunger, September's Hunger Action Month in Loudoun County.

[01:39:12] And Ms. Bricksman will join me down front for that. So how about, Mr. Letourne, how about you join me down first? And then, Ms. Bricksman, you join me for the last two. How about that? Sounds good. All right. with the John Champ Girls Soccer Team.

[01:39:45] Join me down front, please.

[01:39:54] On the side, too.

[01:40:16] Gather in. All right, so this is pretty exciting because this is the first time that we have actually ever done this because this is the first state championship for John Champ High School. And I guess... We're going to let it slide on the applause for now.

[01:40:33] We have a no-applaus rule here, but we're letting it slide because this is historic. And I am not biased. I love all of our Loudoun County Public Schools, but I am a Champ parent, so particularly excited about the Knights, and because I will get the question, we will have the Freedom Eagles here soon as well for their Class 6 championship, but today, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and actually, they did play each other in the season, so it was an exciting year for both the South riding.

[01:41:04] We are the capital of soccer in Della South, so with that said, we are here to celebrate the John Champ girls soccer team, which won its first ever state championship after defeating Jameswood High School 3-0 in the final game of the 2024 VHSL Class 4 state championship.

[01:41:22] And whereas the Knights only lost two games during the regular season, dominating their opponents with a mixture of methodical team play and brilliant pieces of individual skill. And whereas the team had 11 seniors, including Ada Pinnell, the district, regional, and state player of the year and a member of the 2024 vhsl all-state girls team and maya towns who plays for the u17 united states women's national team and coach jasmine cardoso won coach of the year for district regional state and all met competitions and whereas the team's a tight-knit community of players whose motto for the season was one step at a time as they set goals to achieve at each

[01:42:01] stage of the competition and whereas the team was supported through their historic run by the the coaches, teachers, parents, John Champ community, and all of Loudoun County. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does recognize and honor the John Champ girls soccer team for winning the 2024 VHSL Class 4 State Championship and for their many individual and team accomplishments over the course of the season.

[01:42:26] Congratulations. No, I would just say congratulations. My nephew plays soccer, so I knew nothing about the game until I went to it a couple of years ago and I'm looking at the clock and I was so confused. I was like, what is happening?

[01:42:44] And then I thought, first of all, do they ever stop running? And secondly, what's going on with the clock? And what I realized is no, you never stop running. You all are some of the most fit people. I mean, soccer is such a hard game to play. So it's wonderful. And we are so proud of you and congratulations. So all of you all are, none of you are seniors, right? Well, you're seniors now okay you're seniors now okay all right congratulations coach you want to sure um i'm just super super proud of the girls um again this was what was a one-time thing and um we're gonna have a couple girls that are not going to be here this year but um if you guys are not a fan of soccer

[01:43:22] just come out and support us we're we have probably one of the biggest um and talented players here in louden county all over the schools like broad run john champ freedom all the schools here are so talented and as you can see we have Ada who's going to go play d1 and then Maya who's also going to go play d1 so just come out and support us especially since we're females we really need your support and that's all that's all I have to say come and support us thank you so much for your support all right congratulations we're going to take a picture and we have copies for

[01:43:53] everybody of the resolution okay no I got them would everybody come down for the hunger action

[01:45:24] month please I'm sorry let's move this for you guys okay we're here for the

[01:46:13] hunger action month whereas hunger action month established in 2008 is the annual nationwide month of action to spread the awareness and inspire everyone to join the movement to end hunger and whereas everyone needs nutritious foods to thrive and in every community across our country people are working hard to provide for themselves, their families, and their neighbors.

[01:46:38] And whereas hunger and poverty are issues of a vital concern in Loudoun County, where an estimated 29,220 or 6.9% of people struggle with hunger and may not know where the next meal will come from.

[01:46:54] And whereas Loudoun County is committed to combating hunger in every part of our community by raising awareness and helping to address the food insecurity needs in partnership with community hunger relief organizations. And whereas everyone can encourage citizens to join the movement to end hunger during Hunger Action Month by donating, volunteering, organizing a food or fund drive, learning about hunger locally, and/or advocating for food assistance program for Loudoun residents, therefore be it resolved that in concert

[01:47:28] with, I'm sorry, therefore be it resolved with in concert with the nationwide efforts to highlight the problem of hunger in the United States. The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby designate September 2024 as Hunger Action Month. First of all, thank you all for the work you do every single day. It is no joke, literally life-saving work. There's so much I want to say. And I feel like I'm always speaking to the choir when I talk to you all. So I'm kind

[01:48:02] talking with you not not to you I was I was recently appointed to be the chair of the National Association of counties health health steering committee and one thing I was looking at in in in that was all the issues of health and and what we realized and this is new and you and I talked about this when I was in NACO I'm texting Jennifer is something called food as medicine and so what I've realize more and more and I kind of always said but more and more it is it's

[01:48:35] just not an issue of do you eat it's an issue of what you eat and so and feeding feeding the brain and the whole body is is so important and so I'm trying to take up the cause of childhood dental issues but when you have a place where you have food deserts and the only food you can get to is the food in your convenience store you're gonna have dental issues you're gonna have medical issues gonna of all these other issues.

[01:49:01] And so hunger affects everything. Your nutrition affects everything. So the discussion as food, as medicine, is kind of new for me, kind of new for me. And I'm becoming more and more involved and aware of that.

[01:49:16] And we'll be calling on you soon to help write some of this legislation that we're looking to do because it is so important to fuel the body in the right way. It's not just feed the body, but fuel the body.

[01:49:32] And I know you all have known this all along, and what you do every time you come is teach us more and more and more. So it's not just about not being hungry. It's also about what you're eating and how that affects your whole body. So I appreciate you all so much.

[01:49:47] You have no idea. I appreciate you all so much. And finally, I would say the holidays are not that far away, And I know how busy you get during the holidays. So if you want to tell people while you speak, because I'm going to hand you all this mic in a second. If you want to tell us what to do to help more around the holidays, that will also be really, really helpful.

[01:50:03] So, Jennifer, I'm going to give it to you, and you can introduce everybody, and you can start the microphone around. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the members of the board. I think there's no doubt, certainly, in all of our minds that this board and this county is really supportive of our neighbors in need and wanting to reach out and make sure that people have enough to eat.

[01:50:26] And so the one thing that I will just say, and then I'll let everyone, I'm with Loud and Hunger Relief, I'll let everyone introduce themselves quickly, is that I think I speak for all of us when I say that donations are down, both financially and food donations are down. It's really expensive at the grocery store. Everybody knows that when you go to the grocery store.

[01:50:42] And so one of the things that I think is great about this proclamation is that we're just encouraging people to help in any way that you can, whether that's through volunteerism, doing a food drive doing a funds drive your um your your pantry that's closest to your house we have lots of organizations that are serving in this community every single one of them could use assistance so um thank you for for bringing awareness to that and i will hand it down to you thank you jennifer my name is suzanna lee and i'm the ceo of tree of life ministries one of our ministries is food and thank you madam chair and thank you to the loudon county board of supervisors for continuing to just allow us to have a platform and to be present in this county

[01:51:21] I won't say very much, but our shelves are empty, and our funds are low, and we have three pantries across Loudoun, so many of your districts are supported by Tree of Life, along with the other ladies here, all ladies, supporting this month, so thank you, thank you for bringing awareness, and I really appreciate it, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity, so thank you.

[01:51:43] Absolutely, we're in Western Loudoun, we're in Percival, and then we are in Leesburg, and then in Sterling, so there's three pantries. Hi. I'm Kim Curran with Dulles South Soup Kitchen. We prepare and package meals for distribution in the county. So we, as Jennifer said, and Susanna, the donations are down.

[01:52:09] We can always use your assistance. Hi. Hi. I represent Anna Souda. We spread love through food. We give away about 6,000 meals a month to the homeless. Our pantry is practically empty. We do have a free pantry. Please come donate to us.

[01:52:26] 10 dollars of donation feeds a family of four. We wish more people would donate to the cause of hunger. It's something that happens every single day. There are people who are sleeping hungry. Please support this cause. My name is Kirsten Shellsmith and I am the field programs coordinator which is a food security program run by the Loudoun Education Foundation and we support about 40 schools a week through in-school pantries or weekly meal bags. America Huddleston on staff with Loudoun Hunger Relief, but I'm here today to talk to you as the facilitator for the Loudoun Food Provider Group.

[01:53:06] And that is a broad group of organizations that are involved in the emergency food system here in Loudoun County. And despite the fact that there is a lot of strain on our system right now because of the increased need, we do have resources available.

[01:53:24] And I would just encourage anyone who may have a friend or a neighbor or a colleague who experiences food insecurity, it's people who look just like you and me. It's not exactly the picture that you would think of when costs are so high.

[01:53:42] But I encourage you, there is a tool that we have developed called loudonfeeds.org, so just loudonfeeds.org, and it is a list of all the food resources available here in our county, in people's neighborhoods, during the days of the times that they might need help.

[01:54:03] - And I'm Trish McNeil with Loud and Hunger Relief, and I would just echo everything everyone else has already said. Thank you to this fabulous group of organizations who do so much to support those in need in our community.

[01:54:22] - So, we can't do this and have everyone say that your donations are down in your pantries or, well they actually bear, Without you all giving some information on how to donate, how to give, where to do that, where to drop off, all that kind of stuff.

[01:54:43] So let's get that. So probably the best thing to do is to go to loudandfeeds.org because all of our organizations are listed on there. And you can find an organization that's close to you or read about more things. And then you can click through to each of those organizations. And there is information on how to get services and then also how to help.

[01:55:00] So loudandfeeds.org. Thank you. Thank you all. And let's take a picture. yeah let's take a picture so but we need to we need to take the picture though so we just give

[01:55:16] them back diaper need awareness week come I'll read the proclamation whereas clean diapers are a

[01:57:28] basic need of every day, sorry, every baby and toddler. And one in two U.S. family struggles to provide enough diapers to keep a baby or toddler clean, dry, and healthy. And whereas without access to clean and sufficient diapers, families face significant challenges in providing proper hygiene for their little ones, leading to discomfort, rashes, and increased risk of infections. And whereas recognizing the urgency of addressing diaper need is crucial in ensuring the healthy development and overall happiness of babies in our communities and whereas in 2024 the nova diaper

[01:58:02] bank distributed over 122 883 diapers to families in need across loudon county and western fairfax counties and has delivered over 1.28 million diapers in total over to over 36 000 children since 2017 that's pretty amazing and whereas by working together we can ensure that all babies have access to clean diapers and other basic necessities required for them to thrive and each and reach their full potential now therefore be it resolved that the loudon county board of

[01:58:36] supervisors does hereby proclaim september 23 to 29 2024 as diaper need awareness week in loudon county and encourages all loudon residents to spread the word about the crucial support needed for babies and toddlers throughout the country to have access to clean and sufficient diapers.

