Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting, Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Date: Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 6h 30m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7919
Meeting page: https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7919

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 2026-10-11. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:05:31] Well, good evening supervisors, good evening student supervisors, good evening staff, and good evening Loudon. I'm going to ask my student supervisor to call this meeting to order, please. I would like to call to order the April 1st, 2025 Loudon County Board of Supervisors business meeting.

[00:05:47] This room has a hearing loop. If you need hearing assistance, switch your hearing aids to telecoil mode. If you need a headset, we have those available as well. Please see the clerk to request one. Supervisor Saines will now lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, invocation, words of inspiration.

[00:06:10] To the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:06:30] Good afternoon, Loudoun County. Welcome to our student supervisors today. Joining me today, I have Dat from Parkview and Noble from Tuscarora High Schools. They're both seniors, so we're glad to have them with us today. You follow along normally, I don't actually give inspirations or invocation, But today, I'm going to ask for a moment of silence and recognition of the lives that were lost recently in the earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand.

[00:07:07] And also I'd like to have a moment of silence to recognize the innocent lives that have been lost in the most recent years in regards to the war in Ukraine, and also the conflict that is continuing to unfortunately happen in the Middle East.

[00:07:28] So I ask for a moment of silence for all those lives lost. Thank you. All right.

[00:07:44] Thank you. Thank you. Student Chair Roman, will you please read the consent agenda? the proposed consent agenda as is follows item r1 resolution of recognition of loudon county combined fire and rescue system chief keith h johnson item r2 proclamation to recognize april 2025 as national arab american heritage month approval and presentation item 1a implementation of a public housing authority study item 1b eastern loudon transportation study update item

[00:08:19] 2a appointments confirmations item three administrative items report of april 1st 2025 item five legy 2025 0006 atlantic boulevard proffer amendment zcpa 2025 0003 item seven response to board members initiative proposed new chapter 694 of codified ordinances of loudon County containment of running bamboo. The student chairperson has made a motion. I am making that motion as well. Is there a second to that motion? Motion has been made and seconded by Chair Turner.

[00:08:55] Discussion on the motion. Discussion on the consent agenda. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to comment briefly on the Eastern Loudoun Transportation Study update. I do appreciate all the work of staff on this item. I did have an opportunity to meet with staff and talk through deep in the item you'll see sort of a priority list and I do have a little bit of a concern just because the projects that are in my part of the county we have a very rapidly changing environment with the opening of North Star Boulevard and the recent opening of Arcola Boulevard so Arcola Mills Drive between Stone Springs and Loudoun County Parkway is listed as the highest priority

[00:09:32] project however that traffic patterns there have changed for the better since we've opened up these other roads the data collection is a little bit dated as it always happens there's always a lag the second highest priority project is allowed in county parkway and route 50 interchange which you all have heard me talk about over and over and over again that to me would be the actual highest priority so we are talking to staff they will be doing another round of data collection and whatnot when the ctp comes forward we have the destruction a discussion about the comprehensive transportation plan um we can kind of get into that more so but i just wanted to flag

[00:10:11] some of those things that are in the southern part of the county are kind of moving and data collection can only be done when it can be done i understand there's a lag um but you know looking forward to getting updated traffic counts from vita and in the meantime um the 606 and 50 interchange interchange project still is paramount for uh those of us you've had discussion staff already? I have. Okay. All right. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor DeCronio, is it you or your supervisor, your student supervisor of the Little River District?

[00:10:41] Probably me, but I'll have you help me at one point. So Addison is my. Supervisor who? Supervisor Addison is with me today. So I just wanted to bring up that the implementation of a public housing authority study. I made the motion at the Transportation and Land Use Committee to study a contracted housing authority versus an in-house housing authority.

[00:11:11] The HAB, Housing Advisory Board, recommended in their 2024 annual report that the county begin to take steps to develop attainable housing on publicly owned land, leveraging the authorities already granted to the Economic Development Authority. Other jurisdictions, including Fairfax county and alexandria use their own housing authorities to directly develop and own affordable attainable housing either entirely or their own or via public private partnerships and i look forward to the study kind of looking at other jurisdictions and what they're doing and um you

[00:11:50] know how we might um leverage some of their learnings and potentially um you know have an in-house authority but i look forward to the study so thank you thank you supervisor glass is it you or your student supervisor thank you madam chair it's me but i'm with student supervisor matthew vassar um with regard to the bamboo ordinance i want to thank lira and their president mike litman for all the work they've done and are doing to fight invasive species in loudon i believe that with public awareness of the damage invasive species um due to our environment

[00:12:25] in our economy, that more people will start to view bamboo as more as an inconvenience but as a destructive species and to stop planting it in our neighborhoods. I also want to thank staff for all the work they did on the Eastern Loudoun Transportation Study.

[00:12:44] Seeing the complete list and map really shows how much work has gone into improving our transportation network over the last 13 years. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Glass and Supervisor Brixman, I do believe, if I'm not mistaken, just to be very clear, you all are talking about what's called running bamboo, correct?

[00:13:02] Yes, Madam Chair. Because you're not talking about the bamboo that's grown on the bamboo farm for the purpose of feeding the pandas at the National Zoo. Correct, Madam Chair. Okay, all right, let's make sure. All right, thank you. Supervisor Brixman, is it you or your student supervisor? Student Supervisor DeTore will be talking a little bit later when we do the youth report, Madam Chair.

[00:13:18] Okay. My comments are just to thank my colleagues for keeping the bamboo on consent and also the housing authority study on consent. The housing authority is also something I brought up during our board retreat. And one of the main reasons was because preservation of housing is just as important as of affordable housing as is building new units. And we had a fund set aside for loans for developers to take out loans to purchase buildings that were coming out of their affordability phase and we got no applicants.

[00:13:52] So one of my major interests is making sure that we can keep units affordable in Loudoun County and it looks like one of the main ways we might have to do that is through a housing authority. So I'm also looking forward to this study. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor. All right. Anybody else?

[00:14:08] All right. I made the motion. It was seconded by Mr. Turner. Mr. Kirshner will not be with us this evening because he is out of town. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. Supervisors, tonight I don't have a voice for a cause because I have been putting off my chair's comments for such a long time that there's a lot of them, so I want to get it done, and so I forego having voice for a cause tonight.

[00:14:34] First of all, let me say that I'm going to pass out some of the information that I received at NACO. I'm going to hand it to Amanda, Amanda for Mr. Freeman and Mr. Quintine, I have the federal policies priorities, the federal policy priorities from NACO for Mr. Govan and Ms. McClellan.

[00:14:58] I have the housing, and actually, I actually have one for you too, Mr. Crony, housing information because you're a chair of the housing, the housing board. For Mr. McClendon, I have the housing, and I have the housing, and I have the housing For Monica Fernandez and Ines, I mean, sorry, for Monica Sales and Ines Fernandez, I have information on the SNAP program from NACO.

[00:15:19] This is for you, Mr. Crony. It's also, would you just hand this down, something about housing. For Mr. Hemstreet and for Mr. Quintime, I have the Federal Advisory Toolkit, Mr. Hemstreet. And for you and also Mr. McClellan, I have maps and information, maps and stats about other county governments.

[00:15:43] I bought one of those also for Vice Chair Turner. So that's all the NACO stuff, and I will give that to you in just a second. You can do what you do, what you do. Chair Randall, I have an addition and deletion item. I will be there in a second. Thank you, Mr. Croney.

[00:15:59] I'll be there in a second. All right. Student supervisors, every meeting, there's a time for the chair, for me, to report out on so many of the regional and state bodies that I've been a part of or I've done over the past couple of weeks.

[00:16:17] This is not a time for me to make political comments of any type. This is just, I'm just giving you facts. Later on in the meeting, we have board comments that are three minutes, and people can sometimes make things that might be a little more political in nature.

[00:16:35] But at this moment, I'm just giving information as it was given to me and as I will give out to all of my colleagues, just period. But it's quite a bit, supervisors and student supervisors, so I'll try to go through it quickly. Of course, at NACO, I am the chair of the Health Steering Commission.

[00:16:53] We put a resolution forward in the Health Steering Committee to increase food or better food in rural areas and frontier areas. A lot of those rural areas and frontier areas, believe it or not, actually have a lot of food deserts.

[00:17:09] That resolution was cross-claimed from the Health Policy Committee by the Agriculture Committee in NACO, and the Agriculture Committee killed it. I then, when we went to our conference, I found the Agriculture Committee Chair and asked him, did he want to go outside?

