Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting, Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 8h 3m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7836
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7836

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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[00:09:22] Jenny, Saturday? Sunday? Were you crying?

[00:09:49] Well, good evening, supervisors. Good evening, staff, and good evening, Loudon. I'd like to call to order the December 3rd, 2024 Loudon County Board of Supervisors business meeting. This room has a hearing loop.

[00:10:05] If you need hearing assistance, please switch your hearing aid to the telecom mode. If you need a headset, we have those available as well. Please see the clerk to my left to request one. This evening, I am the person who is giving words of wisdom or prayer.

[00:10:22] And I thought a lot about what I wanted to say tonight. And it turned out a song said it best for me. One of my favorite songs is a song called My Grown-Up Christmas List. I don't know if you guys have ever heard it before. But as we head into the holidays with all that is going on, both in this country and across the world, I thought I would give you just the first verse of My Grown-Up Christmas List.

[00:10:46] This is an adult person who is speaking to kind of almost like an invisible Santa Claus. Do you remember me? I sat up on your knee. I wrote to you with childhood fantasies. Well, I'm all grown up now, but can you still help somehow?

[00:11:06] I'm not a child, but my heart still can dream. So here's my lifelong wish, my grown up Christmas list, not for myself, but for a world in need. No more lives torn apart, and wars would never start, and time would heal all hearts, and every man would have a friend that right would always win, and love would never end.

[00:11:36] This is my grown-up Christmas list. Would you all please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? Okay, Caleb will be back in just a sec.

[00:12:07] Mr. Sains is probably racing in from D.C., and Ms. Glass had a previous engagement and will not be able to join us tonight. I have two deletions from the agenda tonight. I have no additions.

[00:12:23] Deletions are item 2G, a request to allow use of county property and resources has been withdrawn by Delegate David Reed. The boardroom is no longer needed for the General Assembly pre-legislative session. I do believe that Delegate Reed being the most senior person in our legislative delegation will come back to us another time with a later date to use the boardroom.

[00:12:46] And item 10, board member initiative to fast track commercial incentives program for data centers. That has been deferred to January 22nd, 2025. When there is a BMI, staff does not help with our BMIs because it's a BMI, it's a board member initiative. However, at times people may have questions for a staff member or get clarification from a staff member.

[00:13:13] Since Mr. Reiser is not able to be here, I thought it was really important that for that initiative. Mr. Reiser could be in the room. I called him last night at the request of my colleague, Mr. Crony, and at Mrs. Crony, I'm sorry, Supervisor Crony, and asked that he, would there be any BMI, I mean, data science would look to be fast-tracked before January 22nd. He said no. Supervisor Crony was very gracious, and so we're going to just move that item to Supervisor to January 22nd. And now I will read the proposed consent agenda. It

[00:13:51] is as follows. Item R1, Presentation of Ceremonial Check from Good Works and Green Street Housing. That's for approval and presentation, and I've already seen Mr. Hart in the room. Item 1A, Appointments and Confirmations. Item 2, Administrator's Items Report for December 3rd 2024 with the exception of 2g because i just removed that from the agenda item 4 2024 fiscal impact committee guidelines item 5 speed study at at the in the town of round hill item 6

[00:14:30] smith switch row corridor and washington ond dominion grade separator crossing study item 7 response to board member initiative with field place crosswalk safety and improvements Item 8 is a ZMAP 2019, that's 0021 Oak Grove.

[00:14:48] That motion is to send it to a public hearing. Item 9, Board Member Initiative, naming of the Della South Community Park. Item 11B, 2024 Capital Facility Standards. Item 12A, Electrical Infrastructure, Comprehensive Plan Amendment, and that is all.

[00:15:08] I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second on the motion? Motion is made and seconded by Vice Chair Brixman. Discussion on the motion for the consent agenda. My only discussion would be item number eight, the ZMAP 2019-0021 Oak Grove.

[00:15:26] That item had hiccups a couple of years back. It is now back to us in its original form and going to public hearing. I am thrilled that it is going to public hearing. I do not believe or suspect we will have any more hiccups or issues.

[00:15:42] And I want to thank Mr. Rogers. I want to thank David Gregory, and I want to thank everyone who's been involved in getting this item back on track and where it belongs. Mr. Crony. - Thank you, Chair Randall, and I want to thank my colleagues for supporting my board member initiative for the naming of the Dulles South Community Park.

[00:16:05] I did receive a letter from the Willowsford community, which is adjacent to the park, about looking at a name that connects to the history of the site or its location within the county and they Support, you know being involved in the process of renaming the park I know the pros board will be involved and I look forward to seeing what the community comes up with. Thank you Thank you. Mr. Turner Thank you, Madam Chair. Just confirm the T-LAC electrical infrastructure items on consent. It is

[00:16:40] Just very briefly, we think the county is in a better position if we delineate in our comprehensive plan preferred electric transmission corridors in the plan. And so we're going to make some changes and incorporate that into the plan and state these are our desired electric transmission corridors.

[00:16:59] They coincide with the existing corridors. That gives us a little bit more. Of course, the SEC decides where to approve these, but that gives the local municipality a little bit more clout in those discussions. and so we're going to make those changes that's what that is about thank you thank you anybody else all right i made a motion to approve the consent agenda it was second by supervisor by sheriff rickson all in favor please say aye aye any opposed that motion will pass 702 um i'm again with mr sayings and miss um glass off the um off the dais all right right now i'm going to do

[00:17:34] uh my uh my regional updates so there's just there's just two and the first one i want to to talk about, it was pretty impactful. On December 1st, 1974, TWA Flight 514 crashed into the Blue Ridge Mountains and it killed all 92 people on board. There's never been a memorial service where all the families of the deceased have come together to understand would happen, to mourn, to talk to each other.

[00:18:10] In this Sunday, the Bluemont Community Center planned, it took months to plan, a memorial service. A member of the Bluemont Community Center was able to contact, in various ways, all the family members of all 92 people that perished, which is amazing, to have this memorial service.

[00:18:36] I attended with Mr. Crony and Mr. Delegate Higgins was there as well. It was an incredibly important and moving ceremony. People held pictures of their loved ones who perished. They had buttons with their loved ones on them.

[00:18:52] The keynote speaker was the head of the FAA who actually talked a lot about all the safety improvements that were put in place because of that crash. Now obviously that doesn't mean, I mean people want to have their loved ones, but I think the point she was trying to make was because of that, countless other people, there were not the crashes that you had before because they learned so much from that moment.

[00:19:18] They had three family members speak. They were so powerful and so impactful. So I do want to thank everybody at the Bluemont Community Center for putting together that program. I think Mr. Crony is going to talk about it a little more when we get to her comments because it was a it was a a really important day and and the place was packed people came from all over the plane was actually coming out of ohio it was supposed to go to um national so it had a lot of military on board but because of weather conditions it was diverted to um dulles and it just it just did not clear the weather conditions they just didn't see it just did not it did not

[00:19:55] clear the the mountain so the other thing that was really really something was the the first responders who were there at the time were young young men um our own uh former fire chief broward was 18 years old he was one of the first people on site um uh and and all of the first responders who were really young at the time um were there they all came back and so it was it was was really something to be in the room with all of them and listen to their stories. And it does speak

[00:20:31] again to why it's important to have good mental health and good trauma informed care for our first responders because of things they have to deal with. But anyway, that's another discussion. But it was a really important event. Also yesterday was the DMV MOVE task force. DMV is the effort to try to figure out metro, but most especially metro bus in the area, and try to, as much as possible, streamline the process of people taking metro in the DMV.

[00:21:05] Yesterday was, I thought, one of our more positive meetings. It's hard because, you know, the three jurisdictions, Maryland and D.C., their funding from their metro comes from a central pot. Whereas for Virginia, it comes from the metro compact districts in northern Virginia, so it gets a little more confusing to all raise money in the same way because Maryland and Virginia, if you raise money in Maryland, it's all of Maryland and it's all of D. C. , but in Virginia, it's just the metro compact, so it's just the northern Virginia, and so it gets kind of confusing.

[00:21:42] But it was a really productive meeting yesterday, our next meeting is January something, something. I go look at my schedule and remember when it was. But that was a really important DMV moves. So I don't have a voice for a cause tonight on purpose because I wanted to talk about the fact that today is Giving Tuesday.

[00:22:01] Giving Tuesday means that everyone should go and give to whomever your favorite nonprofit is. is. Mine is the Loudoun Commission of Women and Girls. Before the night's out, I will go make a contribution to the Loudoun Commission of Women and Girls. The Community Foundation of Loudoun and Farquhar County holds a lot of our main nonprofits. So if you want to go see a list of nonprofits that you may want to give to, it is communityfoundationlf.org.

[00:22:33] communityfoundationlf.org. Our nonprofits do so much for us and especially this time of year. If you could give, it would be really, really, really appreciated this time of year. So Forgiving Tuesday, I said not to have a voice for a cause because all the causes are important as we get right before the holidays. So communityfoundationlf.org is where you would go do that. Thank you very much. Mr. Hemstreet, do you have any comments for this evening thank you madam chair I've got four comments for this evening the first is that excuse me the advisory commission on youth is conducting a survey that will help inform the

[00:23:10] county government's decisions about services and programs designed to meet the needs of young people in our community middle school and high school age students and their parents or or guardians are encouraged to take the survey which covers four topic areas activities and interests drug and alcohol use mental health and stress management and online access and activity Results of the survey will be included in the commission's annual report to the board.

[00:23:35] More information is online at loudon.gov slash youth survey. Second, nominations are now open for the third annual Loudoun County Environmental Excellence Awards. The Environmental Commission is accepting nominations of individuals, businesses, groups, or organizations working to preserve and protect Loudoun County's environment.

[00:23:52] Submissions will be accepted through March 3rd, 2025. More information, including a link to the nomination form, may be found at loudon.gov slash environmental awards. Third, the Treasurer's Office would like to remind taxpayers that second half real estate taxes are due this Thursday, December 5th.

[00:24:10] There are several convenient payment options available, including online, by phone, by mail, and in person. More information is online at loudon.gov slash taxes. And then finally, holiday shoppers who would like to buy locally made and locally grown products are encouraged to take Loudoun Home for the holidays.

[00:24:27] The Department of Economic Development's Loudoun Made, Loudoun Grown program highlights top quality rural economy products from Loudoun Farms and small businesses. Printed holiday gift guides are available at community centers and library branches. An online version can be found at takeloudounhome.org.

[00:24:43] Those are my comments this evening, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hump Street. I actually totally forgot about the second tranche of taxes, so I really appreciate that reminder. I do. Okay, we're going to do our ledge item, everyone. It's item I-1. If Mr. Freeman, and I don't think Mr. McClellan's with us. I think it's Mr. Quintine coming down today with us to do the ledge item.

[00:25:05] Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board.

[00:25:21] Good evening. How are you doing? So, about a month ago, the VACO annual conference took place. And so, one of the updates I want to give to the board is that the emergency meeting protocols was heard before the general government steering committee.

[00:25:41] And Madam Chair gave a very, very, very impactful presentation of the emergency meeting protocols and what the proposal will potentially look like. The General Government Committee at VACO decided to vote to write a letter to the FOIA Council for them to convene a work group to look at the emergency meetings protocols.

[00:26:10] And so FOIA Council added that to their agenda for tomorrow at 1 o'clock. And so they would decide if they're going to convene a work group, and hopefully we get a bill next year. The other update is MWA did a presentation with the Housing Commission last week on our disclosure issue that for the homes purchased within the noise contours, the Housing Commission did approve that to go to the full Housing Commission meeting later this month

[00:26:47] to decide on if the Housing Commission will put their stamp of approval onto a bill to be introduced this upcoming session. So those are the updates for the Ledge Program as of right now. If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer.

[00:27:03] That is an amazingly good update, and you've been very helpful. Let's go down the line. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Freeman, I'm waiting for the J. Lark study to come out on data centers. Once it comes out, I'm going to read it cover to cover, and I'll probably roll the things that we've talked about in the past into a motion, and then send it to you, let you take a look at it. As my current plan, if that's acceptable. Okay, great. Thank you. Ms. Umstead.

[00:27:35] Thank you, Madam Chair. John, I really appreciate your doing a fair amount of research into the um the issue that we had discussed about uh a different kind of gambling um facility in in virginia and loudon county from what you've told me there's a divide in the commonwealth with some localities wanting this new opportunity and others not um you and i discussed the best

[00:28:15] way of going forward and I wonder if you would share with the board a little bit of what you've learned and your recommendation that we rely on our generic position that the county not lose any authority over land use and and other areas as well. Absolutely so the conversation around skill games has been an ongoing conversation for a couple of years. And so there was a bill where

[00:28:51] there are actually a couple of bills last session that were introduced to essentially bring about the ability for skill games to be operated and have localities hold referendums on whether they but wish to opt out of the skill gains within their jurisdiction.

[00:29:13] There were some different opinions on the taxation of that. And so the bill went to the governor's desk. He put on some amendments. He sent it back. During veto session, the General Assembly rejected the amendments.

[00:29:31] They sent it back to the governor. He vetoed it. A bill was, a couple of bills were introduced during special session, and those bills were essentially left where they were at and were not voted on, and so that brings us to today.

[00:29:46] So there are difference of opinions. Some in the Commonwealth have developments in terms of gaming, so casinos, rosies, things of that nature. And so there are some localities that would potentially like to look into skill games, and there are some localities that would like to stay away from skill games, if you will. And so at this time, you know, the ongoing conversation that is likely to

[00:30:25] be the best scenario is to look at the land use authority around skill games in terms of local and use authority. So in terms of looking at something that is currently not allowed under state code as a use, should a bill be passed and signed by the governor to allow that use, essentially we would want to have the ability from a land use standpoint to have the authority

[00:30:59] to regulate that use as well. So essentially maintaining our local land use authority. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau? Following up a little bit on that. So can you cover a little bit of the discussion around my understanding is that there are sort of existing individual gambling type games that exist in convenience stores other establishments likely in Loudoun County and

[00:31:35] elsewhere that are currently unregulated and one of the arguments in this discussion is that they should be regulated how does that fit into what you just kind of described well I think that's something that we would like to look at with staff along with planning and zoning staff specifically as well as the county attorney's staff to essentially look at how that would fit into our local land use authority and allow us to negotiate further to, you know, essentially

[00:32:11] move forward on this issue. In doing that, it would be helpful to get a better understanding and I'm looking more at Mr. Rogers about the current sort of legal posture around this because i think the question of whether they should be regulated like under existing authority whether that already exists is a little bit of an open question um but you see you know some of the convenience store owners are arguing that they need that revenue to be viable and they're clearly still getting it even though you know i think others would say they may maybe shouldn't be but the state may not have the teeth to regulate it so um i don't personally think this is something

[00:32:51] that we need to wade into here and you all know i'm pretty protective of the legislative program anyway um and so without any pressing reason i don't i don't necessarily want to involve ourselves into this but i know that other localities are and i have i mean there are businesses in loudon that are active on this issue i passed one on my way here that has signs up about it so it might be at least useful information for us as background on kind of how this is playing out thank you um i know you have motions um so to this item you know i see that we we have a standing

[00:33:30] item in our ledge program that we we do not want to lose any authority over land use here at the end no matter what it's used for the map it's housing business whatever it might be we want authority over our land use and i think that is we have to stand on that and be be be all counties Just be clear about that, that land use and zoning is a local function.

[00:33:52] To the discussion of gaming or anything else, I think we haven't, you know, I say the same thing about every business, almost every business, which is I'll take a meeting. I'll take a meeting, I'll have a discussion, I'll take a meeting.

[00:34:07] And so we want to almost separate these two items. Me taking a meeting, if there was one offered and there has not been, let's put that first on the table. Me taking a meeting or Mr. Letourne taking a meeting or whomever taking a meeting is not the same thing as believing anyone should have any control of our land use.

[00:34:26] And so I think that those two things have to always be stated very clearly, that Loudoun County welcomes new businesses, welcomes new revenue sources, will take a meeting. We might get there, we might not get there, but we will always fight someone trying to take any control over land use is all I would say to that.

[00:34:43] Okay. All right. Mr. Crony has motions. Does anyone else have any motions besides Mr. Crony? Mr. Crony has three motions, and she has talked to me about them, and she has talked to Jonathan about them, and she's talked to most of you about them, so we're ready for you.

[00:35:01] Thank you, Chair Randall. I want to thank Jonathan and Renee and Chris for helping me out on my three motions. So I'll do the first one. I moved to add a policy statement to the 2025 legislative program on the upcoming re-evaluations of Appalachian Power Company and Dominion Energy's net metering rates by the SCC. The statement should read, Loudoun County supports retaining the current minimum connection charge as well as the one-to-one retail rate to preserve and grow

[00:35:33] the benefits of net metered solar and facilitate solar for all. Furthermore, I support legislation that establishes and expands the state solar tax credits in the Commonwealth. Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Brixman, Mr. Crony.

[00:35:53] Thank you. So reducing the value of net metering will decimate the Solar for All initiative that our Environmental Commission and Solarize Loudon is promoting. It will essentially kill, I believe, residential solar. Net metering is a selling point when a homeowner is considering whether solar panels is a good financial benefit. As rapidly escalating data center demand creates a significant need for load, net metering solar installations connect clean energy where we need

[00:36:28] it most. Net metered solar grows energy independence and protects citizens from rising utility rates, which is particularly relevant as Dominion's new integrated resource plan predicts nearly a doubling of electric bills in coming years. Home solar proponents are concerned about a proposal to reduce the net metering credit that Appalachian Power pay residential solar users by more than 70%. Dominion will get an SEC hearing on its net metering May 1st, and Dominion, just so everybody

[00:37:05] knows currently compensates net metering customers for excess energy at its full retail rate of 12.8 cents per kilowatt hour. And I believe that if Appalachian Power gets a reduction, then Dominion will also want a reduction in what they compensate, the retail rate, what they compensate consumers.

[00:37:35] So this is just a statement saying that we support a one-to-one retail rate to encourage solar for all. And regarding the state solar tax credits, other states do this, I was looking at Idaho and I think they give like a 40% state solar tax credit.

[00:37:55] So I think it's something we should consider. It's a statement that maybe in the future we could offer that as an incentive so we could get more rooftop solar. They do really help. I know we get the federal, but that may not be in place forever.

[00:38:13] So it'd be nice to have a state solar tax credit for our residents. Thank you. - Mr. Crony, before I call on our colleagues, could you read the statement one more time? Just a statement that you want. Just read the statement again. Just so people, before they speak, they have it fresh in their head.

[00:38:32] Okay. Loudoun County supports retaining the current minimum connection charge as well as the one-to-one retail rate to preserve and grow the benefits of net-metered solar and facilitate solar for all. Furthermore, support legislation that establishes and expands state solar tax credits in the Commonwealth.

[00:38:52] Okay. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a very complicated topic, net metering in particular, and I fear that the board is kind of scratching the surface and not necessarily getting the full picture. The reason why net metering is controversial is because when you have essentially a credit for the entire cost that you're getting for a solar installation, then the utility is getting no payback on the rest of the grid, but the solar user, number one, still needs to access the rest of the grid for the time in which they're not using solar, and number two, there is still distribution costs associated with that grid.

[00:39:29] So what ends up happening, and what the utility companies do, is they pass the cost on to everybody who's not getting that credit. So the result of this motion, and the reason why I think there is an effort probably to change the one-to-one ratio, is because otherwise everybody else's rates are going to go up.

[00:39:46] The more solar that there is on rooftops, the less payback the utility is getting for the infrastructure costs associated with everything needed. remember you cannot have solar without backup generation it does not exist doesn't work you have to have gas plants you have to have other things to work when solar doesn't work so who's paying for the rest of that cost is the question I don't know what the right ratio is I don't know exactly what's being proposed I don't know what it should be in Virginia I do know that we don't know enough either to be able to really weigh into that and I would be very very hesitant for the board to take a position which in fact would actually

[00:40:20] raise electricity rates on most customers without really understanding this topic better and getting into a discussion, including Dominion, with what they're seeking and why. Because we know here we have enough risk with the amount of data centers that are using electricity.

[00:40:38] We're already concerned about the impact of rates. Certainly, going solar is a way to avoid that, but I don't think we would want that at the expense of everybody else. And I would point out the county government itself is a major user of electricity, as is Metro.

[00:40:54] So if rates go up as a result, then that's impacting all of us and it's impacting our costs. So I would urge caution on this. I think it would be a fine topic to ask staff to go pursue some additional discussion about, to get a briefing from Dominion on.

[00:41:10] But I would be very hesitant to jump in and vote to add something like this to our legislative program at this juncture. Thank you, Ms. Letourneau. Ms. Umstead? Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could ask Supervisor Tacroni or perhaps Mr. Hemstreet a question through the Chair.

[00:41:27] Yes. Supervisor Tacroni or Mr. Hemstreet, do you know whether this will have any kind of impact on taxes collected by the county? Mr. Hemstreet?

[00:41:44] I do not know. Mr. Crowley? All right. Jethro Gelida? I don't know that answer. All right. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm very intrigued by the motion. I think I'm a little hesitant to support it, not knowing more since I first spoke to Mr. Crony about it, Supervisor Crony, I guess a couple hours ago.

[00:42:09] So I don't know if I want to support it this time, but I would definitely be in favor of getting some more information, maybe having staff come back and talk to us about it, maybe having some sort of briefing from Dominion or kicking it to, I guess it could be a finance, it could be a land use, probably a finance matter, But perhaps KKH Committee, I'm not sure if Supervisor DeCrony would be willing or interested in doing that.

[00:42:30] I'm probably a little bit in the same camp as Supervisor Letourneau on this, although I probably would want to support it if indeed everything you've said is true. But I guess there's always another side to every story, so I'm just a little uninformed. I think uninformed is pretty much how I feel right now, too.

[00:42:48] I'm never shy to say if I don't know what I don't know. On its face, it sounds like a good idea. and and especially you know what she's saying is don't change anything that's what she's basically saying she's not saying do anything different she's saying don't change anything um is there talk right now about changing it is that why you came up with are they are they proposing it's may it's in may it's in may is this something that we can have a discussion at the lead session about tomorrow with anybody there no more uh during the last session has anyone has any of our legislators been involved in these discussions at all uh madam chair i'm unsure at this time i

[00:43:26] am too i am too i definitely want to first of all i want to support this and i want to know more um and i don't believe that we should you know if you know i doubt that i'd be talking to dominion about this to be quite honest that wouldn't be my go-to go-to people to talk to but i do want to know more and so what I think I'll do right now is with abstain until I can know more so this is absolutely not a no this is I want more information and really it's kind of incumbent upon all of us to go do some more studying I will also say tomorrow when we have our meeting with our delegation that I will

[00:44:05] be be I would be fine if we ask the question if anyone in our delegation has more information about this, is more aware of it, can teach us anything, or even point me to where I should go do more studying, because I have not done any, I've done some cursory studies on this, but not enough to feel like I am, I know how I want to vote.

[00:44:27] I do appreciate your effort, I know what you're trying to do, you are always so environmentally sensitive, and so more often than not I'm going to go with you on this stuff, but let just learn a little more so i'll just abstain this time until i get more information okay okay you'd like a closing yeah i i so um nvrc was the one who brought this to my attention um mr lazaro so um and and i would agree i mean what i'm asking for is to keep it at the current rate which is really um you know compensating customers at its full retail rate um so that

[00:45:05] solar is something that people look at and it's an incentive to do the solarized loud i mean that that's what we're trying to do because the more people who have solar on the rooftop that helps with the load that we're experiencing um in our county so i do think um i'm going to be a big proponent of the solar for all trying to get as many homeowners with solar panels because it helps with their energy bill and then it also helps with what we're experiencing with our energy infrastructure you know as far as providing energy back into the grid

[00:45:45] during the daytime hours now yeah storage is important but that's not really what we're talking about here it's more the one-to-one back to the consumer any excess energy they would get that retail rate. I did look into it, and like I say, NBRC had brought this to my attention, and the reason why I brought this forward now is because May is when the SEC is doing the hearing for both Appalachian Power, I actually think they're going to have it earlier, and then Dominion. So they're going to be looking at each other, and if Appalachian

[00:46:23] Power does it, most likely Dominion will want to lower the rate as well for consumers. And then the state solar tax credit, like I said, that'll be a process, and it's probably, we were talking, Jonathan, it probably won't be for this General Assembly, but maybe for the next.

[00:46:41] It would be great to give that incentive to our homeowners to get a state solar tax credit for putting up panels. So this is just a statement. We can certainly research it more, but I think the one-to-one, I think, basically says, will help when the scc has their hearing that you know we just want a one-to-one retail rate to consumers mr crony if people want more information is uh bob lazaro um and then brc a good place to start yes okay all right i think so all right that's good to know good to know all right the motion

[00:47:16] was made by supervisor the crony and second by supervisor glass i'm sorry supervisor bricksman did the first meeting we'll do it the last meeting all in favor say aye aye opposed no okay would you what did you do you and i i think that was three was it three three um but can't be three three one three three one two because i abstained oh okay i abstained three three no

[00:47:48] there's two people gone so so yeah so with supervisors um thank you it could be that kind of night it could be that kind of night supervisor turner supervisor crony supervisor bricksman voting all right all right okay next next one okay i move to add a policy statement to the 2025 legislative program in support of the extension of impact fees section 15.2-2328 that expired in 2008

[00:48:25] in areas zoned agriculture agriculture cultural that are being subdivided for by right residential development to the legislative program the statement should read loudon county supports the extension of impact fees section 15.2-2328. Second. Discussion the motion, Mr. Conner. Okay, yeah, thank you, Chair Randall. So, um, localities had this, um, option, the authority to have, uh, an impact fee district in agricultural areas in 2008. It expired. Um, what I'm asking for is, um,

[00:49:05] to allow an extension of that that bill that law to give localities time to create an impact fee district and to collect impact fees on by right development in the rural policy area and the timing is is right because we are doing a rural zoe am rural cpam and zoe am so it is good timing to look at this. I do think it would be beneficial to our county to do this, to create an impact fee

[00:49:38] district in the rural policy area, and my colleagues will support it. Thank you. Thank you. Discussion on the other discussion? Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just, if I could ask Supervisor DeCronio a question through the chair. I'm confused here, so we want to support the extension of impact fees that expired in 2008.

[00:50:03] So we're not extending the fees if they expired. We're reinstituting the impact fees that expired in 2008. That's a better way to say it. Yeah, I guess I could redo it. Does that sound right, Leo? Yeah, reinstate, reinstitute.