[01:58:56] So I remember during COVID what a big need this was. A lot of us were worried about toilet paper, but I know that families were also super worried about diapers, and I did participate in a couple of the diaper drives. So thank you so much for the work that you do. It is crucially important to keep everybody healthy. Would you like to say a few words? Thank you so much. Again, I wanted to thank Chair Randall and all of the members of the board for their support.

[01:59:27] This week is the National Diaper Bank and Awareness Week is a very special week for us. We're deeply honored and grateful to receive this important important proclamation and which recognizes Diaper Need Awareness Week. The proclamation highlights a critical issue that impacts the health and well-being of countless babies, toddlers, and their families in the local communities throughout the county and beyond.

[01:59:53] During this time, the National Diaper Bank Network and the Virginia Diaper Bank Network also acknowledge Diaper Need Awareness Week. Diaper need is more than just a challenge for families. It's a barrier to economic opportunity and child development.

[02:00:09] The acknowledgment from the Honorable Chair Randall and Loudoun County Board of Supervisors shines a light on the hard work that our diaper banks, diaper pantries and local organizations do to support our families in need. Ensuring that families have access to adequate supply of diapers improves child's health by reducing the risk of infections and diaper rash and enables parents to attend work or school consistently as they no longer need to miss days due to the lack of child care access. Moreover access to clean diapers

[02:00:46] helps reduce the emotional and financial stresses on parents. We are proud to announce again that we have our all-volunteer staff. We've this all volunteers it's incredible the hard work again over 1.2 million diapers to 36,000 children. We are deeply grateful for your commitment to this important cause and for partnering with us to address diaper need in Loudoun County. We hope for your continued support and partnership in our future endeavors yes my name is Jane Nash I'm the secretary of the Nova Diaper Bank and this is

[02:01:24] Susan Mullen and Susan is the coordinator she's really is the original founder and treasurer and then Artie Argawa is new to our board and she has done phenomenal work in her with her background too especially in her work in India which she's helped so many families and children and women in India so she is a huge asset to our board we're so proud to have her and we have three or four other board members who could not make it this evening so let's

[02:01:58] take a picture okay it is time for public comments before we start public

[02:04:16] comments I need to say a couple of things a couple of weeks back a couple A couple of weeks back we had a situation where one of our constituents and speakers, Mr. Russell, was spat at by somebody in the room for his position on how he felt about the issue in Gaza.

[02:04:39] I handled that issue, I handled that with that person, and when Mr. Russell came back in the room, issued an apology to him from this dais. Last time they were in the room, some of our constituents who are speaking on behalf of Palestine were, in my opinion, being disruptive, strategically coughing, and saying things that were inappropriate and could be seen as threatening as some of our Jewish neighbors were talking.

[02:05:08] Let me be real clear. Let me be completely clear. When you walk in this room, you have the opportunity to say what you want to. You do. You have the opportunity to speak to us. First Amendment rights will be respected at all times, but I will not tolerate any disrespect in this room.

[02:05:26] I will not tolerate any bullying in this room or disrespect of any type. I have no trouble calling you out of order and taking this board off this dais. There are some issues I wish I could solve and I can't, but when you're in this room, I control this room and I will not tolerate it.

[02:05:44] If that is not clear, it had not been clear before, let it be clear right now. Okay, we have James Russell, followed by Kareem Bakke, followed by Tim Plunkett. Good evening, Mr. Russell.

[02:06:03] Hi. I find myself increasingly confused by this process. I think, I say it boldly as an amateur in these political matters, but I feel confident that there is a degree in plausibility as far as the assertion that Loudoun County is

[02:06:31] doing its own small part in subsidizing this century's Holocaust. We are dismissed in this assertion by all of our elected officials, local, state, and federal, but especially local. I'm supposed to believe this is not whatsoever related to county business. Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman all have facilities in Loudoun County. That industry is the second biggest hiring

[02:07:09] industry in Loudoun County after the school system. Last I checked, we have these enormous data centers I've spoken about at length here. One of the largest companies inhabiting those data centers is Digital Realty, which also has a facility in Israel. Do I know for a fact that that data that they traffic in is being used to engage in political persecution or even to target airstrikes? No, I don't. But again, I believe there is a degree of plausibility to that assertion.

[02:07:45] And if I was in an official position of power and any constituent came to me with that plausibility, I would not be able to sleep until I cleared that up.

[02:08:04] Now, I sent you, I sent Chair Randall an email a few weeks ago of your initial post acknowledging this genocide last October. As far as I know, you've not acknowledged this since. I'm curious about what has changed. Why was this worth acknowledging 12 years, 12 months ago and not now?

[02:08:23] now that there's a synthetic polio epidemic, now that Americans are getting murdered for protesting, but God help us if we cough. All right. Kareem Bakke, followed by Tim Plunkett, followed by Claudia Quesada. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. How are you this evening?

[02:08:53] Very good. I have a prop. I am here representing the Virginia wine industry, the Loudoun wine industry. My name is Kareem Bakke. I'm the current chair of the Loudoun Wineries and Wine Growers Association. I'm also the co-owner of Hillsboro Vineyards out in Hillsboro. And just last year I was appointed to the Virginia Wine Board by Governor Youngkin. So I've been in this industry now since 2001. And one of the things that we just don't do enough is outreach,

[02:09:28] especially to all of you. And so I'm here tonight just to promote October, which is coming up, Virginia Wine Month. Just last year, we had about one million visitors to the farm wineries here in Loudoun County. Half of them were Loudoun County residents. So I believe that we have established ourselves quite well in the community as a strong keystone industry. So to commemorate this 40th anniversary of Loudoun Wine, a bunch of us got together and we made our very own blend. This is

[02:10:05] our 40th anniversary of Loudoun Wine Red Wine Blend. We just bottled it last week and we plan on releasing it on October 1st for Virginia Wine Month and we hope that all of you will have an opportunity to come visit your local winery and to support it. When I say 40 years of Loudoun Wine, it's not just about Loudoun. It's also the 40th anniversary of Virginia Wine. It started here in Loudoun. It's a wonderful legacy that we have created together with the support of all of you and with the support of the community as well.

[02:10:40] And so we're very grateful for you, for your help. We're here to be part of the community, and we look forward to working with the community and with all of you to establish a better future. So thank you all very much for having us here in Lowne County, and we look forward to making great wine together.

[02:10:58] Thank you very much, and we'll see you at the Wine Awards this year. Madam Chair, I'm moved that we accept this gracious gift. And that we examine it more closely in closed session. Well, if you like, I can pass it around, and when the time is up, no shit. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but thank you very much anyway.

[02:11:14] Thank you all very much. Tim Plunkett, followed by Claudia Quesada, followed by Roger Smith. Now, I do want to say, because three of our last speakers, Jim Bingo, Roger Smith, and Dora Tainter, came to talk about the undergrounding of transmission lines, which you're welcome to talk about that.

[02:11:35] not an issue if you still want to the item has already been passed but if you'd like to talk about that's fine just let you know that we've already passed that item okay all right good evening sir good evening so i understand what i'm actually talking about got deferred it did but just kind of i was already here so i wanted to go ahead and for the record just so it's clear on our stance about how we um how we feel about it so um i'm on i'm here on behalf of briarfield Estates Homeowners Association in regard to the Hidden Wood Assemblage application to clarify that the Briarfield Estates position on one particularly important matter formally.

[02:12:14] Neither the Briarfield Estates community collectively nor its HOA board as representatives had entered into any kind of sales agreement nor have we signed any NDA with any land agent, land lawyer, or similar. Our community has not held any formal discussions with any external party to discuss abandoning our homes or disbanding our community. Whatever rumors you may have heard at best can be put down to conjecture or individual residents talking as individuals. Our community is not part of any discussions to sell out or seek rezoning. We have been contacted by the HOA of

[02:12:49] the Regency and we have declined even to meet their HOA. As a community we remain in firm opposition to the idea of having any more data centers encroached near our homes through rezoning and removing building C does not eliminate the impact of data centers through rezoning to our south. We are already nervous about the upcoming disturbance that will arise from JK1 Tech Park which was also rezoned a few years back. Fact is that we will have 55 decibel noise from their generators where we currently have nighttime noise of 34 to 42. 55 decibel is the same as

[02:13:23] downtown DC at 10 p.m. on a weekend. Our evenings will have data centers to the north, west, and south. These data centers have a place in Ashburn, but not in the middle of established residential areas and not at the cost of impacting established family homes.

[02:13:39] These decisions are made by the planners and the board, and it may be errors that were made in the past, and I'm not here to rake over those again, but I do urge you to not compound these issues. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

[02:13:55] Mr. Plunkett, thank you for clearing that matter up. I appreciate that. Thank you. claudia quesada followed by roger smith followed by dora tainter good evening and pull the mic down to you just a little bit more pull the microphone towards you there you go buenas tardes juntas and charrandon el pueblo de london connie y el pueblo del london

[02:14:34] connie soy claudia quesada tengo 20 años de vivir en este condado mis tres hijos han sido a las escuelas del condado y los dos hijos mayores están en la universidad como líder de la nueva mayoría de Virginia, una organización multiracial que aboga por la equidad incluso de la comunidad indocumentada y de clase trabajadora. Agradecemos al supervisor de Sterling Coram Sainz por pensar en la clase trabajadora de todo el condado con la introducción del programa de ingreso básico y garantizado. Abogamos y pedimos el apoyo a ustedes para el programa

[02:15:13] de ingreso básico garantizado. Somos parte de una comunidad de trabajadores esenciales que movemos la economía de esta ciudad. Pagamos impuestos y debemos ser incluidos en el programa de ingreso básico garantizado sin importar el estatus migratorio. Estamos seguros que podemos asegurar que este programa vendría a aliviar la economía de la familia y ayudarnos a pagar matrículas en el colegio y comprar libros, medicina, comida, gasolina y otras

[02:15:48] cosas, pagar renta, en el cuidado de niños, clase de inglés, entretenimiento para clases de vacacionales. Estamos dispuestos a tener un foro comunitario para compartir la historia del condado de este programa, vendría a apoyarnos y a fortalecer nuestras familias.

[02:16:06] Como Nuevo de la Nueva Mayoría de Virginia, pedimos a nuestros representantes y a nuestra presidenta el apoyo total del programa. Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias. Thank you. We have to interpret. Thank you. Start our time over, please. Ready when you are.

[02:16:23] Good afternoon, Chair Randall. Members of the Board of Supervisors and residents of Loudoun County. My name is Claudia Casada, and I have lived in the area for 26 years. My three children all attended Loudoun County Public Schools, and my two oldest children are now in college.

[02:16:45] I am also leader of the New Virginia Majority and multicultural organization that advocates for equity and inclusion of the undocumented and working-class community. We thank Sterling Supervisor Cornstein for thinking of the working class throughout Loudoun County with the introduction of Guaranteed Basic Income Program.

[02:17:12] We advocate and ask for your support in Guaranteed Basic Income Program. We are a part of a community of essential workers who drive the economy of the city. We pay our taxes and we must be included in the guaranteed basic income program regardless of our immigration status.