[00:17:28] No, I'm just kidding. I asked him, I asked him, like, why he killed it, why his committee killed it. And he said because part of our resolution was to increase SNAP benefits. Of course, SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

[00:17:46] The Trump administration are trying to decrease the SNAP benefits. And the chair of the Ag Committee did not want to increase the SNAP benefits. Although I did want to increase the SNAP benefits, I agreed that we would take no further movement on the SNAP benefits to increase them or decrease them, just leave them alone, as they were.

[00:18:08] And by doing that, they pulled their objections, and it passed. And so that resolution will go in front of Congress. The other resolution, and I've talked to you about this before, Mr. Turner, is to ensure that military veterans that left the military for any other reason than a dishonorable discharge received all their past military benefits.

[00:18:33] So if they left on a medical discharge, if they left on a general discharge, they get all their medical benefits. That resolution was cross-claimed by the Veterans Committee that added something to that. And what they added was during the time that somebody may have been put out of the military for don't ask, don't tell, that they also received their benefits.

[00:18:56] They brought that back to me for agreement or disagreement. I told them that I felt like that was part of the discussion already because if that happened, that would have been a general discharge. that wouldn't have been a dishonorable discharge. He told me that some people actually were discharged dishonorably, so I accepted that change to our resolution, to my resolution, and then that passed, and that will also go in front of Congress. So all those things will go in front of Congress. The Council of Government has done, has a page on the Council of Government

[00:19:28] page. I will send it to you all as a response to all the federal jobs that are being lost in the region. The page includes information in all localities of employees, of contractors and other people who may have lost their jobs. Of course, Loudoun has almost 18,000 federal employees, not counting federal contractors, and not also counting federal jobs that are in Loudoun, if not the federal employees. So at this point, every member of COG, every major member of COG, well, I shouldn't say major member, every larger member of COG has

[00:20:04] put forward, has put a page up, and it is on their site. This I didn't know before, but this was one other thing that I found out in COG. Unemployment benefits are only, can only be received by people if you were not fired for cause. So in other words, if you were fired with no reason, then you can get unemployment. Because the reduction in force are firings that are coming

[00:20:37] down from the federal government, many of them said for the reason that was poor performance, all those people who have been let go could not get unemployment benefits. When it was looked into deeper it was found that that people who were let go because of poor performance that was an inappropriate reason to let them go many of them had been were very new and did not have a performance evaluation at all many of them had or some of them i should say had recent performance evaluations

[00:21:15] that were glowing and very good and some were on probation because they got a promotion and if you got a promotion, you went on probation in your new promotion promoted job, and so to say that all of them were for poor performance meant that they couldn't get unemployment, and so there is an effort through the court systems that's been supported by COG to take that off, take that stipulation off, so that people can get their unemployment.

[00:21:50] I also pinned a letter to the governor that was signed by all the mayors and chairs in the region to ask for consideration for some state money to deal with the mental health repercussions of what's happening now at the federal level, especially some of the anxiety and depression because people are losing their jobs.

[00:22:13] So that letter was pinned, and we have not heard anything back on that yet. COG also honored all the first responders who responded to the American Airlines crash. Joining us that day was our Chief Johnson and Christina Moore, who is our person in our fire department, who works for any behavioral health, mental health, anxiety, or people that just want to talk about things in the department.

[00:22:46] And in addition, members of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office joined us at COG that day as well. Two last things, Supervisors, I already sent you the link to DMV Moves so you can see the latest agenda and presentation. You guys got that link today.

[00:23:01] So if you want to see what we're doing in DMV Moves, instead of me going through it right now, just go watch the agenda and presentation. If you want to have any further or deeper information, come find me, I'll do that. And MBTA's meeting was canceled in March because so many of the localities were due on our budgets.

[00:23:20] And we will resume MBTA meetings in April. So that are all my board comments, or rather my chair's comments. I do not have a voice for a cause. So before I go to Mr. Crony, I will go to Mr. Hemstreet and ask Mr. Hemstreet, do you or your student administrator have any comments for this evening?

[00:23:42] Hi, I'm Ashika Chavon. I go to Lightridge High School, there I'm a junior. Thank you Madam Chair, I have four comments this afternoon. First, I'm pleased to announce the Loudoun Transits expanded weekend service that starts this Saturday, April 5th.

[00:23:57] The expansion includes the addition of free local bus service on Saturdays, new service on Sunday for some local routes, and the extension of Sunday hours for paratransit services. More information about all the services provided Loudoun Transit may be found at loudoun.gov/transit. Second, the Loudoun County Public Library wants to hear from the community to help determine the goals and priorities of its new strategic plan for 2026 to 2030. Members of the public are invited to attend one of several community input sessions and are also invited to take a short online survey. Details are online at

[00:24:34] library.loudon.gov slash news. Third, Loudoun County is seeking public comment on a draft plan for reducing pollutants entering three local waterways, Bull Run, Goose Creek, and Sugar Land Run. The deadline to submit comments on the plan is April 15th. More information, including a link to the plan, is online at loudon.gov slash stormwater plan. And finally, ready, set, click.

[00:25:00] The 2025 Loudoun County Arbor Day Photo Contest is underway. This year's theme is Reaching Trees. Residents are encouraged to submit photos of trees that have notable crown spread. The deadline to submit the photos is April 16th. Details about the contest and the Loudoun County Arbor Day celebration can be found at loudoun.gov slash trees.

[00:25:22] And those are my comments, Madam Chair. Thank you, Student Supervisor. Supervisor Tercroni, do you have any additions today? I do. Thank you, student supervisor. So I'm going to make sure. All right. I would like to raise a point of order with regard to a vote taken on Supervisor Letourneau's motion to amend Supervisor Brissman's friendly amendment on the grandfathering resolution at our March 18th, 2025 business meeting.

[00:25:58] Mr. Letourneau's motion permitted revisions to administrative applications that don't comply with the 500-foot buffer. The motion passed 8 to 1 with me voting in favor of the motion. Without objection by my fellow board members, I wish to change my vote to nay and have the minutes reflect that the motion passed by a vote of 7 to 2.

[00:26:23] Student supervisors, when a person wants to change their vote, a pass vote, three things. One, they have to do it at the following meeting from when the vote happened, the next full board business meeting.

[00:26:40] Two, there's two ways they can do it. She can ask for a reconsideration of the entire thing, which would take us a very, very long time. She could, and we could have the whole discussion again. Or she could ask without objection to change just her vote. She's doing that and changing her vote will not change the outcome of the vote if changing her vote were to change the outcome of the vote She probably would be receiving some objection from people who voted a certain way on the on the dais However supervisors without objection does anyone have any issues with mr. Croney changing her vote staff?

[00:27:16] Will you please note that vote? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome Supervisors, we did have one item that came off the consent agenda. It was item number eight.

[00:27:32] It was Mr. Turner's BMI. I will go and do the two information items in a second, but we can knock this one out pretty fast, and the student supervisors can see what an action item looks like, which is always cool.

[00:27:49] And so I'm -- what I'm going to do is have Mr. Turner, if you do not mind, go to your motion. Supervisors, although this was pulled off by Supervisor Umstadt, it is my -- it is the correct -- it is not just my practice, it is correct to allow the supervisor whose motion it is to make the motion first.

[00:28:12] And then we will debate what happens, and depending on what happens, maybe the motion that he makes will not pass, but we don't know that yet. Mr. Turner, would you please have you or your student supervisor make your motion? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to ask Student Vice Chair Anvi Bastadi from Briarwoods High School to read the motion.

[00:28:31] I move that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to review River Creek Parkway between Riverside Parkway and Edwards Ferry Road for multimodal and operational safety and suggest improvements such as road diet and pedestrian crossings, prepare planning level cost estimates for design and implementation of the proposed improvements and report findings back to a future Board of Supervisors business meeting.

[00:28:58] Second. Thank you. That motion was made by Supervisor Turner's office and seconded by, who seconded that? Supervisor Rixman's office. Student Supervisor and Supervisor from the Algonquian District. Mr. Turner, would you like an opening on your motion?

[00:29:16] Student Supervisor, if somebody makes a motion, they get to speak first on that motion, they get to speak last on that motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is evolution that's come about as a result of requests by my constituents. So everybody knows the landscape here. River Creek Parkway runs north and south off of Riverside Highway or Parkway.

[00:29:37] The east side going north is my district. The west side is Supervisor Umstott's district. My constituents reached out to me and said they had been trying for years to have this section of River Creek Parkway, which is a four-lane road. It's a four-lane minor collector with a 45-mile-an-hour speed limit.