[00:50:18] The authorization, the code section provides authority for localities to impose impact fees. And that authority expired in 2008. So then. To renew the authority. renew the authority okay uh so instead of saying so instead of saying i move to add a policy statement to the 2025 ledge program in support of the you want to say to the 2025 ledge program to renew to renew the authority um of section 15 to 2320 yeah and then section

[00:50:56] supports to renew okay i i don't know need to say in support to renew i just think you need to say to renew the authority yeah yeah i'm just looking at the statement should read right long county supports or either way is fine yeah okay yep anybody else miss um step thank you madam chair may i ask supervisor to crony a question through the chair sure yes um all right so in

[00:51:35] order to be able to reauthorize this statute um we have an we have an established urban transportation service district so do we know if we have one of those because it seems to be a prerequisite for doing this in the agricultural areas i think it said or you can just do it in the act i thought it i thought it was one of those and um i know that um mr rogers looked at the bill but i thought you didn't have to have that thought you could or you if you had an agricultural area

[00:52:12] you could set up impact you could set this up to um well the first part of the statute says the provisions of this article shall apply to any locality that has established an urban transportation service district in accordance with 15.2-2403.1 do we have one of those that question who's who you're asking that question to is that mr crony mr rogers um if either one knows the answer actually it might be a zoning question but do you know the answer to that yes we have not established uh the

[00:52:49] urban transportation area that would have to be done as part of a comprehensive plan amendment also in the comprehensive plan we'd have to authorize the impact fee for the residential development in the um agricultural areas we would also have to have a zoning ordinance amendment and um to implement this as well okay all right oh uh supervisor to crony as always um you work

[00:53:22] really hard to make things better i'm i'm not certain given that we don't have the prerequisite to re-establish this whether i can support it at this time but i certainly would be interested in asking staff to research it figure out how long it would take to go through the steps that are required um and and then have the board look at adopting it thank you mr if i might add a point

[00:53:55] of clarity on that yes the cpam would be required anyway the comprehensive plan would need to be amended to adopt this irrespective of um the existence the pre-existence of this urban policy area we need to provide methodologies for assessing how to go about these impact fees and the ordinance would have to be reflective of those methodologies which we add into the comprehensive plan so we we need to amend that anyway wait i need a point of clarification though this is a statement it's only a statement it's not saying that loudon county is going to do it

[00:54:33] it says loudon county supports it so even if another county wanted to do it we're just saying we support them doing it they have everything this is just a statement correct that's correct Okay. All right then. All right. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. So this is a very strange statute to me, quite frankly. 15.2-23-28. Supervisor Armstead just read it.

[00:54:55] And it seems to me as if we have, I'm trying to figure out the reasoning behind it, quite frankly, because it says you have to have established an urban transportation service district, and then you can have this authority granted to you outside that, which is only the ag area.

[00:55:15] So that's the first question I'm going to have. I think ultimately what we're doing here is we're asking that this be reauthorized because it does appear as if it expired in 2008. So that if we did choose to establish an urban transportation service district, then maybe we could continue to pursue the authority that's granted in the statute.

[00:55:35] Am I correct about that? And if I could speak to the chair to either supervisor or to crony or to. Okay. The county attorney. Is that okay? So I've received. So I think I would probably support this, and I appreciate Supervisor Draconi bringing it forward because it does give us potentially other options.

[00:55:53] Again, as I've always said many times from this diets, the devils in the details, but it would seem to me that it may give us some additional options to impose some of those impact fees if we feel it is required. there are a lot of hoops to jump through. Again, the legislature would have to reinitiate this and remove the expiration date or create another new expiration and renew it. So I think I would be willing to support it and pursue a further look at it. Anybody else? I would say the

[00:56:30] clarification is this is a statement. And so if some other county, county X came along and said we want to do it, Loudoun County is just saying you have all that you need in place already and support you doing it that's literally all this is right now we're not saying we're doing anything right now we're making a statement of support maybe later for us when all the decks fall in a row but right now just it's a statement for anybody who might want to do it so I'm not sure that we have to have all things in place for us to say we support somebody else doing this if you support it you support it and and I do so I'll be supporting this motion like to have a closing chair Randall and yeah it would be a statement I mean the law the code

[00:57:09] was back in 2008 so it would be you know potentially reinvigorating that um reestablishing it renewing it however you want to put it but it would give us an option so um and and like chair randall said it it's it's saying that we would support it if um the general assembly is so inclined to bring it back for um a period of time so we can look into it thank you okay thank you mr crony made the motion i second the motion all the people say aye aye opposed um uh that

[00:57:45] motion will pass one two three four five six one two um with um two people being off the dais and you have one more yes yes okay so i move to remove i move to remove the funding priority of the bi-county parkway between prince william county and loudon county from the legislative program 2025. Mr. Crony. All right. Thank you. So this has been around for a long time. I think

[00:58:22] Supervisor Letourneau and I probably know the whole history, the storied history, but, and Chair Randall, sorry. It is in the Loudoun Countywide Transportation Plan, but it's not in the Prince William CTP. Prince William removed the by-county parkway from their countywide transportation plan in 2016. And the current alignment, just so everybody knows, is North Star Boulevard, which has really become more of a neighborhood road. It goes by schools, it goes by Willisford,

[00:58:59] it goes by Brambleton. And I just think for equity issues, you know, landowners don't know that the vision of that bi-county parkway is a six-lane limited access highway for cargo trucks to come into the Dulles Airport. It's too far west, so, you know, these cargo trucks would have to go on Route 50, which would increase traffic on Route 50, and I just think at this point that a better use of our resources is, and focus should be on the Route 50 grade-separated

[00:59:36] interchanges um and and also i know that um supervisor letourneau brought up the north collector road which would provide a dullest access road that um i think that that was the initial intention of the bi county parkway so we've been looking for other other ways to connect people to the airport um i just don't think i think this this is too far west of an alignment prince william county doesn't have it in their transportation plan and frankly we have other

[01:00:08] priorities and limited resources so thank you excuse me mr latour thank you madam chair i appreciate supervisor kroni bringing this up so this is this is old language that's been in our legislative program for a long time um and i think i can speak almost agnostically about the concept of the bike county parkway and just get to the point which is that the language doesn't need to to be in our legislative program at this point it's it's from a time when the state had designated this as a statewide corridor of significance and was looking to build infrastructure in this area and we were supporting that effort the state quite frankly isn't doing that anymore so there's really

[01:00:47] no reason for us to single this particular thing out whether it's a good or a bad idea and say this alone should be our funding priority i certainly would agree with supervisor crony that the the grade separated interchange at Loudoun County Parkway and 50 is a much bigger priority for us and something we should be seeking state funding for as well as a north collector road.

[01:01:09] I will say that you know this this area of North Star and we have largely done some of this now we've built North Star to the south we've built we're about to open it to the north going up to Brambleton we have one section left that we're widening when you get south of Braddock road and supervisor the cronies district it does go down to one lane crossing into prince william county the sanders lane bridge which is a very unsafe situation it's literally a one lane bridge you got to stop and have alternating traffic it's kind of insane that in 2024 almost

[01:01:44] 2025 a significant corridor between loudon and prince william county exists as a one lane road I mean, that would be insane anywhere, but especially against two very cosmopolitan places that are pretty well developed. So that needs to be addressed, but it also needs to be addressed by Prince William County.

[01:02:03] They have made some interesting land use decisions in this part of their county to go in a very different direction than they had. It's kind of ironic because for years and years, the opposition coming on the Byte County Parkway was from the very same people who then turned around and decided to make the whole thing data centers in terms of the landowners, but okay.

[01:02:24] I do think we need to engage in that discussion with them and try to solve this problem because it's unsafe for residents on both sides. That doesn't mean a six-lane, you know, limited-access road that goes all the way up, you know, to Dulles Airport. Just we got to fix the road, and it should look something like our North Star Boulevard does.

[01:02:42] All that said, it doesn't belong in our legislative program anymore. We can take it out, and we can hopefully engage in a more productive way of trying to get that particular problem solved and then maybe get some state funding for the things we need around LSU Airport, which are accomplishing pieces of what this concept originally was.

[01:02:59] So good job, Mr. Quinty, because I totally forgot this was in here, to be honest. It's been there for a long time, and I totally forgot this was in here. You know, I'm not going to make any comments about Prince William County and the decisions they made because they have every right to make decisions, and I'm on all kinds of boards, commissions, and committees with the people from Prince William County.

[01:03:20] I'm going to leave that alone and let them do what they're going to do in Prince William County. You know, when this was put in our transportation program, it made perfect sense. But it's, you know, at some point you have to see what it is because it's kind of like the bridge crossing.

[01:03:38] it's not going to happen it's it's a bi-county parkway and by means two and if both kinds are not willing to play then at some point you just have to take that for what it is and so it makes sense to take it off at this point mr crane you want to close you uh just appreciate everybody's support and yeah it's um i think it's a long overdue to to remove it from our legislative program um i think this was talked about in 2000 so uh it was a long time ago thank you for your support all right all the people say aye aye any opposed and that will pass 702 thank you very much

[01:04:18] we i think i think everyone for the resolution is here normally i would wait until 5 30 but is it anybody else mr hart who's coming that's not here right now everyone's here right okay well let's go on and do the resolution mr mr turner you are joining me down front to read a resolution right

[01:04:38] from from good works all right let's do it the building travis are you where is he he's

[01:05:23] perfect timing we're not going to go without him we'll wait for him good to see you how are you

[01:05:34] thank you for everything good to see you how are you i'm very well mr turner's going to join us

[01:06:24] down here in just a second and we're going to move over this this direction all right mr hart while mr turner's doing that would you like to say some words about how we got back to this place Well, this, I think, is a really good example of a public-private partnership, because this is how we work together to make something special happen.

[01:06:53] Because with your leadership and the leadership of the supervisors here around us, you created the Housing Trust Fund and then, more importantly, actually funded the Housing Trust Fund, which is very important. But with that money, when we were trying to get our Waxpool Apartments project together, we can't get all the money from Virginia Housing or the bonds that they issue.

[01:07:19] There's always a gap to be filled. And so what happened was that you at the county, through the trust fund, with Mr. Perlman's help, gave us a $2.5 million loan, which was enough to cover that gap and say, we guarantee this project will happen.

[01:07:36] By doing that, we were then able to go to all the state and federal sources that have funding and say, we would like a loan from you, a low-interest loan, we'd like a grant from you. And because they knew it was going to happen, that gave us more points in the competition.

[01:07:53] We won seven of those competitions, including the Northern Virginia Regional Authority. Thank you very much. And with that, we raised the $2 million that we're now going to give back to you to reduce our $2.5 million loan by $2 million.

[01:08:12] We're paying back 80% of our loan 35 years early. Wow. This really doesn't get better than that. Mr. Turner? I do, indeed. Whereas Kim Hart, representing Good Works and Tom Aide, representing Green Street Housing, is proudly presenting a ceremonial check for $2 million, signifying the early repayment of almost 80% of the housing trust fund loan for the development of a wax pool apartment 30 years ahead of schedule.

[01:08:55] And whereas this significant repayment highlights the transformative accomplishments of the Housing Trust Fund in fostering affordable housing initiatives across Loudoun County, and whereas it reinforces Loudoun County's steadfast commitment to developing and supporting affordable housing solutions for all residents, and whereas this celebration not only highlights good works in Green Street Housing's dedication to our community, but also exemplifies the powerful collaboration between private enterprises and local government in addressing the critical need for affordable housing.

[01:09:22] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors formally recognizes this milestone and expresses gratitude for the efforts made towards enhancing the quality of life of our residents. Signed by members of the board.

[01:09:44] I will say that while I am up here accepting this, I think most of the credit belongs to Rebecca King, currently in Planning and Zoning, who actually was the one who oversaw the approval of this loan, as well as the board and its previous constituency that approved this loan.

[01:10:06] So while I'm here to accept and happy to be here and take that recognition, I definitely want to acknowledge the other folks that were involved. All I will say is that we, first of all, Mr. Hart, we talk about attainable housing all the time.

[01:10:24] I don't know that you are anymore the leader, well, the person who's done more attainable housing than anybody in the county from your last position, but I do know that this has been something that you've been so focused on for years and years and years, and the dignity you give people and have given people because they have a decent home to live in, a nice home to live in, is incalculable.

[01:10:49] There's also been so many studies done that talk about if people do not have places to live, what it does to your economy. You know, businesses will not come where there are not, where the workforce cannot live. And workforce cannot live if the only homes available are at the 80% AMI and above.

[01:11:08] And so by doing these projects, we are helping people for generations. We're also helping the economy. And you've been doing this for years. And I've said this before publicly, but I'll say it again. I appreciate you. And also, when I became chair in 2016, you were my first meeting that I took in my office.

[01:11:29] And someone said, Kim Hart wants to talk to you. And I was like, okay. And then you walked in, and I said, you're Kim Hart? Because I thought you were going to be a woman. But I very much appreciate all the work you've done. So thank you.

[01:11:44] And let's get a picture.

[01:11:45] Okay.

[01:13:37] We're going to go in and do an item now. because actually, Mr. Kirshner, is there something you had to run to your car when we were doing additions and deletions? Is there something you'd like to do right now? Yes, Madam Chair. That's why I texted you. Kate Jerksby, I'm going to remove her from consideration for the rep on the ZOC. I've spoken with everybody. I think although she would be an excellent representative, I think we don't have the votes for that, and I think most people are favoring Mr. Hatch, so she's graciously been willing to step down so we have to have that debate but i do think that other options in the future she as you well know has served excellently for the county and should be considered in the future thank you madam chair

[01:14:17] thank you very much i appreciate that and i appreciate ms search meet as well okay um let's go on to item number actually uh well i'll wait to mr sandsky here to to do appointments because otherwise you have to come back and do it if he's not here let's go on and do the um number three since we we can do that right now the strategic work plan if everyone

[01:14:41] mr quintine would you come down to please good evening ready when you are thank you ma'am good

[01:15:19] evening madam chair members of the board my name is chris quintine assistant county administrator and i have my colleague jacqueline shanard here with me who has been instrumental in working on this project the purpose of this item is to present to the board the summary of the board's june 26 2024 strategic planning retreat and obtain guidance on the proposed vision statement and strategic work plan initiatives as you know every four years the board develops a strategic plan that puts into action the vision and goals of the board during the term historically the strategic plan has served as a work program providing direction to staff on initiatives of importance to the board accomplishments and status updates on the work plan are provided to

[01:15:56] the board on a regular basis through staff reports the work plan is grounded in the vision and goals of the board, but changes as initiatives are completed and new initiatives are added. County administration staff worked with Chair Randall and Vice Chair Brissman at the beginning of this term to establish a process and time frame for informing the work of the strategic plan retreat.

[01:16:15] This involved creating a request for proposals from facilitators, interviews, and then meetings to set the process and schedule with a selected facilitator. Ms. Margo Horner of Rosedale Green was selected as the facilitator for the retreat. In preparation for the retreat, all nine members were individually interviewed in May 2024, addressing questions related to Loudoun County's key strengths, challenges, and opportunities.

[01:16:38] Based on the interviews conducted and then the discussion at the retreat, six strategic focus areas emerged for this term. First is uplifting Loudoun businesses and promoting new economic development, meeting Loudoun County's diverse housing needs, preserving open space in the environment, improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, connecting Loudoun, and community programs and services.

[01:17:01] In addition, the board discussed revisions to the county's vision statement, which we'll discuss later in the presentation over the last several months We've detailed the initiatives that staff heard the board articulate at the retreat Noted where those initiatives overlap with the previous boards term the 2020 through 2023 board initiatives Which is section two of the item and instances where initiatives have emerged which is section three now We will discuss the initiatives that appear to overlap with the previous boards initiatives So under the strategic area uplifting line and businesses and promoting new economic development supporting data centers the initiative loud and will convene a ground big ground baking

[01:17:40] collaborative multi stakeholder data center form to help clarify the scope of the problems we're facing Regarding great capacity and energy needs our goals moving forward and strategies to meet those goals. That appears to overlap with item 5.5 in the previous Initiatives which has utilized influence with the main energy to promote alternative energy sources. Mr. Quintine we're actually running a little ahead of schedule you can slow down next is the strategic area of lifting loud and businesses and promoting new economic development which is supporting agriculture the initiative that we heard

[01:18:18] the board articulate was that loud and will bolster our equine industry by exploring the development of a center for equine livestock and other agricultural events and a quarantine center for horses that are flown into the county which appears to overlap with 5.11 to explore feasibility of event centers with possible uses for arts events conventions and agriculture under that same strategic area the initiative that we heard you articulated we will seek incentives to support new farmers and increase farms which seems to overlap with 4.14 recruit train and mentor young farmers and 5.19 promote

[01:18:56] industrial hemp farming next the initiative we heard you guys say is we will support development of meat processing facilities within the county, which appears to overlap with 5.18 explore options for meat processing facilities in western Loudoun. The next strategic area is preserving open space and environment. We will bolster our land preservation programs, especially our western and rural resources through local, state, and federal grant opportunities, which appears to overlap with 1.4 seek state, federal, and private funds for environmental initiatives.

[01:19:32] Next, with connecting Loudoun, we will ensure there is at least one option for affordable broadband connectivity available in 100% of Loudon homes. We will also increase siding of cell towers in our wireless deserts as fast as possible and determine if there are public properties to help achieve this goal. This appears to overlap with 2.1, explore multimodal options such as towers, antennas, and hotspots as options for increasing and improving connections.

[01:19:58] Next, we will determine resources needed to accelerate multimodal transportation projects in any ways to streamline transportation process processes and efficiencies at a project and program level environmental review land acquisition and utilities relocation including determining any needed efficiencies between programs prepares our overlap with 2.16 endeavor to identify impediments that slow down transportation projects to create a plan to address issues identify funding needed to staff new projects also with connecting loud and we will identify ways to increase ease of movement by

[01:20:35] scooter or bike which prepares an overlap with four previous initiatives create connection to a new metro station encourage VDOT to plan for bike lanes on roads incorporate rest stops into bike trails and encourage or codify environmental initiatives next we will establish a pilot project for protected bike lanes seems to overlap with 2.3 encourage VDOT to plan for bike lanes on roads we will double our annual goals for bus shelters per year from 20 to 40 with the timeline for completing missing links and resource links which

[01:21:10] appears to overlap with 2.13 providing updates on bus depots and shelters now we'll move into the initiatives that we heard the board discuss that did not seem to overlap with the previous board's initiatives first the streets area of uplifting Loudoun County's business and promoting new economic development supporting agriculture conduct an ongoing census for agricultural industries which will help it's a lot which will help clarify reporting discrepancies regarding lost farmland seek opportunities to get more

[01:21:46] local products to market, aim to attract a malting facility in Loudoun in service of microbreweries and related producers, under promoting new economic development, work with Route 50 stakeholders to undertake a data-driven analysis of what is needed to promote high-quality retail, advance any needy regulatory land use changes, explore developing a sports commission to attract events to the county, create a plan to attract new hotel accommodations, including high-end options to support tourism, foster business launch opportunities, and explore the launch of a streeteries program.

[01:22:19] Under the strategic area of meeting Loudoun County's diverse housing needs. In our efforts to retain and preserve affordable housing, we will examine the cost benefit analysis of contracting with a housing authority and the Commonwealth to operate housing facilities.

[01:22:35] Explore a missing middle housing initiative and determine an area zoned for single family detached housing if there is a way to allow for duplexes and triplexes. In preserving open space and the environment, Loudoun will develop a clear strategy that includes utilizing different vehicles to support parklands and trails, goals for where and how we can land bank and an inventory of properties we might purchase or preempt from development, updating our recycling ordinance and procedures to promote more glass recycling, identify opportunities to promote composting and food waste reduction overall, bolster our land preservation programs, especially our Western and rural resources

[01:23:13] through local, state, and federal grant opportunities, explore expanding our state park via several large parcels around suite runs, suite runs, preserve our gravel roads by establishing a process for rural road maintenance and criteria for including these roads and our preservation program, leveraging existing federal and state programs and our county website to educate residents and visitors about Loudoun's history, cultivate county-wide opportunities for the beautification of open spaces, explore new ways to protect and bolster Loudoun's villages and towns, and conduct an analysis to ensure that the staff positions and programs within the Department of General Services are sufficient to advance our environmental priorities,

[01:23:51] meet our energy, efficiency needs, and leverage cross-departmental collaboration. Under the Strategic Area of Improving Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, publish a report for the public regarding the work of Loudon's Office of Equity and Inclusion, and specifically, how we are prioritizing accessibility and disability community needs in the county, and establish a county human rights office commissioned by the end of the term.

[01:24:17] Under Connecting Loudon, we'll update laws and policies to enable shared infrastructure that promotes greater installation access and ease of connectivity, identify mechanisms to complete missing links between parks and trails, including buy-ride easements, create interpersonal park connections of sidewalks and trails so people can walk to and through our county parks, build more crosswalks on all four sides of an intersection, build out shared use paths for cyclists and pedestrians and envision a future where every sidewalk has a shared use path, identify opportunities for long haul buses to and from Loudoun to increase offerings

[01:24:53] in both directions, advance Route 50 interchanges, Rank road improvements for smart scale as we currently rank intersections. Preserve our gravel roads by establishing a process for rural road maintenance and criteria for including these roads in our preservation program.

[01:25:09] Explore offering a pre-tax dollars program for employees to fund commuter transit. And lastly, explore holding a transportation summit to kick off the countywide transportation plan update. And lastly, under community programs and services, prioritize connecting mental health, substance abuse, and developmental services with families supporting adults 22 and above, aging out of public schools who cannot engage in competitive employment to better understand and address their challenges in accessing day services, assess the county's outsourcing of services, identify which services should be in-house and clarify their relative costs,

[01:25:47] explore developing an affordable childcare program as a benefit to county employees, and lastly, partner with public schools, especially those being retrofitted, to help provide multi-use playing fields. And in connection with the vision statement, we heard the board recommend to include and visitors to the current statement to read, while appreciating and acknowledging our rich history, Loudoun County strives to be a prosperous, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable community where residents and visitors feel free to live, work, to live, work, learn, and play.

[01:26:22] So our recommendation, staff recommended that the board approve the initiative that developed the strategic plan retreat direct staff to develop a work plan to achieve the board's intended outcomes direct staff to provide biannual updates on this initiative for further prioritization by the board and then approve the vision statement as provided in this item i'm happy to answer any thank you mr mr quentin i'm a little this is an action item and i understand

[01:26:58] that the action is just to approve this yes ma'am there are some things on here that have already been accomplished but you still have them on here so if we approve these what I'm a little confused of what what we're seeing here so the thought process is the board would approve what we've presented this evening we will then go back to at the department level to operationalize and have to have the work plan and then they'll be able to come back during our biannual reports to be able to discuss with the board where they are in terms of completing the projects.

[01:27:39] I don't know if Mr. Hemstreet wants to. Yeah, I don't think I understood that answer. Does Hemstreet have something else to. So this is high level. We still need to come back with a work plan similar to how the Department of Planning and Zoning has a work plan that puts things into a schedule. So what would happen is anything that's been completed would just be reflected as completed.

[01:27:57] Okay, I understand. All right, other questions, or questions, Mr. Sains. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the update. Can you clarify for me when we discuss the missing middle? Because my understanding of missing middle was, or it's proposed in most places, is you have a single-family detached house and you're trying to, or people are trying to build a smaller dwelling unit, say, in that backyard.