[02:17:34] We are sure and we can assure you that this program would relieve a family's finances, helping them pay school fees, buy books, medicine, food, gasoline, use the subway, help pay rent, pay for child care, take English classes, or apply for vocal training.

[02:17:58] This program would be of much positive benefit as it can be relieved to the economy of families that earn less than $5,000 a year.

[02:18:14] We are eager to have a community forum to share stories of how this program would support the strength of Latin's working class families. Virginia's new majority, we ask our supervisors and our chair for their full support of this program. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We have three more speakers, Roger Smith, Dora Tainter, and Jim Bingle. Good evening, Mr. Smith. Good evening, supervisors and Chair Randall.

[02:18:51] I'm Roger Smith, the resident of Waterford, here to address two items, number three, Hiddenwood, and number 10, the transmission lines. The map in the Hiddenwood staff report shows existing and future data centers surrounding the applicant's properties. One look at this map and it is not surprising that the current residents want to be bought out, but it is also not surprising that developers think it's a perfectly sensible site for a data center. Decisions about this

[02:19:25] application are not simple. The staff report barely touches upon the energy crisis facing Loudoun County, which cannot be ignored. Many Loudoun residents have urged you to stop approving new data centers. The staff report includes several reasons for denial of this application.

[02:19:47] Please give them your full consideration. On action item 10, what I had prepared was, My question is, why would you limit the scope of such an important proposal to just underground transmission lines?

[02:20:05] Above-ground lines also create significant costs for Loudoun residents, and many related environmental and economic costs of data centers have been well documented. Some may argue that as a practical matter, and I'm sure this is how this came up, it is better to tackle only buried lines now and the other costs later.

[02:20:28] Personally, I don't believe we have the luxury of time for a piecemeal approach to such a pressing problem. Loudoun residents should not have to pay for any costs incurred for the benefit of profitable tech companies.

[02:20:46] So please consider widening the scope of the current proposal. Those are my prepared remarks. I have 27 seconds to point out that this is now the second time in two months that I have come at the appointed hour to make comments about something that I thought was going to be discussed, only to find that it had been discussed, voted on, and so my comments have felt useless.

[02:21:09] I don't appreciate that. Mr. Smith, I should actually respond to that because it is abnormal that I would do that, and I understand what you're saying. We have a, the agenda just was moving very quickly tonight, and I knew that these, I knew that these things would probably, could have actually even gone to on the consent agenda, but normally that doesn't happen, and I would be more aware of that, and I'll look at the speaking agenda in the future before I call on items, because that's completely my fault.

[02:21:46] I own that completely, sir. Thank you. I'll send you a copy of your own response to me. the last time this happened and you said the same thing well i don't remember that okay sir i got you i'm apologizing thank you very much uh dorna tainter and jim bingo all right excuse me good evening good evening i'm a little abrupt um i'm doing a tainter from waterford and i came tonight because i was so heartened to see that initiative about the underground in the lines you guys already

[02:22:24] unanimously supported it so that's great i would like to bring up that undergrounding transmission lines is not a panacea for all our grid issues though it's still very disruptive with the construction and it restricts the land use but undergrounding is better than overhead wherever possible and getting the data center industry to bear the costs is an important first step i also want everything fixed instantly piecemeal is better than nothing for me i'm not the only western laudaner that's settling in for the long haul and we would be really excited to see state

[02:23:04] legislation and would do what we can to support it and that's it thank you thanks miss bingo just one question just one second please mr bingo thank you when you are okay thank you chair randall Supervisor Letourneau and board members.

[02:23:37] I'm Jen Mingle speaking on behalf of the Piedmont Environmental Council. We strongly support Supervisor Letourneau's BMI, and thank you for your support. While there are many aspects of an undergrounding policy that would need to be worked out, either through a local solution, through legislation at the state level and SEC, this initiative is appropriate for Loudoun to initiate, where residents and the character of the county have been most effective. The negative impacts that accompany the benefits of data centers are now painfully obvious. Leaving aside critical climate, health, other environmental, land

[02:24:17] use and single industry reliance concerns that must also be addressed, the fairness factor is substantial. Residential and other rate payers should not have to pay for the externalized cost of the electrical infrastructure that data centers require.

[02:24:34] The need for even more transmission lines with greater siting difficulty looms. It makes undergrounding a strategic step and appropriate as part of the Board's effort to better manage data center impacts. The increased power demand of this industry is unique in the country's history of power expansion as it served new technologies and industries.

[02:24:58] Its need for power and the transmission of power is singular and even more obvious as residential and other demand for power has been near level or declining. Naturally, there is a greater focus on the benefits of undergrounding transmission lines for greater system hardiness in the face of climate, reliability, and security concerns.

[02:25:21] In Loudon, these points are true, but other benefits of undergrounding stand out. It would reduce the visual and aesthetic impacts, minimizing the impact on the character and sense of place for residents and businesses. These factors do impact property values and the desirability of Loudoun as a place to live and locate businesses, and it's a topic of conversation in many circles.

[02:25:45] It will also reduce health and safety considerations, since undergrounding reduces the risk of fire, collisions, electrical -- electrocution hazards, et cetera. We support your leadership in responding to Loudoun's transmission line impacts and stress it isn't necessary for the needs of anyone but the data center companies.

[02:26:06] We appreciate a fair and equitable solution. I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bingo. Thank you very much. And one more speaker is Jim Batoff. Good evening, sir. Good evening. Thank you for your time.

[02:26:22] That was correctly pronounced. Jim Batoff. Pretty close. Leesburg from New Hampshire when I retired in 2021. Beautiful place you have here. In previous 20 years I served as a chief election official in my hometown in New Hampshire. So coming here, retiring, looking for things to do, you know, I thought I'd help some, volunteer. First thing I noticed, it was different from New Hampshire, was that your COVID-era election laws are still in effect here.

[02:26:46] In New Hampshire, I believe those laws all snapped back once the state of emergency was lifted, but not here. You still have absentee ballots for no reason whatsoever 45 days of early voting some of the five states in the country that do something like that which by the way puts an enormous strain on your volunteers i've noticed that's just a fact there were seven previously authorized but you had to have a hardship reason which is why you could have perhaps voted on halloween for example in the past year so i was a little bit shocked a few weeks ago when people started showing up electoral board meetings raising a big fuss about the schedule. And I thought, well, that's the right. But Loudoun County exceeds the state

[02:27:26] requirements. And so it was a little bizarre to me. Madam Chair, I was there when you attended a recent electoral board meeting. And you know, you were wagging your finger and so forth. It's an emotional issue. I understand that. You ask a fair question. Who are you serving? No, I can answer that in part. They're serving you. They're serving me. They're serving all the citizens in this County. They're serving paid bureaucrats. They're serving volunteers. And I frankly think they're doing a fine job. Madam Chair, during your meeting on September 4th, you said you'd give your life

[02:27:59] to support our elections. And you know, I feel much the same way. But then you said, and I quote, I'm talking to you, Shelley Oberlander, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Well, my jaw hit the floor at that point, because honestly, I don't know about Virginia, but in New Hampshire, intimidation of an election official is serious business. And in today's environment, whether it was legally questionable or not what you were doing there, pouring gas on hot embers like this election season, the way it is right now, it's dangerous. It's irresponsible. And I think

[02:28:37] you should be ashamed of yourselves, honestly, except for Mr. Kirshner, who I thank him for his courage. At least he abstained. He said he had perhaps concerns of the process. I saw no concerns of the process. He had plenty of time for people to complain down there. Thank you, sir. Your time is up. Appreciate you coming in. Thank you very much yourself. Okay, that is all of our speakers. I left item five on the agenda, and I just texted Mr. Kirsten and let him know I left item five on the agenda, so I'm assuming he's going to make his way over for

[02:29:09] that item. So I'm going to go on and do the item 11, the RISE program. So would staff please come down for that item. When you come down, will you answer one question? I think Mr. Sains, you asked a question in finance about whether or not this program would be available to people, no matter their status, immigration status.

[02:29:34] I think somebody asked that, so I think that was answered, but there was a comment made to that, so maybe we want to answer that question again. Thank you so much.

[02:29:51] So I'll go ahead and address that question. Good evening. Good evening. Mr. Randall and board members. So just real quick. We did go to our county attorney to get a legal opinion, so we're just waiting for the legal opinion just to confirm what we provided at the FGO EDC meeting.

[02:30:07] Okay. So we're waiting for a legal opinion on that, Mr. Rogers? I believe that opinion is coming from someone else in my office. Okay. All right. So just to be clear, as of now, we do not know if this would have passed, if status would even be of question or not. We're just not sure either way.

[02:30:28] Correct. Okay. And is that a decision for this board to make or for another? Mr. Rogers, do you know that? I do not know the answer to your question. Okay. All right. May I make a comment?

[02:30:44] Just a quick comment. Sure. We are looking at extensive research both at the Virginia Code but also the federal statute as well to make sure that all bases are covered with the legal opinion. We appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. Sains, I think there's nothing new on this item, so if you'd like to go to a motion.

[02:31:06] Sure. If that, yeah, we can go to motion and everybody can ask questions and then we can go to a vote. Yeah, that works for me. I move that the recommendation of the Finance, Government, Operations, Economic Development Committee that the Board of Supervisors approve a grant of $2 million to their respective local board to fund the program and approve the Loudoun County Economic Mobility Program pilot plan as outlined in this item and the Economic Mobility Pilot Proposal provided as attachment one to the September 17th, 2024 Board of Supervisors Business Meeting Action Item.

[02:31:42] Motion is made and seconded by Ms. Brixman. Discussion on the motion. Mr. Sains. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I'll quickly ask a couple of questions. Say, for example, if we wanted to put, so to speak, some guardrails on the RISE program, Would we want to do that tonight or say if this passes and it comes back because Would that be the appropriate time to do it? So so far the same as we do have within the plan checkpoints

[02:32:18] that would allow the board at those points during the During the program process to put up guardrails at those times for example when we come back to the board for action to you know get an approval Recommendation on approval on the target population, for example, the distribution of funds, for example.

[02:32:39] So those are examples. We can also do that during later in the program as well when we come back to the board from, like, making info report on results of the program. So there's opportunities. Okay, and then a follow-up question to that. So say if this was the past tonight, when would be the next checkpoint?

[02:32:58] June of 2025. Okay, all right. Could we require or ask a participant in the program to participate in some financial counseling?

[02:33:15] So one is, can we make that a requirement? I don't know if the answer is yes or no. And then two, similar to the survey, like you were mentioning previously, you would do an incentive, maybe whatever the cost would be, 50 bucks or gift card, whatever. Here is the survey. And also, oh, by the way, here is a gift card again if you participate in a financial program.