[00:29:55] They said they're speeding up and down the road quite frequently. School buses stop going north on the right side, and cars do not stop coming southbound, even though the law requires them to. And we offered to have a community meeting, hear their concerns.

[00:30:12] Loudoun County Sheriff's Office was there with us and provided some data on the road. And as a result of that, we thought the best thing to do was to look at this road to see what some options are to try and traffic calm this road. And hence, that's the genesis of this motion.

[00:30:31] Normal process is we aren't sure what our options are. We'll find out from staff what our options are. And then once we're given a host of options, then we will go out for community outreach to all the constituents on both sides of the road, present those options, again, feedback from the community, and then we'll come back to the board to make a decision.

[00:30:49] So that's what this motion is all about. Thank you, Ms. Turner. Ms. Umstead. Madam Chair, I have a friendly amendment to offer, and I emailed it out to the board, but I have hard copies if people need them. That friendly amendment would be I further move that prior to staff starting planning or design work on this project that they facilitate outreach to and solicit input from all communities bordering or accessing River Creek Parkway and Edwards Ferry Road east of Battlefield Parkway and report to the board whether an advisory citizens committee of HOA or other

[00:31:28] Representatives from all communities could be accommodated as part of the planning process Who seconded the motion miss miss miss Brickson mr. Turner. Do you accept the friendly amendment? I do not madam chair Okay, all right friendly amendment has not been accepted Would you like sure I'd like to make an amendment and you hear can I hear it again to find out if it's not an opposite If it's not opposite from the current motion, I don't believe it's opposite I think it may I hear it again, please yes, ma'am I further move that prior to staff starting planning or design work on this project that they facilitate outreach to and solicit input from

[00:32:06] all communities bordering or accessing River Creek Parkway and Edwards Ferry Road east of Battlefield Parkway and report to the board whether an advisory committee citizens committee of HOA or other representatives from all communities could be accommodated as part of the planning process.

[00:32:25] process. I actually do think that's opposite. However, it's important to me for our students today to see how all this works, and so I will allow that amendment. That's a motion. That is a motion. Is there a second on her motion? Seeing none, that motion dies for lack of a second. Point of information? Yes, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe we actually have some type of framework or guidance for what Mr. Turner is trying to do, so I I'm wondering if I can ask staff through Mr. Hemstreet or whoever the appropriate person would be,

[00:33:02] if we do have a guidelines or procedure for what Mr. Supervisor, Vice Chair Turner is trying to do, what would be the procedures and the actual guidelines and steps for what he's doing, when do we reach out to residents, and when that comes back, et cetera?

[00:33:19] Okay, before you answer that, Mr. Hemstreet, technically, we're in the motion, and so that didn't have to be a point of information. You just get to speak on the motion, and we speak on the motion. You can ask the question so that foreign information was not required, and I'm going to assume now that you're speaking on the motion, so we're going to start your clock.

[00:33:36] Mr. Hemstreet. So, Lou, are you up here to answer that, or do you want me to answer that? Okay. So I think it depends on how the discussion comes to us, right?

[00:33:53] So when a board member asks for a study, the process that's before us is a normal process where the board member is asking for us to do something if this were community generated then we would have a community process prior to it coming to the board and we would work through that if the community was asking for it as opposed to a board member okay and so my time so we had it sounds like we have a board member asking for this and I'm sure that he's received some some information from community so if mr. motion mr. vice chair turn his motion

[00:34:31] the past what would be the next steps if anybody wants to elaborate a little bit further for us so what we would do is a is a very quick analysis now there is a question that that came up from staff earlier right before the meeting um typically the what's in here is prepare planning level cost estimates for design and implementation of proposed improvements i'm interpreting that to mean a cursory examination and not a full planning level cost estimate for design implementation that would be a couple hundred thousand dollars there is no budget here so i'm assuming that is not what's

[00:35:09] being requested that they just want us to as staff to go ahead and do a down and dirty on that and come back to the board because we don't have a funding source that's in this motion okay and then if we were to approve this and you came back with funding source to start the process there would be i'm assuming some type of outreach to the community that would possibly be effective in this area to hear their concerns or suggestions so this is talking about preparing i mean this is creating a project so what we would be doing is coming back with a high level project scope

[00:35:43] that the board would then need to approve and then approve a funding source for and it would become a capital project and so we would do a Our regular community outreach is part of that project, but we would already Develop some solutions in advance. All right. Thank you That's the first time I ever heard mr. Hemstreet say a down-and-dirty, but okay If I may I just want to make sure that that's the intent of the board member and the board because supervisor Letourneau and are your student supervisors. Yeah, this is Helen from Freedom

[00:36:23] High School in South Riding. So she lives in South Riding and Freedom High School is in South Riding. No, I was a little confused by the motion because, I mean, I went through one of these last year. You remember the Destiny Drive one? So my motion at that time was to direct staff to prepare for the board a cost estimate of the study. But just to be completely clear on what we're voting on is that what we're asking them to do like they would need to come back to us with the scope of what the project is and then we would have to appropriate funds because because the motion says multimodal operational safety and suggest improvements such as that would not come as

[00:36:59] part of the staff level estimate that would come as part of the operational study but we have to appropriate funds for the operational study so this motion seems like it's out of order to me not out of order like literally but like we're going in the wrong order we first need to ask staff to prepare the scope of the study and then we need to appropriate funds for it as a secondary matter and then they would come up with these potential things which frankly i think could also address supervisor rumpstead's concern because that would all come up naturally in that process anyway so i guess that might be a question for the vice chair if that is sort of

[00:37:32] the intent is that that that that's the intent okay that i'm fine with that i can add a i further move but since i haven't distributed in advance to ask staff to do scope scheduling cost and a possible funding source when they come back with their recommendation which i think they're going to do anyway so i'm fine that's my intent to be fair he did ask to do that and i said not no because you haven't said you haven't done it yet and so well yeah but okay i mean he has put in the days before just says it on the oh i see okay and then just as a follow-up question which may be a lou question um i keep because i ask it every couple months do we know yet when the board's

[00:38:11] going to take up the county-wide transportation plan sorry there there is an item there's a i believe planning and zoning has a work plan item it's going to further discuss that at the next business meeting oh excellent okay great so we're getting in that range because some of these things are things that would also come up naturally in that discussion because we look at the sort of width of roads and those kind of issues and what the future plans are so that's why i brought that

[00:38:39] up. Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir. Supervisor Rickman, do you care to answer? Thank you, student chair. May I ask, through the chair, a question of Supervisor Letourneau? Yes.

[00:38:59] Supervisor Letourneau, when you said the motion was out of order, out of sequence, you meant Supervisor Umstad's motion, right? No. Oh, okay. So we do have a process, and I think that Supervisor Turner's motion is appropriate, and I also think that what Supervisor Umstad wants accomplish will happen during the normal process. It's on our website. We have a traffic calming study request, then we do an engineering study, then we do a conceptual plan, and then we do community support. It's step five. And yes, before that, we identified funding to do the study.

[00:39:31] So community outreach is in there already. So I won't be supporting Supervisor Umstead's motion. Thank you. That motion didn't get a second. It's off the table. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were still on Supervisor Umstead's motion. My bad. I will be supporting Supervisor Turner's motion. thank you thank you supervisor supervisor umstead do you care to comment uh yes thank thank you madam chair um i just think the sooner you get um a broad range of community opinions on any

[00:40:03] project like this that that's going to impact more than just one community the better because right now i have constituents with whom i've been able to share a supervisor turner's motion some like some parts of it not others others don't like it at all others are all in but we my fear is we're going to be spending a lot of time a lot of staff time and expense before we find out what the broad

[00:40:39] community view is so something our office would would uh can do and i think we will do it and we'll certainly invite uh supervisor turner to join us is to reach out to the entire community and get some public input for staff's benefit before they they have to spend too much time on this thank you it seems to me that this is the order in which we do these things and and it if If we reach out for a lot of public input right now before staff has come back with

[00:41:17] anything, what's the public -- what are they talking to us about? They've not done anything yet for this public to talk to us about. So Mr. -- I understand Mr. Letourneau is saying when he says there's a lot going on in here. A little bit of that is kind of not out of order, but out of sequence a little bit, maybe the more correct word.