[01:28:28] But here it's saying to look at duplexes and triplexes. And correct me if I'm wrong, I thought we kind of already set ourselves up to do duplexes and triplexes in the county per zoning ordinance so can you can you clarify that for me so this language is based on the interviews that um the facilitator conducted with all the board members as well as at the retreat um but we're happy to amend and change the language as you so see fit if the board agrees okay yeah i think we possibly need to because that's not meeting the actual definition

[01:29:05] of missing middle um and then again somebody correct me if i'm wrong we can already do help duplexes and triplexes so if we're trying or if our goal is to try to get more developers to build duplexes and triplexes then we just need to state that clearly and not and take out the missing middle part may i well i can answer that yeah um yeah do you have miss vixman's going to ask question answer a question in your time is that okay i i think that might have been us that put that in there the the i agree that missing middle is not the right term for what what we are looking

[01:29:39] to do what we're i think we are looking to do and what i hope we would do is allow duplexes and triplexes where we have single family zoning so that is different from what and i don't love using missing middle anyway because it's really gotten kind of a bad rap over there in arlington so thank you okay well maybe i don't know if this is allowed madam chair if i can make a well everybody else and i'm gonna get there and then we'll do that because i might actually have something that would fix all that just give me a sec mr crony thank you chair randall so to build on supervisor

[01:30:15] sane's comment so um we would need a comprehensive plan amendment to do duplexes and triplexes where a single family detached housing is so i don't know if all the board agrees with that i mean that's that would be a change because most of that would be in the tpa and rpa where there is single-family detached housing and the board during the 2019 comprehensive plan process identified areas for change where duplexes and triplexes could go and that was

[01:30:48] the transition compact neighborhood so i i would question you know this statement because it's basically saying that we need we would be supporting a cpam to allow duplexes and triplexes where single-family detached housing is and and i don't support that i don't support changing you know the tpa and rpa where we didn't identify it as an area for change so i just want to make that statement um and then uh one thing i did want to bring up is the meat processing i'm moving on

[01:31:25] to another topic um so that's not really allowed under our current zoning except in a3 parcels and we've been working on this forever and I'm just kind of wondering if the meat processing facility and the molting facility should be part of our rural CPAM and ZOAM process because it has to do with zoning. You know there really isn't any zoning currently that allows meat processing facilities and molting facilities in rural Loudoun County, so I think that should be part of our

[01:32:01] rural cpam and zoam that we're doing currently um and the last do i have i have another minute okay um so the other thing is i noticed in this document that we were looking at reorganizing transportation projects and i would 100 agree i think the sidewalk and trail program that we have needs to be looked at how can we make that more of a priority because um doing five miles per year I know the board said that that's not really what we want you know we'd like to do more and so how do we get those missing links inter partial

[01:32:39] connections crosswalk shared use paths how do we get that done is it reorganizing transportation so that's something to look at I mean because it was put in here as a strategic area but didn't really specifically say more support for the sidewalk and trail program how do we make that a priority um in our in our cip they're smaller projects so and i think i think that's all i have thank you thank you um mr turner thank you madam chair i was just going to say the discussion the bullet on the missing middle if you just said we'll explore missing middle housing initiative you pretty much captured it

[01:33:18] missing middle is a financial thing it's not the type of housing no it's not depends on the neighborhood it's a type of housing i i disagree i've seen a number of articles that talk about missing middle as i can read that all day long i still disagree that missing middle has to do with economics it doesn't have to do with the type of housing the reason that you need a middle is because people can't afford you've got affordable housing or you have housing that's too expensive so that's my opinion thank you mr letourneau okay um i agree with mr mr crowing i don't think this

[01:33:55] sentence belongs here. Explore a missing middle housing initiative and determine an area zone for single-family detached housing if there is a way to allow for duplexes and triplexes. Well, of course there's a way. We have a zoning ordinance and we have a comprehensive plan, and we did exactly this in the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive plan in certain neighborhoods that we designated as needed for this type of housing. So is this strategic plan saying we're going to go revisit that and we're going to allow this in every place that we currently have single family zone housing

[01:34:33] i i don't know if that might be what the intent was of those who added it here but that's certain that's a huge departure for the board that i think would warrant a bigger policy discussion than what we have had and it is not consistent with what we did in the comprehensive plan in the uh zoning ordinance so i certainly don't think that part should be here um and i also think we should give ourselves some credit quite frankly for doing some of this already we may have had some trouble frank getting it adopted on the ground with uh with some of these projects but we have had some that have moved forward um okay moving on from that i appreciate the discussion on route 50

[01:35:11] transportation improvements and stakeholder outreach you know guys know i'm a broken record on the importance of getting that done the one thing that i think is kind of missing and it's probably just a timing question perhaps but i know there's some discussions that are coming on process and i know supervisor turner you in particular have been involved in some of those discussions on process and how long it's taking to get things done it feels like kind of a missed opportunity to have a strategic plan and to not be incorporating potential changes and improvements and streamlining to our permitting process and the section here is like uplifting loud

[01:35:48] and businesses and promoting new economic development i i think where we're going with this initiative that tluck and others have been working on is finding ways to try to move site plan reviews faster target industries retail uses certain types of housing projects those kind of things but it's absent from the strategic plan and i think it's because this stuff wasn't necessarily ready for prime time at the time we were putting this together but it's in front of us now and so i'm just kind of asking the question to the board should we try to find a way to incorporate some of that i think i think we're all or maybe not all but i think most of us are

[01:36:27] in agreement that that is an issue for us and it's just taking us too long to do some things and i know we've talked to the county administrator about that he's working on some process improvements but it feels like it's something that should be in our strategic plan because it affects so many other things that's in here so um i would i would sort of offer that suggestion as something that could that isn't here that maybe needs to be some step thank you madam chair uh since both

[01:36:57] supervisor to crony and supervisor letourneau have indicated some level of discomfort with the um the single family detached housing being converted to duplexes and triplexes what is the easiest way for the board to remove that if that were the desire of the board would you want to see that a motion made tonight to remove that language yes ma'am that should be

[01:37:31] fine okay thank you very much ms brooksman uh thank you madam chair um i i agree that the the the language on the missing middle housing is a little bit awkward but um i don't think in my five years on the board, I have actually seen an application with duplexes in it. And so that's part of the reason why I propose this in the strategic plan. I disagree that most of our single family detached zoning is in the TPA and the RPA. I think it's in a number of other places

[01:38:07] in the county where duplexes would fit nicely. And so I would like to see that exploration stay in the strategic plan. It doesn't specifically say where we're considering doing this, but I think that we should identify some areas in the county where we should be doing duplexes and triplexes as opposed to single-family detached. The percentage of residences in this county that are single-family detached, it's just way off balance. That's why so many people can't afford to live here. So I would argue strongly that we explore this option as to how to encourage

[01:38:45] more duplexes and or triplexes where we have strictly single-family dwelling unit zoning. I guess I was, I'm kind of questioning why, and I'm running out of time already, but why would, why were we comparing the last term strategic plan to this term strategic plan? Are you suggesting we don't need to change the language or are you just pointing out that, hey, we've talked about this before i think based on the composition of this board being very similar to the previous board we wanted to make sure we did a crosswalk to ensure that okay the board was aware of the work that um previously has been completed but then also looking forward to what new issues emerged

[01:39:24] okay okay great um i noticed on the bus i'm going to talk a little bit about the connectivity and the and the bus shelters and the sidewalk missing links on the bus shelter um commentary or line it says we will double from 20 to 40 bus shelters being built in the county which sounds that's perfect but then it starts talking about missing links and so I didn't know if that was sort of like a typo or an error because I don't associate bus shelters with missing links and also on the sidewalks and trails program just to dovetail a little bit off of what supervisor

[01:39:57] Tocconi was saying I would like to see some more specific goals in the sidewalk and trails program For example, we're going to do 12 miles a year, or we're going to, I know there's a lot of generic language in there on how are we going to make the program faster, how are we going to make sure we can move utilities with an easier process, but I really think in our strategic plan, we need a target, and I'm not sure what that target is, but I want a target.

[01:40:24] I don't know if it's doubling the funding to the sidewalks and trails program. I don't know if it's 12 miles a year. I'd be interested in what my colleagues would want to see. But I feel like sometimes when the language is soft, it doesn't happen. Thank you. All right.

[01:40:41] So technically, the person, Daniel Powerleck, who coined the term missing middle housing, described it as residential building types that exist in the middle of the continuum between detached single-family homes and large apartment buildings.

[01:40:58] So missing middle is literally a type. However, Mr. Turner is also right in that when you put down different types of housing, it does create different types of fee structures, and it becomes a financial term as well. So the types of housing leads to the financial, which you're paying for housing.

[01:41:15] So both things are correct. I'm a little frustrated because we're acting like the board itself didn't give the staff these guidelines at our strategic plan it what what's on here is what we gave them if you didn't attend you didn't attend you could look at it earlier but but we can be out like surprised that it's here when we told them to put it here and that's a little frustrating for me I agree with Ms. Bricksman I think that to say we take it out all together is too big of a step what it says it it encourages it. And so we know when applications come where we wouldn't put it or where we would

[01:41:55] put it, there are places where it's wholly appropriate to say we want to have triplexes, duplexes here. Obviously, that's not in the rural policy area or other places, but it doesn't say, it's not specific and prescriptive to say it goes here, here, and here. It says it encourages.

[01:42:13] So I don't see why we would take that out at all. I think we leave those. I think the wording is is exactly right. I would ask that on page 22 we change the word affordable to attainable as it as it relates to housing because affordable housing literally is a specific AMI and attainable housing is the whole gamut of AMIs. Otherwise I think you all captured everything else we talked about really well you definitely captured the issue of people who are aging out of the school system who need more assistance and more services, but are not able to work. Your wording on here

[01:42:51] is beautiful. I don't know who wrote that up, but I literally just couldn't have said it better myself. It's spot on perfect, so thank you for that wording. I also think that the discussions around DEI and the Human Rights Commission are really important, and I appreciate that being in there we did a lot that day and then when I walked out I remember remember being a little worried that you know just in the conversations that the supervisors that attended were having I didn't know if everything was being caught but you all did just a beautiful job of just catching the conversations that we were having and then and then I'm kind of fleshing those things out

[01:43:31] and putting them in the in in in our goals for the next four years so thank Thank you so much. I do appreciate that. The motion is to accept this. Are there any other motions on the dais before we get to that motion? Mr. Turner.

[01:43:48] Yeah, I'm wondering, we've got tonight the legislative land use review item, which basically captures what Supervisor Turner was saying. Can we put something in there that says we're going to implement the findings from the land use process assessment. Would either one of you like to make a motion? I think that's a good motion. I would be happy to second it.

[01:44:19] Can you put it in motion form? Sure. Well, the two things can happen. You can put it in motion form or we can -- yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, we can -- because it's important do that we can also i can make an emotion table table the motion right now do that other item and then come back and make the motion at that time or have staff write it i mean how do you guys want to do this i think we can i can i can audible you think staff can capture i i just said you guys capture stuff really well so i think you can't you want to try to audible it yeah let me give it a

[01:44:56] shot i mean yes ma'am let me give it a shot i'll come back to you no no no no no no that's what trying to get everything in before we do the packet motion uh yeah let's add and i further move towards the end of the existing whoa we don't want to do that because that now you're doing the packet motion you're now you're doing you're like literally making the packet motion and i don't which i don't want to i only don't want to make the packet motion yet because i don't know if there's

[01:45:35] any other motions on the dais before you make the packet motion because that's all that all comes in the end can i take a stab at something sure all right do you mind okay yep yes go just ask staff to add an item to the strategic plan implementing the findings of the what are we calling it the budget so they have land use approval process land use approval process assessment assessment you guys good with that mr hemstreet say second mike mike mr turn do you want to second that i'll second mr hemstreet i think that's sufficient i would ask the board if you want to add also the

[01:46:13] administrative process so what we were asked to do and you'll have a presentation on both pieces so we reviewed both the legislative process as well as the administrative development processes tonight we'll focus just on the legislative process we'll come back to the second meeting January and focus on the administrative process but I would yes so legislative and administrative process assessment that okay yes so there's that's that's actually a motion on the table so we're going to have the discussion on that

[01:46:49] motion to add this to our strategic plan when you're in but plenty of time still because we're going to do this other stuff so it should be fine to roll it in so you have like to discuss the motion just briefly kind of what i said i think there's been good work here done on looking at our processes and trying to improve them so let's commit to making it a board priority to get them done anything anything i would associate myself with those comments okay all in favor say aye any opposed that motion will pass 801 with miss um um glass not being on the dais before you want

[01:47:29] to make the packet motion i'm not i'm not making it yeah i'm just saying before we make the packet motion are there are there other motions on the data i had a question okay mr mr latourney one i'm going to make a motion which i know is not going to pass but i'm going to try anyway on the on this language here um i'm trying to i'm trying to come up with something i can propose as an alternative um this is on the missing middle section um i would propose replacing the language that's currently there under strategic area meeting loudance county's diverse housing needs

[01:48:09] bullet two with um explore additional duplexes and triplexes in appropriate areas of the county is there a second second okay that's mr corney seconded that mr yeah i'm open on what the right language is here but i'm trying i disagree that this is good language because it says first of all if there is a way to allow for duplex triplexes again we know there's a way

[01:48:44] we make the rules we can we can do that if we want to i think what this is intending to do is get us focused on implementation of some of the housing types that we already have in our comprehensive plan and our zoning ordinance and so this is essentially calling attention to those opportunities that exist i do think we actually have had a couple projects like this we i know we have one down in the south um but i think this is just going to create confusion it is going a little further than what we probably intended even listening to the chair's explanation of it if it's just sitting here like this is text without any context around it and i don't think

[01:49:22] that that's going to be advantageous for what we're trying to accomplish so if somebody has a better way to say what i'm trying to get at which is essentially to you know emphasize and explore duplexes triplexes in and are improving them and adding them to our housing inventory then that's fine but i i don't think we should ask the question in this because we already know the answer and then i i just think using some of the terminology and stuff is going to create some

[01:49:51] unnecessary uh conflict mr um saints thank you um well well i was going to reword it a little bit differently but i i agree with the spirit because it's we do we do have the capabilities to do it it's just a matter of the developer community doing it or bringing an application forward which has these housing types and bringing it forward to us i would actually look at saying we will explore missing middle housing initiative and determine an area zone for single family detached housing, find ways to incentivize or work with the developer community to bring

[01:50:29] duplexes and triplexes applications to the board. Can I ask a point on clarification? So why are we singling out duplexes and triplexes? If somebody wants to do a tiny home, why are we singling out certain housing types and not? I mean, I think that's way too prescriptive.

[01:50:45] Well, it's in here. That's what we're focusing on. Yeah, that's what I was going with. Well, I know, but I mean... A diverse array. A diverse array. Diverse housing types. Diverse housing types, okay, that are not commonplace in Loudoun County or, you know, something to that effect. I think that will be fine. Okay, can you, well, wait a minute.

[01:51:03] There's a motion on the table. All right, I'll make a friendly amendment to Mr. Luterno's motion then to reword to say we. That wouldn't be a friendly amendment. I think you're almost completely changing the motion, to be honest. Okay, would you accept it as a friendly?

[01:51:22] No. Okay, I would assume that because it changes the motion a lot. So let's finish this, and then I will come back to you if we need to come back. Okay? Discussion still on Mr. Letourneau's motion that, by the way, at this moment still has triplexes and duplexes in it, so I may make a penalty to take that out.

[01:51:42] Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I kind of generally agree with some of the discussion I think Supervisor Chironi and Supervisor Letourneau have talked about here. i guess my biggest problem with this language is and i think i think it's part of your motion that says we're appropriate i think is that some what you put in and the reason is this says an area zone for single family detached housing well that's the rural policy area and certainly we would that's why i think the language that says we're appropriate may obviously exclude the rural policy or the transition policy area quite frankly and so i think that's why i mean i i i have always thought this board generally is like you know unless it's within the towns and

[01:52:22] and the towns have authority over it, talking about duplexes and triplexes in the real policy area is not exactly what we envision for our overall plan, or even in the transition policy area as a whole. So that's really my concern with the current language, so I would certainly support we're trending in the right direction as to what Supervisor Letourneau is trying to do.

[01:52:44] Okay, I'm pretty confused at this point. Mr. Crony? Yeah, and I would agree with Supervisor Kirshner. If you get rid of an area zoned for single-family detached housing, because then you're getting into zoning and he supervisor kirschner is correct i mean it's mainly the tpa and the rpa and um you know we went through a four-year process for the comprehensive plan and we identified areas where it made sense to have those duplexes and triplexes and i don't support changing that in either area so i think it might be better to just get rid of in areas zoned for

[01:53:19] single-family detached housing. Maybe look at where we could do diverse housing and not single out single-family detached housing. Okay, okay. It sounds like you're making another motion, though, which there's a motion on the table. Well, I think Supervisor Letourneau's motion did not have an area zone for single-family detached housing. I know, which means you're making another motion or asking him for a friendly did not have that okay but okay are you asking him for a friendly

[01:53:58] to put something in his motion take something out of his motion because otherwise what do you say what do you get what are you asking him for in the motion that's on the table okay can friendly to take out an area zone for i didn't have that in my that's what in the first place miss i think that was mr sane i think mr sane said that yeah which is why i'm trying to keep these lines yeah Ms. Bricksman? I won't be supporting that motion. As stated by Supervisor Letourneau,

[01:54:33] very specifically, when we were discussing this during the retreat, I said, we need to be looking at duplexes and triplexes where there is single family detached zoning. And so I specifically, back to our conversation earlier, when there's not specifics, it's too soft. And I want us to be looking specifically at single-family detached zoning and find opportunities. I'm not saying, you know, we can exclude the rural policy area if we want, but I think we specifically need to

[01:55:11] be looking at encouraging duplexes and triplexes in single-family detached zoning areas. And I know that we had a plan that we went and did in 2018 and 2019, I don't know if anyone envisioned at that point in time the way that our housing prices were going to skyrocket and the way we would have difficulty having folks live in the county where they work. The skyrocketing home values and prices

[01:55:45] are an impetus to this that maybe was not envisioned in 2018 and 2019 so I don't like the language of quote-unquote where appropriate I think that's too soft and I do want us to be looking at single-family detached zoning and if we want to say something madam chair like such as tiny homes duplexes and triplexes perhaps that is the correct language but I don't want to leave out the specific language that we discussed during our retreat. Otherwise, things get soft and it

[01:56:23] doesn't get done. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to make this suggestion again. I think that the item that we have coming up is going to be very illustrative of this conversation, the other information item. I held the information item because I know there's people here to speak on the information item, but I think what we're going to learn during the information item is going to be illustrative to any motion that we make right now.

[01:56:54] And so I'm going to say again, it's okay to table this item until after we do that information item and then come back and do this, which is what I said before. It just makes, we're trying to do things that there may be an answer there for us right now.

[01:57:09] So what I think we should do, I'm going to make a motion to table the item of the strategic plan in all its forms including the the final motion until we until we do the second information item that is the motion is there a second okay in a second there's no discussion on there's no discussion on table in the motion all people say aye aye wow i don't know i can't i can't count that guys on paper say aye opposed that motion will pass 702 thank you i'm sorry um 801 i don't I don't know what I was doing there, and Ms. Bixman still has a question on the item.

[01:57:48] And we can work on this before the item comes back, but do you think that we need a motion on more specific language in the sidewalks and trails program? Or could we have a motion with more specifics in the sidewalks and trail program, like we did with the bus shelters?

[01:58:05] Madam Chair, Mr. Hemstreet would like to speak. Yes. So for Tuesday's finance committee meeting, we do have specific items coming back to finance to get guidance on the sidewalk and trail program, the intersection improvement program, and the bus shelters and bus stop program.

[01:58:23] So that'll be going just for the board's information that'll be out in your packet on Thursday. Okay, then I'll withhold that motion. Thank you. Okay. So because we're so close to public comments, I'm not going to go to I-2 because we're six minutes from public comments, and if we go to I-2, it's going to take a long time, and so I don't want to do that with just six minutes from public comments to go.

[01:58:50] So what I'm going to do instead, a couple things. One, let's do nominations. If you have any nominations, please put your light on. No one has nominations? Of course not. No nominations. Okay. No? No? No? Okay.

[01:59:11] All right, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to -- it's six minutes till. I'm going to call people to come do public comments. I will -- if they're not here because it's not 6 o'clock yet, I will circle back around to their names. But if they are here, they can speak right now.

[01:59:29] So then it will get us started on public comments, and then we will go from there. And again, if you're not here, I'll circle back around to your names. Then when it comes 6 o'clock, and I circle back around the names, If they're not here then, then they're just not here. All right? Chair Randall. So the first speaker is Mr. Hemstring.

[01:59:46] I'm sorry. One of the things that the board probably should do is we did have item 1C on the agenda. Supervisor Kirshner withdrew a name, however. Oh, that's right. So we don't need a vote for that then. We do need you to confirm the remaining individual.

[02:00:04] Oh, okay. All right. Then that person would have been Mr. Crony's appointee. Would you like to, do you have a motion to do that?

[02:00:11] you'd like to make a motion to confirm should be a motion to pack it i'm cold thank you she's

[02:00:56] making the motion to confirm mr hatch on the zock can't find the motion you're just confirming him for that seat on zock that's bill hatch for the seat that we're confirming for okay yeah all right thank you tim um i move that the board of supervisors confirm

[02:01:32] bill hatch for the zoning ordinance committee as an owner employee or designated agent of a loudon county-based winery brewery distillery representative representative with a term expiring september 30th 2028 and voted on by the board during the december 3rd 2024 board business meeting i will second that discussion on the motion discussion on the motion we should have a discussion on the motion no okay um all i would say is mr kirchner thank you

[02:02:07] you know this this this position was a embarrassment of riches both um these individuals are excellent and will be excellent in whatever and in other ways in other ways they have been research me has been um very helpful on boards commission committees before and i'm sure she will again and um and mr hatch will be fantastic as well that's all mr crony all right i would agree i think both both were fabulous um appoint uh nominations and um hopefully we can get um

[02:02:41] mr search meet on on some other committee but um i know bill hatch will represent the industry well so thank you wonderful all on people say aye aye any opposed oh are you opposing no i'm i'm supporting i just had okay i'm just trying to get your attention sorry oh did you want to say something before the vote nope okay then that motion will pass 801 and now you want to do i did have a couple nominations i didn't okay get too fast enough okay i was trying that's fine so madam chair i would i would um nominate for the board of equalization two nominees

[02:03:18] for both at large positions john fugue and christie kristin goodrum they are re-upping or requesting to be re-upped they've submitted their application and then i would also nominate i had one other here i apologize um for the community criminal justice board jason bickmore for the catoctin seat that's all okay thank you any other nominations seeing none now we are just two minutes out so you guys moved us moved us that much closer i'm going to call your names if you

[02:03:57] will come to the to the podium closest to you um state your name for the record if you'd like to state where you reside you can do that as well you will have two and a half minutes to speak when the um your time is up please yield the podium to the next speaker i would try to call your names three people in advance or two people in advance so that you know so that you know you are coming um up next our first uh speaker is bill junda followed by michael capretti followed by theo stomatis good evening sir how are you good evening my name is bill junda i'm the president

[02:04:36] of gordon but tonight i'm speaking on behalf of nayop i'm here to speak on information item number two the legislative administrative process i and they are very appreciative of the board and county administration for taking on this endeavor you hired a very good consultant in alvarez and marcel they have been great with industry engagement all year since we've been working with them and had a very productive workshop back on november 20th i know that as a private company that i run my partners and i are always looking inwardly for ways to improve and streamline and engage better with our customers sometimes we find that we have to adapt our management other times

[02:05:13] we find our staff needs to do better sometimes they point and say no bill you're the one doing stuff to get changed it can be an awkward process and so i appreciate that the county's taking this on the status quo is the death knell for any organization public or private i came away from that workshop back in november energized that staff and administration were so supportive of of this effort too. I actually sat at Dan Galindo's table and by the end of the workshop it felt like we were locking arms and looking for ways to work together and make improvements and make the process less adversarial. We came away looking for ways to help. We do see this as a big undertaking.

[02:05:51] I remarked at the workshop that it was just a year ago that we were in the final throes of ZOR and I feel like the ZOR process truly turned a corner last fall when the board empowered staff to find middle ground on many of the issues we were trying to work through. And so I truly believe that this process will be most successful with staff empowered once again to implement the consultants' recommendations.

[02:06:14] I look forward to staff being empowered to resolve conflicting comments, deciding which outstanding issues are truly issues, or how to give a positive recommendation, even if one or two of the things related to a plan don't completely meet the plan. The famous scorecard that we've been talking about, that was talked about quite a bit at the workshop, And Chair Randall, I know that was one of the things you were really pushing for.

[02:06:37] So NAOP and all the other stakeholders here are committed to investing our time and resources to help in any way we can. We've already looked at some example scorecards. We're trying to get a head start to help. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks for all you do. I appreciate it. Michael Capretti, followed by Theo Stamatis, followed by Matt Chalowski.

[02:06:56] Good evening. Good evening, Chairwoman Randall, members of the board. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. My name is Michael Capretti, and I'm here speaking today on behalf of the Loudon Chapter of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association, commonly known as NVBIA.

[02:07:11] On November 20th, approximately 120 people, 90 from the county and 30 from industry, gathered at Hanson Park to receive a preview of the initial results and recommendations of the Administrative and Land Use Review Assessment, which is item I-2 on your agenda tonight.

[02:07:30] We also are very appreciative of the opportunity to participate and contribute to the process. The home building industry is and always has been committed to working together with county staff to improve the system. We understand we contribute to the current inefficiency in legislative and land use process, and we need to bring change to the table ourselves.

[02:07:52] Many of us remember the days and even contributed to the times when our county was known as the fastest growing county in the country. For decades, the industry enjoyed a collaborative and cooperative working relationship with county administration, directors of planning and zoning, zoning administrators, and even the county attorney's office.

[02:08:16] We met regularly to discuss improvements to the process and problems solving for ongoing issues. Not only did we collaborate and communicate, but there was a mutual respect between county staff and the home building industry.

[02:08:32] We all believed we were in this together. It was about how to work together and collaboratively create the best projects in Lowne County. It wasn't an us-against-you mentality, and quite honestly, we missed those days.

[02:08:47] we understand times have changed. We know COVID threw us all a curve. We know there's a tremendous turnover in the labor market, both private and public sector. We know federal and state regulations continue to throw us all a loop. We know the transition to landmark has been challenging.

[02:09:05] Finally, we know the new zoning ordinance has created all kinds of confusions and made all of us aware of vesting and grandfathering and how there are many different opinions on what each of these mean but now it's time for a change we would also like to thank the board for initiating this we ask for your patience in the improvements these are not going to happen overnight we have work to do with industry and staff to bring all this around but I think if you give us 12 months we can figure it out. Thank you Mr. Capretti. Theo Stamatis you will be followed by Mike I'm sorry

[02:09:39] Matt Chalowski. Good evening Madam Chair. Members of the board my name is Theo Stamatis I serve as the government relations manager for the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce.

[02:09:55] On behalf of the nearly 1,100 members of the Loudoun Chamber, I am here to address the administrative and legislative land use review item this evening. I would like to emphasize the importance of ongoing communication and collaboration between the county government and the private sector as we implement the consultant's recommended land use and zoning process improvements.

[02:10:17] The county's commitment to partnership and collaboration was evident in last week's presentation of the consultant's report to a diverse group of business stakeholders. We appreciate the opportunity to hear directly from the county's consultant and senior staff about these proposed improvements to Loudoun's administrative and legislative land use reviews.

[02:10:38] The chamber and our members are eager to continue this collaboration and regularly meet with the county staff to discuss the consultant's recommendations, adjusting concerns, and determine the best path forward for implementation. During last week's presentation and discussion, many valuable ideas were shared, demonstrating that both staff and the business community have common goals for creating a more predictable and efficient review processes. Thank you for the time and consideration. I look forward to continuing our work together to achieve the best outcomes for all involved. Thank you, Mr. Stamatis. We'll now have Matt Chwalowski, followed by Sarah Hussein

[02:11:18] bazaar, followed by Carolyn Barrett. Good evening, everybody. My name is Matt Sholovsky. I live here in Leesburg. Hello. The reason I am here today is that two years ago, almost two years ago, you guys passed the DEI law. I'm going to call it DEI law. And given what has happened across the country, it's perhaps a good time to reflect if we should have this law on the books. What has happened across the country with DEI laws is that they have been massively

[02:11:54] rejected by communities, institutions, companies. The latest example is Walmart. Last week, they eviscerated DEI. There have been academic studies, I think it's Harvard, that has showed that DEI has extremely deleterious impact on employees, psychological well-being of employees.

[02:12:23] I sent you some materials to that effect. You can read it in the last couple of days. So it seems to me like it's a good time with a passage of two years is to reflect on it, whether this should be here. And when DEI laws are examined with intellectual integrity, they have no place.

[02:12:43] They fail. okay there's no no no doubt about it and i want to inject a personal note about it 85 years ago my grandfather was captured by nazis during second world war and he was sent to labor camp for five years he was of wrong ethnicity his grandson is standing in front of you 85 years later because you guys injected ethnicity in any decision making and has no place in a civilized

[02:13:19] society. It's so wrong. I have a young granddaughter, a sweet, innocent little thing. I don't want her to live under this law. So what are the next steps? I would like to request, since I live in to take some steps to examine in view of developments across the country if we should have this law and have an adult conversation about it. Thank you very much for your time.

[02:13:50] Thank you, Mr. Trelowski. Sarah Hussein Bazar, followed by Carolyn Barrett, followed by Sufjan Bilal.

[02:14:08] Coran Sains. Back in May 2021, you posted a picture of yourself calling for a free Palestine and declaring that Palestinian lives matter.

[02:14:29] Today, we are 423 days into the genocide in Gaza. Over 45,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 18,000 children, one child murdered every 30 minutes. Are you planning to update that post? Julie Briskman, in April 2024, you released a statement condemning the tragic death of seven world central kitchen workers in a violent attack.

[02:14:54] Did you know that just last week, Israeli occupation forces murdered three more world central kitchen workers in Gaza? Will you put out another statement? Ms. Phyllis Randall, she's obviously not here, but I hope she will listen to this.

[02:15:11] In October 2023, she shared a Facebook post quoting Dibasish Merida about kindness and empathy. The image showed two children, one wearing a yarmulke with an Israeli flag and another behind barbed wire. Today, that flag represents a regime that has turned Gaza into a graveyard.

[02:15:31] Not my words, the UN words. Thousands of children have been maimed, and just the other day, Israeli forces shot a 10-year-old girl in the chest. Where's your compassion now? Silence is not neutrality, it is complicity. Being silent in the face of injustice, genocide, and apartheid makes us part of the problem.