[02:33:34] can we do something like that to require it would then make it a benefit program which is separate from a cash grant program so to require it would be more difficult it would change the scope of the program you would recommend to follow like the what you propose for the survey yes if you wanted to provide incentives to voluntarily participate in financial counseling arlington actually did something similar as well as alexandria where they offered coaching and financial counseling okay very good um just real quickly no limit to time i have left and obviously i'll get a closing

[02:34:13] so i'll go more into my points here but i feel uh you know i want to thank staff for putting this together um this this thoughtful realistic uh program to loudon that would help fund families here that are desperately in need of assistance uh as i've said this is another tool in our toolbox that would help and augment our social services and aid programs that exist today in our county we just heard a few moments ago for example that our pantries are bare financial donations to our food pantries are down so say if somebody's participating in this program that's extra money in their pocket to go and buy the necessary food

[02:34:53] for their families okay thank you thank you um mr crony uh thank you chair rindle and thank you for being here um i have a question about the funding of the program so it says in the staff report that um i assume we can't use arpa dollars right correct arpa dollars have an obligation deadline of december 31 2024 so we would be on an extremely truncated timeline if we were to use arpa dollars okay so it said pilots are largely funded through public private partnerships with national regional

[02:35:26] and local nonprofit organizations? Was other funding explored? So staff did look at the organizational models of each of the neighboring jurisdictions. However, we did not request additional funding from any of our local nonprofits at this point. Okay, but we could, right? Potentially. Yeah, because I see that that's a way some other jurisdictions have

[02:35:56] structured it. Correct. So I noticed that that the cost for 60 households at $500 a month for 18 months is $540,000. Why does it cost $2 million to implement? So that estimate was based off of looking at the strategy we used to solicit one vendor to administer and run the entire program, Taking that into account, so when we looked at the strategy that we used there's several different parts

[02:36:36] you have the program administration cost you have the Research and evaluation cost and then you have the actual banking and district disbursement cost And so when we looked at the projected cost of each separate based off of the you know Analoges programs throughout the other counties other state programs, and we thought that we can create efficiencies through having a streamlined contract.

[02:37:02] And then to meet the average, I would say, of other programs that we were looking at through the research, we saw that a range of $500 to $750 per month would at least help to meet some of the burdens that the families that would participate in the program would be able to address, so.

[02:37:24] - Yeah, and I don't have a problem with that. I just wonder why households will only be receiving 27% of the funds. - If the costs come in lower for contract administrator evaluation or research, we can expand the sample.

[02:37:39] - Okay, my last question is, why wasn't the temporary staffing included in the budget estimate? - So there are several temporary staffing options that are being employed in neighboring jurisdictions.

[02:37:56] So we would like to explore that as part of either additional supports or through the contract administration, there would be supports built into that. So it could go above the 2 million? You're saying our estimate could go above 2 million, potentially?

[02:38:17] Potentially. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Crony. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Item 2.4, line 2.4 in the plan, says conduct random selection of applications.

[02:38:34] How many applicants are going to be accepted into the program? Between 100 and 120, based on our projections. We would have a randomized control trial. Do we have any estimate of how many might be eligible? The estimate that we received from the American Community Survey is $49,999, covers about 10% of the population.

[02:39:01] So 90% would be excluded, 10% would probably be included in the program. Correct. What is the nature of the random selection? So that would involve the evaluation experts. And so the random selection, there would be a pre-screening to make sure that the individual household is qualified.

[02:39:23] And then based on the sampling model from the evaluator, they would determine what the random selection is, whether it be a simple, pure random sample, a purposive sample, or another set of sampling metrics based on the power they would need in order to conduct their analysis.

[02:39:43] Okay, now I'm a little confused because that doesn't sound random to me. It sounds like we're applying several filters before we get down to, quote, a random selection. Well, a simple random selection would literally just be picking a name out of the hat. There are other sampling techniques where you start with a random number and then select every, let's say, 60th.

[02:40:05] And then that is also considered part of random sampling. Yes. Okay, thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you. Madam Chair, so none of my comments are intended in any way to be critical of the work that staff has done. We've given them direction, they've come back. It's just the program that I don't really like. So I don't think that Loudoun County has to be a petri dish for every social experiment that could be out there, and sometimes it feels like that's what's happening, and this one is kind

[02:40:43] of the clearest example of that to me. We use words like randomized control child, which sort of implies a scientific aspect to this, but then we heard that we can't actually require participants who are receiving funds to actually respond to the questions and the research that we may want to do, because the code doesn't allow it.

[02:41:05] So this is not going to be scientific. We can fool ourselves into thinking we're doing a scientific trial, but we're not, because we -- the quality of the data coming back is going to be self-selected. So only those who choose to, because they're not required to, will actually be participating.

[02:41:22] In addition, there are other jurisdictions who are doing this. And if we're really that interested in seeing what the outcome is, then we can just simply wait for those things to conclude and we can see what the results are.

[02:41:39] But at the end of the day, we're using a couple million dollars of taxpayer money and we're giving out checks to folks with absolutely no strings attached for any possible purpose. And that to me is not a good use of taxpayer dollars, and it's not the most effective way, I don't believe, to help those who are in need.

[02:41:58] So I'm not supportive of this program. I know that it is coming from a place of a sincere desire to help, and I have deep respect for my colleague, Mr. Sains, and all the work that he does in that area. So I just have a difference of agreement here, and I will not be supporting the program.

[02:42:16] Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me repeat Supervisor Letourneau's compliment to Supervisor Sainz. I completely agree that Supervisor Sainz has a big heart and is trying to do the best he can for people in need.

[02:42:37] But I will not be supporting this. what we are doing here is rather than putting more funds into our food pantries and we heard tonight that they have a desperate need for more food that they are running out of food for the population they they serve rather than putting more money into either the loud and free clinic or health works of northern virginia which operates in both leesburg and sterling and serves with medical care, a population that needs assistance, and rather than putting more

[02:43:16] money into affordable housing, all of which, Ventures, have an already in-place infrastructure. We are creating a whole new infrastructure to give money, as Supervisor Leturdo says, to folks whose need is well demonstrated but without guardrails at this point for any use they might care to put these funds to. Our critical needs in the county are food, shelter,

[02:43:52] medical care, and I think we should use our existing infrastructure to potentially beef up those areas. I will say again that every time you tax people who are barely making more money than those you are providing resources to, you are making the situation of that group even worse

[02:44:21] financially. And so because, as I said during the Finance Committee meeting, 63% of Americans don't to handle an emergency of any kind and that's a lot of people in this county because we have a lot of people who are not wealthy in this county and to tax those people working class and middle class who are not wealthy to provide money without guard rails

[02:44:59] to a population that needs assistance when we already have in place the means we can use to help that population. I think it's just, it's not a good way for us to go.

[02:45:15] Thank you. Ms. Brooksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to remind my colleagues how this proposal started.

[02:45:30] started with ARPA funds and I feel as if everyone was okay with it when we were going to use ARPA funds but we decided to give staff more time and basically on staff's recommendation we decided to send some ARPA funds to I think a town CIP project instead of using it for this project and that we would use fund fund balance for this pilot project. And in my mind, that was kind of a promise, for lack of a better word, that, okay, we're not going to use ARPA funds because we want to give staff more time,

[02:46:08] so we're going to use fund balance, which is just as it's described, fund balance. And so for me right now, not to support this, I feel like would be going a little bit back on what I feel like was kind of an agreement that we weren't going to use ARPA money for it, which was acceptable to some of my colleagues on the dais. But now that we're not using ARPA money for it, it's not acceptable. And so I just wanted to remind everyone that's kind of how we got here in using LTF. Obviously, I'm going to support it. Some of the things I said during finance, and I think that we can have the

[02:46:47] battle of the statistics, but I feel as if there's more statistics out there supporting the success of these programs. In Alaska, it resulted in a 13% increase in part-time work for the participants and a 15% increase in entrepreneurship for those participants. In Stockton, California, recipients spent money on groceries, utility bills, credit card debt, and reports of anxiety and spending went down, and they spent more time with their families. There were improved mental health outcomes including fewer hospitalizations and greater housing

[02:47:23] stability. We have similar results from the Washington Post article and also the Forbes article that was sent around to us earlier this week I'm quoting from it and it's in the man who wrote the article said despite these findings and he reported some negative findings that maybe people weren't improving their health but I think anyone who's going to the dentist who wasn't going to the dentist before is improving their health but he says in the article despite Despite these findings, I remain convinced that cash benefits are superior to in-kind assistance for mitigating poverty and improving people's lives.

[02:47:57] In-kind assistance invites too much meddling from government officials with different political factions arguing for and against different bans like junk food bans and smoking bans. Cash empowers the individuals to make decisions about what they want to spend money on and what they need.

[02:48:16] will be made, but mistakes are learning opportunities. So this is a pilot program. I'm happy to support it and see how it goes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Birxman. I have never in my life supported a school voucher program, and this is why. School vouchers take taxpayer money out of schools, and I think the money could be better used if you left it in the schools for the entire population and not just for some. School vouchers benefit very few people in a school system, maybe 5 to 10 percent, but doesn't benefit the whole cohort in the school school vouchers are randomly chosen by lotteries

[02:48:53] it's a lot it's a random chosen school vouchers have very few guard wells so i don't support that school vouchers takes money from people who are poor and gifted gives other people an opportunity so this mom over here is making fifty thousand dollars a year when she has two children but her child wasn't chosen in the lotto to go to the school. Yet this child over here whose mom makes $50,000 a year and has two children, her child was chosen in the lotto to go in another school.

[02:49:25] School vouchers takes from some kids to allow other kids to do something they think is better or different. When I have a feeling and belief that a rising tide lifts all ships, this program is not that different than a school voucher program.

[02:49:42] I don't know why I would vote for this if I don't support school vouchers. And on the other side, I don't understand people that support school vouchers that don't support this, to be quite honest. I don't get that. I don't assume that people need financial counseling because of their financial status.

[02:50:00] I think that is very presumptive for me to say you have to have financial counseling. That is, I think sometimes people who are poor do very good a good job making that dollar stretch and so for me to say they have to have these classes is insulting and presumptuous of me and so it's like if I lend somebody money I don't give them guidelines on how they can lose use that money they I've lent them the money but I don't believe this is the best use we can do and believe me it's not even about totally about the amount to me because if we are saying we're going to put an amount of money aside for people to get tuition

[02:50:37] reimbursement okay i'll do that child care reimbursement i'll do that but to just say we're going to hand cash to people randomly with no guardrails at all is the same thing as a school voucher program that i have never ever supported so if this was not mr sayings i wouldn't have had a hard time at all and it can't what it came down to me yesterday is my deep respect for quran sayings but when i move everything else aside when i move everything else aside, I'm not making it rain up in here. That's not what we're doing. I'm not. This is not a good

[02:51:15] use of the money in this way, just like school vouchers are not a good use. This is school vouchers on steroids. If I don't support school vouchers, why would I support this? So with deep respect for my colleague, I'm not supporting this item. Mr. Sange, I'm going to close.

[02:51:31] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just say again, in my opening comments, we can add some guardrails. If you want to add guardrails, please bring those forward. And let's add them to the program and have that discussion. As staff mentioned, we can do a check-in in June.