[00:41:37] But this is how we do these things. They've always been done like that. And Mr. Turner's constituents or my constituents, your constituents, Ms. Umstead, or my constituents, I've heard from one constituent, one. So if anyone has any other thoughts, they can please email me, call me, do all that stuff, because I'm not, I checked my email before I came on here, nothing, didn't see anything at all, but I've heard from one person.

[00:42:01] So this is the order in which we normally do these things. And, you know, I think that we should, you know, before we tell the community to give us comments, what are they commenting on? So this actually makes more sense to me to do it this way.

[00:42:17] And yes, this is, Ms. Bricksman, this is Mr. Turner's motion. Mr. Turner, would you like a closing? Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I was not going to bring this up, but I do want to bring it up because I want to provide staff a bit more direction based on what we've heard. The Sheriff's Office was at the community meeting that we held and the Sheriff's Office said, there are numerous violations, speed violations, traffic citations. We have observed dangerous situations on this portion of River Creek Parkway for a long time and been trying to get this changed and I would ask staff to specifically reach out to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office for verification of that feedback. The second thing was I've also heard that the road has been changed in the 2019

[00:42:57] countywide transportation plan downgraded from a four-lane minor collector to a two-lane minor collector with the eligibility to drop the speed limit from 45 to 35 which is exactly what my constituents wanted, if you could confirm whether or not the road has been changed under the 2019 CTP, that would be helpful.

[00:43:16] Yes, it had been changed to a two-lane road. Yes. Yeah, I think that's relevant information that we need to share with the community when we finally get the options that come back. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisors, a motion is made by Vice Chair Turner, seconded by Supervisor Bricksman, I do believe.

[00:43:32] All of you, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 801 with Mr. Kirshner being off the date. uh we are now going to go to our um oh for our tap for we're gonna now do our tax resolution guys um yeah the appropriations resolution um no i do that no i do that i just need to go find it just give me one second please but miss miss um bricksman while i am finding it you can absolutely tell our student supervisors what we're doing right now because what we're doing right now

[00:44:12] it's pretty darn big exactly yes thank you madam chair so the um what we're doing right now is basically approving the entire county budget for fiscal year 2026 it will come in at a roughly 6.9 billion dollars which for comparison's sake it's bigger than the state of west virginia's budget we started deliberations on this budget i believe in the fall in finance committee maybe a little little bit earlier than that? July. July in the finance committee. In the finance committee and

[00:44:47] we went through many iterations of guidance from finance through to the board and then the board gave guidance on potential tax rate that we had to advertise and then we had a number of budget work sessions where each department came in front of the board and justified their budget and resource request to the board and then we also had a separate CIP a couple separate CIP work sessions the CIP is the county county improvement plan so that's basically the infrastructure of the county builds and that's a separate

[00:45:25] budget well separate piece of the budget and so that comes through a little bit of a different process we had a work session on the CIP as well and then we had straw votes going through all of it and now we are taking our final vote on on what will be the tax rate for Loudoun County and our businesses.

[00:45:44] Thank you, Madam. And we are funding our school system. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors amend the FY 2026 proposed budget as presented by the County Administrator on February 12, 2025, and amended by the Board of Supervisors at the March 3rd, 6th, 10th, and 13th, 2025 budget work sessions, and further amended as described in the April 1st, 2025 action item by reducing the contribution the Revenue Stabilization Fund by $8 million and creating a Loudoun County public schools contingency in the county's general fund in that same amount.

[00:46:20] I further move that the Board of Supervisors adopt the FY 2026 budget as presented by the County Administrator on February 12, 2025 and amended by the Board of Supervisors at the March 3rd, 6th, 10th, and 13th, 2025 budget work sessions and further amended as described in the April 1st, 2025 action item and is found in Attachments 1 and 6.

[00:46:40] Adopt tax year 2025 property tax rates as found in Attachment 2. Adopt the fiscal year 2026 appropriations resolutions as found in Attachment 3. Adopt the fiscal year 2026 EMS transport reimbursement rates as found in Attachment 4. And adopt the fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2030 amended capital improvement programs as amended by the Board of Supervisors at the March 10, 2025 budget work sessions and shown in Attachment 5.

[00:47:06] I further move that the Board of Supervisors amend the fiscal year 2025 capital improvement program by directing staff to execute a budget adjustment to move $250,000 from the capital project management account in the capital projects fund to a newly created Fleetwood Road improvements project.

[00:47:22] I further move that the Board of Supervisors amend the Fiscal Year 2025 Capital Improvement Program by directing staff to SQ a budget adjustment to appropriate $1,200,000 of cash proffer revenue in the Linear Parks and Trails Program project to construct a pedestrian crossing over Beaver Dam Run.

[00:47:41] Oh, losing steam here. I further move that the Board of Supervisors appropriate $8,700,000 of additional state revenue in the Loudoun County Public Schools Operating Fund in fiscal year 2025 to allow the school division to distribute $1,000 bonuses to eligible employees. Second.

[00:47:57] Thank you, Student Chairwoman. I make that motion, and that motion is seconded by the Agonkian District Office and Supervisor Bricksman. Discussion on the motion. First of all, and as always, I want to thank Mr. Hemstreet and the staff for not just putting together a very good budget process for us, but for all the work that you all do every single day to make this county run.

[00:48:24] I say this all the time. You all are in every way public servants, and we never forget it. I do think it's important to supervisors to, if you're not looking at your motion, to go back and look at that last, I further move. The point of that was that if we wanted to be able to give not just the, well, let's say it like this, not just some Loudoun County employees the $1,000 bonus, but do it across the board, But that's what that $8,700,000 in the school operating fund for FY25 is for.

[00:48:59] So that's actually for right now, which is not the same thing. It's a discussion I have today of the fact that the governor, when he did his budget, he removed $8 million from what we would normally give to the Loudoun County school system.

[00:49:16] and so it's his budget the state's not finished with their work yet so basically we're taking some money moving it aside and seeing what they're going to do to find out where we're going to put that if school's going to need it or if we're going to fund balance is that pretty much the way i could say that yes okay and everything else is is as as all as we have talked about This was an easier process than normal, I think, for a lot of reasons, but a very good process.

[00:49:48] Supervisors, anyone else like to speak on the budget? Supervisor DeCrony's office. Thank you so much. So I just want to reiterate that this was the first year that we could differentiate the personal property tax rate for vehicles from the general rate, which includes computer equipment and a data center.

[00:50:18] So the vehicle tax this year will be lowered to $3.09 from $4.15, which is a $1.06 reduction for tax year 2026. So that's an amazing reduction that residents will really feel.

[00:50:37] I've been a strong advocate of holding the general rate to lower and eventually eliminate the pesky vehicle tax. I've been working with Supervisor Kirchner's office. He's not here today. But I believe we should be using the revenue that we get from our data centers, particularly with the personal property tax to provide relief to our residents and really reduce the burden on our residents, especially during these times when some residents are losing their jobs and when some contracts, when some of our residents

[00:51:17] are losing federal contracts. So I wanna thank you to staff for putting together an excellent budget. We balanced our budget. then also for my colleagues for supporting holding um that general rate so we could provide relief to our our hard-working residents thank you thank you supervisor glass's office thank you madam student chair um i and i just wanted to say that i'm thrilled that this with this budget we've managed to lower the tax rate for our constituents and we're able to fund programs um for all of our

[00:51:55] residents here. I also as a special education teacher by fully funding the LCPS budget requests we can be rest assured that all of our students will receive the additional services and support they need to matriculate through and become the best versions of themselves. I'm also pleased that the construction of the bridge over Beaver Dam run was able to be completed using eligible proffer dollars as this will expand our ever-growing trail network in the county. And I also want to again thank my colleagues for your support in the child care

[00:52:32] fee coverage for PRCS program. I know that will help a number of our families here in Loudoun. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Umstadt's office. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to first thank our staff for always making sure we follow all the guidelines and don't go too far afield in how we spend the public's tax money. Secondly, I would like to thank the data centers

[00:53:04] for providing the $1 billion in revenue to the county that allows us to fully fund the schools, Expand our affordable housing Fund from half a penny to a full penny of the tax rate taking that up to I think about 17 to 18 million dollars in this upcoming budget to pay for raises for law enforcement firefighters county staff and to

[00:53:43] Just make sure that that we can beef up our mental health services And other critical services like social services Child protective services. I also want to finally I want to thank supervisor to crony for as she said working to get the vehicle tax rate down But I I really want to thank Supervisor Kirshner who's not here tonight for advocating for the reduction of the vehicle tax rate down to three dollars and nine cents from 415

[00:54:23] and just to juxtapose the situation fairfax is in they've been looking at trying to fill a 300 million dollar shortfall and they have had to look at the possibilities of raising their real estate tax rate their personal property tax rate is already considerably higher than ours and their data center industry while thriving is not nearly as large as ours and

[00:54:57] their population is three times what ours is so again i have to come back if if we did not have the data center industry that we do in loudon county we would not be able to come anywhere near funding this budget and lowering critical taxes thank you thank you supervisor brickman's office uh thank you madam student chair um so i said this at the beginning and and i'll say it again the headline here is that loudon county is fully funding our budget and fully funding our schools by dropping our tax rate by another six cents.