[02:15:50] If you have spoken out before, why are you silent now? What has changed? The lives of Palestinians are not less valuable than the lives of anyone else. To remain silent while entire families are obliterated, while hospitals are bombed, and while children are targeted, is to side with oppression.

[02:16:09] This silence is not just yours. It reflects the failure of all of us to demand justice for Palestine. But let me tell you this. We will not be silent. We will continue to speak because silence enables injustice to thrive everywhere. And let me be clear.

[02:16:26] The war in Palestine is not Muslim versus Jews. It is native versus settler. It is colonizer versus colonized. Cease fire now. Speak up now. Divest now.

[02:16:42] And it's always free Palestine. Thank you. Carolyn Barrett, followed by, I think it's Sufjan Babil. Good evening.

[02:17:04] Good evening. Zionists will sign up to speak based purely on a desire to sit in your seat. Have Loudon times reframe the narrative so everyone can rinse and repeat. If you were hoping for objectivity or impartiality, they'll be sure to control alt delete, arrow furrow forward to try to bury us.

[02:17:26] But we are seeds here growing, voting, and continuing to show up in honor of our collective humanity. Because nobody is free until everybody is free. There are people who genuinely don't believe in climate change because someone convinced them that it isn't real.

[02:17:44] Excuse me. Sorry. We are here to remind you and record you, record that you understand that genocide is happening and you are convinced that it and a ceasefire resolution are not your problem. Several years ago, during Colin Kaepernick's protest of police brutality, I kept seeing signs that read, Racism is so American that when you protest it, people think you are protesting America.

[02:18:10] So I find myself increasingly disappointed to hear that protesting genocide is characterized as being anti-Semitic. Is the implication here that due to the horrors of the Holocaust and the current genocide in Palestine, you are incapable of separating Judaism from genocide. Now that feels incredibly anti-Semitic and an affront to the humanity of the Palestinian people, to the survivors of the Holocaust and the unspeakable harms that both communities have experienced. As Advent season begins to celebrate the birth of Jesus, a Palestinian we're encouraged to love, we won't allow you to rob us of the hope

[02:18:47] that you'll listen and resist the urge to silence us. I'll leave you with the words of Isabel Wilkerson. Dehumanize the group, and you have completed the work of dehumanizing any single person within it. Dehumanize the group, and you have quarantined them from the masses you choose to elevate and have programmed everyone, even some of the targets of dehumanization, to no longer believe what their eyes can see, to no longer trust their own thoughts. Dehumanization distances not only the out group from the in group, but those in the in group from their own humanity.

[02:19:21] it makes slaves to group think of everyone in the hierarchy a caste system relies on dehumanization to lock the marginalized outside of the norms of humanity so that any action against them is seen as reasonable i'll ask again if i am truly free who can tell me how much of my freedom i can have today free palestine thank you um if i say your name incorrectly i apologize and you

[02:19:50] can correct me i think it's sufion bibel followed by latisha mccado good evening chair randall board members i'd first like to thank you for the work you've done here in loudon over the past year i know it impacts all our lives and most of it goes unseen as we enter this holiday season i'd like you to reflect on how you can help those both in palestine and in our county who feel increasingly unseen at a time where they're usually celebrating and who believe that the american

[02:20:29] government as a whole is immoral so i urge you to put forward a ceasefire resolution and prove to them that they're wrong or at least partly wrong prove that there are still parts of our government that are uncorrupted that stand for the principles we all learned and believed our government stood for growing up prove that the phrase liberty and justice for all applies even when it's difficult actually especially when it's difficult unfortunately inaction in the face of genocide is a political statement in itself so once again i urge you to call for a ceasefire stand on the

[02:21:06] right side of history and put a spark of heart hope in the hearts of your constituents thank you thank you sir um leticia mercado followed by um ashie yuling ewing and again if i mispronounce your name i apologize you can just pronounce it for me thank you very much okay in words of miko pellet an israeli-american author palestine is an issue for all of humanity it is not a religious

[02:21:41] issue is not even a political one it's an issue of values do we value life and humanity are we going to allow this to happen on our watch or are we going to speak up so chair randall although your concerns about freedom of speech are appreciated my hope is to persuade you and other members of the board to care about other freedoms and values such as freedom from torture famine, and inhuman treatment, the freedom to be a child, because the official count as of August 15 is of 40,000 children who can no longer be children, with many thousands still missing under the rubble.

[02:22:21] Gaza now holds the tragic distinction of having the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. I personally lose sleep over the thousands of wounded children with no surviving family, a new term that emerged out of this holocaust.

[02:22:37] How are these children surviving? Who is feeding them? What is waiting for those who survive this genocide? Israel is also experimenting in Gaza with new diabolical ways to kill. Families are poisoned with C4 explosives hidden in food, and bombs are being manufactured to make people evaporate from within. I can keep going with the list of horrors coming out of Gaza, because one thing you must have noticed by now is that supporters of Palestine have facts. The evidence is in our favor. The repression, censorship, and personal attacks do not come from this

[02:23:14] side. History takes its unforgivable course, and sooner or later it will catch up. The record will stay for those who do the research in the future about this genocide. There will be either a record from this board's inaction and willful dismissal of the overwhelming evidence to support a ceasefire resolution or there can be a record of this board finally finding the courage after 14 months of devastation to adopt the ceasefire resolution and begin the process for divestment from entities

[02:23:51] complicit in this genocide. Palestine will be free in our lifetime. Thank you. Thank you. Ashi Yuhing followed by James Russell. Good evening. Yes, good evening. Hi.

[02:24:08] yes i share you in um 14 year old becomes youngest ever palestinian sentenced to prison by israel aham al-salaim was convicted of throwing stones at israeli settlers last year when he was just 12 years old he was taken to prison yesterday he was under house arrest for one and a half years and by the way those settlers by u.n the israeli settlers were illegal so he is arrested for throwing stones at illegal settlers so his father said instead of preparing him for school i'm

[02:24:48] preparing him for prison my son is just a boy but they have stolen his life he wasn't he hasn't seen his friends or left the house soon he'll be in a cell every day i teach him to survive prison not school his father was a prisoner also and his brother and his father says are you ready for prison my love and he says father says his future isn't a classroom it's it's prison israel can

[02:25:26] detain and prosecute any person over the age of 12 in the military court an estimated 10 000 Palestinian children have been held in military detention over the past 20 years. The only children in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military course is the only country, is Israel. As of November 20, Israeli forces had arrested as many as 880 Palestinian children this year. Actually, I did research, but it is impossible to know exact number

[02:26:01] because uh israel doesn't give the numbers so uh despite their um and one of the uh children who was released israeli military told him uh the kid said they told me no celebrations and on the day of my release i'm not allowed to leave my house raise any signs or banners use a megaphone and they said and if if i break any of these rules i'll be taken back savior children reported that

[02:26:34] 86 percent of children are beaten in israel detention while 69 percent are strip search and 42 percent are subject to injuries during their arrest we are all we are asking is ceasefire resolution thank you thank you um james russell followed by samantha z good evening i wonder

[02:27:04] what is keeping these people alive? Palestinians have been, excuse me, selected by our commercial logistical system for genocide. It's focused largely in Gaza, where there are presumably still at least 2 million people living, almost exclusively civilians. There are almost 3 million

[02:27:33] people living in the West Bank. It's 5 million. But there are actually 6 million Palestinians living in the diaspora. There are about a quarter of a million Palestinians living in the United States, and there is a significant number of them living in northern Virginia, living in Loudoun

[02:28:04] County. These people have been exiled, cast out from their homeland. These people looked all over the globe for a place to start their life and raise their children. These mothers trusted the county that my own mother trusted when she chose to start her family. Now these people have had to watch for 14 months as people in their homeland are eradicated with a focus and efficiency not

[02:28:42] seen since the Nazi Holocaust. And for eight months, the people of Loudoun County have called upon this board to call for an end to the industrial murder of Palestinians. Now make no mistake, those Palestinian Americans in Loudoun County are within the crosshairs of this genocidal campaign now i don't know if this is known to the members of the board but throughout the global war

[02:29:15] on terror a number of muslims in this area were victimized by state repression and we had considered sharing specifics but if this system is invested in their murder how would sharing specifics help these people thank you mr russell um the next two people are on the webex i'm going to i'm sorry samantha z and then you're going to be followed by and this is on the on the on the web um virtual

[02:29:52] to rolia nor zia and miriam hussein if i got those names right and then after that it would be don slayman good evening evening yoav galant the israeli defense minister from 2022 until he was dismissed last month is here and a couple weeks ago the icc or international criminal Court, issued warrants for the arrest for him and Benjamin Netanyahu on crimes against humanity

[02:30:31] and war crimes. Yet Gallant is here. On October 10th of last year, he announced that he had ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly. Equating people to animals is a tactic that has led to the justification and extermination of groups of people before.

[02:31:03] This is not new. Nazi propaganda called the Jewish population rats, lice, and cockroaches to justify the atrocities of the Holocaust, to strip Jews of their humanity. This tool of propaganda is used to condition the masses to accept injustices. President-elect Donald Trump on many occasions referred to our immigrant population in this manner. These aren't people. These are animals.

[02:31:36] We have been conditioned. We have studied this playbook, yet we can't recognize these patterns. Wake up. The holocaust of our time is now. And if allowing a fugitive within 20 miles of us isn't enough for you to act let's at least prepare Loudoun County to protect our immigrant population from the inevitable dehumanization that will justify mass raids checkpoints and the breaching of our fourth amendment rights. The alarm bells are sounding. Will you respond or will you just take out the battery? Seeing as this is my last opportunity to address this board before the

[02:32:15] holiday season i wanted to extend from my family to yours that was last year still relevant thank you um thank you we're going to go to the do we have the two people on the phone okay let's go

[02:32:54] to the first speaker first please uh good evening uh to the members of the board uh my name is and I live in Sterling, Virginia, and like other callers were shared, others were talking before me, I wanted to just take this moment to express my deep concern about this ongoing war in Gaza, I should rather call it a genocide, and how negatively it's impacting the constituents

[02:33:28] of Loudoun County, I'm in contact with lots of, you know, people at my workplace and also in the community where I live in, and I see how this war has actually impacted our lives.

[02:33:45] So if we were to count, if we were to count, it's now 423 days, which is equivalent to one year, one month, and 26 days, one year, or 57 days, 60 weeks, or three days, which is a lot of time since this war began.

[02:34:08] And it's quite surprising to know that, you know, the U.S. is, who is actually kind of setting the morality standards in the world, is not only complicit and silent to this genocide, but also we are directly funding this genocide.

[02:34:30] So I just called in. It's my first time calling again just to express my deep concerns because we are living in the richest county in the U.S., and we are actually contributing in some way. Based on my little bit of research, there are some weapon manufacturing companies in Loudoun County that might directly or indirectly benefit from this genocide.

[02:34:55] So I have very clear requests from the board. The first is to adopt a ceasefire resolution, which will actually symbolize that what's happening in Palestine is a humanitarian crisis, and it needs to end. This is the bare minimum we can do to recognize the concerns of the constituents of Loudoun County.

[02:35:18] And secondly, I'm requesting the board to research and find out how investment in certain businesses in Loudoun County, certain companies and organizations are actually directly or indirectly vesting from this board and divest from this ethnic cleansing.

[02:35:36] Sir, sir, can you hear me? Your time is up. Thank you very much. Your time is up. Can we go to the next speaker, please? When you have five years old, I wanted to tell you, stop doing the kids and bring the kids and family back to their homes so they can arrive.

[02:36:04] And can you please fix their home back? If you're a Palestine friend, very friendly, can you help them, please, because you're very smart and very kind. So thank you, we did that.

[02:36:22] And I was trying to find Palestine, so, and because the kids don't have shelter, they don't have food, they don't have shelter, they don't have clothes, they can't, they're not, they don't have bed, and they sleep on the, and they sleep on the Palestine, you know.

[02:36:53] Thank you, young lady. Dawn Sleeman, you'll be followed by Maya Bazar, followed by Matthew Noonan. Good evening.

[02:37:10] Good evening. Thank you for letting me come before you today, Chair Randall and fellow board members. I'm here when I notice item 10. I do believe it's postponed, but I still would like to just speak about the industry and the data industry, what it means to my members.

[02:37:28] I work for Electrician's Local 26. My family's been in this county since 1973 and celebrated Thanksgiving here in the county. This industry, the epicenter, is in Loudoun County, and we all know the benefits it has for the revenue of this county and for the low taxes this county has.

[02:37:48] But I just want to talk about what it means to working people. We have eight different fabrication shops in the county, mostly in Sterling. where because of the economies of scale of this industry, we are building prefabbing work not just for our data centers in northern Virginia, but for data centers all over the country, and we've even exported some overseas.

[02:38:10] And so the importance of having six-figure blue-collar production jobs can't be – should really be celebrated. And what it means for the fabric of our community, that you can have construction and production manufacturing workers living next door to federal employees, and lawyers, and well-heeled folks.

[02:38:30] It's just that's what you need. You need a diversity of cultures, but also diversity of classes. And this industry provides that. And also, we do so much maintenance work. Our membership has doubled from 7,000 to almost 14,000 workers in the last six years because of this industry.

[02:38:48] And in every data center that's completed, we have 30 folks working for six or seven contractors in any given day, performing all kinds of retrofits and energy modulations and swapping equipment. And also the industry has been, you know, in its nascent stage has been very -- they've listened to labor, they've spoken to us. They have helped us to eliminate waste debt in this high end of the construction industry. It's rampant in other parts of the construction industry. They have agreed to have self-performing, so you can't make independent contractors when they really don't exist by subcontracting hundreds of people

[02:39:26] at a time. They also are helping me work to diversify our contractor base. I'm working with them to have minority contractors do some of the swapping of the equipment and some of the low voltage work and to grow those companies. I run out of time, but I'll come back and talk about what we're trying to do to diversify the contractor base. Thank you.

[02:39:49] Thank you, thank you, Ms. Lehman. Maya Bazar, followed by Matthew Noonan, followed by Rula N. Good evening. Let me pull that mic nice and close.

[02:40:05] There you go. Yeah, it is. Good evening, board members. Bad evening to the Zionists. We gather here today in defense of something fundamental, the right to speak the truth.

[02:40:22] But what we are witnessing is a glaring double standard, one that silences those fighting for justice while amplifying voices that protect oppression for months we have been speaking out against the genocide in palestine we've raised our voices against the relentless bombings the displacement of families and the systematic apartheid policies that strip palestinians of their humanity yet instead of engaging with our calls for justice we are told that there will be no ceasefire resolution in the agenda we are told that palestine has no relevance to our local

[02:41:00] politics as if human suffering respects boundaries or borders. Our voices are being silenced in the mainstream media, erased from public discourse, and skewed even from our local newspapers. And when we do speak, we are met with smear campaigns and baseless accusations of anti-Semitism.

[02:41:22] Let me be clear: being critical of Israel's policies of racism, apartheid, and genocide, racism, apartheid and genocide is not a hatred toward a people. It is a demand for accountability.

[02:41:38] But why is this happening? Why are voices for justice suppressed while those defending oppression are amplified? The answer lies in power. The double standard exists to maintain the status quo to protect those who benefit the systems of colonialism and apartheid while silencing those who challenge them. The same people who applaud free speech when it serves their interests are the first to silence it when it challenges their narratives.

[02:42:04] They call for freedom, yet deny us the freedom to speak against oppression. They label us divisive for demanding justice, as if silence in the face of genocide is unity. But we will not be silenced. To remain silenced in the face of injustice is to be complicit. To those who accuse us of hate, we say this.

[02:42:22] Our critique is rooted in love, for humanity, for justice, and for the belief that all people, regardless of race or religion, deserve freedom and dignity. Justice for Palestine is not just about Palestine. It's about standing up for the truth against oppression wherever it may be.

[02:42:38] We will not be silenced because history has taught us that silence allows injustice to prevail. We ask you to stand with us and support a ceasefire resolution. Thank you. Matthew Noonan followed by Rula N. Good evening.

[02:42:55] Good evening. I have two quotes to begin. The people of Palestine have the right to national statehood. not an issue for negotiation it is a principle and a right the international community has an obligation to support this and uphold international law that was by jerry adams former irish republican politician activist and the second quote we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the palestinians that was nelson mandela anti-apartheid activist former president of south africa and nobel peace prize winner i don't think it's any coincidence that both ireland

[02:43:34] and south africa stand with palestine they both recognized palestinian statehood co-sponsored a un resolution that demanded an end to israel's occupation of palestinian territory and spoken extensively on the crimes perpetrated against the palestinians for years not just since this genocide began 14 months ago it's because ireland and south africa understand the struggle for apartheid intimately ireland and south africa's famous struggles for equal rights are in the past but if you could be magically teleported to either of these countries 50 years ago wouldn't

[02:44:10] you like to think that you'd be standing for justice and denouncing the oppressive regimes that the people of ireland and south africa were subject to if your answer is yes then why can't you stand and speak for the palestinians what makes their situation any different whether you like it or not fate has given you a choice to speak for humanity so the laden county local government can't advertise or doesn't have any influence over the military contractors profiting from the genocide and apartheid within its borders fine you can still do the bare minimum

[02:44:45] of voting on a ceasefire it's never too late to do the right thing thank you thank you rula in followed by um shenan bohara good evening good evening chair randall and members of the board a video i saw recently has stayed with me it showed a young palestinian boy leaving his camp each night to lie on a patch of dirt. A man curious followed him and asked why he was doing

[02:45:19] this. The boy's answer was heartbreaking. He said he missed his mother and this was where she was buried. He just wanted to be close to her. The simple yet profound act of love and grief speaks volumes about the unimaginable pain so many gazes endure. Today I want to talk about a heartbreaking reality. Over 44,000 Palestinians have been killed this year. Among them, 70% are women

[02:45:55] and children. Thousands were elderly, disabled, doctors, nurses, and even journalists. People who had no way to defend themselves. If you're uncomfortable calling it genocide, fine. Let's call it what it is. Killing a lot of people. Innocent people. But let's be honest. Calling it something else doesn't change what it is. European settlers in this country called Africans farm workers, but they were enslaved people. Do changing the language alter the reality or how

[02:46:31] history judged them? And think about this. If I were on the same bus as Rosa Parks, what would I have done? I for sure wouldn't have stayed silent or looked away. I would have sat beside her, shown her she wasn't alone, and stood firmly against the injustice.

[02:46:53] Because staying silent in the face of wrong isn't fairness, it's complicity. Now I ask you, which side do you want to stand on? The side that accepts this loss of life, or the side of justice for all, as our Pledge of Allegiance declares?

[02:47:13] Because if justice for all means anything, we must live it with our whole hearts. I urge you to please call for a ceasefire and the suffering of the Palestinian people, my people, and the genocide and free Palestine.

[02:47:38] Thank you.

[02:47:49] Shannon, I think it's S-H-A-H-I-N-Vohara. Are you here? S-H-A-H-I-N-Vohara. Are you here? Going once, going twice.

[02:48:04] Steve Birnbaum, followed by Shakir Hadari. Good evening. Good evening, ma'am. I'm a proud Jew and veteran of an IDF Special Forces unit.

[02:48:24] Mr. Birnbaum, bring that microphone closer to you. I'm a proud Jew and veteran of an IDF Special Forces unit. Zionism is the 2,000-year-old yearning of the Jewish people for our own self-determination and return to our homeland after we were exiled by the Romans. It's at the very heart of and inseparable from our Jewish identity.

[02:48:41] This board's silence as you heard us compared to Nazis in this room two weeks ago is unacceptable. In the last month in Europe, we've seen the first pogrom since the Holocaust. Jews commemorating Kristallnacht, attacked by a violent mob. A Jewish boy beaten by a mob in front of his home. Thirteen-year-old kids on a Jewish soccer team chased through the streets with sticks and knives.

[02:48:57] Notes left at homes calling on UK Jews to leave or be slaughtered. Here at home, a mob trapped Jews in a synagogue in Chicago. Jews walking to synagogues were shot in Chicago and slashed in the face in New York. Kosher restaurants in New York and D.C. had their windows smashed on the very anniversary of Kristallnacht. violent mobs rioted through jewish neighborhoods in brooklyn and montreal forcing jews to hide in their homes and rabbi kogan was kidnapped and murdered in the uae simply because he was a jew and what did these mobs yell as they targeted jews they yelled free palestine and get the jew and the final solution is coming when the murder of rabbi kogan was announced to the thousands attending a free palestine rally in times square they cheered jews nearby ran for their lives

[02:49:36] fearing they were next don't listen to me that judaism and zionism are inseparable Listen to the mobs who violently attack Jews because we are Jews, while chanting the same hate you legitimize in this room as they also fly the flags of terror groups who openly call for attacks against synagogues here in America.

[02:49:52] It seems we are again facing hatred, brood, and local government meetings in this country, not dissimilar from what once led to tragic violence and lynchings. You can deny the connection between the incitement here and threats to Jewish members of this community, but your own security sent four armed guards to escort Jews to our cars a month ago.

[02:50:10] Clearly, they can see a connection. Richie Torres said recently, these words are sowing the seeds of pogroms and Kristallnacht in the 21st century. What's it going to take to happen in our community before you condemn the anti-Semitism and incitement occurring in front of you? Vandalism? Assault? Murder?

[02:50:26] As you continue to normalize and legitimize it by remaining silent, I fear that's exactly where we are headed. Chanukah is coming, a holiday that celebrates our defeat of the Greek army and the rededication of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem 2,200 years ago. as we proclaimed then and have continued to proclaim when nations and others rose up seeking to destroy us. Am Yisrael Chai. Thank you, Mr. Birnbaum. Shakir Haraday, followed by John Myers.

[02:50:58] Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Greetings to everyone. My name is Shakir Haydari. I have been living in Loudoun County for about five years. I'm from Afghanistan and currently resident in an apartment in Starling with my wife and three kids. I am a member of New Virginia Majority.

[02:51:18] I don't think I am the only one working class individually struggling with affordable housing in this county. Money like me who have worked multiple jobs are up to 80 hours for more just to afford living expenses here. Due to strict housing issues, many families in Loudoun County are forced to live together.

[02:51:38] The working class and immigrant communities in particular are very venerable to have a great need for affordable housing to live safely with their kids and family. I know friends and family members who have had leave to the county because it is too hard to afford a house here.

[02:51:58] Honestly, I'm considering doing the same, so I can save money and avoid spending more than half my income on rent. I request the Board of Supervisors to please create an affordable housing voucher to support working-class families in the county.

[02:52:15] this would allow me and to leave safely and permanently here with my family thank you so much thank you thank you John Myers you will be followed by Steven Grotman followed by Banna Malka good evening mr. Myers good evening good evening chair Randall members of land county board's advisors my name is John Myers president of Latin Curve High Fire Association and fourth generation Latin resident ascending before you today to address a matter of utmost importance to the hard-working men and women of IFF Local 3076 and ensure that the promises that were made to them when they were hired are upheld as they approach retirement.

[02:52:54] Specifically, I'm referring to previous negotiations regarding retirement health care between the Loudoun County and our union. During the initial negotiations, Local 3076 presented clear proposals in the adjusting financial responsibility for our members in order to more closely align with the health care benefits they were promised when they were hired. Let us remember that these firefighters and paramedics signed up with the understanding that retirement health care be part of their compensation package. However, the county's counterproposal was to delay any further discussions until a third-party review would be completed. We were told this review would assess Lamb County's retirement health care and report back to the Finance Committee. Let me be clear. The third-party review received was far from the

[02:53:31] comprehensive exam we expected. Instead, it was a narrow study guided by specific directions from the county HR outlining limited topics to be addressed. This was not a true review of all available plans, nor was it a thorough analysis of how the system could be improved. This lack of transparency and thought would just fall short of the level we were led to believe we would receive Just last month County HR presented additional informations opposing IFF's previous proposals. However, so both sides are restricted from discussing current negotiations I will focus on the October proposal which I trust is what staff have been discussing and that proposal We put forward a fair cost-sharing model for our group B employees These employees are among the most tenured the county workforce yet due to their age and years of service

[02:54:10] they were unfairly disqualified from retaining the retirement health care benefits they were promised when hired. The disqualification criteria was created by county HR when they placed our group B numbers and members in a difficult position. Let's look at the facts. Group A firefighter who has served for 30 years with the county receives a VIRS pension of just over 5,000.

[02:54:29] After that, the taxes, this pension is reduced to 3,800. This firefighter wants health care at the OAP, which will be $2,934 per month after receiving the increase that you just gave them. This leaves them with $800 to live on with the remainder of the month. In our October proposal, we actually requested the stipends for Group C and D to automatically increase to reflect inflation.

[02:54:49] The original number of $250,000 has not been changed since 2013 was created, even though health care insurance has gone up 40% since then. It's critical that we recognize the reality our members are facing. These are not abstract issues. They are real issues. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Myers.

[02:55:05] i'm steven gruttman and you will be followed by um banna melka good evening good evening sorry i wrote a speech days ago but i typed a new speech to refute the vile nonsensical lies spewed here today as a speaker as a speaker acknowledged this board has no global power to bring a ceasefire so why are we even talking about this here but whatever a previous speaker said that the jews only speak here to quote sit in your seats and quote to control the narrative of anti-semitism is the root of all of this another referenced jesus being palestinian jesus

[02:55:44] was a jew and lived in the area that is now named palestine and was named by the romans 70 years after jesus's death to detach the jewish connection from the land 1950 years ago talk about colonization how dare another speaker referenced the holocaust of which nearly my entire grandmother's family was systematically murdered another speaker said 40 000 children were killed and bombs and poison were put in their food. I would hope the Quran teaches not to lie, but another speak about exile. It was hard for me not to laugh considering my entire religion is based on 2,000 years of exile from our native

[02:56:19] land. Jews are not colonizers. We've been there for 3,500 years. Another said numbers not seen since the Holocaust, in quotes. There's been a lot of mass murders since 1944, but of course you guys don't care about that, right? Just when Jews defend themselves. A few speakers mentioned racism and apartheid. Arab Muslim Palestinians sit on the Israeli Supreme Court and in their Congress.

[02:56:42] The only Jews in Gaza at all are the soldiers right now. Jews dug up generations of graves in 2005 of Jewish graves while leaving Gaza. Wishing for peace is noble, but defending terrorists rhetorically is not. Peace can only occur when actual genocidal threats like Hamas have been vanquished. Hamas's useful idiots have the right to speak, so it's their own words. So here you are, here's some actual facts since october 7th more more palestinian babies have been born than civilians have been killed meaning uh the population has increased that's a not good that's not a good way to do a genocide the genocide would look like israel's complete

[02:57:22] air superiority indiscriminately carpet bombing civilians not sending their children door to door meticulously to save civilian lives israel provides aids to gaza which is promptly stolen by hamas israel drops warning flyers sends texts and much more to get civilians out of harm's way This war is simple. Israel is capable of committing true genocide and doesn't. Hamas cannot commit genocide but tries to.