[02:51:49] We can do it now if you want to have a longer conversation, but nobody's bringing any proposals. The question in regards to financial literacy was just a question. Again, some programs have done that. I know, for example, Habitat for Humanity, when you're in their program, they do a financial literacy program in that program, which is a great program.

[02:52:08] think we all agree that's a great program. So, and I'll give another example of real life situation as I did earlier in regards to the hunger relief situation that we just heard about with the proclamation that we just proposed, just handed out. We have the housing choice voucher program.

[02:52:23] Great program, receiving funds, giving to folks who are, who register for our program. They get their voucher to go and pay for their, for their housing. Unfortunately right now the housing choice voucher program is on pause due to some issues with HUD. So we are not giving out any housing vouchers right now and people are on that list ready to go but we cannot give funding. So again hypothetically say if we have this program and they're in the RISE program they could use this extra funding to supplement the voucher program funding that they would have received that's now on pause and help pay for their housing or their rent or their mortgage etc. So again in the study

[02:53:03] that was mentioned earlier from Forbes in that study, it states that people go for health checkups, get health procedures, go to the dental office and get dental assistance. They use it for child care. They actually stop working overtime so they can be at home and be with their loved ones and their children and their elderly family members because of this income that is supplementing their overtime that they normally would work.

[02:53:31] So again, I think this is a good, good idea. It's a pilot program, let's test it out. If you have some suggestions on guardrails, let's talk about it, let's add it into the program. But I think we should move this initiative forward at this time and again, as I've mentioned, and I hate being a broken record, but I'm gonna keep saying it.

[02:53:51] This is just another tool in the toolbox to help our residents in Loudoun County. We have received letters from Mr. Costa from the Community Foundation. if you read her email that she sent yesterday, she's enthusiastic about this program. We've heard from other nonprofits in Loudoun County that are very enthusiastic about this program and would like to see it here in our county to help with, yes, the services that we already provide, yes, with the funding that we already give to these nonprofits. If our nonprofits are on board on this and asking for this, I think that's a good indicator that this is the right thing to do. So I normally do not say this, and I say this with all due respect, but I humbly

[02:54:30] ask my colleagues to please vote and let's carry this measure forward and keep it moving. Thank you. I have a point of clarification because I thought you asked a question and I thought I heard a different answer. I just need to be sure. Mr. Sainz has talked about Guardwells like three times. Point of clarification, if Guardwells was put on this, would it still qualify as this type of program or would it then become a benefits program technically it would depend on the guardrail okay so we can elaborate

[02:55:04] further upon legal opinion but inclusion and exclusion criteria are different than requirements of the program participation so it would depend on the guardrail okay thank you very much okay motion was made by Supervisor Sainz second by Supervisor Brixman all in favor say aye Opposed? No. And we had one person abstain. So that motion will fail. 4-4-1, with four voting for, four voting against, and one person abstaining.

[02:55:40] Five. Five. Five. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought it was four. Oh, five no's. I'm sorry, five no's, and one abstention. Okay, so 5-3-1. All right, so the motion will fail. Thank you, 5-3-1. Thank you very much for all the work you've done.

[02:56:01] Mr. Kirshner, hi. Welcome, sir. You know what, we only have one more action besides doing the nominations, which is item number five, and we are going to go on and at least have a discussion about that item.

[02:56:17] Mr. Kirshner, just so you know, the request to take that off came very late, and it didn't come from you, and you and I have talked like five times, and we hadn't discussed that one at all, so I just, I wasn't quite sure what that was about, to be honest. And so it did not come from me. Well, it came from me. But that was a request from the applicant who's working on this annexation, I believe, Judge. So I've been in trial all day. I called you judge again. Sorry, Judge.

[02:56:50] Chair Randall. Thank you, Mr. Kirshner. Thank you. All right. Mr. Hemstreet, do you want to say something before we go to take up? If I may, honorable manager. You're coming in your honor first, I guess. Yes, sir. So I just want to make sure the board clearly understands what the request in front of you entails.

[02:57:09] About six months ago in March, town staff started sending referral requests or referral type requests to county staff regarding an application that they had received on a piece of property just outside the town limits.

[02:57:25] And so over the last six months, I have been sending responses to these inquiries from the town staff taking certain positions on behalf of the county. And so in consultation with Mr. Rogers, we kind of have gotten to a point where I'm at the limit of what I'm comfortable doing for the last six months without at least bringing this to the board's attention in a formal setting and just confirming with the board that you're supportive of the policy positions that the staff and I have taken with respect to the inquiries we've received from the town staff. And so that's

[02:58:01] what the purpose of this item is. I have no idea if the town and the applicant are going to proceed with the action that's in front of them. I have no idea if they do what the outcome of that will be. I'm simply here just to confirm that what I have been doing is okay with the board and that you're just and that you're supportive of the positions that I've taken. So the major points are kind of outlined on pages 2 and 3 of the staff report. The first is that I've taken a position that

[02:58:32] data center usage should be precluded as part of the agreement, if there is one, that if the action goes through, there will not be any enclaves created in the final document. What an enclave would be is is is the action goes through and then there is a piece of a parcel of of land that is that is still in the county but entirely surrounded by town property and so we would want to avoid avoid those kind of enclaves so part of what I've said to part of what we've said as part

[02:59:09] of the staff responses is we want to avoid the creation of any enclaves there is the proposed action also includes improvements made to Percival Road. So we wanted it to be clear that if that property is developed, that the road improvements will be the responsibility of whoever develops the property. So pretty standard request. The property is also about 225 feet from the New Hillsboro Agriculture and Forest Hall District. So we want to make sure that any development on

[02:59:46] that property is sensitive to the agricultural and forestal district and it's taken into context during that process and that obviously if the property is developed under the town code then there will be some impacts to abutting properties that are in the county so what we want to be here is to make what we want to do here is make sure that appropriate mitigation measures are in place that kind of buffer or create a transition from that property when it's developed back into the county. So those are kind of the five main positions that I've

[03:00:24] taken. So what we're here to do is just make sure you're okay with that. If there's anything in here the board objects to. It's also a fairly large piece of property, right, Mr. Hemstery? I'm sorry? It's also a fairly large piece of property, almost 119 acres. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, typically the county's position on these has been if the property owner and the town are both in alignment with each other. We typically don't have an objection. So there's no, we still receive with the exception of, I think it's a B poll, if the annexation goes through, with the exception of B poll, we'd still receive all other taxes and fees and everything still

[03:01:03] come to the county. So as long as a property owner of the town agrees, we typically don't object. And we typically don't take a position other than that. The only position we typically take is if the property owner is doesn't want it so so i'll do this like i do any other item so um staff do you have anything else you want to add mr hamstreet said and then supervisors do you have questions and then i will go to mr kirschner mr kirschner you wanted it to come tell me why you want if you don't mind if you take just take a quick point of well originally i was off so thank you madam chair um i was originally a little confused when i saw this because this is somewhat

[03:01:39] of a controversial issue out in purseville some of the residents want it some of them don't The applicant, I think, the last plan that I saw wanted to put in some flex industrial in here. And so there was some consternation, concern by some, but I really liked it by others, I think, the town is looking.

[03:01:57] I think this really should be a town project. And so when I saw Mr. Hemstreet's item that he's just spoken about come across, I was a little concerned that maybe we were kind of stepping forward too quickly. And then when the applicant reached out to us, I think, and said, hey, this might be a little premature.

[03:02:15] Obviously, I think what's in here is exactly what I think we would generally desire if we were to approve this annexation. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. And it sounds like from what Mr. Hemstreet is saying, you just need guidance on this. Or do you actually need, that would be our preference.

[03:02:31] And I would assume if something changed, you could come back and say, hey, they're asking for this, they want us to tweak this or something along those lines. But the motion doesn't just, it's not a guidance motion. the motion is to go negotiate. So that's why I'm a little not quite sure. Okay, I can address that.

[03:02:55] So what we are doing is we're receiving questions from the town staff as with respect to positions that the county would have because this would be a tri-party agreement. It just so happens the town has to address it first and then it comes to the board. So we are kind of saying this is our position on these issues whenever I respond to something. So I do want to make sure that what I'm saying is consistent with what the board is. All right. Mr. Turner. Yeah, Madam Chair. I think the motion is made with all going to 10 is insufficiently precise. This basically tells

[03:03:31] Mr. Hemstreet and the county staff, go ahead and negotiate. I have no question in my mind, you're going to negotiate with the five key points that you want to have in there. But the board has basically given you a blank check to negotiate. And I would like to codify in the motion with a simple friendly amendment to add in accordance with the five desired county positions as enunciated in item five by the county so it basically says yeah everything you want to do but include those five items the board wants you to include those five items five items as

[03:04:03] you've mentioned them or any changes or any additional direction okay well before we i hear i hear that because we're making you're making a friendly amendment to a motion that hasn't been made yet. But I get what you're saying. Let's have everyone else ask staff Mr. Hemisphere questions before we do that. And then, because I don't actually think we've actually said go negotiate yet. And so I'm not quite sure if Mr. Kirshner is saying he's not that far alone yet. That's what I'm trying to kind of figure out right now. So questions to staff.

[03:04:37] Mr. Kirshner. So one of my questions is, since the applicant, I think, thinks it's a little premature to do this can we just generally give you direction rather than putting guardrails on this without passing some sort of motion i mean i understand that's what the motion tries to do but i think maybe we're a little premature i mean i want to be helpful here but i'm just that's the question i'm asking i'm going to defer to the county attorney on that my initial reaction is yes the question i would have of the county attorney if if i may chair randall yes is is

[03:05:11] how much more general the motion would need to be i i just just keep in mind the more general you are the more i'm just going to do what i do and then make sure and i think and i think that's fine with this i think my concern is that the town is going to say oh the county took a i don't want us listen this is i don't this is the town seeking to potentially annex some i don't want to be in the position where we're being pointed at as a board saying oh the county's for this and that's really not what we're doing here. We're just giving you direction. Could we generally do that and say, hey, yes, I think generally this is the direction we would give you if they're discussing

[03:05:47] it with you without taking official action. Mr. Turner, first let's, I'm sorry, Mr. Turner. I mean, that's a compliment, I know. My brain, my gray matter just went up. An annexation needs to be initiated by the town, so that's the first thing. This would only be to work with the town staff to determine whether or not an annexation is feasible, and that's about general as it could be okay so could we just say that yeah exactly could we say we move to uh just work we move that you can work that we authorize you to work with the town staff to see if an

[03:06:26] annexation is feasible i think that's that's enough guidance that we have to continue to work with them well that would be my motion madam chair i think if we're going to make a motion but i i don't know miss turner had a friendly but maybe he said no i i can i don't need a friendly i'm assuming no no no no but no no because we might have come to we're going to come to right now so mr mr kershner um is it actually i might still i'm still on my time can i ask an additional question is it i know the town's been talking to you but is it a little too early to work with the