[00:55:36] We have already dropped the tax rate by 18 cents since we came into office in 2020. So that's the headline here. We're dropping the tax rate below the household equalized tax rate. So most homeowners in Loudoun County will be paying less in real estate property taxes than they paid the year before.

[00:55:54] That's a gold star as far as I'm concerned. And thank you, staff, for working so hard on all of this. We have also provided a 17% supplement to the District 25 State Probation and Parole Office because the state isn't paying its bills. We also have funded four new positions in the Office of the Public Defender.

[00:56:12] Thank you to my colleagues for supporting that. That is because our public defenders are overworked and underpaid, and everyone deserves equal representation under the law. It's actually in our Constitution, so thank you, colleagues, for supporting that. We did lower the vehicle tax, as my colleagues have mentioned, but I hesitate to call it a pesky tax because the reason we have a vehicle tax in this state is because the state, again, didn't want to pay its bills.

[00:56:38] So what it did was give localities authority to do a vehicle tax. So although we are very fortunate in Loudoun County that we can reduce our vehicle tax, not every jurisdiction in the state is able to do that. They need the car tax. So I push back against calling it a pesky, pesky tax because many jurisdictions really, really rely on that tax.

[00:57:00] We're just fortunate in Loudoun County that we're able to kind of live without it. As the chair was explaining, the governor has decided to ignore the JLARC study on K-12 public education and declined to fully fund the gap in our schools, the compensation gap or the ratio gap.

[00:57:26] and that was recommended it passed both houses in the senate and the state house of delegate delegates and he has decided that he wants to reduce that so again loudon county and other jurisdictions if they want to get rid of that gap they are going to have to use taxpayer funds which is exactly what we're doing with that eight million again loudon county is really lucky we can do that but for a governor who claims to be pro-schools, pro-student, pro-family, to continue to allow this support cap gap to continue in our state is horrific. This was a cap that was put in during the recession

[00:58:05] in 2008 and 2009. So I hope that he changes his mind. I hope that this contingency eight million doesn't need to be used, but I'm really proud that Loudoun County was able to step up and fully fund our schools. Thank you, staff, for all of your hard work. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Turner.

[00:58:25] Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Student Chair, just a cautionary note. First, thanks to the staff for terrific work, as always. This was certainly the easiest budget session that I've ever been through in my five years, and I don't know if the Chair's been in there longer. This seems like pretty easy to me. I can't imagine it going easier than this, and that was a testament to having a lot of money and the staff's very hard work, and we really do truly appreciate it.

[00:58:52] The cautionary note is I cannot emphasize enough the amount of turbulence going on in the data center industry right now. It is like a hurricane force going through the data center industry. And while we are very fortunate right now, as we go into every successive budget discussion going forward, we have to constantly be wary of what are the factors that are changing, what are the impacts, what are the downstream impacts of our decision.

[00:59:16] And there's always this sort of little tickler in the back of my mind when we're lowering taxes, which we always strive to do, that in this kind of a turbulent market, what goes down may very well go back up. And we need to be prepared for making those tough decisions going forward.

[00:59:32] Thank you. So, you know, it's obviously what I would say is we want to thank all of all of our business community in Loudoun for investing in our county. But to say that I would specifically thank the data center community because of the revenue would be wrong-headed.

[00:59:53] I just as well and just as much want to thank the mom and pop shop that used all their money and poured all of their savings into opening their shop. I just want to thank the child care provider who was doing child care in her house, thus helping other people be able to go to work.

[01:00:13] Yes, we thank what the chamber calls the large wells, but we thank the small fish, too, who are actually making our economy run. And so I give equal appreciation to all of our business community and to focus on just the one that is bringing in the revenue because they're bringing in the revenue, not maybe realizing how much of a burden and how hard it is for somebody else to live out their life dream of starting their own business, be that a farming business or a landscaping business or whatever that business may be, they're paying taxes too.

[01:00:53] And by percentage, they're paying taxes as well. And so that is very tough for them. So I'm not going to single out just one. I'm going to thank our entire community, and as well, I'm going to also remember that our taxes also come from our property taxes that are paid by our residents.

[01:01:12] So all of us are in this together. All of us believe in this county. All of us have struggled. All of us will hopefully reap some of the rewards, and that's what we are. We do hard things together. Supervisors, I made the motion, or my student chair made the motion, and it was seconded by Ms. Bricksman, although Mr. Turner, that's supposed to be you when you're the vice chair. But I will say all in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. Thank you. Supervisors, and most especially student supervisors, our

[01:01:52] action, our information item right now is going to be the item on the, on our youth government day so will you please read that there are two information items on tonight's agenda reminder to staff when presenting or responding questions from board members please be sure to turn on your microphone and speak directly into it item one one youth in government day in person steve torpy prcs item one two advisory commission on youth report state of youth of louding county

[01:02:25] 2025. In person, Steve Torpy, PRCS. Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you. Student supervisors, after we get these two reports, I'm going to open the floor up primarily and first to you to ask questions. And if you need a second round after seeing the presentation, you can.

[01:02:48] Supervisors, please remember to show your student supervisors your iPad so they can follow along with the with the presentation thank you very much and good evening everyone good evening madam chair how are you all good to see everybody and once again we are here with youth and government day and we did a little things things a little bit differently this year with some feedback from the past several years we adjusted youth and government day making it a little bit shorter day but still wanted to bring an opportunity for students from around the county in all districts to

[01:03:27] come and experience what it's like to be a part of local government, particularly how things operate here in the boardroom. So there was some introductory conversations this afternoon, followed by some time with Chair Randall and Vice Chair Turner, both a information time as far as a keynote speech, but then really the time where there was Q&A from the students I think was a very beneficial time.

[01:04:00] I know speaking with Chair Randall afterwards, she mentioned that the questions were very good this year and spot on, so kudos to the students that were here. I did want to mention that even though Youth in Government Day was shortened a little bit this year, for some of the other feedback that we got has to do with an internship program that we kicked off that's gonna be happening this year.

[01:04:30] That is called the Next Gen Loudon Internship Program. We were wanting to have a program that kind of continues Youth in Government Day, but throughout the year a little bit more, giving students a better opportunity to truly experience either working out in various departments or here in the government center.

[01:04:50] And so we were hoping to get a couple of dozen applications through that process. We have two weeks left in the application process and we've already received 84 applications for that program. So it is a strong program.

[01:05:06] I do appreciate the support of county administration, particularly Deputy County Administrator Vincent Jones who has been helping us put that together. And then obviously today we had teams from PRCS led by Christina Haig and then also various staff members from PRCS along with Jenny Grimmel and Amanda Logan from County Administration to put this day together for all of the students and for the board members.

[01:05:37] So, we encourage you to, after these two items, to join the students for a meal where they will be sitting with the various districts and supervisors from that district to continue that conversation about local government.

[01:05:53] So, without any further questions on that, Chair Randall and Student Chair, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Goldman, who is going to introduce his team, who worked with the Advisory Commission on Youth, your Advisory Commission on Youth, to put together this year's study.

[01:06:18] - Okay, thank you, Steve. To my far right, I have Mr. Feely Parker, at-large representative, who helped compile some of the highlights at the beginning of the student accomplishments. On my far left, of course, is Vice Chair Mike Reles, To be quite honest, without him, this report doesn't happen.

[01:06:40] And we, you know, we mentioned another county, we won't say by name, but we learned this year that that county has a staff of 12 to 20 people paid putting together reports like this and administering youth surveys like this. We're volunteers, and I think our report's better.

[01:07:00] I also, to my left, Griffin Cook, and he's responsible for the geospatial analysis you get to see in the report this year. And to my immediate left, I have Ms. Bellin Rodriguez, who not only is an outstanding eighth grader at Jay Lundford's middle school, she is a top ten finalist in the Step Up and Project Illuminate, and I argue is the expert in the room on the mental health effects and body dysmorphia.