[02:57:46] Thanks for the cough, by the way. Israel is defending its citizens. Hamas exploits its citizens for their own defense. Mr. Whitman, thank you. Your time is up. Bala Malka, good evening.

[02:58:04] Good evening again. As you heard tonight and have heard in past public comment opportunities in the past many months, Residents of Loudoun County will continue to speak up against Israel's genocidal actions in Palestine, but also against this board's continued silence, indifference, and outright rejection of any measure that indicates a moral and legal imperative to distance the county from political, economic, or financial interests complicit in war crimes.

[02:58:35] We, the residents who are calling for a ceasefire and for divestment from Israel, come from various backgrounds. We are white and black and every shade in between. We are young and old and every age in between. We adhere to different religions and to none at all. We hail from different races and ethnicities, the rainbow spectrum and beyond. We are students, professionals, retirees, volunteers, parents and children. We adopt different isms, including many that align with your own isms. And we don't see

[02:59:10] eye to eye on everything. The majority of us actually do not know one another. But the one thing that unites us and brings us here is our sense of human community, that what we do here in Loudoun County reverberates around the world. These reverberations can manifest in economic development, in environmental stewardship, in social justice development and peace, or it can reverberate through our tax dollars as missiles, drones, quadcopters, and 2,000-pound bombs that get unleashed on defenseless populations of children, women, and men. The agency we have

[02:59:48] as residents of this county is not only to speak up, but to demand that our impact as Loudoun County residents materializes as the former and not as the latter. As you enjoy the season of family, peace, and for some of us, baby Jesus, let us not only align on human issues, but on the very essence of humanity. That is ceasefire now, that is divestment now and as always free palestine thank you and that was our last speaker for the evening thank you for all the speakers who came in this evening supervisors we're going to do um our first closed

[03:00:25] session we'll do the last closed session at the end of the meeting we'll do our first closed session now after the closed session we'll come back and do the second um information item and then we will go back to the the strategic plan item so we can pull together some kind of reasonable motion. But right now we're going to close session. Ms. Brickspin, would you please listen to closed session? Yes, I move the Board of Supervisors enter into closed session pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A7 to consult with the county attorney on a review of actual or probable litigation.

[03:01:04] on a review of actual or probable litigation involving the county and section 2. 2-37118 of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body

[03:01:43] regarding a specific legal matter requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Sainz. Discussion on the motion. All the people say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801.

[03:01:59] We are in closed session.

[03:16:07] Okay, we're back.

[03:49:03] And Ms. Bricksman is going to read us out of closed session. I move that the closed session be adjourned, that the Board of Supervisors reconvene its public meeting, that the minutes of the public meeting should reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed session, and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting.

[03:49:22] Second. Discussion on the motion? I'll discuss some of the things that, one of the things that happened in closed session later because it's appalling, absolutely appalling. All the people to say aye. Aye. Opposed?

[03:49:41] Would everybody peace certified? Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. I affirm as well. All right, we are back. Does anyone need a break? You guys good? You need to take a break? All right. Then we're going to go on and do item, was it 1C?

[03:49:59] Was that what it was? I don't remember what item number it was anymore. I2. Thank you. I2. I guess it's not even an IC, so I guess I2. And after we do this, because I want to get this out of the way, after we do this, we're going to do board comments.

[03:50:17] But let's do this.

[03:50:29] Good evening, Madam Chair and board members.

[03:50:49] As all of you are well aware, this information item covers the board-directed assessment of your land use review process stemming out of the December 5, 2023 business meeting.

[03:51:05] I do have one Scribner error to correct the record for. In the background section of this staff report, it was cited that Supervisors Letourneau and Sainz voted in opposition to the motion to move this forward with the study.

[03:51:25] The staff report should have read that Supervisors Letourneau and Sainz were absent for the vote, not in opposition. So my apologies to the board members. So the overall effort for this project was the result of contributions from many staff members, external referral agencies, elected officials, each of you participated in interviews with our consultant, as well as representatives from the residential and commercial private sector.

[03:52:03] So I would like to just acknowledge those contributions and certainly say that without all of those involvements, this project certainly could not have been a success. The content of this report will be presented by our project team from our consultant Alvarez and Marsal Public Sector Services.

[03:52:26] From Alvarez and Marsal, we have with us to my right Nancy Zelke, who is the project lead, and Hans Zygmunt, who is a director in her organization. This project was divided into two phases just simply because of the overall size and quantity of material that had to be reviewed.

[03:52:51] Phase one covers the legislative process, which is predominantly managed by the Department of Planning and Zoning. And phase two, which covers the administrative process, which is predominantly managed by the Department of Building and Development.

[03:53:06] So as you can imagine, the volume of this material is significant, and it's probably more than the board really would want to consume in a single presentation. So what we've chosen to do is to present the legislative process this evening, and staff as well as the consultant will come back to the board at the second business meeting in January, January 21st, to present phase two of the administrative process.

[03:53:37] So after each of these meetings, I will send communications to the board members, inviting you for more detailed discussions, more detailed briefings, because the volume of material is just so great that it's going to take all of us a significant amount of time to understand what is before us.

[03:54:03] Before I turn the presentation over to Ms. Elke, I wanted to mention a couple things. First, to bring to your attention that this staff report also includes budget development information that is found in the issues section of the report covering new staff positions that have either been recommended from this assessment or submitted by the Department of Building and Development or Planning and Zoning as part of their fiscal year 26 budget process, your budget process.

[03:54:36] So there are a significant number of positions for you to consider there. Likewise, there's updated information in the issues section relating to the time for permit activity within the Department of Building and Development.

[03:54:53] And the reason that that information is added to the staff report is based on the timing of the data that was reviewed by the consultant. And essentially, at the end of their process, we were still experiencing significant backlogs in the processing of permits.

[03:55:11] But since that point in time, up to current time, the permit process has kind of returned to the status that it was before we did the switchover in Landmark.

[03:55:26] And if you have any questions in regards to that, Director Smith is here and she can respond to that. So with this, I'll turn it over to Ms. Zilke. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Administrator. Chairman Randall and other members of the Board of Supervisors, we are very happy to be here this evening.

[03:55:46] And as Joe has said, this was a very collaborative and a very open process. Through the process, we have met with many stakeholders. First of all, I appreciate the time that you have spent with us or your staff persons have spent with us.

[03:56:02] The information we gathered from all of you and your staff was extremely valuable. We also met with members of the Planning Commission as well, the chair and the vice chair, and they were input to this process as it relates to areas they thought that should be improved as it relates to the process was invaluable.

[03:56:19] As you heard tonight, we met with the industry groups. Their comments throughout the process were extremely valuable, as well as over 40 other individuals. Most of our comments tonight are going to be focused on the legislative side, but we met with over, go ahead, Hans, you can move.

[03:56:35] We met with, go ahead again, we met with over 40 different county employees throughout this process, hearing all types of different comments through the process. You know, along with that, that also included meeting with the industry groups and various departments outside of planning and zoning.

[03:56:55] We had meetings with building and development, with construction and development. We've met with part of Leo's staff, the general counsel's office, as well as a lot of what we call the referral agencies.

[03:57:11] spent time with Loudoun County Schools, the Leesburg Water, VDOT, all of kind of the external referral agencies. I can tell you, we have a wealth of information that we gathered. And that's part of our process, is the fact that as we develop recommendations, it's based on research, facts, as well as we look at industry practices. So we also looked at the practices of other counties, other cities here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as other counties and cities across the U.S. as well.

[03:57:43] You know, we spent time taking a look at your approval process, the communication, the organization. You heard this earlier tonight. I think one of the valuable pieces of the project is the fact that we had a half-day workshop.

[03:57:59] As you heard of, over 120, both staff and community leaders. That gave us an opportunity to provide a very, very quick, Dan, and Betsy, was a very quick presentation as it relates to the recommendations in the two areas.

[03:58:16] In fact, almost 70 separate recommendations with that process. We looked at lots of documents and lots of document review. This slide's wrong, I can tell you. That was probably just the documents that we were having in one room. Additionally, I can tell you I looked at probably over 50 of your staff reports, your planning commission agenda items, the board agenda items, along with what Hans looked at as well.

[03:58:40] I can tell you they're very detailed, they're very thorough, they're very professional, but they're a little long. They're a little lengthy in process. We're going to come back to that as well. And then secondly, we also observed your meetings as well. So the interaction between you as elected officials as you go through that process.

[03:58:59] that was very informative as well okay so i'm not going to spend a lot of time in this because we really want to get to the recommendations and i told um deputy administrator we'll probably try to take 30 35 minutes here but we heard some common themes you know when we first um you know talk to the employees so when we look at the organization we call it the voice of the employee and the voice of the customer so what was very you know concerning you know to us as we as we talk to your employees we heard the common themes of first of all you have a very professional staff

[03:59:34] you have a staff for the plenty and zoning staff as well as the building and development staff they're very they were very professional they were very supportive they were supportive of their leadership however we heard it once we probably heard it you know 70 times the feeling of being overworked the feeling of being stressed the issues as it relates to workload the vacancies you know both departments i gotta say both when come back to plenty and zoning a lot of vacancies that have occurred which which has increased the amount of workload for the existing staff

[04:00:09] you know in that area go ahead um the second one that we heard was that the need for improved communication and we thought this was really important we did a survey in fact out of the 75 employees within planning and zoning. 57 of them provided a response, so that's about 75 percent of the employees provided us back some very confidential information. Communication was the number, was one of the issues, was, was, was the number one issue where they thought improved communication is needed, not only internally, but also improved communication with the development

[04:00:47] community, as well as improve communications with the planning commission, as well as all of you as the board of supervisors as well. Go ahead. Training. This was probably throughout the organization planning and development, a real need for enhanced training. Training primarily in the area of policies and procedures, and as relates to the recently implemented landmark.

[04:01:13] Much of the landmark training that was provided, I want to say, was very canned. It was not customized to Loudoun County's process. So the staff said we need something that's more directed as it relates to how we use the system and how we use it to function. The last one has to do with process improvement. And what was most interesting on this one, the majority of the staff that responded overwhelmingly said they had identified areas for process for improvement. So they provide us some some excellent insight coming into it. Additionally the staff also gave us

[04:01:52] their thoughts of areas that the business development could improve as well. So tonight you're going to hear from Hans and myself not only areas for where the staff processes can be improved but also areas where the business development community can improve their processes as well. We also had a series of meetings as well as some surveys with the development you know community as well so i think what we heard here there's a definite need for improved you know communication collaboration as well as coordination with the development between the the plenty and

[04:02:29] zoning staff as well as the development community one of the things that we we definitely heard was you know they they um you know had seen the vacancies and the impact that had on plenty and zoning staff so really recognized the staff shortages was causing you know some of the issues you know secondly they admitted we probably are not doing the best quality control we could improve our submissions as well so they acknowledged where they could improve the process but they said very honestly you know they missed the the times they missed the opportunity the pre-covid days when

[04:03:05] they had more face-to-face interactions between the planning staff and themselves okay we did a survey with the developers, I'm not going to drill down on this, but again, again, need for improved feedback, you know, need to improve areas of trust. But I think you heard between Michael earlier this evening, as well, Capretti, as well as Bill Jung, that, you know, they've seen, you know, the need for improved communication, coordination, they're willing to partner with the planning and zoning staff as well. I think you'll hear from Dan here a little bit, you know,

[04:03:41] his excitement about that as well. So I'm going to turn it to Hans to talk a little bit about some of the hurdles and the challenges that we saw. Thank you, Nancy. The first and the most obvious hurdle as we started to unpack the challenges through the legislative land use process is simply the throughput time on applications. And there was a range of outcomes that were variable depending on the complexity of the application. But as we looked deeper underneath the hood, we noticed that

[04:04:20] the length of time was a function of the numbers of iterations of referrals that an application would go through. And of course, the fact that depending on the number of referral agencies involved and the types of maybe disconnects you could say between the responses coming from those referral agencies, you could end up in feedback loops of referrals that lasted five, six, seven, eight iterations. And then you end up having things not just take several hundred days to

[04:05:00] get through the process, but rather years to get through the process. As we broke down the legislative land use process, we thought about it within three buckets. First of all, you have the initial submission stage, then the staff review stage, and then moving on to the planning commission and the board stage.

[04:05:19] And there were a few key takeaways. Number one, there were inconsistencies in the process that led to the bottlenecks and breakdowns, especially during the staff review stages. There were, on the development community side, you know, there were delays in submissions in certain parts of the applications, incomplete submissions, poor quality control issues, especially on the initial applications.

[04:05:48] And when those sort of things happen, it takes longer on those initial stages of the review. Furthermore, there were changes late in the process many times, and often this related to the proffers, when a, because of the point in the process where proffers were being reviewed, if there were things that were needed to be renegotiated late in that process, it would end up sending everything back through the referral loop.

[04:06:21] And lastly, it was our general assessment that the staff report itself did not contain all of the information needed for the broader policy decisions that are needed to be made at this level and also certain information that may be helpful to other members of the community in assessing the quality of the land use application.

[04:06:50] - Is everything you're talking about so far before the supervisors even see it? - Okay, so yes and no. So the, we're starting at pre-app and then working all the way through the process up until board approval.

[04:07:13] So there is a time period where maybe at this, in the current state, the supervisors are not involved. One of the recommendations that we're going to make is for earlier involvement of the supervisors in the process.

[04:07:33] - Okay. So I will be getting to that key point. Madam Chairman, the answer to the question, I'll expand on what Hans was saying, is what we've described so far is before it even gets to you. Gotcha. This is all kind of the concerns that we've heard is the fact that many cases, and I think it was in the staff report that was submitted as well as in the detail, you saw some significant delays and time frames from when the initial application came in for rezoning to when it actually came to you, you know, for formal action.

[04:08:06] So we were trying to, you know, determine what's causing that delay, what's causing those. Well, the reason, and if you don't mind me asking this way, the reason I'm asking is because when you discuss proffers and things have to be re-evaluated, I didn't know if during the staff's look at it, the applicant had brought it to the supervisors also, and the supervisors asked for a proffer, and then that made the evaluation happen again.

[04:08:33] So I'm not saying it came to the board. I'm saying have supervisors entered the conversation yet because usually supervisors are the ones who are going to start asking of stuff that would then cause for something to be re-evaluated. Madam Chairman, you make a very good point, and that's one of the issues that you'll hear from us in several minutes to get into the recommendations is that as the supervisors of those districts or the board supervisors need to be involved earlier in the process versus, you know, having those applications go through review cycle, review cycle, five review

[04:09:10] cycle, six, you know, many cycles before you are even involved in the process. Okay, thank you. Next, we broke down our analysis also by three other categories, which are people, process, and technologies. And on the people side, there are a number of areas that we need for improvement, Nancy already mentioned several of these that came out of our surveys, the training issues, the communication issues, and the staffing and capacity issues.

[04:09:47] And so I think what's really important to note here is that the communication issues are not, you know, just simply within the county, it's also, it's, you know, the county to, it's the folks in planning and zoning talking with the referral agencies, It's the communication back to the board.

[04:10:09] It's communication with the development community. And so how do we improve all of that communication? This is just a current state org chart that in the high level view of the legislative process and our general observations.

[04:10:32] I'd like to kind of just move past this particular slide and start getting directly into the recommendations the sake of time and lastly we uh before getting to recommendations we had certain technology hurdles as well i think that you know nancy already mentioned a few of the issues uh with with landmark particularly the the fact that the training that was developed is is really just for the out-of-the-box product it's not specific to the configuration of landmark as it's used by

[04:11:06] Loudoun County. We have problems with reporting and the ability to run reports that are not only required to give the board the information it needs but also for the the folks in planning and zoning to be able to do their work. They only in the contract were provided with about one-third of the reports that they actually needed. There is some ability to produce you know ad hoc reports but that's confined to the stale data that's in the data warehouse, and so they can't get

[04:11:42] access to the real-time data that they need in many cases, and so this is something that we will need to address as well. Yeah, I think additionally with that, we also heard from many of you as well as some of your staff persons that landmark, you are not receiving the reporting you'd like to out of the system as well being able to have like an interactive mapping process so if you want to look at you know the parse the the the application that's coming through and you want to see the utilities or you want to see the streets or you want to understand better the rezoning that's

[04:12:17] occurred having a more interactive system you know as well so what we'd like to do is the report has 33 recommendations it's 132 pages we are not going to go through all 132 pages tonight So it's like the deputy administrator said, we're going to go through a very high level and talk through kind of the larger areas, and then we would be more than happy to come back and visit with you in more detail.

[04:12:46] As we looked at the organization, we looked at it from a people, process, and technology perspective. So we have three strategy recommendations that relate to the legislative process. The first one is, you know, there's a need to better align communication and operating practices, you know, for a long-term future, you know, of the county.

[04:13:08] Again, dealing with process. The second one has to deal with people, the human side. You know, you're not going to have improved processes unless you have, you know, an improved workforce and staffing the workforce where it's needed. So strengthening your employees' workforce, giving, you know, enhancing that resilience, as well as giving them the development opportunities to move forward.

[04:13:29] And the last one is dealing to optimize the technology. Again, taking a look at technology solutions, how can those be improved, as well as how can there also better use technology to eliminate a lot of manual processes.

[04:13:45] Okay. So, Hans? So, under strategy one, which is those, the communication and operational process type things, number one, you know, we recognize the lack of standard procedures.

[04:14:02] I had mentioned earlier the quality of the land use applications at the initial stage, not necessarily being of high quality in all cases, and a desire to create a culture of continuous improvement. I think that that's something that's evident in talking with the staff and the leadership within planning and zoning is that people want to do better and that there is a desire to move that culture forward, but there's not a mechanism in place right now for them to be able to do that another issue that we notice is an under utilization of

[04:14:36] the escalation process is one of the things that was put into the new zoning ordinance was a mechanism for escalating the applications to the planning commission after third referral and that is not being effectively utilized in the current system next under the workforce the the lack of staffing to support application reviews is evident due to you know retirements and so part of that is backfilling positions that are vacant and additionally adding some new

[04:15:11] positions we've seen an increase in volume and that's i think everybody recognizes that that we've have a large increase in volume since fy 19 insufficient training and additionally on the technology side one one big area we recognize is an area a need to go back and do an independent validation verification of landmark to ensure that it is meeting the needs of the county as they exist now i think just one thing before you move on is you know the the

[04:15:47] zoning ordinance first of all i need to applaud the county on the work that you did with the zoning ordinance it's probably one of the i would say the more detailed more thorough ordinances but took a toll it took a toll on your organization it took a toll on the staff as well so so if you kind of think about things that have happened over the past three to four years you know covid increased volume of development occurring in this wonderful county as well as the zoning you know changes have all kind of are three kind of i'd say drivers that are impacting set part of

[04:16:22] performance of the organization so our groups of recommendations fall under these three areas in the following way number one is is recommendations to strengthen communication and to standardize the business processes filling those those vacancies and enhancing the the staffing models within planning and zoning and then of course on the technology side maximizing the

[04:16:50] capabilities within Landmark. So the process recommendations have three main goals. Number one, we want to accelerate the timeline. Number two is we want to standardize and optimize. And number three is we want to improve the staff report. And so I've grouped the various recommendations on this slide under those three titles. I do want to say that we have in the main report that has been provided to the board.

[04:17:28] There is a detailed plan that has, in fact, the steps that one would go through to implement each of these recommendations, sort of the actions needed. But I'll address them each at a high level right now.

[04:17:45] First of all, is to implement an internal procedure for planning zoning to review applications with board members and applicants. the idea there is that at first at some point at first at the first review that the the the the relevant the board member whose district the project is in the applicant the land use applicant and the and planning zoning need to come together and have a common understanding of what the

[04:18:19] intentions of this development are so that we limit the numbers of times that we have to go back and revisit issues through this iterative process and if that understanding is is is gained up front hopefully um that one it will it will it will limit those things especially you know late late reviews of proffers um we also think that that's an in-person meeting i think that's going to be that's going to be very important it's gonna be a common theme throughout what i'm saying is that we need to be getting together in person more one of the unfortunate outgrowths of of

[04:18:57] covid has been the lack of face-to-face meetings and i think that that's going to cut through a lot of this number two is required in-person applicant review team meeting this is an internal meeting at pre-app first of all where the the folks that are on the planning and zoning side and the related referral agencies actually get together in a room at pre-app um and and and and review the the application the the information coming in from the developer and then we have a second

[04:19:32] meeting at first referral that's in person and at that meeting the developers in the room also so that we need so that we can um ensure that if as they have all the information for a second review um that that everybody's on the common page so that we don't end up with second third fourth and fifth you know one of the things we heard from the development community is oftentimes at that first submission they don't have really enough information yet to really be complete and well that's that's kind of well understood but i think that the more um that we're meeting

[04:20:07] face-to-face, the shorter the time can be between that initial meeting and the subsequent referral because we have a common understanding of what has to be done then. They can very quickly turn that around. Next is a modification of the proffer management process and what that really calls for is an earlier review of proffers right now the the

[04:20:41] proffer is not does not undergo legal review until um it before it comes to the commission our recommendation is to accelerate that up to the second referral um and rather than waiting all the way until before it it comes to the uh to the board that way if there is any any issues at the legal on the legal side that can be uh rectified up front additionally that's going to require probably more staff not only on the planning and zoning side but we've also recommended an additional

[04:21:19] attorney to help the county attorney's office on those refer on those reviews the next is the shortening of the initial referral timeline to 25 business days that's actually consistent with what you wrote into the zoning ordinance it's already there one of the issues that you you really run into though is that when things have to go to the state level say vdot needs to review a project those can take longer and typically 45 days is about the standard turnaround time there but that doesn't mean that everything else can't be chugging along right we

[04:21:57] We don't need to then wait for 45 days for everything else. Let's go ahead and continue all those other things through the process, because potentially you can get through iteration two of everything else before VDOT even gets back to you with their first review.

[04:22:14] And if what comes through on the second iteration isn't going to meaningfully impact what VDOT reviewed, then if that has to go back to VDOT, then the communication needs to go along with like this doesn't impact you i know that you need to review it because you have to review it but you know move this to the top of the stack so that you can you know not wait another 45 days to get around to it this is this is an easy button review for you so that that kind of communication has to take place with vdot so they're not just putting something at the bottom of the pile

[04:22:50] letting it run its next 45 day course and then something that could have taken 25 days has taken 90 okay escalating the application review period for the planning commission agenda this is something i mentioned earlier right now you know things can be six seven eight sometimes iterations if it's if it's gone three iterations it needs to go to the planning commission and then as part of that it doesn't just go to the planning commission it should go with a recommended set of here's what you need to do here's what here's what staff this is staff's recommendation to uh reconcile

[04:23:30] whatever the problem is kind of one of the the sample issues is let's say there's a disconnect between on the environmental side with say tree canopy and on the transportation side would say surface parking and uh they're sort of in conflict with one another and so we end up in a referral loop over whether or not we need to add more surface parking or add more tree canopy right well somebody needs to reconcile that and we don't need to be sending that referral referral referral we need to be bringing that to the planning commission and say here's what we think we ought to do we know we have an inconsistency here here's our recommended

[04:24:05] approach let's move this all move this along um okay moving on to standardizing processes the referral agencies right now are not being notified about the land use applications in a a uniform manner. And part of that is because of the fact that the external referral agencies are not in your active directory. And so you can't give them access to landmark in the same

[04:24:40] way that your staff, I mean, there's the external facing piece of landmark that the whole world has access to through your website. But as far as actually being able to workflow something within the system, they can't receive a workflow with a land use application. So planning and zoning ends up sending them an email with all of the information that they need to be able to do their review, which is inefficient, emails get lost, things happen, right? But if you have all of that within the system and you're work flowing it to them, that solves the problem. And it is possible to to give them access to your Active Directory.

[04:25:19] And so setting up that process I think will be helpful. In the meantime, there can be other solutions of setting up common folders to house information. Optimizing the acceptance checklist for consistency.

[04:25:36] This is something that Dan's team has already taken a lead on and has started to fix. And I think that they've largely implemented this change already. Standardizing landmark files, the naming conventions.

[04:25:53] This is one of those ones that sounds easy, but it's always hard because people in different organizations want to name things differently for a variety of reasons, right? And everybody has a reason why they want to do certain things. In a previous project, I was working with someone to standardize appropriation codes in their accounting system, and it was a six-month exercise to just standardize that coding.

[04:26:16] So this is a helpful thing, but I'm not suggesting it's going to be an easy thing. Next, a preferred vendor checklist for, preferred vendor list for traffic counts.

[04:26:33] This isn't really the full study, it's just the data counting and the inputs. And next, moving on to the staff report, we don't think it's necessary to have of the historical comments in the staff report those can be archived somewhere and accessed if needed but it's a whole lot of paper that gets sent to you that you probably don't need so the most recent versions are what we're recommending but the the big change to the to the staff report is the implementation of a an assessment scorecard and that scorecard

[04:27:13] there's a there's a lot of of of um i know that um chair randall mentioned the scorecard earlier and it this is something that is done quite commonly um across the country in in various jurisdictions it's used um in cities it's used by transit authorities it's used by by lots of different organizations but really what it does is it creates a means of of more holistically viewing a land use application than whether or not it complies with a comprehensive plan.

[04:27:48] That's important. It needs to be a component of the scorecard, and we definitely want to evaluate the compliance with a comprehensive plan, but there's a lot more that needs to be considered. What are the economic impacts? What are the budgetary impacts? And not just the capital intensity factor impacts, but if you make a capital investment, are the operating budget implications of that new capital investment? Does it mean that you need additional headcount at your transportation authority, public works? Do you need additional headcount in fire and rescue? And what are those operating expenditures actually going to look like

[04:28:27] as a result of the investment? And so we think that a more comprehensive scorecard approach would is is something that would be incredibly helpful to you as board members to making the policy decisions that you need to make this the slide that I just put up now is a overall process view where we map at a high level that from from pre-app to planning commission approval and board

[04:29:02] of supervisor approval and where each of the recommendations that I just mentioned fall into this, into the process. It's, it's, you know, the 30,000 foot view of it. There's a lot of detail behind it. I have additional very detailed process maps that are in the, in the full presentation and you can read those at your leisure. So I'm going to go ahead and take just real quickly because i know we're getting close to having to wrap up here so when it comes to the

[04:29:38] the people you know side we have recommended increasing the staff by six positions i know dan's going to talk about staffing here you know once we're through as well but you know first of all we got to fill those vacant positions absolutely needed to to really refine and to go and recruit the positions that you know are needed we feel it's real important to add this position in the county attorney's office to really help in moving through the proper management to review the applications, especially since we're saying involve them up front. It's going to put an increased workload on their staff as well. We have recommended the hire of an additional

[04:30:16] assistant director position to give added support to the director to better provide that quality control and oversight. Those are kind of some of the key positions. Some policy recommendations in there, especially as it relates to use of comp time to make sure that the department's following the countywide standards.