[03:07:00] town on annexation at this point no absolutely not i mean we really do need to figure out what it is that they'll be doing in an annexation agreement the terms of the agreement are really important. So those are the things that have to get worked out before the town even says whether or not they want to go forward with it. Okay, Mr. Sands you have questions? Yes, thank you. With you know the discussion about annexation and giving if you amend the motion, will that still cover the topics of

[03:07:38] conditions of annexation should include you know what was in here data centers and whatnot is that part would that be still part of the conversation yes I mean I'm I'm telling you well so I believe I copied the board on the letter that I have sent to the town what's in the item is the position that I'm taking so unless the board tells me to do something different that's what I'm doing okay and then in regards to the the email from Mr. Kushner's office to you I think there is a request about it. I think you're proposing to do a more formal document document and I believe the applicant was asking if we could do

[03:08:17] something that's not as formal. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more? I forget the term of the document. I'm trying to find the email but I think I accidentally deleted it by mistake. Do you recall? Okay I think I understand your question to reference the difference between a voluntary annexation agreement and a BLA MOU. Yes there you go. Under a voluntary annexation agreement you can input conditions that are specific to the property, such as its uses, its buffers, mitigating

[03:08:51] its impacts, very specific land use type criteria that might be very important, the proposed project. So that's why a voluntary annexation agreement is really the best way for us to go with this. And so with what was being proposed as a motion, does that still hold to do that annexation document or we're putting on hold if you can get there so I can clarify no I think the motion that mr. Kirshner mentioned is that we continue to work with the town staff to determine whether a voluntary annexation agreement is feasible if that would be an addition to it voluntary annexation

[03:09:29] agreement okay all right sounds good thank you okay anybody ask any questions because I'm going to have you make a motion that's not in the motion basically what you just said that's not in the package if If you can put that back together again. If it's okay, I think I'd like to make a different motion to defer this.

[03:09:46] And let me explain why. First of all, if I can ask a question, my understanding. Actually, no. You need to get to the motion. My motion would be to defer this item for now. And I will second the motion. Now discuss the motion. So my, and this is why.

[03:10:03] And I think, Mr. Tent, if there are discussions and the town staff is reaching out to our staff, I think you kind of generally know what our desire is. but I will tell you that I don't believe the town board or the council has actually taken action on this. They have taken action, I believe, to investigate and look at these items, but they haven't actually taken action to annex.

[03:10:27] And so I think we're a little bit premature in this, and I would prefer time for me and my office to perhaps reach out to Percival, some of the elected officials there to chat with them about this. I don't wanna, and I appreciate Mr. Hemstreet bring this forward. I don't want to hinder him. But that is my only concern about, that's my biggest concern that they haven't had. So I think we're maybe getting the cart before the horse when we say work with them, when indeed they haven't even taken a vote to, hey, we want to follow, we want to go forth on annexation. I think if that vote took place, then I think we've kind of basically given lip service to, yeah, we'll go ahead. And if you need something, then bring it

[03:11:05] back. That would be my preference. Can I make a suggestion that we do a deferral for time certain for two weeks from today for the next board meeting? Certainly, and then we can. Because it has time, yeah. Yeah. I do think that's too early because they won't have passed it, but it certainly gives me time to reach out and ask some questions, get more information.

[03:11:22] And I'll talk to why I said that when I speak. Mr. Randall. Mr. Turner. Oh, Mr. Yes. If I may, if the board's going to defer an item, I think the item could comfortably be deferred to November 7th, which would give time, sufficient time for any follow-up actions, and then if we have a traditional item, we can.

[03:11:41] fine. Mr. Kirshner, are you found November 7th? Yes, Madam Chair. I'm comfortable that I have the sentiment of the board, so no one's telling me not to do what we've been doing, so if the board wants to defer the item, it's perfectly fine. Okay, Mr. Turner. I was just going to point out that right now, county staff has no guidance from us at all. I mean, if it's sufficient for the county staff to say, I got a sense of the board, okay, I'm fine with that, but right now, officially, they have no guidance from us, and they're getting calls from Percival. Are you down with your

[03:12:14] I think that what Mr. Kirshner is saying, and I hear him, is they're getting calls from Percival's staff, and we're not sure. I have had some of Percival's council members talk to me briefly about this, but I think what Mr. Kirshner is being careful to not say and being very tactful is that we want to make sure that the Percival board is on board with what the Percival staff is saying and doing.

[03:12:43] and and not sure not not being sure if that's happening um i think the guidance mr hemstreet is like is is you know kind of hold up and let the let the elected officials talk so that i can get back to you with something from my board you get back to me with something from your council because the council has not taken a vote yet and so so you know what we don't want to happen is this kind of thing start getting worked through. And then at some point, either of the elected bodies kind of go, no, no, we didn't want that because now everyone's in a bad and uncomfortable

[03:13:21] situation. So I hear that he doesn't have the guidance he needs, but I think that it's hard to do that if the Percival Council has not given the Percival Board guidance either. Am I hitting that pretty well correctly, Mr. Kirsten? That is pretty much accurate. And I do think that Mr. Hemstreet said he's comfortable with least deferring until he feels like he has enough to work with so yeah and and some of that is just simply um can we give it a can we can we just hold up for a second until the to the bodies speak to

[03:13:53] one another or even the personal counsel actually takes a vote does that make sense yes yes okay motion made by mr kirschner to defer this to the first meeting in november november 7th i think I think that's what Mr. Hemstreet said, the first meeting in November.

[03:14:13] The first meeting in November, whatever that date is. I second the motion. All people say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass unanimously. Okay, I think we just finished all of our action items. Wow. And I think we're going to be ready to close session and then go do close session and come back and do nominations and any statements.

[03:14:39] And I know you guys talk so much, Dan and Rachel. Thank you for all the words you just said to us. We appreciate it very much. Would you like to be in the closed session? Sure. I move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A3 of the Code of Virginia to consider acquisition of parcels of property for public use in the Catoctin and Little River election districts.

[03:15:07] Seconded by Mr. Crony, discussion on the motion. All the people who say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass.

[03:15:20] That is not what the actual board meeting would be.

[03:30:54] Thank you, ma'am.

[04:07:01] Okay, we are out of closed session. Ms. Bricksman, will you read us out, please? Yes, ma'am. I move that the closed session be adjourned, that the Board of Supervisors resume 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 reflected in the minutes of this public meeting.

[04:07:26] second discussion on the motion all people say aye aye everybody please affirm affirm no no you got the firm on would you like would you have to yes people have to hear you affirm affirm affirm affirm affirm affirm affirm as well all my paper please okay any opposed that motion passed 9-0 okay we will have a motion in just a second but while we are getting the motion what we

[04:08:05] would do is go down the line and do um do uh nominations i hope you have a nomination put your light on please miss umstock yes thank you madam chair i would like to nominate stacy ann cleveland to the library board of trustees and june chang to the health commission thank you anybody else mr kirschner madam chair i can't find my nomination i had given it to you and it I didn't get put in my...

[04:08:37] You did give it to me. Would you like... You want to make it for me? I would be... Actually, you put it in my email. Sorry. Check your email because you put it in my email. And in the meantime, I will make a motion. I will re-nominate Michael Capretti to Zoc.

[04:08:59] He is on Zoc now. His term is about to run out, so I'm going to re-nominate him to Zoc. I do not believe we need to suspend the rules because there will not be a meeting before we can approve him at the next meeting, but he is re-nominated. Did you find it, Mr. Kirshner?

[04:09:15] I did. Okay. So I nominate Lawrence Malone to the ZDC Committee for the SME Urban Planning Vacancy. I'm sorry, what? What?

[04:09:34] Yeah. To what committee? Oh, the ZOC Committee. Sorry. Oh, the ZOC. I didn't hear that. I didn't hear it. Okay. I spelled it out, but I said E instead of C. Okay, all right. Z-O-C. You are tired. Sock. Okay, gotcha.

[04:09:50] Thank you very much. And I will quickly say one more thing. Supervisors, there are still a lot of commissions and committees and boards that do not have people in them from your offices, especially CCJB. If you do not have a CCJB nominee, please bring that to us to this dais in two weeks.

[04:10:10] Please, please, please. Okay, let's go and do board comments while we are waiting on a motion. We can do board comments. Board comments. Mr. Sains.

[04:10:25] Thank you, Madam Chair. By the way of disclosures, on Friday, September 6th, I met with the applicant for the Equinox-Ashburn East application on Wednesday, September 11th. 11th met with the applicant team of project nova in regards to their special exception application on february september on friday september 13th i met with the applicant team of residents at dulles plaza application thank you yes actually i do have a quick comment thank

[04:11:00] you miss brixman our vice chair brixman excuse me um this friday a special event will be taking place at Parkview High School. Oh yeah. Where bear with me one second. You sent it to me in text. On the Friday of the September 20th the Hampton University marching force will be returning to Parkview High School. The force which is a 250 plus member marching band will be giving a live performance at Parkview High School at the football stadium which will start at 6 o'clock p.m. Hampton and we'll be playing their annual game against Howard University at Audi Field in DC.

[04:11:39] So for those who know, it's the battle of the HU universities. So everybody who's a pirate or bison enjoy the game and those who are not alumni, but you should definitely tune in or go to Audi Field and see the experience.

[04:11:55] It's quite a show. But again, at Parkview High School this Friday, the event will start at six o'clock where you'll see a very good band show from the Hampton University Marching Force and also for Loudoun County residents or students who are in band, be it instrumentalists, color guard, or dance team for juniors and seniors from four o'clock to five o'clock.

[04:12:19] If you go to my Facebook supervisor page, you will see a Google link. You can sign up and they are having open auditions to join possibly the marching band. They do have scholarships, be it, you know, academic or performing in the band.

[04:12:37] Again, as an instrumentalist, color guard, our dance team. So, again, please visit my supervisor, Karan Sane's Facebook page to get the Google Docs. They can sign up for the open audition for any juniors or seniors who are interested in the band as an instrumentalist, color guard, our dance team.

[04:12:54] So, please come out on Parkview this Friday, 6 o'clock, and check out the marching force of Hampton University. Thank you. Thank you. Did you hear Ms. Glass down here? She went, H-U. She went there on us.

[04:13:10] You know. All right. Thank you, Mr. Sainz. Mr. Crony. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thanks, Chair Randall.

[04:13:25] And that sounds exciting, Supervisor Sainz. For disclosures, on September 9th, I met with Chuck Kuhn and Charles Yudd about Greenland Park. My board comments, we had a great turnout in Middleburg for the Mickey Gordon Memorial Park community meeting.

[04:13:46] The residents got to review three new concepts plans and I'm pleased to say that the historic Pop Gordon baseball field is restored in every one of those concepts. Although funds are not allocated for park upgrades in the CIP, I hope to accelerate the baseball field restoration by using fund balance so the American Legion can play spring 2025.