[01:07:29] So me, you know, I'm Dr. Jeff Goldman, and thank you, Chair Randall and the Board of Supervisors, county staff, for the opportunity to serve. It's my privilege and present the report on youth for the year. I want to take just a little bit of an aside based on, you know, before we get to the report, a challenge that Chair Randall presented to me and ACOY to provide some insights into how COVID has affected our youth in a before and after. It did not make the report mainly

[01:08:03] for this reason. Our report is data driven. We use national level data, state level, local level data to supplement our own administered survey to youth and parents. For the pre-post COVID we just didn't have that level of data. Instead we have mostly anecdotal. But I wanted to at least share kind of kind of the top three of those anecdotal reports the before act for COVID some of those you know observations coming from educators coming from non-profits running after

[01:08:39] school programs and just their observations and things that we've done with interviews the number one I'm sorry that so the three of those things are one of number one lower levels of curiosity and engagement seen in our younger youth. There's less of asking why about something and more just apathy or don't care. Number two, declining social and emotional skills, things where we have, you know, playing together, cooperating together. Instead,

[01:09:14] youth are often seen on their own island. And number three, an academic apathy and skill loss. These are things like noticed in maybe fine motor skills and difficulty in just completing assignments. So, again, this dovetails into the data-driven parts of our report that highlights mental health concerns that we still have for the youth in Loudoun County.

[01:09:42] We are doing a lot in this county to combat mental health. our concerns are still there with perceptions of drug availability having it not you know having a safe space and dropout rates on in disproportionate among different youth I don't want to end on doom and gloom I'm not doom and gloom I want to give you two good good news stories the the first is happy to announce for 2025 ACOI thanks to the board of supervisors and the hard work of parks

[01:10:17] and rec staff will have a mini grant program and it'll be set up for for life for us to award mini grants to youth in the county and then number two and you kind of see this in like the first several pages you report all the accomplishments from loudon youth we had turned some away there are so many so we put we put as many as we could in that report that said i don't want to talk too much i want to give mike relis a chance to give you the top three pieces of the report mike yeah thank you again for the time you give us today um three things in this report um as seguing from

[01:10:57] jeff's last comment um the youth in loudon county are amazingly accomplished um there are big accomplishments and then heroic day-to-day accomplishments it could be a kid trying track and field for the first time or somebody passing vocational education classes and getting a full time job there are a lot of day-to-day heroic accomplishments but we give you some that are especially noteworthy this year a second thing in the report is we did a survey and the survey largely reinforced what the last survey said which is our kids are very anxious i mean there's a lot

[01:11:36] of anxiety surrounding school, school work, a lot of anxiety surrounding availability of drugs and drug use. So we didn't find any drop in that. And we did a very healthy survey in 2022, and then our 2024 survey reinforced the same things.

[01:11:59] And lastly, last year we heard you guys say, hey, you're talking about libraries all the time. Look at the other libraries. at the other places that the county has for youth to gather and my partner in crime here did a lot of work looking not just at the hours of operation but the proximity of regional parks neighborhood parks community centers recreation centers to youth to show how many youth are one mile away

[01:12:31] from those parks and centers and I think what we found is libraries and the community centers are are the absolute best as far as proximity to our youth with one exception neighborhood parks hit it out of the park 60 percent of our our youth are within one mile of a neighborhood park um but libraries and community centers are twice as likely to have youth within one mile as our regional parks and our other parks and that's just because we locate them in the outskirts often

[01:13:10] where where land is but um we think there's a huge opportunity to expand the hours of community centers and to expand the hours of um libraries and to eliminate the entry fee for youth in our rec centers. So with that, back to you. So I think here we want an opportunity for our youth and government to ask questions and we'll do our best to answer. Okay. Well, supervisor, I'm going to go to your student supervisors first. And so if student supervisors have

[01:13:47] questions about what you just heard or any, and we'll try to get as much in as possible, you should put your light on. So supervisor to Crony's office. Has there been any progress to increase the hours and programming for teens at our libraries and community centers?

[01:14:13] So today, we've got a table that talks about, you know, Bramilton office, or I'm sorry, Bramilton libraries open until 9 on Fridays, Sterling's open until 9, and the formal teen programs after our teen center at Cascades. We have made our push, and the libraries are in alignment on this, to keep all libraries open for everyone uh for those friday nights any how about at the community

[01:14:50] centers because i see none of them have any hours on saturdays right for our youth so so one of the one of the things that we have recently done the board adopted a change to the capital facility standards taking away standalone teen centers to having teen center space within community centers and/or rec centers when we go through those process of developing.

[01:15:15] So we're working towards that of adding space in those types of facilities, but also staff internally are working through a team programming kind of template for that space that we can look at for communities as well, community centers as well.

[01:15:34] And what about partnering with the Ryan Bartle Foundation to expand the Fort, a safe hearing community space for young people to connect currently workshops are only available on sundays in sterling at the sterling community center and leesburg at fusion academy loudon so i know so for ryan bartell we have a member who comes to our meetings and we do connect with

[01:16:01] them on this so happy to take that as a suggestion for you know for upcoming thank you supervisor Brickman's office. I wanted to ask about the push against drug abuse in schools. Specifically, what are plans that are being made apart from just a poster in the bathroom or a faulty vape

[01:16:35] detector? And then outside of school, which happens frequently, how are we educating kids on how to avoid drug overdoses? The good news, I'd say the biggest gains we've made in the last 12 months have been with loudon county department of mental health they've done a lot of prevention outreach and activities and they have reach outside of schools because schools have the

[01:17:09] burden of obviously educating students their day is pretty packed and we're really excited about all the prevention and interventions that loudon county mental health has done within the schools We still have a recommendation that more training be given to non-teaching adults that have contact with youth to help screen, intervene, and refer kids to proper treatment or counseling when they see signs of drug misuse or drug abuse.

[01:17:46] I mean, just on March 20th, we had two overdose reports in Parkview. I mean, it's still there. The numbers of emergency room visits for youth overdose in Loudoun County is higher than all the other counties in Virginia.

[01:18:05] So it is still an issue that we have to work on. I think if you want to hang your hat on some real stories of hope, I think the Loudoun County mental health offices have really stepped up their game on doing prevention programming outside of their population that they directly serve.

[01:18:28] Is there a push for that type of training in students as well as adults? Absolutely, but we advocate for adult-driven prevention messaging to late high school students, 11th and 12th graders.

[01:18:46] But when you're dealing with middle school students and early high school students, we think the messaging should come from a combination of peers and maybe supervised a little bit by adults. Because all the research shows that middle school students listen more to peers and they come back to listening to adults when they hit 11th and 12th grade.

[01:19:12] And I want to ask my partner, would you think that that is correct? Yes, I would, because I know that there's been, last year especially, there was a girl who almost overdosed at my school, and I think that set a big message throughout my whole school, and there was a decrease, I feel like, because it was a big thing that happened to one of our peers, and I think we all learned from that.

[01:19:45] If I can just add, some of the pushback we receive when suggesting peers as support to advise their juniors about dangers of drugs, the pushback is making sure that they have proper training, like a medical professional or educator who's had the certification, and it potentially gets us in trouble unless we can confirm that.

[01:20:17] So I'm not disagreeing. I'm simply saying that's part of the reason why this hasn't proliferated. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Grass's office. Yes. Does PRCS or ACOY have any ideas on how to increase the number of respondents in the future surveys that you're taking?

[01:20:43] That is an excellent question. So, yes, we do have fewer responders to the survey than we would like with the some 80,000 youth, and we have just a small number in scattered number of jurisdictions.

[01:21:01] We have two youth advisory, or there are actually youth on our commission that are voting members, and we leverage their know-how as much as we can. And so what social media aspects things we can get. That said, it's an undertaking to get folks to respond to surveys like this.

[01:21:24] And I will admit that when we first did this, we were a bit rogue. And we went out to principals at the schools and asked them to please give them to the students. And LCPS said we can't do that anymore. And they are right. We cannot do that anymore.

[01:21:39] So it is a difficulty, one that is, you know, the successes for other counties that are doing this use staff and promote surveys to make it just as important as, say, registering your student for school.