[04:30:37] For the sake of time, I'm not going to get into training. We've talked about it a little bit ago, but a real need to do not only training for the planning staff, but also training for the development community, as well as other members of the county staff as it relates to landmark, as well as what are your procedures.

[04:30:55] And then finally, increasing the communication and collaboration. know, better working some of the people issues, whether it's, you know, working with the referral agencies or even with county HR to better work through the application process. So, the next couple pages just kind of provides an overview of those positions, but I know Dan's going to be talking about those in a few minutes. The last piece then really deals with the technology, and I think Hans has covered most of this already, but, you know, first of all, we're saying you got to maximize that investment you've made in Landmark and utilize it to its full capabilities.

[04:31:31] We saw that there's areas that you're not utilizing in the functionality where we could. We spent a lot of time with Landmark as well, talking to them about their system and how it could be potentially enhanced as it relates to the planning and zoning side and enhancements that are needed.

[04:31:48] Secondly, what we recommended is maybe taking, I call it a fit gap review, or taking a look at how you're utilizing the system and to make sure all the data was transferred, data was converted properly. Because we heard a lot of that, that, well, in the old system, we lost that in conversion.

[04:32:07] So taking a look at this post-go live review, we think is really important as well. And then secondly, taking a look at technology, because we saw in a lot of places, and I can tell you, we have copies of worksheets where people are keeping Excel worksheets or manual records.

[04:32:25] They're not utilizing the system the way it should, and that's what we're saying, doing this fit gap or post gap review. So I'm kind of closing this out. The last thing I want to talk about is next steps. We think it's very important that as the county moves forward with these recommendations that, you know, that you do kind of do what we call the next step.

[04:32:50] As Hans said, there's 33 recommendations with action items. The next thing that needs to occur is there needs to be developed work teams to discuss those. There needs to be further discussions with you as a governing body as it relates to what these mean from a policy perspective.

[04:33:06] if any of these impact policy, as well as a better understanding of what they will mean from a procedure perspective as well. We think that a more detailed work plan, getting the buy-in, having the planning and zoning staff involving the other departments, as well as the referral agencies, and that is absolutely essential.

[04:33:26] Then finally, change management. In order for the county to be successful in making these changes, you're going to really need to have a strong change management plan. Change management is communication, training, as well as monitoring the process.

[04:33:42] I think the deputy administrator said it in his staff reports, the fact that, you know, there has to be some accountability back to this. We've recommended a dashboard that's reported back to the Board of Supervisors here as it relates to the progress, not only to you, but also to the remaining stakeholders.

[04:34:00] You know, secondly, this is not a six-month implementation. In our minds, this is a year to 18 months or maybe as long as 24 months to implement everything that we have recommended to you. So that's why that detailed implementation, getting the buy-in, making sure everyone understands what we've presented here, but then putting together the accountability plan to move this forward.

[04:34:27] I know we've, I think we've exhausted our time here. We've really appreciated the opportunity to address you this evening. Like the Deputy Administrator said, we are happy to spend additional time with you as well to go over the other specific recommendations in more detail.

[04:34:47] Thank you for your time this evening. Well, thank you. That was really very, very, very helpful. Before I go to colleagues for questions, Dan, did you have anything you want to say, add thoughts, anything first? So a couple things to touch on what Nancy said from a staffing standpoint.

[04:35:04] And at least in our preliminary requests that we've submitted to Mr. Hemstreet, we've included 10 positions. Not all five of those that are shown here are part of that. Three of them are a training manager. We completely agree that there needs to be training throughout the organization. A position devoted to that would be extremely helpful.

[04:35:21] They also identified two profit management planners, which we completely support, was already in our separate request we were developing anyway. But we're requesting two positions in zoning administration, two in land use review, one in community planning, one in the customer service center, and then in addition to that, an HR generalist, or we'll get whatever the last term is most appropriate, but someone that can help take some of the HR workload off of my director team to allow us to better focus on this and other matters.

[04:35:54] generally overall, I would just say I support a lot of the recommendations here. There are some that I, there's a minor amount that I don't fully support. There are a number I think that there's a lot of details to work through. This is going to be, and I think Director Smith will say this similar whenever she's here in January, it's a lot of things to potentially change all at once.

[04:36:18] And so I think a year, 18 months, two years could be optimistic depending on the level of some of we're talking about really and i think well and partly because as uh mr krobus staff report stated a lot of it goes back to budgetary issues the things landmark are going to take not just time but likely a significant money to work on some of those um so we can maybe get started but i don't think we're going to bring everything to fruition in in that time frame depending on what we end up with is agreeing what we should work on so we got to the end of this term to fix it all right supervisors um we may need more than one round because this was this was that was very well done

[04:36:54] i really do appreciate it um learned a lot concerned about a lot more but i appreciate it supervisor if you have questions ms um stop thank you madam chair um first thank you uh to the team for putting this together um second while i was listening to it i was thinking i don't know what dan's thinking because this just sounds overwhelming and the same for betsy i i don't know

[04:37:25] how we we pull people into more meetings than they're already attending how we get them in person um when if they're if they're meeting remotely that's probably because that is the easiest for staff from a time commitment so I'm not surprised that planning and zoning and maybe building and development need more people I I can't

[04:38:00] imagine how you would accomplish any of this without a significant increase in people I want to thank both departments especially for trying to do a top-notch notch job without the resources you clearly need I was very concerned by that word cloud with how overwhelmed the staff feels by what it's being asked to

[04:38:34] do already and what we would then be asking them to do in implementing these recommendations would be to do their normal work level and then on top of that um try to implement this i i just see it potentially as overwhelming i tend to think dan is right even 24 months might be optimistic um in in getting everything through but um i think that's all i've got now but um

[04:39:08] first i'm sorry that your staff and you guys are having to go through all this um and you've been real troopers and i'm amazed you're still here and please stay here we need you thank you you know i was remiss betsy i should have asked you did you have any comments as well i'm sorry i didn't um no problem thank you madam chair really i think i'll save most of my comments for the january meeting when um uh ms zelke and actually another representative of alvarez and marsal i

[04:39:44] assume will be presenting to um the board building developments items but i did want to take the opportunity to talk about the positions because by the end of january i think we'll be much further into the budget process and and it would be valuable for me to share um similarly to dan the report recommended four new positions for building and development one was the rural community ombudsman and it wasn't necessarily that i didn't agree with that it just really hadn't peaked to that priority level yet and i think there were a lot of details to work out

[04:40:19] about whether two were required or just one where they best landed what what opportunities did economic development have they have a rural program with ombudsman as well so instead of hurrying a position we thought that would be better to wait and reconsider for next year I similarly to Dan felt that a training coordinator is one of my top priorities we had in building and development just before I took over for Alan had made a request I don't think it was comprehensive enough

[04:40:56] to address really all the factors that were needed for that position so we've kind of recombined that and that is in the 11 positions that I requested but that's kind of cheating because four of them are converting the temporary permit the you you were kind enough to provide nine temporary positions for me with landmark we are hoping to convert four of them to permanent positions one we'd like to keep on as a temporary for another year because we're really not sure and then four of them would be amended at the end of the fiscal year

[04:41:33] that we just don't need all eight now that we're stabilizing or all nine so we also thought that with those four positions a supervisor was kind of important to add because as you grow a staff like that if you don't add the supervisory responsibilities then the leadership piece in the development is is missing.

[04:41:56] Another recommendation was a front desk position for our land development side. And what we realized was that we have that position, Amy Larrick, she just has not been able to perform those duties because she has been so encumbered with FOIA requests and Lex requests and records management.

[04:42:17] So I'm asking for a FOIA records person to take those duties from Amy so that she can actually do the job that she was hired to do in building and development, and then as the report indicated the customer service representative, which is those temporary to permanent positions.

[04:42:36] So we generally followed, added a couple of additional pieces. We're looking for a couple of folks in our engineering staff to take on that administrative process at the end. Right now our project managers who are dealing with those complex projects and trying to managed fast track and expedited and complex and data center reviews and this would take over once the plans are conditionally approved these two new staff members at entry-level engineering positions would handle the bonding process the easement process helping get to building permit

[04:43:13] reviews and really help that that portion of industry get from conditional approval to building permit which is what they really want the site plan approval is great but they really want to start building um and then lastly um an administrative manager and our administrative division to kind of help as i call it heard the cats of all the different components of the recruiting process and uh interview questions i have several divisions within my department that don't have any administrative support okay thank you very much thank you um mr kirchner thank you

[04:43:50] you madam chair and thank you to everyone who's here thank you for the tremendous work that's done i know it's a lot put in it um i think obviously one of the objectives here is to make our the job for our building development and zoning as in other aspects and referral organizations as seamless as we possibly can and that's kind of this process so i i don't think i although i think some of this was pretty hard hitting it was in some places and other places it was like ouch I think it's hopefully very helpful and will hopefully streamline going into the future.

[04:44:24] They're just kind of three observations that I just point out, and I know you kind of talked about them, but I will reiterate that I'm even sitting here hearing from various applicants, yeah, they hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what's going on, et cetera, et cetera. And so the three that kind of jumped out at me were obviously the communications.

[04:44:41] I am curious where, and maybe I can ask these questions or you can answer them. I want to get through my three questions. I know, obviously, COVID resulted in us being much more online, having those communications through there. It sounds like the consultant is suggesting that more of those meetings should happen in person.

[04:45:01] Has that been an issue with the applicants more, that they want to continue to do this online with our staff? Is it just kind of this is the way we've been doing it since COVID, and so nothing's gone back? That would be my first question. The second, and I'll just hold that for a second. The second one, and I've always thought this was something that perhaps our planning commission is a bit underutilized, and I agree that when we get to three reiterations and there's something that needs to move along, let's put our planning commission to work.

[04:45:34] I know I've had several of my planning commissioners I've met with. It's like, you know, this stuff gets to us. It's gone through nine reiterations, and we probably could have solved this a lot faster. So I do believe in terms of at least the planning commission feels that way, And they've certainly shared that with me, that in terms of trying to move that process along, might be a little bit of extra work for them.

[04:45:52] But obviously staff has a position, applicant has a position, kind of hash it out and get it moving along its way. And then the third question I really have, or third comment and a question with it is, you talked a lot about the technical issues that we need to improve to try to get along this process.

[04:46:11] Are we talking about changing our landmark system? we just or is there a lot more to the landmark system that is just not being utilized I mean I in my own law firm smaller law firm 15 lawyers you know 40 some staff or whatever we've gone through three iterations of a database in the last four years and it is hell I will tell you that right up front so if we're really thinking about that or is it just more of hey we need more time to train on this to get our folks trained on it and so those are kind of my thoughts and questions to kind of go along with it okay so i'll do the easy one first and i'll let hans do the hard ones

[04:46:48] good perfect um you know first on the technology you know we're not saying replace landmark you know landmark is a very good system what we're saying is we see areas for improvement we see areas where you're not using functionality um to the extent you could be using we we know we've also have seen where your training has not been properly done in some cases so it's enhanced training taking a look at the functionality to make sure you're utilizing it and making and then finally reporting there's enhanced reporting that you know that's available the fact that the system

[04:47:23] came with 70 and they you know they call them reports but it's basically inputs that they provide back that's not meeting your needs it's not meeting the staff's needs so take a look at whether you know the whether enhancements are needed because you're still doing things manually somebody should not be sitting you know having to to track things manually versus using the the functionality that's in the system so that's what we're saying that needs to be done in that area you have the power within the system is what our miners maybe dan can answer that question

[04:48:01] i think you do largely have i'm sorry i i do think you largely have the power within the system to do the things that you need to do it's just you know like with any large technology implementation you have limited time you have limited budget and you have to fit your scope of work into that into those constraints and so you're you're delivering optimally on what you could at the time given what you had um so now you know this is a it's a little bit of monday morning quarterbacking right i mean we're saying okay well you know you could have done this or that

[04:48:36] differently. And that's okay. And so now these recommendations are saying, hey, you can better utilize the workflow functionality and landmark by getting these external agencies into your Active Directory. You can improve your reporting capacity by putting in those things that weren't initially in your first scope of work, right? So that's really what we're saying. You have the right, you have a good tool. It's just, it's a suboptimal deployment, but that's fairly common.

[04:49:10] Next is the, you mentioned the COVID and whether or not, you know, yeah, I think that, and this is not just a Loudoun County land use problem, right? I mean, we see this, it's very common in government right now, and even in private industry, right, where processes have been a little bit bogged down by the fact that people aren't coming face to face and having conversations that can cut through complexities much faster than they seem to be able to on a Teams meeting, for example.

[04:49:47] And so part of what we're recommending is to do that. There is definitely friction with that recommendation. We recognize that, right? That asking people to be on site for these meetings is a complexity to people's lives, right?

[04:50:04] People have kids, for example, they need to get to school. They've got other things that are going on, and it is an added complexity. But also, the hope would be that by doing it, you're going to have actually fewer meetings because you're going to come together, have these conversations face-to-face, work through the problems, and then in the long run, hopefully meet less than you initially were.

[04:50:31] I mean, we heard that from, you know, the development community specifically, you know, supervisor, the desire for the in-person meetings. Because if you're sitting at the same table, looking at each other, you're going to have that collaboration and enhanced, you know, cooperation.

[04:50:51] And then issues will be identified and discussed up front. And we heard that, and we've seen it as well. if you're trying to do that over a teams or a zoom call half the time somebody's not on the screen and it's very difficult to come to consensus when you're not you know in a room together collectively so is it a popular recommendation you know probably not but we really feel in order to move that pre-application process quicker to give the better direction back to the developer you know of what needs to go into that that application it's going to you know help that

[04:51:30] first review uh if there's that you know initial dialogue supervisor to crony oh thank you thank you uh vice chair brissman so i want to re um associate myself with uh what supervisor umstead said um i do i thank you for this report i look forward to reading it maybe over break um during my time off, right? But I am kind of worried about staff. I do think the overworked kind of

[04:52:04] rings out to me, and this is a lot to take in. You know, I got to say, I prefer virtual meetings over face-to-face, and I do think they require a lot more time to put together a face-to-face meeting.

[04:52:22] and you know staff is is under under resourced right now so i i do um i do have concerns about all this but um there are things i wanted to ask i i really believe that um you know linear and siloed what i see in here linear and siloed the communication has to be improved and even to even to the board like i would love to be a part of the process but i know we have this communication protocol that kind of prevents me from getting in the process earlier and I would

[04:52:56] really I really think we need to improve our communication top down bottom up we need to be less bureaucratic and more as a team to help so that these things can go a little bit more efficient. I do think the proffer, I like the idea of having the county attorney's office have an early review of proffers. There are cases where I hear the county attorney's office is

[04:53:29] looking at a proffer statement in a day. That's not acceptable. That is our legal document and they need more time. I know Mr. Crowboth, you mentioned that our procedure or some policy that we have gives two weeks, and that is reasonable for the county attorney to look at a proper statement. That is our legal document. We've got to get that right. So I don't want to shortchange that process, and I agree if the county attorney's office can be involved up front, that would be very helpful. Two other ideas that I have is some applications should

[04:54:06] go back to the planning commission. I find that some applications just aren't of the quality, and they need to go back to the Planning Commission for more review, so I do think that should be something that we consider, and then also I do think back in the day when Chair Randall first took office, a lot of applications used to go to TLUC as kind of a work session, kind of like the way the Planning Commission has a work session, and so I'd like to see some applications that are complicated, that require changes, that have issues, maybe

[04:54:46] go to TLUC for like a work session. So anyway, these are just ideas. I don't know that they're questions, but they're ideas. Supervisor Tacroni, thank you. Did you have any response to any of that? Supervisor Tacroni, one item I wanted to mention is a recommendation that I didn't cover in my summary, and that is something we're calling the creation of a development review committee. And that development review committee would essentially do exactly what you're talking about. And they would be involved not only in the legislative land use process, both

[04:55:24] at the initial application and prior to going to the planning commission at two separate stages of review, but also throughout the administrative process as well, and for the permitting etc and and in the next presentation on the 22nd i believe it is of january that will be covered in detail supervisor letourneau thank you um this is really fantastic uh i think this is ultimately going to be a really important effort for us so thank you for all this um kind of a couple of just sort of quick hitting things um the virtual versus in-person discussion is interesting i don't think we should get too bogged down on that but i will say they're trade-offs because if you want an in-person meeting it might take a lot longer to get the meeting

[04:56:04] and then that's going to bog down the process and so you know i don't i don't know we should be so clinging to that as much as the other stuff you said which is you know actually communicating and getting to the point and understanding where everybody's coming from that said sometimes consensus just can't exist because there are some applicants or applications that are simply way off of the comprehensive plan and my experience up here sometimes we get frustrated with staff because they're pointing out that, well, something's inconsistent with the comp plan, which is their job to do, I don't know how quite you get past that because we do have an attitude here.

[04:56:42] And I think obviously we want to improve the process, but there are some applications that are simply not improvable, and those are sort of clogging things. So I don't know if I think Supervisor Courtney was going to be getting to that a little bit, but I think that's worth saying. I don't know how you separate that, if you have any thoughts on that.

[04:56:58] And I was going to ask sort of a side question to that is, How many of these applications never actually proceed past an initial meeting or a first round of referral or something like that? How many of those are like sort of clogging up the system, so to speak, for those that maybe have more promise?

[04:57:17] And you probably can't answer that on the spot. But I just wonder if that is an issue at all. And if we were able to kind of screen those out better, if that might free up some people's time so they're not spending a ton of time. Because if you have one application and it comes in and it's way off, think of all the amount of time it's going to spend just to do a single referral on that if something's just way out of, out of, out of bounce.

[04:57:42] And, you know, Mr. Capretti said earlier, industry sometimes has to do a better job. That could be what we're talking about. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Supervisor Letourneau, I don't have data on what I'll call the debt applications. It's something that we can get for you. but you know and maybe um dan would potentially have a little bit of information on that i don't know if he can provide insight on the fly i don't have that data um that's okay i wanted to get to one other quick thing which is the um one thing that we hear a lot of is just applicants who have to hunt down their applications and can't figure out where it is and i think that's where

[04:58:18] this ons budsman kind of gets to this and i don't know if we're just not utilizing it so can we do a better job being clear and direct when someone of this is how you track it this is who you talk to if you have questions or if you have one issue you're trying to stuck on is that part of kind of what we can fix here um supervisor absolutely correct what we're saying is you know even creating a better dashboard um so everyone can see where an application is at you know in a process when we talk building development on the 21st you're going to hear a lot from us on that

[04:58:55] mean you know even understanding when something's been approved but even on the come back to the plenty and zoning side a better way so the applicant can see you know where's this out in the review process the functionality is there okay it's out there people just are not aware how to get to it and then secondly if if there's a way your external reviewers those referral agencies can have access so vdot leesburg water you know your school system and any other outside reviewers there's a way they could get access to your shared database that's gonna it's gonna help

[04:59:33] this process significantly thank you uh supervisor turner thank you very much uh if i repeat anything that's been said i apologize that was a really important phone call i had to take but first of all fantastic work this is just great i really really appreciate it i mean that this is really terrific. It's 132 recommendations. So I want to agree and respectfully disagree with Supervisor Umstadt on two things he said. Number one, I think if we do this correctly, the number of meetings will go way down. It will reduce the number of meetings a lot. And then, so

[05:00:10] that's the thing I disagree with, but I agree with the fact that you guys are already way overworked. How in the heck are we going to implement 132 recommendations based on the fact that you already overworked and overworked was the number one word in the word cloud.

[05:00:25] I really think we need to pull out the stops and innovatively come up with a way to have a hired team charged with implementing this, these 132 recommendations to work with you to implement these recommendations so that you do minimal amount of work and this hired team, call it an implementation ombudsman team to figure out a way to kind of run the gamut and do the the the grunt work of implementing these 132 recommendations the unmet housing needs strategic plan presents us on their quarterly updates i had suggested they do this with tluck

[05:01:01] put it into a matrix and give me color-coded progress red yellow and green that sounds really stupid but i can look at 300 items that they have on their regular report scan through and just look at the red and yellow items it's way easier if you got 132 punch list okay it's 132 punch list but i think you can we've got to figure out a way to measure progress as we go for the board i i have felt this for the last five years i still feel it if we have vacancies for existing fte slots in dpz and bnd we're not paying them enough i know that's controversial and there may

[05:01:39] be staff and and everybody may disagree with me but this has been going on for years now we should not have vacancies these are critical functions in critical directorships in our county and it's incumbent upon us, the board. And I think this is where we need to discard the 95 to 105% comparator pay range for these positions.

[05:01:59] I think we need to stretch outside the box in this budget process and really start looking at a significantly different pay scale range because I think Loudoun County's growth issues for years have been paramount and significantly higher than our comparators. And I think we need to really look at paying them more.

[05:02:16] And we need to hire on. I mean, you guys, as far as I'm concerned, top priority again this year in the budgeting process you ought to get everything you ask for this is these two functions are just way way too critical um i think if anything illustrates why it's so important not to update your comprehensive plan once every 18 years it's this process right here a lot of this has been bred out of a massive change with the cpm and then the massive change in the zoning ordinance that had to match it so thank you supervisor turner you've been out of

[05:02:52] time for a while i'm halfway through my life thank you very much i appreciate it we did say that maybe two rounds but um we have been on this item for a while um so uh i think i think we're on me now um so as i understand it this is just dpz and you're coming back in january with a work plan And then we're going to do B&D with another similar study.

[05:03:21] If I may interject, we're coming back in January with a similar type presentation on the administrative process, which is essentially building and development. Oh, okay. Okay, great. All right. I see what you're saying. This is just growing pains of an organization that just had to grow way faster than it was built to take on the things it had to take on.

[05:03:48] In your opinion, we have three categories or three strategies. Would you say that we should do one strategy first, and how would you prioritize that? Or would you say, we want to do the low-hanging fruit in all three strategies, and then the mid-hanging fruit in all three strategies?

[05:04:11] So that's one question. How would you prioritize it? Maybe that will come in the work plan. I'm assuming there will be a work plan after this. The referral loop, I love that term because I have had several applicants in a referral loop.

[05:04:30] that has been very frustrating and they were begging just to meet in person so i think in person meetings are a really good idea not every single meeting not you know to the point that it you know annoys everyone to no end but they have been begging can we just have an in-person meeting these are some you know we're when when it's just paper going back and forth you miss a lot You miss a lot, and then things are interpreted differently on either side.

[05:05:01] I'm surprised that we don't already have an established partner, preferred vendor for traffic studies. I like that recommendation. I would like to know, it says shorten the initial referral timeline. Not sure what the timeline is now.

[05:05:18] And then one other question, there was something in the findings that said what can maybe slow down the process is a project manager is just selected based on, like, who has time and not necessarily if they're an expert in that category or if it's a geographic area that they would specialize in.

[05:05:39] But I didn't see a recommendation to sort of assign project managers based on their expertise in certain categories or their geographic expertise. So do you think that that would be something that should be recommended?

[05:05:57] So those were my questions. Madam Chairman and Supervisor Riskman, a few of those questions. First of all, we have prioritized the recommendations, and we would not recommend you do strategy three first, then strategy two, then strategy one.

[05:06:18] They're all interrelated. So one of the things that within the report you will see, and we worked with Dan and Betsy on this, we went through the recommendations with them, and we prioritize them already for you in those three strategy areas.

[05:06:35] And we prioritize them as it relates to the impact and the level of effort they would have in your organization. But at the same time, even though these are priorities, they're interdependent on one another as well.

[05:06:50] So that's why I think it's important the next step is to go through the recommendations and take a look at the actions that we've said for these. And then to begin to develop what are those key areas. there is some quick wins in here but at the same time there are some items are going to take some time you know to implement as well your question on the traffic consultants the recommendation in fact that's why there is a an addendum uh report that i believe was in your supplemental packet today the original report on november the 6th talked about a preferred list for traffic

[05:07:30] consultants that was an error what we were saying is it was a preferred vendors list for traffic counts. Right. It's the data collection that inputs into the studies. And it is my understanding that there's only a few vendors that provide this service within Loudoun County. And so it's just a matter of going through and ensuring that the methods, much like you would do with, say, an RFP, that they're using the methods that are approved by the county. They get on the preferred vendor

[05:08:03] list. And then the developers could then contract them to do the counts rather than the county contracting them to do the counts. Thank you, Commissioner Bricksman. So there's a saying, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? I think that's what we're going to be doing.

[05:08:23] We have to do it. It's not like we can't do it because otherwise we're going to be three years down the road and the same issue is going to present itself to us. So it's not a if we will or won't, it's how we're going to implement this and what are we going to do to get there.

[05:08:40] I'm going to respectfully disagree with my friend and colleague, Mr. Turner. We obviously want to pay our employees well because they're amazing, but if we start paying one department well over what we pay, the range we pay everybody, that's just not going to go over well with everybody else.

[05:08:56] I think the goal really is to get enough people in the department, not to maybe pay, you know, we want them at the top end, but we don't, but you're going to start getting every department because all of our employees are incredible and work really hard.

[05:09:12] And so I don't think that's the answer. I think there are two things that we maybe haven't discussed as much, and one is the industry policing itself to some degree. I did hear about, you know, a lot of applications that come in, and they're just kind of not -- they're not ready for prime time.

[05:09:27] Which if the staff is trying to get them ready for prime time, that is really very, very time consuming and takes more effort. And with the scoring system, you know, if somebody gets a one or a two out of ten, that just gets thrown out right away. We're not going to try to get you to an eight, nine, ten.

[05:09:44] You just go back, go back, just toss it. I think that's the industry police in itself. Everything we haven't discussed is us. I think we should put that word cloud in front of us, you know, how the staff feels and whenever we start to add stuff or whenever we start to bring things to the dais or whenever we ask Leo to check something out and get the proffers done within the next five hours and that happens, maybe that can't happen anymore.

[05:10:11] Maybe some of the policing is self-policing and how we're doing that because when one office is asking for one thing, it's just one office and it's just one small thing. But if three offices are asking for something, that's a little different and it feels different and it feels heavier.

[05:10:28] And so I think we have to remember, the same staff's doing all of it, even if it's just your office. So I do think Mr. Turner is right in that, you know, we have to implement it, but then the question becomes in all, and obviously, you know, the stages, but in all these stages, like how to do it, how to do it so that we're not putting more on the staff to make things better for them in three years.