[04:14:11] They've been waiting. Also, I would like to begin a dialogue with Loudoun County Public Schools regarding transferring ownership of the land from the schools to the county so it can be an official community park for Middleburg. And I want to thank Steve Torpy and his team for listening to the residents and really bringing together some concepts that the community could support.

[04:14:34] On Friday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Zia Islamic Academy to hear about their plans for expansion. This is a growing and vibrant community. The Islamic Center takes pride in its heritage of diversity, open-mindedness, civic engagement, and community building.

[04:14:53] And a special thank you to the community for their certificate of appreciation, which I have right here. I was very proud of it. And the kind gifts of sweets. And I really enjoy getting to know the community, and I plan to visit them again and help them with their application for the mosque expansion.

[04:15:13] Finally, on Monday, September 23rd, I am hosting a town hall about the Dulles South Community Park at 6.30 p.m. at Light Ridge High School in the cafeteria. This is an opportunity to review the concept plan and provide comments on it, and I look forward to engaging and meeting everybody. Thank you.

[04:15:33] Thank you very much Miss Umstead Thank you madam chair on disclosures on September 5th, I met with DLA Piper represented by Tony Calabresi on September 10th, I attended a meeting on the Arcola Town Center with Colleen Gillis at Curata and And also on September 10th, I met with Charles Yudd

[04:16:08] and Chuck Kuhn on the Greenland Park project. I wanted to mention that we have coming up on September 19th the 70th year anniversary of Loudoun County High School and they will be having a homecoming parade um streets between catoctin circle and south king along catoctin circle up towards mart west market

[04:16:42] street will be closed uh starting i believe at five o'clock and the parade i believe starts at six and so everybody is encouraged to come out and see this it'll be a great great time for the school finally i would like to thank mayor kelly burke and the town council of leesburg the leesburg police department the loudon county sheriff's office the leesburg volunteer fire

[04:17:19] company and all our first responders for another very meaningful september 11th ceremony honoring those who uh were killed 23 years ago um so any anyway it was a really really nice ceremony and thanks to the town for continuing this tradition thank you thank you um miss class thank you madam chair i have one disclosure on wednesday september 11th my staff met with mike romeo to discuss the

[04:17:57] the Hiddenwood Assemblage Data Center application. And Supervisor Sains, Hampton University is where I started my college days, and that will always be my home by the sea. So when she says, hey, Jew, she's talking about Hampton. She's talking about Hampton.

[04:18:20] Ooh, that could get real hot real fast. A real, hey, Jew. Real quick. A real, hey, Jew. anything else before we start the whole hbcu battle up here we good okay all right um supervisor turner thank you madam chair on wednesday september 11th uh my staff and i met with colin gillis from coolie llc and james brothers and david ramsey from wb properties to discuss the application for our colo town center residential wednesday september 11th 2024

[04:18:54] my staff spoke with uh mike romeo mike romeo from walsh kalusha lubley and walsh pc to discuss the application for hidden one assemblage no comments no comments okay uh mr kirchner thank you madam chair for disclosures on september 5th i met with chuck coon concerning the greenland park and on september 9th my staff met with mr calabrese about the spring valley tech park proposed development i don't have any really prepared comments madam chair but i will say that Um, um, remembering September, um, 11th was, is always a very, um, meaningful time for me

[04:19:34] and a time of reflection. I remember the day it happened, uh, I was actually on a flight and they grounded us coming back from LA, thank God. And I often think of the families whose, um, loved ones were on the plane to LA and who, who obviously did not make it home. And, uh, I was grounded in Arizona and I remember getting off the plane and looking up and the twin towers was burning and and that's the moment I watched it fall live on TV so it's been something that's always made a big impression on me and in America that was it was a time in our history where America really came together and galvanized and sometimes it takes tough things like that for to happen but

[04:20:10] certainly continue to pray and think of the families and even when they did the readings at at ground zero there and some of the children who are reading now were not even alive at that time um this this past year was quite a memory to how long it has been 23 years thank you madam chair thank you sir um mr letourneau um disclosures um i had communications um including texts and and phones with mr minchu of walsh kaluchi to discuss hidden wet assemblage on

[04:20:47] september 13th september 15th and september 16th um i also spoke with mr minchu of walsh Colucci regarding Greenland Park on September 16th. I know the residents are long gone but I did just for a moment want to address hidden with assemblage which was deferred tonight. I've said before that that is the single most difficult land use case that I have encountered in my I guess almost 13 full years now on the board in which we have residents that are legitimately concerned for

[04:21:22] their futures and their homes, largely due to a data center development encroaching very close to them. And then we had another set of residents who had concerns, legitimate ones, about this very application and those data center impacts that they could see and who were experiencing those around their community as well.

[04:21:45] And so, unfortunately, the way it played out kind of pitted neighborhoods against each other and actually I've commented to both groups that they both have a lot in common and I really truly empathize with both and I'm not drawing equivalencies between one or the other but the truth is it's a tough situation for everybody involved so certainly when the applicant requested a deferral and I think in light of what the outcome was was going to be on the application I'm more than happy to do that and more than happy to keep working to find what I hope to be a non-data

[04:22:25] center solution to this particular problem. Exploring other options, exploring other ways to sort of get everybody to where they need to be one way or the other. And I know that that will be challenging. The residents are very anxious for that to play out because of some legal constraints around this particular application and contract purchase I wasn't able to engage as much as I would have liked directly with the residents on alternatives and I do want to say that that has changed the timeline because I think we could have been down the road on some other

[04:23:03] solutions but we couldn't be because of the limitations of the way this this was playing out so nevertheless we are absolutely going to continue to work on it hopefully we can find a solution that works for everybody and move on from the situation and obviously the board I think is is very cognizant of the impacts of this some some of the things I would have talked about that if we had had a vote tonight you know going back in the legislative history here I think there actually was an attempt by previous boards years and years

[04:23:37] ago to try to make the whole area residential and that that didn't happen for some legal reasons, but I think, you know, in the days before data centers, when IP zoning was around in this area, after Briarfield was approved, there was a recognition that that was going to be difficult.

[04:23:58] But we went back and looked at the history and the settlement that occurred and all those sort of things. And, you know, sometimes it's helpful to look at the past so we don't repeat it, but in this case, it's just one of these situations where, you know, it ended up in a very difficult circumstance in a checkboard pattern of development in the Arcola area.

[04:24:14] So we'll continue to work on that and perhaps the board will have future action on this item. Thank you, sir. Ms. Brooksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. By way of disclosures, on September 5th, I met with DLA Piper about a potential future application.

[04:24:29] On September 5th, I met with Chuck Kuhn and Charles Yudd about Greenland Park. On September 6th, I went to visit the Hiddenwood community to hear from community members on the assemblage application. on September 11th I had a conversation via the phone with Colleen Gillis on Arcola Town Center Residential. In some happy news, the first brewery in Algonquian District opened last week. It's called Route 7 Brewing and it's a very interesting place if you get a chance to visit. They have quite a combination on their menu of Indian, Hispanic, American foods. Really great chef.

[04:25:09] I was able to attend the NVTC 60th anniversary celebration with Supervisor Letourneau. And if you get a chance to go watch their documentary, it was really, really good. I will be hosting a town hall next Tuesday on housing with the Vaja, Benjamin Miller, and staff from the county to talk about updates on our unmet housing needs, strategic plan, and answer questions from the community.

[04:25:38] In other news, we now have a confirmed death from the post-Roe abortion bans that have been implemented across the country. Because of a lag in investigations and these types of deaths, generally about two years, we can expect to be hearing more. This was a 28-year-old single mother, Amber Nicole Thurman, who sought an abortion out of her state of Georgia at almost exactly six weeks, just after Georgia instituted its draconian anti-reproductive freedom law.

[04:26:06] In North Carolina, she was afforded the combination abortion pill and then went back to Georgia. In an extremely rare complication, caused infection and the need for a DNC to clear the remaining tissue from her uterus. The Georgia doctors refused her service for more than 20 hours.

[04:26:25] She was vomiting blood. She was bleeding through a menstrual pad every hour and eventually passed out at her home before she died. "While Georgia says it has exceptions, "the doctors did not provide services, "probably out of fear of a 10-year prison sentence "for breaking Georgia's draconian law."

[04:26:44] Can you imagine a 10-year prison sentence just for trying to save your patient's life? This case proves what we already know. Abortion bans kill. Denying reproductive health care kills. It's not only immoral, it's beyond condescending. It is in fantasizing women and mothers like Thurman who unfortunately leaves a young son behind.

[04:27:04] RBG said this on the subject, the decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a person's life, to their well-being, and when the government controls that for people, they are being treated as less than a fully human adult responsible for their own choices, end quote.

[04:27:22] It's dehumanizing, and it's shameful, and our only recourse is to vote for candidates whose values match our own. On gun violence, Madam Chair, there have been 12,186 total gun deaths and 395 mass shootings so far in 2024.

[04:27:40] The deaths include 178 children under the age of 11 and 838 teens ages 12 to 17. I'm not sure if my colleagues saw the news that a six-year-old took a gun to school down in one of our southern counties in Virginia.

[04:28:00] And luckily, it was found by a teacher's assistant, and nobody got hurt. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Briggsman. So I'm going to do a little educating for people who might be listening or for just people in general, because I think that there's been a lot of discussion in this year about sororities and fraternities. And it's an interesting discussion that I think one of my proudest moments is when Mr. Letourneau said he was at an event and he saw a lot of people wearing red, women wearing red, and he goes, oh, I know. I know what that is. Most people who are not in the African-American

[04:28:40] community may not understand what the divine nine is, what we call the divine nine. In the African-American community, there are only nine sororities and fraternities combined. And we call ourselves the divine nine. They were created because when African-Americans tried to join all white fraternities and sororities, they were not allowed to join. And so we created our own.

[04:29:07] The Divine Nine, the African-American fraternities and sororities, are very different than non-African-American fraternities and sororities in that many, if not most, of our members actually go through the membership intake process after college, and so they join an alumni chapter.

[04:29:27] It's a very serious undertaking to be a Divine Nine member. You join for life. All of the Divine Nine are public service sororities, are fraternities, and so we really lean into, if it's men, it's manhood and scholarship and giving back and sisterhood.

[04:29:48] I mean, so they're really, they're very community-based in giving back. And so while some people, and I think reasonably might think it's a sorority party or something, it's really not. It's a very serious undertaking to be a member of Divine Nine. And you join for life.

[04:30:05] When you join, you join for life. Most, not most, many very well-known African Americans are members of the Divine Nine. Probably the most famous one is Martha King was a Divine Nine member. and Alpha, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Bobby Rush, Thurgood Marshall, Aretha Franklin, Shirley Chisholm, Debbie B. Du Bois, Raphael Warnock, Roland Martin, Robert Smith, Robert Jordan, Bill Crump, Jerry Rice, Colin Kirkpatrick, John Lewis, and I can go on and on and on.