[01:22:00] I'd also like to briefly add one of the ideas that we've had in our discussions about the survey in regard to increasing the level of participation is we've considered the idea of providing some sort of incentive, such as a raffle for a gift card, but also we have the conclusion we reached, the conclusion we reached on that is that that would not technically be allowed because in order for the raffle to be conducted as an incentive for participation in the survey, we would have to collect people's personal identifying information,

[01:22:36] which would violate the integrity of the survey. So I just want to reiterate Mr. Goldman's point that there are certain legal bounds that restrict the type of outreach that we're allowed to conduct. - And one of the things I'll just add is that we are talking and working with ACOI to bring the Youth Summit back and having an event like that where you have hundreds of students come together at one particular time and have the opportunity to discuss, you not only can use that as a way of gathering valuable information,

[01:23:11] But as was mentioned earlier, oftentimes youth are more apt to listen to other youth. And so getting those to perhaps be advocates for the survey moving forward is one of the ways that we can look at enhancing that, enhancing the response.

[01:23:31] Thank you. Supervisor Soino's office. I'm sorry. I also just wanted to share that we also talked about just the timing of the survey and possibly extending it to allow more time for responses and to receive responses and to really harness, I guess, our community relationships with other organizations with similar initiatives and priorities with youth and families to increase the response rate.

[01:24:05] Thank you. Supervisor Sane's office. Hello. I know you've gone over the issues with fentanyl, But I wanted to ask specifically as it relates, you said you worked with agencies outside of your own.

[01:24:22] If you've worked with the sheriff's office when it comes to enforcing carding at various establishments, because I know that there are various places around the county that have even acquired a reputation for not carding students.

[01:24:38] I'll hear their anecdotes about particularly nicotine pouches and alcohol being bought at those establishments. And I was just wondering if you had any plans to combat that through the sheriff's office and enforcement of ID rather than just prevention programs aimed at the students.

[01:25:01] I mean, we're forever grateful for the sheriff's office. We have, I mean, the free market is very efficient, and we display and we've talked about for the last couple of years the rapid growth of the vaping stores, all up and down Route 7 and now up and down Route 50.

[01:25:20] I mean, they're everywhere, and they have a carnival look and feel to them. The sheriff's office does a really good job of doing targeted stings on those operations to make sure that they're adhering to the 21-year-old age limit, and they're having success.

[01:25:38] What we are still seeing, though, is that you're always trying to increase youth's perception of harm in using substances and decrease their perception of availability.

[01:25:55] They're feeling that drugs and alcohol and things as dangerous as fentanyl are readily available, And we're not seeing that change. We're not really seeing youth feeling that drug use is more harmful than it was in the past or that drugs are less available.

[01:26:13] So kudos to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and even our local police forces. I think they are tamping down on what you're describing, which is serving minors. but we're still struggling to see a real reduction in the perception of availability.

[01:26:35] I'd also like to add in regard to the vice chair's comment on the perceptions of the harms caused by drugs. I definitely feel like this is more of an LCPS issue as opposed to a board of supervisors issue,

[01:26:54] But I believe that one of the major opportunities for the county that we have is to kind of refocus our drug abuse education on sort of what the physical and, like, health consequences of using drugs are as opposed to the approach that has been historically more punitive and emphasizing what the, like, what the academic consequences and, like, what discipline, that's the word, disciplinary consequences.

[01:27:25] of drug abuse are, because recalling, when I think back on my time as a student at LSTPS, I only remember that the one drug abuse session we had, it was one time, and it was, I remember, it was primarily focused on, again, they spent most of the time talking about what the disciplinary consequences of drug abuse were, and much less time on what the physical health consequences are.

[01:27:51] So I definitely think the drug abuse education needs to be more frequent and also just sort of retooled to be less punitive. Senator Umstadt's office? Oh, supervisor, I'm sorry.

[01:28:13] Thank you, Madam Chair. You previously mentioned incorporating youth, educating other youth. Can I go closer to the mic? You previously mentioned incorporating youth, educating other youth on the dangers of the use of drugs and alcohol.

[01:28:29] How would you incorporate that into what you previously stated? So I definitely, I think one of the main methods in which that could be done is we, is the curriculum could be, the curriculum could have a much bigger focus on sort of, I guess you would say, to put it perhaps a bit crudely, the horror stories of drug use in the sense that I think it will be as my colleagues have sort of, as have touched on in various ways through their earlier remarks, I think that the -- that

[01:29:06] you've seen the ways in which -- the ways in which drug use directly harmed someone close to them, like harmed their -- harmed their health physically and/or mentally, I think that would be -- that would be especially effective and perhaps more effective than some of the other traditional teaching methods.

[01:29:30] Have you ever considered doing, like, a buddy system type of thing? That way you could incorporate, how you previously mentioned, the middle schoolers being more receptive to people older than them?

[01:29:49] Yes. The answer to that is yes. And I think Loudoun County Schools is particularly good at making sure that there is drug prevention curriculum from the kindergarten age where they're talking about, you know, healthy habits and healthy lifestyles all the way through high school.

[01:30:07] We just think the messenger is wrong in the middle school area. And when we say youth, we're talking maybe 25-year-olds, 24-year-olds, people who may have a life experience that would help better deliver a message to a middle schooler.

[01:30:25] We think they would listen more. It would probably drive up their perception of harm if they heard it from somebody that they could relate to more. A buddy system would actually be a pretty novel idea.

[01:30:42] It would be a pretty novel idea if the same way we have a buddy system for middle school readers or elementary readers, we could have a buddy system maybe from a local college to middle schools where they could come in and share their experience.

[01:31:00] They do have to be trained in delivery of that message, but it's just being heard. And we're desperately trying to come up with ways to increase the perception of harm of drug use, hopefully discouraging use, delaying the age of onset, and preventing overdose down the road.

[01:31:22] Thank you. County Attorney's Office. Good afternoon. I was wondering if there have been any considerations toward working with businesses to incentivize the gainful employment, particularly of high schoolers, as a way to build responsibility and also find a community.

[01:31:43] So I think that's a great idea. We don't have anything specific in the report calling those things out. I think I would, you know, encourage that type of incentives.

[01:32:04] If there are, you know, things that the county could offer to incentivize businesses, I think that could go a long way for youth. I know there is a volunteer network for youth that's supported by local businesses as well as a means to do that.

[01:32:22] And I'll just add one other thing. In prior reports, we had asked the County Board of Supervisors to expand and make free public transportation, and that's a huge win. the County Board of Supervisors has increased the number of bus routes and has made the county more walkable and youth can get from a part-time job back and forth using our public transportation so we're forever grateful for that I don't know if they adopted that based on what we were talking about but it is we're definitely reaping the benefit of that for our youth. I would also offer

[01:32:58] for consideration I know that LCPS has the I believe it's called the job for a day program and that's something that could possibly be expanded to kind of address the suggestion that you had so we'll definitely capture that and revisit that thank you county clerk's office so so at our school we actually had a drug education program and the thing that happened

[01:33:37] was only one person asked a question and it was about hey is fentanyl present in weed and i think that a big part of why of the education is that people are scared to ask because they're afraid of the consequences by administration they're afraid of by parents so they're putting their own health in danger continuously just because they're afraid of the consequences so maybe if there was a way to anonymously ask questions just get this information like no there's not fentanyl and weed sometimes we should still shouldn't do it and also i would

[01:34:14] argue that the education should be expanded to elementary school not just middle school and high school because we have dare in elementary school but it's not it's treated kind of with like kid gloves and like we're taught from a young age like don't cross the street without looking both ways and like drugs and drug abuse and fentanyl is just as dangerous as walking across a busy street So, yes, it's a serious topic, but it's also one that's becoming increasingly relevant.

[01:34:45] And the sooner that it's learned, like, that kind of fear, I guess, is put in, then, like, kids are going to be like, well, I grew up knowing not to use that. So it's like I have more knowledge that this is bad. I hope that makes sense. Those are great observations, and it dovetails exactly with what we're talking about, peer-led drug prevention messaging.

[01:35:10] You know, a youth is much more likely to ask a college-age student who's delivering drug prevention messaging about their experiences than they are a uniformed officer. They might feel afraid to talk to a school counselor or a principal about it, and they might be more likely to talk to somebody who's 20 or 21 who's had some training in that field, but they can better relate to them.

[01:35:39] And also I just wanted to very quickly add, so one of the other stakeholders that participates in our ACOI meetings is a liaison from the sheriff's office. And one time we, I forget exactly why, but we were discussing drug abuse programs and it ventured into the elementary level.