[05:10:53] right? We don't want to do that. Like, it's tough today. It's like if you just live through the next three years, there's going to be hardship and drudgery three years from now. It's going to be great. Just hold on for a little while. That can happen. And so we do have to figure out how to get where we want to go. But I don't think it's any question at all that we have to start working on how to get there. So these were, this was really helpful. I do look forward to the second part of discussion and this was it was an excellent excellent report thank you um do you do you need a sec a second round okay i'm gonna i'm gonna uh let i'm gonna give a little professional

[05:11:32] courtesy to the t-luck chair who was mr turner and anyone else who needs a second round mr turner but i'm gonna hold you close to the clock i'm very appreciate it thank you very much really quickly i'm surprised how much this sounds like the expedited review that we just meeting we just had with the developers and with staff and I'm thinking to myself they were already answering these questions in these surveys which shaded the discussion we had with the developers and staff you were already thinking along those lines but it's a lot of the same stuff which jumps me right to supervisors get involved early in the process that's when we do the horse trading up

[05:12:09] front not at the back end when this first coming to the board and so that's if we get the supervisors involved in the process early on I think that's a tremendous recommendation and I strongly recommend that first meeting not enough info and I want to say it was was that V dot that sometimes we go to V dot and we don't have all the all the information that they need to be able to make an assessment so we have to go back in a second round without being pejorative and I truly do not mean to it because they got a much bigger portfolio than we do if V dot and I think that's probably one of the slowest

[05:12:45] us referrals i'm just i'm guessing as a layman and subjectively if that's true is there some way we can plan the vdot referral so it's the goal is a one-time referral and move it later in the process so we have the transportation aspects of the application kind of nailed down before we go to vdot because the second or third loop with vdot would seem to me to really slow the process down really quick let me get these out and then let you respond um and i think that's it how they do you did really well um my only question is to uh dan betty for what we were

[05:13:21] discussing earlier is there any any thoughts or anything like that because we were talking about um so you know whether or not we would have more housing types do you have any thoughts of about what we would need to do to i mean like a comp plan or just what the comp plan is it speaks right now to where housing should go and shouldn't go and you know you know we're not putting it in the rural policy area and that type of thing because we're about to go back to that item in just a second and I didn't really hear anything that what will influence that item or impact that I'm do you guys have any thoughts about what we were talking about earlier so I thought your summary

[05:14:01] at the end was correct that the the intention of the middle missing middle term is the range of things from a single-family home all the way to your standard department complex. There's a range of things that used to get built in this country that most commonly don't get built now. But the reasoning for that, a lot of it goes back to the cost of that housing. So we have already calibrated to some degree the plan and at least the new districts in the zoning ordinance, not a lot of the legacy districts that are still what are regulating areas of the county that already have approved rezonings and things. So we have done

[05:14:35] that but it'll be a relatively slow process as things change over time and for a lot of for your ashburns and your countrysides and big things that aren't going to get wholesale redevelopment you're really not going to see that occur in those locations also partly because anything that's got an HOA has just as much control over what they allow within there as we do so we can enable it and we have a lot of places but that doesn't mean that somebody's going to take advantage of it so then some of that language is just repetitive and not needed I mean so you don't need to say like we're allowed because we because it's there already I think unless there are targeted areas that the board wants

[05:15:12] to identify those changes I don't know that it's really necessary okay we have done a lot of it a lot of it just gets down to implementation and how can we actually that's what I thought too and would you encourage us to not name specific housing types versus saying like a diversity of housing types that That or just the missing middle term by itself would be, I think, fine, at least from my staff standpoint.

[05:15:34] Okay, just the missing middle term, because that means all of that is in the middle between a single-family home and apartment. All of that in the middle is missing middle. Unless you were trying to consciously limit it, and maybe that's why you listed those two things. But, I mean, it's just a board decision on level of specificity versus not. For me, just saying, encouraging that with missing middle in general is sufficient for me.

[05:15:55] Wonderful, wonderful. Well, this was really helpful. Thank you very much. This is not an action item, but my gosh, this was fantastic, and we look forward to hearing the second part. Thank you so much. Yeah, me too.

[05:16:12] Supervisors, let's go back to, per the motion, let's go back to the, okay, I'm tired now. Thank you, thank you for saving me.

[05:16:27] Let's go back to item three. Sheesh, it was not coming out. Go back to item three. Okay, when last we met, there was a motion on the table for Mr. Letourneau that have been seconded by Miss, I think Mr. Crony has seconded that motion, and we tabled that motion. Can I make a new motion there? Well, we have to, you absolutely can, but let's withdraw the last one. So it was already discussed. Well, table doesn't mean, table means

[05:17:02] table. Let's just say that mentioned withdrawal, and you're going to make a new motion now. Sure. Let me withdraw that. I was working with Mr. Sainz just to, more frankly, to try to refine the language kind of combine the two and make it a little bit more elegant so the new motion would be to explore initiatives to encourage a diversity of housing types that expand our attainable housing inventory oh wow well that's nice i think mr sounds pains a second in that because they work together on it so mr sayings didn't say second but he's going to second that okay okay okay all

[05:17:41] All right, we'd like to have an opening on that. Yeah, so I think what we were trying to do is get to a little bit of what Mr. Galindo just said, and, but make this broad enough. I mean, we just heard from staff that they kind of know what the mission is here and that they're trying to implement it as it is.

[05:17:59] So I don't think we need, in the strategic plan, a super specific, area specific. And then I know we talked about missing metal. I think you all know that that terminology, just had some debate about what it means we also know the connotations in arlington a legal challenge related to that terminology so i just don't see the need to use those words in the strategic plan i think there is an understanding amongst the board and the staff of what we're trying to do

[05:18:30] and this motion covers that hopefully with enough kind of room for staff to maneuver a little bit it's not as if they're not coming back to us regularly and we're not working on these things But what we're really trying to do is encouraging some of these place types to actually develop as we intended and potentially looking at some additional place types where we can do other types of housing.

[05:18:54] And so I think this encompasses all of that. Wonderful. Thank you. I'd like to thank Mr. Sainz for really coming up with a lot of that terminology. Anybody else want to work on? Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that the language is too vague for what I really think that we should be encouraging in the county.

[05:19:20] And when we say encouraging, it doesn't even necessarily mean rezoning something. It could be some sort of incentive for someone to build duplexes where they're actually allowed, but they're not doing it. so i i still would like to see specific specificity in the language um i don't know if uh we could add such as a such as tiny housing duplexes and triplexes such as manager um yes um i'm sorry

[05:19:59] stop for a time stamp street if i may i just want to if this helps sort of kind of say again to the board that this is a high level document so once we get this what happens is we will come back with a work plan that has more specificity to it and then within the work plan we then have to initiate specific tasks and so okay when we do that we'll come back with okay this is how we're going to implement this high level discussion which will have specifics to it in terms of what part of the county exactly what types of housing and what we're doing with it because any changes

[05:20:38] will require a resolution of intent to amend which will be specific in terms of what the board wants to accomplish okay all right i'll wait for the work plan thank you um yeah i think that's fine i think i think we said what we need to say i think we've had the discussion and and and i i believe staff um knows what truthfully listen i think we we had a discussion at the strategic plan and staff put that kind of disjointed discussion into actual words and thoughts and stuff so i'm not at all worried the staff doesn't know what we're trying to do

[05:21:13] because you do a great job of that already so that's fine that's fine with me second closing Mr. Letourneau? I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Okay. All right. Motion made by Supervisor Letourneau in conjunction with and seconded by Supervisor Saints.

[05:21:30] All in favor to say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. So now there is -- if there's no more motions, we have to do the motion in the package, which I'm happy to do that.

[05:21:46] Or if you want to do that, that's fine. Do you want to do that? oh uh do you have a motion it's fine either way it's fine i i might and and and here's my concern when we were talking in the in the area under programming and services we don't say anything about rental assistance or rental programs and i would like to see that in our strategic plan which might require friendly can you go back to the do you know can you give me the page i'm sorry

[05:22:25] i'm trying to find it uh strategic area community programs and services what page is that it is on page four of the of the of the of the uh the doctrine of the presentation yeah number three not the presentation of the item okay yeah so we have um um you mean what says uplifting

[05:23:01] board business and promoting new economic development no page four that is page four of item three strategic area community okay we talk about affordable child care we talk about um county services in southeastern loudon that are needed the arts commission um oh okay all right all right um and and of course you know if it's not that nice because we didn't say that the strategic plan it's a strategic retreat but you're saying you want to add

[05:23:38] something right now is what you're saying do you have language of do you have language it's fine i'm just do you have link do you have language um no madam chair you know what let me think it's okay let me think about it i don't it's not a fully thought out um plan so i will uh when you're coming back when you're coming back to us with the next update in several months in several months um yeah that's true it is in the um housing needs plan

[05:24:15] which is referenced all right i'll noodle on it a little longer thank you madam chair okay all right thank you all right um before you go on you also made a note that you wanted to change affordable to attainable yes and but you did not make a motion in that regard no i'll make the motion oh yes sir i cannot remember did we include the addition to the strategic plan motion to include the legislative and administrative application process that's incorporated now okay thank you um i'll make the motion that wherever the word attainable affordable is in

[05:24:53] the strategic plan we substitute the word attainable no no that's my motion hello that's only because affordable is literally technically a a particular ami and attainable is the entire um is the entire um plan of play of housing from low income housing all the way through workforce housing and so it's much more than just what is attainable housing so i think we want to if we're talking about diversity of housing and diversity of housing prices we can't

[05:25:32] use the word a word that's specific to just one housing price so that's all you want to talk on that mr turner okay all the people say aye aye any opposed that motion will pass um 801 okay did you say you want to make the packet motion sure yes sir i'm sorry i'm sorry i think the packet motion if you look at the first clause in the packet motion after the word action item i think the term or the phrase and as amended by the board during the discussion of the item

[05:26:10] needs to be added i assume she was going to do that yeah i just want to make sure yeah and then the second i further move is fine but i think you need to add the phrase at the end as amended yeah okay i move the board of supervisors approve the strategic focus areas initiatives and vision statement as presented and amended in the december 3rd 2024 board of business supervisors business meeting action item i further move the board of supervisors direct staff to develop a work plan and provide biannual updates on the work plan for further

[05:26:46] prioritization by the board second discussion on the motion thank you madam chair so I was really happy with with the item when it came forward I think that we did in fact capture captured just about everything that we had discussed during the board retreat and I will be really proud to see the success going through the rest of the term and as I understand it we will be checking off some items at the very first meeting that perhaps we have already accomplished I think it's super important that we are going to be doing

[05:27:25] our Human Rights Commission I'm really excited about the bus shelters program being doubled and I look forward to the sidewalk and trails program coming through the work plan on how we're going to accelerate that so we can improve connectivity in the county and and there's many other items so I'm really looking forward to work thank you madam chair thank you thank you I would associate myself with all your comments anybody else all in favor please say aye any opposed that motion will pass 801 thank you very much supervisors let's

[05:28:02] really quickly do board comments and disclosures if you have them and then we We'll do the last item, and then we will go back in the closed session because we have one more item. For comments and disclosures, Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[05:28:21] I don't really have any disclosures. No news from Catoctin today. I will address kind of the 2,000-pound gorilla that's been in the room since we've had a lot of speakers coming and talking about the Palestinian issue and the war that's happening in the Middle East right now.

[05:28:39] I maintain that we as a board, this is not an issue that we should actually engage in. This is not our responsibility. It is not something, it is an international and a national issue, and I do take issue with a lot of speakers who came forward. I do appreciate that they want to come forward, that they stand for something, but I also want to reiterate some of what Chair Randall said, and some of the, what I would call, anti-Semitic comments that were made, especially at the last board session, think they were tamed down significantly. I do appreciate that. There are different sides of this

[05:29:15] issue, and quite frankly, the continued rhetoric, which is ratcheted up, does not help relations between the Jewish community and others within this community, within Loudoun County whatsoever. So I do believe that this boardroom is a place of free speech, that people can come and they can share, but it also needs to be tempered. And I do appreciate those who did temper it. For those who did not um i would ask that you do so if you are watching and listening thank you madam chair thank

[05:29:44] you mr crony thank you chair randall uh i have no disclosures so um as chair randall mentioned i had the honor of attending the twa flight 514 remembrance ceremony on sunday december 1st at Bluemont Community Center. TWA Flight 514 crashed in Bluemont 50 years ago, resulting in the loss

[05:30:16] of all 92 lives. I have a list of all the 92 who perished. It was really a heartfelt ceremony. I had some tears when I heard from some of the family members.

[05:30:32] it was very touching and I want to thank the Bluemont Citizens Association for hosting the first ever ceremony commemorating the passengers and crew who perished. About 300 family members attended the event as well as the first responders who helped that day.

[05:30:50] I encourage all residents to visit the indoor bronze plaque and the outdoor black granite memorial at the community center um both both are are very very nice and i think you should go visit it if you get a chance um i want to let people know i had my first office hours in brambleton yesterday and i had a great turnout i met lots of new residents and i plan to offer more days and locations next year in fact i'm going to go to middleburg and st louis i'm going to have some

[05:31:25] office hours there. So communities should check out my newsletter for dates and locations. And we hosted, Chair Randall and I hosted a dinner yesterday to thank the St. Louis Task Force. The Task Force and the community helped put together a draft of the St. Louis Small Area Plan and staff is putting together the final touches on it so it'll be a world class plan for the village i think they'll be proud of thanks to their input and it'll be a model for all the other village plans and lastly christmas in middleburg the parade is saturday

[05:32:04] december 7th at 2 o'clock pm so um chair randall and i will be walking in it uh please come and bring your family thank you and bring your coat and bring your coat it's gonna be freezing for reason thank you mr crone mr croney miss umstead uh thank you madam chair uh two disclosures on november 25th i met with aaron swiss helm on the east point energy application

[05:32:38] and on december 2nd i met with um aaron swiss helm on the zebra east application fortunately middleberg's parade does not compete with leesburg's tree lighting which is the same evening uh september 7th at 6 on the town green and leesburg's christmas and holiday parade is then the following saturday the 14th um at 6 p.m line up at idly and uh walk or ride down to

[05:33:16] Safeway. So I hope folks will be able to get out, and I hope it's not too cold. On the speakers tonight, I very much appreciate Supervisor Kirshner's comments. In 2023, as we all know, the Virginia General Assembly adopted the IRA working definition of anti-Semitism for the purpose of education, recognizing, and combating anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic violence has reached

[05:33:50] levels never before seen in our generation in the U.S., with violent attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions occurring on a regular basis. Many comments were made at the November 19th meeting that were virulently anti-Semitic. Tonight, I would agree with my colleague, Mr. Kirshner the rhetoric was toned down a bit except as one of our Jewish citizens was leaving

[05:34:20] the board meeting passing some of the anti-Israeli speakers they called him a Nazi. That is vicious anti-Semitism. The kind of anti-Semitic rhetoric held at the last meeting is the same rhetoric heard when violence is directed at Jews. Many speakers attempted to redefine the meaning of the term Zionism, which in its most pure sense means Zionism is the existence of Israel,

[05:34:58] support for the existence of Israel, but it is used in order to make pejorative attacks against Jews, and I would condemn those attempts to gaslight Jews, which seek to co-opt a central tenet of the Jewish people, a people that has existed for thousands of years. The IRA definition of anti-Semitism explicitly includes the examples of drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli

[05:35:33] policy to that of the Nazis. In this boardroom, we have heard that comparison made many times by anti-Israel speakers. A member of the Jewish community of Loudoun County was specifically referred to on November 19th as a Zio-Nazi, perhaps one of the worst racist and hateful epithets that can be directed at a Jew. Other anti-Semitic statements that I have found to be personally repulsive, include From the River to the Sea. This is an open call for the genocide of

[05:36:11] the 7 million Jews living in the state of Israel. Wishing a bad evening to the Zionists is openly inciting violence against members of the Jewish community here in Loudoun County. And I would completely understand it if members of the Jewish community attending the meeting, whether the 19th or tonight feared that this suggested they would be attacked upon leaving the government center, something that nobody should ever have to fear as they leave this boardroom or the government center.

[05:36:50] I want to give a lot of credit to our security staff for ensuring that Jewish citizens who are being verbally attacked are escorted safely to their cars.

[05:37:08] So the rhetoric continues, and it continues to interest me that no one who comes in to speak against Jews and against Israel has once attacked Hamas, which is a vicious terrorist group targeting both Israelis and Palestinians.

[05:37:30] Thank you. Mr. Laterno. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to first start by acknowledging a fatal accident that we had in South Riding in which two individuals were killed and two others were severely injured.

[05:37:49] This was something that is entirely preventable, an incident in which alcohol was involved, and the sheriff's office believes speed also was involved, and the driver of the vehicle has been charged.

[05:38:06] It doesn't change the fact that for the families in the community, they've lost a loved one, and all of the lives involved will never be the same. But as we enter into the holiday season, I was told by somebody in the sheriff's office that last week, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, is the highest number of DUIs in this county historically, and that over that long weekend they typically see a significant increase in the number of domestic violence calls. So let's start by being peaceful over the holiday season and being

[05:38:44] responsible and making responsible choices, not drinking and driving, not putting others at risk, and then there are broader issues about traffic safety that my office has certainly been involved in and continues to be involved in with the sheriff's office.

[05:39:02] I did put some statistics in my newsletter that went out at the end of November involving the number of traffic stops and incidents that have occurred. Ninety individuals were arrested for DUI so far this year in the Dulles South sector. So this is something that happens, and that's how many people they've caught.

[05:39:18] So you know there's many more than that out there. So in this holiday season, please, let's be responsible out there. Speaking of traffic, on a brighter note, I am excited about the opening of North Star Boulevard between Route 50 and the Bramilton area on December 17th, and congratulate the team and county government.

[05:39:36] We haven't quite gotten there yet, we've got two weeks, but since this is our only business meeting, I wanted to acknowledge that. And finally, I've been pretty silent on a lot of the discussion that's happened here, and I'm going to remain that way when it comes to the policy involved, but I do want to make the point that the county government must remain open and able to serve everybody in our community, which is a very good reason why we will not and should not weigh in on issues that go far beyond our scope. Whether you are Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Christian, when you walk into this

[05:40:13] building, you need to know that the government's here for you to support you and to serve you and also to protect you. I do agree with some of my colleagues that the rhetoric has gotten overheated in here and even though i know speakers come and have a great deal of passion about what's happening across the world we need to remember that we're one community here and people who walk in this room have to be treated with respect and yes some of the comments were not respectful they were anti-semitic and that's not acceptable and that needs to be said but you know nevertheless

[05:40:51] i do believe the vast majority of people in loudon want to go about their business and want to treat others with respect and in this holiday season hopefully that's where we can be and for our board you know we can set an example by continuing to work together despite whatever sometimes political differences we have and so on it's a divided world out there there's a lot of strong feelings about political matters but we have a great responsibility here in the county to run our county as good as we can we don't always agree on how to do that but we can talk to each other and we make decisions

[05:41:28] and we move on and so uh with that in mind um happy holidays everybody thank you oh i have one disclosure i'm sorry i'm sure um i still had a minute left uh i gotta find it on november 15th I met with Chuck Kuhn, Charles Yudd, and Steven Kuhn of JK Land to discuss several commercial properties in the Route 50 corridor.

[05:41:52] Active legislative land use applications discussed included Greenland Park, in which he's the applicant, and the Hiddowind assemblage, in which he is not the applicant. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[05:42:08] First of all, I'd like to announce that as Chair of Transportation and Land Use Committee, based on the low number of items for the agenda, I canceled the Transportation and Land Use committee meeting scheduled for december 18th the committee will resume its work on january 22nd 2025. on monday november 25th my staff met with molly novotny from keralta partners to discuss the application for goose creek residential i'm going to associate myself with supervisor letourneau's comments i have willfully refrained from commenting on the the very incendiary

[05:42:44] political issues and human issues that have been talked about by our speakers our public speakers for the last several meetings i have very very strong personal feelings about what's going on in the middle east right now and i have no problems talking off this desk with my friends and associates about those feelings and my opinions i was in the middle east africa branch of the joint staff uh in the pentagon for the last four years i was in the air force war uniform i have king hussein's calling card on my desk when i met him with the secretary of defense

[05:43:21] and i escorted yitzhak rabin the prime minister of israel when i was at the academy i have studied these issues for a long time and i have very strong feelings however my job as a supervisor in this county is to serve my constituents and for a supervisor to take sides on this issue immediately disenfranchises and makes it impossible for you to do an effective job for all of your constituents if you take sides publicly on this issue from this dais which is why

[05:43:55] i have refrained from doing that it is absolutely essential for us to serve effectively all of the constituents in our districts to remain neutral on issues over which we have no control and no authority to effect change. And that's why I will remain silent and I completely respect what Supervisor Paterno said.

[05:44:14] Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll start with disclosures. On November 22nd, I met with the applicants for the Zebra East application that we come in front of us in short order in regards to as I've been accustomed to say thank you to everybody that came out and spoke during our public hearing process you could have been with us you could have chose to be anywhere but you chose to be with us to say your piece on issues that are near and dear to your heart so I appreciate it you're seen you are heard and you are respected as I said before

[05:44:50] please come in front of us with 100 accurate information if you are going to present I know know sometimes that's challenging to do but please try to do so i respect everybody's opinions as i said earlier before people need to come exercising their first amendment rights which is what you are allowed to do but you need to do it respectfully and be accurate um in regards to the call for a ceasefire as has been said by a few of my colleagues already this evening

[05:45:23] we have not weighed in on international affairs on other issues so we will continue on that trend Now, personally, I have deep concern to what's going on.

[05:45:41] As it was mentioned earlier, I have done and will continue to do on my personal time and my personal channels, posted and share my opinions and feelings on the issue that's taking place in the Middle East and wish to see peace in the Middle East.

[05:45:57] We've been saying that for decades, and I pray one day that will truly take hold and happen. And I'll just say this, that everybody needs to be respectful of everybody. As has been mentioned, Loudon, and I said this before, Loudon is we open arms and welcome everybody that's going to be respectful to others, treat others.

[05:46:18] As I've said many, many times, treat others as you want somebody to treat your family members. Plain and simple, and I think if everybody did that, this world would be a lot better place. Now, it was said earlier that if somebody was to say from the river to the sea, that is a bad comment to say.

[05:46:39] if that was being i think the somebody mentioned that they saw somebody with uh who was in support of the palestinian views were saying that and they said that's not a good statement to say well i would just say this uh benjamin that yahoo's uh who's a prime minister israel is one of his sons has on his twitter handle from the river to the sea this flag meaning the the jewish flag is all you'll see so i hope my colleague who said from the river to the sea uh palestinian will be free or all you will see if they're saying that's a bad statement to say, then I hope

[05:47:17] they'll say the exact same thing for what Benjamin Netanyahu's son is saying on his Twitter, that from the river to the sea, this flag, the Jewish flag, is all you'll see. You can't have it both ways. So if you're going to say, if somebody from the Palestinian movement or a supporter is saying that statement and that's bad, and you're saying that's bad, then you should be saying the exact same thing from somebody who's on the Israel viewpoint. But if you're not going to say that, then you're paying favorites. And I think that's not fair and that's not right.

[05:47:56] And it's definitely not just. Everybody has entitlements to live where they live. And historically, these folks are their cousins, Jewish and Muslim and Palestinians. These folks, historically, if you do a DNA test, they have some linkage. They're cousins. And some form or fashion from those who are based in the in the in the country so if we're going to call

[05:48:29] people out let's call it on both sides please let's be fair let's not play favorites what is happening is a travesty and yes we you know we could make a ceasefire resolution we can say this we can say that but unfortunately that's out of our preview that needs to go to our federal government and i hope and encourage those who have been coming and speaking in front of us which you can do, and that's your right, are also reaching out to our congressional delegation and advocating at those levels as well, because that's really where they can affect change.

[05:49:11] So I'll just say it again, treat others with respect and dignity, and let's make this world a better place for all people. Thank you. Thank you. I think Ms. Brickspin, where are you? Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, yeah, I mean, I will associate myself with Supervisor Letourneau's comments as well. It would be inappropriate for us to, and Supervisor Turner, to do any sort of resolution or speak out on this topic. I made a mistake when I

[05:49:50] did so, and I made a mistake about putting it on my county letterhead when I did make a statement about this. And so I've apologized for that. But, you know, in some ways, I also agree with Supervisor Sainz. History does teach us that rhetoric can and does lead to violence.

[05:50:12] Dehumanizing, dehumanization leads to violence. And, you know, it, I don't know that there's anybody in this situation that, or either side in this situation, that has not inflamed the situation. And I just want to say just because we don't do a resolution and just because we let folks speak freely in this room, you know, with some parameters, but they are permitted to exercise

[05:50:47] their First Amendment rights, that doesn't mean that we are taking sides. And it also doesn't mean that we are not empathetic as to what is going on. It doesn't mean that it doesn't impact us it just means that it is not our we don't have authority over the situation and um i i believe and madam chair can correct me but she said this a while back we also have checked our investments

[05:51:23] there is no there's no divestment for us to do that's been called for um so i will leave it at that i do i do wish violence all over the earth would end um unfortunately that doesn't seem like it's going to be the case anytime soon in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, and a number of other places we can name. I don't have any disclosures. I would like to thank my colleagues for supporting on

[05:52:02] consent the Whitfield Place item. You may recall that's by the Cascades Library where one of my constituents passed away trying to cross over from the Cascades Marketplace to the library. I am a little bit disappointed that there needs to be a study that might take like up to a year it is a crosswalk and some signs and I do intend to speak with VDOT and DTCI about why this takes so long especially because now the Algonquian Parkway was just repaved and there's enhanced

[05:52:35] crosswalks everywhere now on Algonquian Parkway and there's even a crosswalk light at the entrance to my community that I didn't even know was getting installed so you know it's like oh we need to study it for a year to do something over here but oh it's just it's just going to go up over here and you're not even going to tell the supervisor about it so anyway so I will I will follow up on that I do want to thank our Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Services for their stellar and of course prompt and professional response to a house fire in my district over the Thanksgiving

[05:53:10] holidays on North Cottage Road the entire family was able to get out the house was destroyed the it's it was interesting I learned at the graduation of class 46 of Loudoun County Fire and Rescue yesterday that over there and Sugar Land there are actually brick firewalls between those townhouses and that is why the fire did not expand over into the other residences because I I couldn't believe only one townhouse went, but I did speak with the owner today.

[05:53:43] They are staying with family. They feel as if they have everything they need, but they have my number. By way of gun violence, as we approach the end of the year, we have had 15,482 gun deaths, which is actually a drop. We have had 474 mass shootings, which is a drop from last year when we had 656.

[05:54:04] The deaths this year include 226 children ages under 11 and 1,069 teenagers ages 12 and 17. I wish all of my colleagues, their families, and all of Loudoun happy, safe holidays.

[05:54:21] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Bricksman. Unlike every single one of my colleagues, the reason I'm not talking on this is not because I'm a supervisor, and it's not because this is not a county issue. It's not a county issue, but that's not why I'm not speaking on it. And if I said that, I'd be lying and I'd be hypocritical because if this was pre-1990 before apartheid, I would be saying something every day about apartheid from this dais, although we had no way to do anything about it.

[05:54:51] That's not my issue. My issue is this. I have sat down with members of the Jewish community, and I've sat down with people, members of the free Palestine community, and I literally hear the exact same things out of their mouths.

[05:55:08] I hear them say, my child is scared to go to school. Both sides tell me that. My businesses are failing. Both sides tell me that. No matter what I say, I am either against Palestinians' rights or I'm anti-Semitic.