[04:30:39] Kamala Harris is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, so one of the Divine Nine sororities. If you look at our fifth floor alone, so look at the fifth floor in this building, you have four members of the Vine Nine on the fifth floor, and I think one probably coming pretty soon on the fifth floor.

[04:30:58] We're kind of everywhere. We're kind of all over the place. And so when people hear that sorority, well, these are organizations, the Delta, I'm a Delta, is made up of 350,000 women nationwide and in many other countries.

[04:31:15] And we have a huge focus just on service and giving back. And so they are Alpha Phi Alpha, which was founded in 1906 at Cornell University. Alpha Kappa Alpha, which was sorority founded at 1908 at Howard University.

[04:31:32] Kappa Alpha Psi, founded in 1911 at Indiana University. Omega Psi Phi fraternity, founded at 1911 at Howard University. Delta Sigma Theta, the best one of all, founded in 1913 at Howard University, Phi Beta Sigma founded in 1914 at Howard, Zeta Phi Beta founded in 1920 at Howard, Sigma Gamma Rho founded in 1922 at Butler, and Iona Phi Theta, Lambda Phi founded in 1963 at Morgan State University.

[04:32:03] And so I say this only because I think over the next 49 days, you might hear a lot about you know, about those sororities and fraternities, one of the divine nines, you might hear Kamala Harris and others talk about it, and it's, you know, it's not something that we talk about very often, but they're very serious, very, you know, you join them as a commitment, and you can't, like, leave one sorority and join another, leave one fraternity. When you join, you join for life, and you can't jump around. So I'm a Delta, proudly to be a Delta. I actually

[04:32:39] pledged in college, everyone who was in there, college-educated women, but you join for life. And so when you hear that from now on, when you hear Kamala Harris talking about it from now on, you'll know what those are, that they are one of the divine nine. I am really proud to have educated people. Mr. Hempstreet knows all about the divine nine. All I got to do is walk in my office and you know what's going on. So I think you're going to hear about a lot more. And any other questions about any of those things, please come ask me or Karan or Sylvia. We're happy to answer them. All right. We have a motion that came out of closed session. Mr. Kirshner, would you like

[04:33:18] to make a motion? I would. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the Board of Supervisors authorize the county administrator to enter into a purchase and sale agreement in the form approved by the county attorney. It's misspelled, but we can change that. With Dunlin Farm LLC in the amount of $29 million for the purchase of 335 acres located west of Evergreen Mills Road and east of Gleadsville Road within Catoctin and Little River Election District.

[04:33:44] Motions made and seconded by Mr. Crony. Discussion and motion, Mr. Kirshner. Madam Chair, this is something I know we've been looking at for a little while. We are, as a county, in a significant need of a variety of different lands for projects.

[04:34:03] I know we have talked about land banking in our retreat as well as a an Ag center and we have also talked about the need for fields and whatnot this is one of probably the last pieces of property of this size in this area and close to Eastern Loudoun as well it kind of centrally located I think it's a very critical and important piece of land that otherwise would ultimately go into homes if we did not purchase it and I think we're going to have a number of different uses that we have discussed as the county and I'm very excited about the opportunity that we have here in front of us thank you madam chair to

[04:34:42] Kirsten would you mind if I just do a little bit of a friendly on your emotion and say the words up to before 29 million yes absolutely yes thank you thank you very much all right miss I'm stuck thank you madam chair I will be voting against this we have limited resources this purchase is going to deny us the resources we may well need to finish some high priority road projects in the county it is we are buying

[04:35:18] this for 29 million dollars up to 29 million dollars but the fair market value according to the parcel database on the Loudoun County website is 12.7 million. So we are greatly overpaying for this property without a clear plan of how we want to use it. It has been pointed out by others that this is the equivalent of two pennies on the tax rate. So given that we have other pressing needs

[04:35:56] in the county. I think this is not an idea that I'm willing to support. Thank you. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. I want to echo what Supervisor Kirshner said. I think this is an excellent location for a unique park that has equestrian, could be an equestrian center like a frying pan park with an indoor stadium, outdoor rings, trails, and also provides an

[04:36:30] opportunity for young farmers to get some land. And we could do an incubator for young farmers and have potentially an agricultural center. There is a very beautiful historic barn on the property that I think could become an event center venue. There's just a lot of things that we could do with this property and I will say this property is on Evergreen Mills Road which will eventually be four lanes and across the street is the transition pulse area so I think

[04:37:02] the price for this property is what it's going for. Land is going up in price and value and I think the county is doing the right thing and that this will really benefit the residents and the community, um, and, you know, the design, I encourage residents to get involved with the design, because like, like Supervisor Kirshner said, we could look at some fields and some, um, unique amenities for, um, our residents. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Letourneau.

[04:37:37] Thank you. Um, I agree with Supervisor Umstead. Um, I, I certainly wanted to support, uh, my colleague, Mr. Kirshner, and, and, um, agree macro level with both the concept of sometimes buying properties um when we can and also the need for more land for parks and things like that but that said we have a capital needs assessment and we have a capital improvement program that is underfunded for what we're trying to accomplish we have future fiscal needs projects in there and then we have projects that we are in very long multi-year processes for because we're only able

[04:38:14] to throw a little bit of money at it every year like sidewalks and trails and intersection improvement so for me to spend 29 million for a property valued as such and then certainly what supervisor crony said the property is worth what somebody's willing to pay for it but it just doesn't sit well with me because there's so much we could do with that money and i know when we get into our budget a lot of those things i've been trying to get done for years and others have been trying to get done and projects that we've talked about there won't be money for we're not going to going to be able to do it. So this is just too much money for something that we don't have a

[04:38:53] pressing need for. Yes, we could game plan this and game plan that, but we don't have those things in front of us, don't have partners for some of those things that you would really need them for, so it's just speculative for us. But we're using taxpayer dollars, and it's a lot of money. So for a smaller amount of money, I may have been a yes on this and understanding what we could do with it, But for this amount of money, I can't get there, and I'll have to vote no.

[04:39:21] Thank you. Ms. Brooksman. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Turner, I didn't see you live before. Thank you very much. It just occurred to me in the discussion, TLUC is going to be taking up the Purchase Development Rights Program at the TLUC meeting tomorrow, and I've asked PEC to do a presentation.

[04:39:37] They have a 30-minute presentation that goes into some detail, and in that presentation, they talk about the Clark County PDR program, and they have some figures there, and it's entirely possible because the county infusion of cash and a PDR deal generally runs in Clark County at about 21 percent of the total purchase of the development rights. It's entirely possible we could have locked up the development rights on this exact piece of land for about six million dollars with an active PDR program and use state and federal PDR funding to augment that lockup of rights and still allow us to use it for the things that the county probably is going to want to use

[04:40:14] it for. Just a little teaser of things to come. Thank you. Ms. Bricksman. I mean, so that just begs the question, is our intention to lock up the rights for other development on this land, or is our intention to actually use it for something that the county has identified? So this is giving me real heartburn, and I won't be supporting it. And the price being too high is really not my biggest issue. I have two really big issues with doing this. One is we don't have a clearly

[04:40:52] identified use. We don't have anything in our CIP or our CNA that we can point to when we tell taxpayers we're spending $29 million on buying this property. And I don't believe that the term land banking is enough for me to justify the idea of land banking is not enough for me to justify to my constituents and the constituents in this county to spend 29 million dollars on this

[04:41:27] property my other big issue is that it's in the rpa it's in the rural policy area and in my experience on this board anytime we have tried to put something in the rural policy area for public use, we've gotten a lot of pushback, a lot of pushback. I'm thinking about when we wanted to put water, you know, take some of the RPA and put it in the TPA so we could put water.

[04:41:57] And a lot of folks in our county call that a slippery slope to developing the west. We also had a lot of pushback when we wanted to put lights on some ball fields so that we could get the maximum use out of the ball fields for the taxpayer dollars that we were spending on those ball fields. And we got so much pushback that we ended up not putting those lights on the ball fields. So when I think about trying to put ball fields in the RPA, I think it's probably not going to happen because we're going to get so much pushback because we want to put lights on it.

[04:42:32] So I fear that we're going to spend $29 million and then we're not going to be able to use the land for a public use. And that's my biggest fear. Those are my two biggest fears. We don't have anything identified. We have a lot of projects that we are prioritizing. One of them is a performing arts center. One of them is an indoor sports facility, both of which I think would bring a lot of revenue to the county. And I don't see an identified use for this property that would bring revenue to the county and or that would be acceptable for many of the people that live

[04:43:09] out there for putting public use facilities on this property so i'll be voting no thank you madam chair i have a feeling and i could be wrong but i have a feeling that the supervisors who cover the west probably know the people in the west better than the supervisors who don't i'm just going to take that guess that's the first thing and so i think that people would people know what this property could be it could be a buy right use for 59 homes it probably would be just 59 59 large dotted McMansions on this beautiful piece of property that can be ball fields, that can be equestrian, that can be a lot of different things that we do have. And maybe the reason we don't

[04:43:47] have it in the CNA or the CIP is because it's hard to get five supervisors to vote for things in the West. And that's unfortunate. That is unfortunate, but it's hard to do that. And so sometimes it doesn't get put in the CIP or in the CNA.

[04:44:03] But we have had lots of discussions and people asking us, why does this have to be home? So why does this have to be these things? Why can't it be a park or why can't it be? Well, this is the one time we can do this. And I'm sorry, Ms. Brixman, the comparison with taking some of the RPA and putting in the TPA to buying land to make parks and ball fields is a completely illogical comparison.

[04:44:31] That's not even apples to apples. That's like apples to kumquats or something. That just doesn't make any sense at all, to be quite honest. It will be maybe never that we can get a piece of land like this, this large, that we can do this much with.

[04:44:48] And if things don't work, we can always sell it. And if we sell it, we'd probably sell it at a profit, to be quite honest. So we need ball fields. Gosh knows we need things for equestrians. We've talked about an equestrian quarantine facility for years, and we just can't seem to get it off the ground yet.

[04:45:08] So, you know, you can be penny wise and pound foolish. You can. But I think the people in the West and people all around Loudoun County talk to us about needing ball fields. Talk to us about needing open space. Talk to us about needing space that is available to people to come to.

[04:45:26] Because although you might see a lot of land in the West, A lot of times that land's under an easement, and it's not for public use. So a large, large piece of public-use land is not something we have. And if I thought land was going to go down and become more expensive in the next five years, okay.

[04:45:44] But I don't think that's going to happen. So I think we jump on this now, or we never have it. And so I think that Loudoun County overall, east and west, no matter who you are, we'll benefit from having this and we'll really enjoy this open space this large open space piece of land so we always want to pay less but let me just say this by percentage we paid just as high as percentage over for parcels in the east that were smaller so mr kirschner just reiterate what you said thank you madam chair i'm ready to vote all right all in favor please say aye aye

[04:46:24] opposed but the nays were louder but the eyes were more that's a 5-4 vote that won't pass I think it was Miss Umstead Mr. Sainz Mr. Letourneau and Miss Bricksman that voted against the item I'm pretty

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