[05:55:25] Both sides say that. This is a biblically long issue. This issue didn't happen on October 7th, and it didn't happen in 1948. This is a biblically long issue. And to ask me what mother deserves to lay over her child's body and cry is not something I can answer.

[05:55:48] To ask me whether somebody wears, what's the name of the scarf, a kafia, or they wear a yarmulke, that person deserves to see their dead child, is not something I can answer. Stop asking me that.

[05:56:05] I can't choose who should die. Last week, last meeting, Ms. Umstead told a story about a little five-year-old Jewish boy that was shot in front of his parents. That is God-awful. But it's no less or no more God-awful than a little Palestinian boy being shot in front of their parents. It's just not. We have two sides who refuse to see the humanity in one another, who refuse to see the value in one another. But then you come here and ask me to tell somebody what they should or shouldn't say or stop them

[05:56:43] from talking. I don't think anybody on this dais in the past six months has done more reach out nor talking to these individuals and groups, including the meeting I have tomorrow. I don't think anybody in this dais more than I have have gone to synagogues, have gone to mosques. Nobody is doing what I'm doing out there all the time. Almost every weekend, I am somewhere. I don't think anybody on this day has more discussions with our rabbis and with our imams more than I do.

[05:57:15] I don't think you do. If I had an answer, I would tell you it. If I had an answer, I'd break my neck to get to Joe Biden to tell him the answer. I'd break my neck to get to President-elect Trump to give him the answer. I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer of who deserves to bury their child. I don't. I don't have an answer of who does, because it's 40,000 bodies on this side and 15,000 bodies on this side. That's not a big deal. Everyone that dies was a human being.

[05:57:54] Everyone that dies has a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a child, and their own story and their own soul. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. It's not because I'm a supervisor. It's because I'm not God. I don't know the answer. I don't. I have heard horrible anti-Semitic things in this boardroom. I've also heard other things in this boardroom that were pretty terrible in the other direction. But everyone just wants me to call out the side

[05:58:29] that they're sitting on. After first saying, don't get involved. Don't get involved until you call out somebody that I don't agree with. Otherwise, y'all shouldn't be involved. Can't have that both ways either. You can't have that both ways. This is horrible. It is horrible. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization, and Israel could be a lot more careful about who is dying. All of it

[05:59:02] is terrible, and everyone that dies matters. Everyone. Whether I'm a supervisor or not, if I had an answer, I'd say it, but I'm not going to choose which mother gets to cry over their babies i'm not and you can think what you want to all right we have one more item it's the budget

[05:59:32] development item item 11a uh well let me ask this this have a seat this has come through finance and so um before we do a base motion let me just ask are there any members of tluck who have any questions because you might not have seen this or had i know you everyone had briefings

[06:00:09] but you may not have seen it as much so are there any questions and then we'll go to the base motion yes you have a question yes yes um thank you um miss burke we've got a nine percent increase in what's the nine percent is that increase in year over year in spending and revenue or both yes that's correct local tax funding so that's local tax so that's budget growth budget growth okay is it fair to say that the predominant variables in that level of budget growth is

[06:00:47] compensation um here's here's the the issue was proposed to me by by a gentleman just the other day the population growth in loudon county has increased by the lowest percentage in the last 20 years this year over year it's gone up but it's not gone up nearly at the rate that it was going up and yet our budget growth has jumped from i want to say year over year eight percent to nine percent is that right yes over the last 10 years on average the budget has grown about nine

[06:01:22] percent. Okay. How do you explain that? The fact that the population is starting to level off and yet our budget growth is continuing. What's the primary element of that budget growth in your estimation? From an expenditure perspective, in addition to supporting the CIP growing substantially, just in the operating budget side, just recall over the last five years, the board has added about a thousand new positions. So that's pretty significant and that's a driver of our personnel budget, which is a significant part of your operating budget. But on the revenue side,

[06:01:56] you've also had a very, very healthy real property portfolio. Appreciation in that portfolio is significant. You've been able to lower the real property tax rate, but the value of that portfolio continues to increase. And also a big driver of your revenue availability is personal property taxes on computer equipment. And the board has chosen to take advantage of that revenue and assign expenditures to it i know we have to have balanced budget in your opinion is the increased revenue year over year responsible for the increased um local tax funding requirement

[06:02:36] to spend that revenue because i have never gotten the impression on our budget process that we have this pot of money and therefore we need to spend it all just spread it out and spend it all i have i felt that what we're spending on are legitimate needs based on where this county is and how it's growing any comments on that so the county continues to grow you've you're still this is a still high growth county and then thereby a high growth organization but what we have been sharing with you is that the forecast of population growth will continue to plateau depending on your land

[06:03:12] use decisions there is only so much more available land really quick let me get one more in on the revenue stabilization fund the original language said there were two levels level one is what we're using right now can you describe what level two was intended to do i'm sorry i'm not sure the level one in level two yeah i i wasn't either and i saw it in in the item it's buried in the item and i can't remember where i saw it but it says when the revenue stabilization fund was originally created level one would be to stabilize year-over-year revenue because data center property tax revenue was so variable and then it refers to a level two in the revenue stabilization fund mr

[06:03:51] hamstreet does that ring a bell at all mr hamstreet after you asked to answer the question you and and please do your time is up sir thank you so i i similar to ms burke i'm not sure what the reference is to level one and level two we did in the presentation refer to a three-step strategy that we had recommended to the board around mitigating the impacts of the growth of of the the board's rely on the county's reliance on personal property tax revenue from computer equipment. And so those three steps had been, the first one was to get to 60% of our revenue

[06:04:28] portfolio being from real property. The second step, I'm drawing a blank. The second step is to establish a reserve and lower the tax rate. And then the second step was lower the personal property tax rate while it's still growing. The third step was to create the revenue Okay, if I can find the reference, I'll come talk to you offline.

[06:04:49] Thanks. Mr. Kirsner. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Megan. And I just, a couple comments and a question follow-up. First of all, I'm actually, I have to commend the Finance Committee. I think they've come out of committee and with a proposal that's pretty good.

[06:05:09] I'm pretty happy that we're kind of giving budget guidance, at least in this item, to remain at the residence equalized rate. I think that's really, really important. Obviously, we have the revenue in order to do that. I continue to point out that obviously our portfolio or that portfolio is growing.

[06:05:27] My understanding from my briefing is in part that obviously because of our position that we've taken on data centers, that we've had a lot more come to the table to get into development, to essentially get under the wire before I think some of these more scrutiny is put on them.

[06:05:44] And so that's certainly helping us. We certainly have a runway as far as that revenue is concerned long term. For the immediate future, the question I really would like to present to our staff is the $25 vehicle licensing fee.

[06:06:02] I think under the proposed budget that we have in front of us, we would eliminate that for the county immediately. Is that correct? Yes, the motion or the recommendation of the Finance Committee is to lower it to $0 starting in tax year 25. So obviously, and I presume most of my colleagues have read or are aware of the concern that many of the towns, obviously in my district, three of the seven towns that we have in Loudoun County reside in the Catoctin District, and I have received, as my colleagues received, a letter from those mayors concerning this.

[06:06:37] And they would also like to see their constituents have this benefit, but obviously this is a revenue source that they rely on. Now, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, but that the towns have the ability to eliminate that, but then it comes off their bottom budget.

[06:06:56] Is that correct? Yes, that is their own revenue. That is their own. Now, is that, even if we eliminate it, will that still be filtered through, I guess? Will that still, will they handle that directly, or that will still come through the county and then back to the towns? I believe the treasurer intends to provide the services that he currently provides to the towns.

[06:07:14] And one of the reasons, I think, as I recollect from reading the item and speaking with someone on this matter, was that there is trying to collect a $25 fee that's not been paid is a bit of a nightmare. Is that correct? I believe it just requires administration, yes.

[06:07:33] Yeah, so I think, and I'm not going to bring, I was thinking of bringing a motion forward today, but I haven't had an opportunity to speak to all my colleagues. I think the towns are asking for some sort of, they would like to also, I think, eliminate this for their constituents, but then, of course, that puts some pressure on their budget.

[06:07:48] And so I'm hoping to work with the mayors as well as some of my colleagues to provide some relief for that. I've spoken with the chair about bringing an item, perhaps a very short item, on how to do that back at the first meeting in January. So I won't make that motion tonight, but that is my hope, and I hope to talk to it all. Thank you, Mr. Kirshner.

[06:08:04] Thanks. Thank you so much. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. Well, so to build off of that, did staff recommend doing the elimination of the vehicle license fee in tax year 26, right, to give the towns, was it to give the towns more time to figure this out?

[06:08:22] No, that was not the reason why staff recommended the elimination of the fee. Okay. The reason why is because that revenue is currently budgeted for in FY25, and if it was lowered in tax year 25, that would just be less revenue collected in FY25.

[06:08:39] but we're agnostic about the timing okay okay yeah i i agree with supervisor uh kirchner that that we have to look at how we can mitigate the impact to the town uh to the towns because they did send in the letter and they said they'd have a 1.2 million dollar gap um if we eliminate it and that would be if the towns chose to also reduce the fee the county's action has no bearing on the town's ability to continue to collect their fees okay so question on the budget is um was the

[06:09:14] growth rate in fy 25 11 or was it 13 i believe it was 13 okay is is fy 2025 an outlier would you consider that an outlier based on the history yes the 13 was higher than the average but the average has been nine percent over the last decade okay and i think i saw 7.1 as an average too from fy 15 through fy 24. yeah there's just different years that we averaged the growth rate okay is are we comparable to other counties um as far as our our no you are not comparable to other counties the

[06:09:53] population you're a high growth organization and so you would compare yourself to other high growth large county government organizations okay um do do we do a three to five year budget forecast by any chance because i saw that was a policy that the county will annually update um a long-range three three to five year financial forecasting system which will include projections of revenues expenditures yeah at the staff level we do longer term forecasts than the annual budget your cip for example, is a six-year financial plan. Okay. Is that something that you present to

[06:10:32] the finance committee? No, it's not. Okay. But I could ask for that, right? Just to see the projections. Okay. And then lastly, the 53% ratio, does that include, I know it's real property. Does that include data center real property? The 53% compares the total amount of real property revenue so inclusive of revenue that comes from real property for data centers against all other local taxes in the general fund okay so yes so we're trying to mitigate reliance on data centers

[06:11:08] personal property okay but you're not a real property then in that discussion for data centers so so i'm just trying to i was trying i thought we were teasing that out i thought we were teasing out all of data centers to mitigate that the revenue stabilization target fund is based upon the amount of revenue that is generated from both real and personal property taxes from data centers but the ratio of your budget from real property to other types of local taxes is inclusive of all

[06:11:45] types of real property which is far more stable of your revenue sources all right thank you okay All I would say before Mr. Latourna makes a motion is that I understand what Colt is saying and what the mayors are saying, but they don't have to take away the fee.

[06:12:01] They can keep the fee. That's up to them. And these are always not fun decisions to make when you're running for office or you're sitting in these seats, but they asked to be here. So that's kind of how it is. So if they don't want to take away the fee, then they shouldn't.

[06:12:18] And, you know, they are, no joke, good public servants, and I'm sure if that's a discussion they can have with their community, it's a discussion we've had to add, have to have with our communities, with Loudoun before, when we've had to do things that were unpopular.

[06:12:37] So I won't support that, even though I wouldn't support, I support them doing what they need to do, one way or the other. I'll support that, so. Well he hasn't made a motion. There's no motion yet. So I can make a motion. Yes, I move the recommendation of the Finance, Government Operations, and Economic Development Committee that the Board of Supervisors direct the County Administrator to prepare the FY2026 proposed budget based on the reduction of the vehicle license fee to zero and direct staff to prepare an ordinance amendment to make this

[06:13:15] reduction effective for tax year 2025 i further move the recommendation of the finance government operation and economic development committee the board of supervisors direct the county administrator to prepare the fy26 proposed budget consistent with the revenues and expenditures shown in scenario two in table one of the december 3 2024 board of supervisors business meeting action item i further move the recommendation of the finance government operations economic development committee that the board of supervisors direct staff to perform the research necessary to advise the board on how to provide the office of public defender with funding for additional positions and increase the existing supplement within the office of public defender to improve pay parity with positions within the office of the commonwealth's attorney i further move the recommendation

[06:13:54] of the finance government operations economic development committee the board of supervisors direct the county administrator to prioritize the addition of the western loudon library to the capital improvement program when capacity is available motion made and seconded by supervisor Brooksman. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Letourneau. Thank you, Chair Randall. We had a very productive discussion with staff at the Finance Committee, and a lot of that was also, I know, the briefings that staff provided to board members, and we had consensus around this scenario that we're moving forward, which was scenario two, that effectively, you know, looks at the equalized,

[06:14:32] homeowners equalized tax rate as a starting point for the discussions based on the revenue. That's available. The timing of this discussion on the personal property tax rate was something that we looked at. The reason why we recommended tax year 25 is because we are running already after our first quarter results, we're running significantly ahead of budget, and we know that we're going to have a significant amount of revenue available to us to be able to implement this immediately.

[06:15:02] We also are looking at reducing the overall personal property tax rate to $3.48 for tax year 26, but waiting until tax year 26 to implement that because of the significant change in revenue that that would cause.

[06:15:17] But the $25 fee is a very nice down payment. I would kind of echo what my colleague, Chair Randall, said about the concerns from the towns. understand i'm sorry but it it really isn't fair to make everyone in the county wait an entire year because we collect this once a year because of what amounts to sort of a political optics problem for the towns in terms of the revenue already residents in the towns are used to paying different a different amount of tax than they do to the county because they have their own taxes so this you know for this year for those that can't handle that offset you know that's just going to have to

[06:15:57] be something that they'll have to implement in the following year and i'm sure that they can communicate that um should they should they be able to do that and and you know but it doesn't make sense for us to just delay it kind of arbitrarily for the entire county for a year we have residents who have been paying this fee as we heard from the treasurer it creates some administrative issues because for some residents who have very low cost vehicles the only thing they're paying is the $25, and so we're going to have some administrative efficiency out of this and no longer charging that. So anyway, I appreciate all the work that's gone in thus far.

[06:16:30] We're just at the very beginning of the budget process. We kind of know things change significantly throughout this process. Revenue forecasts change, our expenditures change, so I'm sure there will be some of that happening, as always, and then we have a lot of tough decisions to make when it comes to the budget and some of the issues that have been discussed during the budget guidance items that have come during the development process for the finance committee okay thank you mr um turner thank you madam chair um i'm not going to introduce a motion but i would

[06:17:06] like to put some perspective here the towns don't have the benefit of the data center revenue and the only reason we are able to lower the vehicle property tax and get rid of the licensing fee is because we have the data centers in eastern loudon county and i do not think it's an unreasonable request for the towns to say look we are asking for 1.2 million dollars because we're going to get enormous pressure from our constituents to do what the county just did in western loudon county and it sets them up for a legitimate argument to say once again the east is benefiting from the data center revenue and the towns are not and that's not right they're part of the county

[06:17:42] now i agree with supervisor leterno i don't want to delay the whole process for a year but i think we should give serious consideration to offering that 1.2 million dollars in mitigation in the next budget cycle if that's the earliest that we can do it but i completely understand why they resent the fact that we can do that the reason we can do it is because we have the data center revenue it goes to the county budget it benefits the county but the simple fact is a significant proportion of a population lives in the towns in in western louden county and this this basically exacerbates the resentment that doesn't need to be exacerbated we have the 1.2 million dollars

[06:18:17] that's just a contrary perspective than the fact that gee sorry you guys have to make your own budget you can suck it up or not i i don't agree with that thank you mr kirschner yeah i just want to uh these were some of the arguments and i think one of the items i'd like to bring the beginning in January is actually that discussion to try to help fund them in some way.

[06:18:37] I need to have a few more discussions with our mayors. I also wanted to have a further discussion with Mr. Turner and the chair. The chair's kind of already put her stake in the ground on this, but quite frankly, I think we do need to consider this. We need to consider how we can help our towns. It is something, I think we also need to incentivize our towns to encourage them to get rid of this fee.

[06:18:56] Not only are we going to continue to conduct the administration here in the county for them, If they don't get rid of that fee, which is what one of the suggestion is, well, they can just keep the fee if they want to continue to get this revenue. But if we incentivize them, listen, if you get rid of this entirely, we will help you get along this year, and then now it's eliminated.

[06:19:17] And if they have additional revenues, they're going to figure out other ways to do it. But I think this kind of pesky $25 fee needs to go away countywide. And any way that we can make that happen to incentivize the towns to do that, we should do it. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Mr. Chris. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[06:19:34] You know, having been with the town of Leesburg for 24 years, it was always politically uncomfortable if the county reduced a tax rate and we did not also reduce our tax rate.

[06:19:53] But that's the system you work within when you're on the governing body of a town. I don't think we would be telling Fairfax or Prince William, for God's sakes, don't lower your tax rates because then there will be political pressure on us to do the same.

[06:20:19] So I'm very sympathetic to the towns, but they offer an enhanced level of service. As a resident of the town since 1986, I've paid double taxation, both on real property and on vehicles, and I always understood that was what happened when you lived in a town.

[06:20:45] So I tend to agree with Supervisor Letourneau. Our position should be let's get tax relief to as many Loudoun County residents as quickly as we can. Thank you.

[06:21:03] Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. This might just be semantics on the, let me see, the second, sorry, the third paragraph as it pertains to the Public Defender's Office.

[06:21:22] My intent with this was to study the possibility of the positions, but not study the possibility of an increased supplement. Is that staff's understanding? because it could be read that we're studying that, but my intent was that we go to 40% in this budget. Yes, I understand that. Okay. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. I just wanted to double check that. So I'm not going to comment on the, on the, listen, the message here, ladies and

[06:21:55] gentlemen, is that we, for, for those who are emailing us about, you know, exorbitant taxes that you pay in Loudoun County. This is the message. We are starting our budget cycle at the equalized tax rate. We are lowering the actual tax rate two cents yet again, and we've already lowered the tax rate in last term by 17 cents. We are eliminating the car decal fee, and we are drastically lowering the car tax. So those out there that are campaigning for state office on

[06:22:32] the car tax let it be known that we are empowered to lower the car tax now and we are doing so going from 415 to 348 at least in fiscal year 26 and there may be a motion for more relief coming in just a few minutes. So I just want to emphasize that message. We have the lowest tax rate of the region and yes it is because we have been able to benefit from an industry that has been growing massively and that we strategically courted to bring into this county and it has

[06:23:10] worked very very well and so i am super happy to sit on finance and super happy to support this motion thank you um i also want to say that there's it's very rare that the towns come to us with any overrun in their budget for almost anything that we don't say yes whatever that thing may be we say yes to because because the towns are our constituents this is not like this is not this is not a different county there are constituents and so when they're when they have overruns or just want something different we're where they come first and we i don't i i guess

[06:23:49] like if i think hard i can think of where we said no but i don't i can't think of where we said no so again i i think the empowerment we give the towns is to do what they think they should do And if they think they should take this $25 fee away, do it. And if they don't think they should, don't do it.

[06:24:04] I don't feel like I need to tell elected colleagues what they should do. And so I'm not going to. So I'm not going to. All right. Mr. Letourne, would you like to close? Sure. I'll just simply say, hey, if anybody's running for state office and they want to eliminate the car tax and make sure that we get the revenue or index the thing to how it should have been indexed in the first place so that we weren't getting massively screwed by our population growth, by all means, I'm all for that.

[06:24:33] I want to discourage any of those people, whatever party they may be, they get to Richmond and actually do that, then, hey, I'm all for it. But they have to replace the revenue, yes, that's what I said. Anyway, yeah, no, like I think we've covered it at this point.

[06:24:49] Appreciate the work so far and looking forward to further discussion. Okay. Motion is made by Supervisor Letourneau, seconded by Supervisor Brixman. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[06:25:05] That motion will pass 8-0-1. All right. The next closed session is going to take a while. Oh, I'm sorry. Supervisor Cunha has a motion. And then we're going to take a break because this closed session is going to take a while. So we'll take a five-minute break. What? Yes.

[06:25:21] Yes. No. What's the point? What would that be? What would be the point of that? What would be the point of that? Supervisor DeCrony. Okay, I move that the Board of Supervisors direct the County Administrator to advertise and place an item for the Board's consideration on the January 15, 2025 Board public hearing.

[06:25:40] Ms. DuBois, I can't hear you. Bring that closer and talk a little louder. Start over, please. I move that the board of supervisors direct the county administrator to advertise and place an item for the board's consideration on the January 15, 2025 board public hearing agenda to establish the personal property tax rate on vehicles under Virginia Code 58. 1-350648A through ES410 for tax year 2025.

[06:26:10] Motion's been made. Is there a second on the motion? I'm going to second this for purpose of the discussion and because you've been talking about it so much and I know there's a message you want to give. Okay. So here's my message. So I absolutely support, well, I support lowering the personal property tax to 348 and tax year 26, but I would also like to see tax year 2025 lowered to 410 to give more immediate relief to residents. We just spoke about how we want to give tax relief as

[06:26:46] quickly as we can. So this would be for tax year 25. We have a big fund balance and I believe the total amount that of the impact that this would have would be 1.4 million for the impact. And we do have a large fund balance that we could cover it. During the FY 2025 budget discussion, the board knew there was a possible, there was a proposal from the general assembly that would allow the county to separate out the vehicle rate from the general rate, but the governor

[06:27:20] did not sign the bill until after Loudoun's budget had been finalized, and once the sunset clause was signed by the governor, we had the ability to establish a separate car tax and computer tax rate.

[06:27:38] During those discussions, our objective was to lower the vehicle tax to 410 in tax year 25 and keep the computer equipment at 415. And we also discussed that we could do that in the fall or in December during the fund balance discussion.

[06:27:57] So this is an opportunity to meet our promise during the FY 2025 budget discussion and to go down to 410. realize we've gotten rid of the vehicle license fee however um as others have mentioned we i believe we should give some tax relief on um the vehicle tax uh this year and not wait for fy 2026 to go down to 348 and this would just be 410 but it provides some relief to the residents

[06:28:31] thank you miss umstead uh thank you madam chair all right supervisor to crony you've convinced me i'll support your motion mr latourne yeah um the finance committee did discuss this at length and when supervisor corny is correct we did talk about this in the fall but what we had not contemplated at that time was eliminating the vehicle license fee which is a much more substantial reduction in the car tax rate not the rate but the amount the bill that people pay the 25 ends up being a lot a much bigger discount than any discount would be from going from 415 to 410

[06:29:10] It also has a much bigger budgetary impact. I think it was $9 million, $8 million? $8 million. So this, to me, just makes this messy and kind of overcomplicates it because we're not really providing much relief here.

[06:29:26] It's barely worth talking about. It's going to be a couple dollars at most for anybody. And it kind of obscures the fact that where we're going for tax year 26 is a much more significant drop. So I think the cleaner way to handle it is eliminate the vehicle registration fee, the $25, as an action taken now, and then moving forward, go ahead and, you know, make a signizable reduction in tax year 26 on the vehicle tax rate and not, you know, further mess with the revenue in the current year budget as we would be doing here.

[06:30:04] Mr. Sains? Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Burke, can you clarify, because I know the supervisor Tkarni mentioned the revenue for Ghan would be $1.3 million. Is that correct with her motion, or is there a different number? Yes, okay. Technically, yes, that could be absorbed through fund balance, possibly.

[06:30:26] But, yeah, I'll stick with the motion that we just approved earlier. We've had a robust conversation of finance, but I will like to tip my hat to Mr. Tkarni for steering us in this direction from the budget conversations last year and then, you know, keeping us on track, working towards this, what we've just, you know, motioned and approved previously in this direction.

[06:30:51] So hat tilt to you for getting us here. So thank you. But I cannot support the motion. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just point out, if the million and change for this motion is insignificant, then I would say the same million and change is insignificant to help the towns.

[06:31:10] Thank you. um miss miss bruxman uh thank thank you madam chair i i actually uh want to also compliment uh supervisor to crony for all of her work over the last couple months um and i actually meant to say this during our legislative item where you brought three motions um you you've caught a lot of things and um you have progressed a lot of um initiatives and um i am disappointed that we didn't have the fast tracking initiative tonight I was really happy to support that as well I

[06:31:49] given the the discussion that we had in finance I also think it's cleaner to do this just in 26 so I won't be supporting the motion but I did want to say kudos to supervisor to crony because you've been doing a lot of excellent work over the last couple months thank you I would say see this she's a supervisor rookie of the year but she's the only rookie supervisor on the dais so i guess that's repetitive um mr turner the difference is that's one million and then there's another million and that's those millions add up that's the difference you're welcome um and i

[06:32:27] otherwise would just associate myself with mr latour um which i get a closing no that's her motion you get nothing that's her motion you get nothing sir mr crony all right so um I'm gonna support it at 410 is what we talked about.

[06:32:48] And I think it provides a little relief to residents and we're fulfilling the promise from our discussion and during the FY 2025 budget. And yeah, I'm really proud that this board is holding the computer tax rate to 415.

[06:33:07] I think that's a big step forward. So thank you for doing that. But I do think we can give a little relief in tax year 25, and then the big relief in tax year 26, which will be wonderful for our residents. And I think it's a great step forward, but I would like to give a little relief.

[06:33:26] And since it is a small amount, we do have the money in our fund balance. I think we should go ahead and fulfill our promise. Thank you. - All right, the motion was made by advisor to Crony. And for the purpose of the discussion, which was a very good discussion, I seconded the motion.

[06:33:44] in favor please say aye aye whoa guys okay so you're passing is it okay opposed no so i'm voting no so that's four four so the motion fails 441 motion fails tight motion fails okay you got more room listen since no since none of the people that just voted for we're gonna actually would even second it for you you did you made a good argument um okay supervisors let's take a an

[06:34:20] actual five-minute break um before we go to closed session i move that the board of supervisors

[06:49:42] recess the public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to sections 2.2 37 11 parents a parents 8 and a parents a parent 29 of the code of virginia to consult with legal counsel pertaining to the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement where public funds are being expended and where negotiations in open session would adversely affect the bargaining position of the County. Motion made and seconded. Discussion on the motion. All the people say aye. Aye. Opposed?

[06:50:11] That motion will pass 7-0-2 with Ms. Brickman having left the dais and Ms.

[06:50:19] Glass not being here. Mr. Turner? All right we are back. Mr. Turner is going to read us out of

[08:02:42] closed session. Where is the Loudoun County? Oops, sorry. I move the closed session be adjourned that the Board of Supervisors reconvene in its public meeting that the minutes of the public meeting should reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed session and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting second discussion on the motion all people say aye aye any opposed affirm affirm affirm affirm affirm affirm my affirm as well um by the way everybody have a wonderful

[08:03:17] holiday season have a merry christmas have a happy hanukkah and we are happy kwanzaa we are adjourned

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