[01:35:57] And I would have to verify that this is still correct, but what he told us, what they told us is that the sheriff's office is actually looking, shopping around for alternative options to replace the D.A.R.E. program because they're, in the broader national discourse, there's a lot of differing opinions on whether the D.A.R.E. program is effective and the Sheriff's Office, based on what we heard, seems to be cognizant of that and is evaluating its options in terms of providing a more substantive drug abuse education

[01:36:34] for elementary schoolers. - Good, okay. - Supervisor Letourneau's office. - Good afternoon. This is a slightly change in direction, but I wanted to inquire regarding the admission fees to the recreation centers.

[01:36:52] Similar to how free and reduced meals are offered at schools, are there any need-based initiatives being offered to reduce the admission fees for students at the recreation centers, especially considering how many benefits the centers provide and how promotion of exercise can really help with youth health?

[01:37:09] - One of the things that came out of, and thank you for the question, One of the things that came out of the budget process that you all just adopted earlier this evening was a discussion surrounding the PRCS Cares Program, which is a fee reduction program that was specifically geared towards childcare programs.

[01:37:33] And one of the questions that we were asked to do is look at long-term how, because it's a grant funded, How are we going to continue to provide that after the grant funding runs out? But then also, how can we expand that to other types of programs, not specific to just childcare?

[01:37:53] Because to your point, getting youth involved in health and wellness programs and things along those lines is a very important part of our mission as well. So we are going to be looking at that. - Thank you.

[01:38:09] I wanted to quickly add on to Mr. Torpy's point, which is that, that was actually one of the, as a result of the sort of analysis that I did of our different recreation facility offerings, that was one of the policy recommendations that I actually wrote, was that similar to what LCPS does for students of low incomes with free or reduced lunches, we should have a similar program on the county level for access to recreation centers and other county-owned facilities that charge an admission fee.

[01:38:41] Because my sort of reasoning for bringing this forward was that although when I was looking at the fees, like the fee nominally for youth is not that high. I think it's about $4, $4, obviously if you go, if you wanna go multiple times, especially for our families of low incomes, those costs add up.

[01:39:02] And I think that providing ways, providing any sort of opportunity to just get our youth into these recreation facilities is a great way of, as Mr. Torby said, encouraging physical fitness and also a great means of keeping them out of trouble.

[01:39:24] - All right, the county administrator's office. - Hi, so I had a question regarding the mini-grant, so that's kind of deviating the way what was previously spoken on. In specific, I was wondering how you guys would prevent the ill use of the money that you grant towards these local businesses, how exactly you would monitor monitor the use of the money administered yeah great question so nothing is set yet this is something we're starting in 25 25 and actually the goal is to do grants

[01:39:58] directly to student-led non-profits or non-profits that are supporting students it might be a school it might be a another uh what is it 501 c3 um and you know similar to what happens and step up you have students set up a non-profit and you can award grants to that non-profit there's also opportunity for the mini grant program to buy supplies for students for student-led projects so

[01:40:27] that's the intent all right thank you all right good evening so i had a question about basically the two topics that have been being brought up separately, which is the access to library and other public spaces for students, as well as the issue of drug abuse in schools. So the first thing I'd like to mention is the library. As a student who absolutely loves the library and loves to read, I've seen firsthand how apathy is growing in our generation, not just with lack of access to the library, but lack of interest in reading, especially with the rise of AI, which is a whole different

[01:41:04] issue. And I firsthand one time was speaking to a friend and asking her, do you even have a library card? And I was asked, no joke, is it free? And so I'm wondering if there are any initiatives being taken to kind of raise awareness of the amazing resources that the library can provide for youth, especially I think that reading has been rising as an interest with the internet, but oftentimes students will be buying their books on Amazon or on Barnes & Noble and have a lack of knowledge about the access that libraries can give them to a bounty of information. So do you guys know anything about any awareness that has been raised.

[01:41:40] She's going to ask her second question as well so that her time doesn't run out. That's true, yeah. And then my second question about the abuse of drug in students, obviously this comes about oftentimes, especially in, I guess, suburbian areas like this, where students genuinely are bored. And oftentimes when they can't fill that boredom with things like libraries and like public third spaces, they will turn to things like drug abuse and alcohol. And oftentimes programs like D.A.R.E. do not work because we've learned historically that abstinence and just say no does not work for youth. They need to understand, as

[01:42:15] you guys said, the academic, the disciplinary consequences. And as another student brought up earlier, students oftentimes have fear of speaking up because they believe that they will get in trouble. And oftentimes when students are told just say no, they don't know how to use these things safely and how to prevent harm. So are there any initiatives of harm reduction that have been brought up in the county to be aware that drug use or alcohol use may not be able to be 100% stopped, but harm reduction and things like overdoses can be prevented with proper

[01:42:49] education? Great questions. Very astute. And I will start with the libraries. So probably beyond the purview of of acoy for a lot but we do have a library representatives as part of acoy who contribute to the discussions we are an advocate of having libraries open late we are our push of course was for youth programs a dedicated teen center dedicated team programming those kinds of things we are at least on the same page with the library about keeping the libraries open all

[01:43:26] libraries for everyone for those Friday and Saturday nights. It involves them having additional staff to be able to cover that period. As far as, to the second question about drugs and issues, again, as Mike had mentioned, the goal is education at an earlier and earlier age.

[01:43:50] To delay onset is the most successful thing we can do. longer we push out trying drugs the less likely youth has an overdose or some other issues and we say drugs but we also mean alcohol and so that's important that you brought that up. As far as specific to harm reduction you know and the current programs there we do like the idea of peer peer-to-peer or junior or senior to junior high school students to middle school middle school to

[01:44:26] elementary we do like that idea and again the the conflict we run into is is you know is the person properly trained and and that and that's that's the issue we have so any go ahead so i wanted to add on specifically in regard to the the libraries issue um so one of the one of the main themes that i found through my research looking at the locations of all these different county facilities And this can be a broad argument for not just libraries, but also like community centers, rec centers, et cetera.

[01:44:58] I would say the issue is not necessarily like the quality of the facilities themselves. Although from my analysis of all the different offerings, we have a lot of phenomenal different types of recreation and just opportunities available to our youth, specifically all of the different facilities across our county that have dedicated teen centers with things that we know that youth like to do, like a Nintendo Switch for their utilization, for example.

[01:45:29] But one of the main problems still, that at least I was seeing, is that the main challenge is just getting them there, in the sense that the different sightings of all these different facilities are not necessarily, I mean, are not necessarily in a place where a lot of youth can spend time to, to walk there or get there on their own.

[01:45:54] Obviously, as we've touched on already, the research does show that we have, we do have a lot of places where that youth can easily access. And I want to, I'm gonna acknowledge and thank the, thank the county for its decision to increase the level of, increased level of bus service on the weekends.

[01:46:16] I think that'll definitely be a very positive change, especially in terms of allowing youth to get around and not just on a school night. But I still think just based on the inherent way that a lot of our larger facilities are spliced throughout the county, it's still a challenge for youth whose parents simply don't have the time to be their personal taxi to kind of drive them around to all these different places it's difficult for, and having more facilities that are, and offerings that are within like

[01:46:55] a reasonable walking or biking distance for youth would help to alleviate that problem. Thank you, thank you, thank you everybody, student supervisors, that was some of the best questions I've ever seen. So a couple things, one, I might ask you all to come back so the supervisors can get questions in because we don't have time to do that right now.

[01:47:17] But I know as I read the study there were a lot of things in there. I do want to have the students join us for one resolution so they can see that. And then we would take our break and do the resolution and take our break.

[01:47:32] And then supervisors, not supervisors, supervisors will come back on the dais. Student supervisors, if you have any other questions, you can do a couple of things. One, you can send the questions to your supervisors that you're sitting with. Or, too, you can send them to any member of the table who's sitting in front of us.

[01:47:50] You all did a remarkable job with those answers. Thank you so, so much. Really do appreciate it. Supervisor and student supervisor Takroni, the Little River District, can you join me down front? Supervisor of the chair's office will be down front because we're going to present a resolution for Arab American history.

[01:48:14] Supervisor Bricksman, will you want this one with me as well? No, okay. Supervisor DeCrony, this person is from your district. Supervisor DeCrony's office, will you join me down front?

[01:48:34] Arab American History Month, please come down front.

[01:48:54] Come on down. Let me say what I say every time we do a resolution.

[01:49:18] Hi. Many, many years ago, well, I guess it wasn't that many years ago, but some years ago, when my predecessor was the chair of the county, I came to the board and I said, why don't We have a resolution for African-American History Month. And Chairman York looked at me and he said, well, why don't you write it?

[01:49:38] And I thought, he is completely right, completely right. If you're going to have a resolution to celebrate one community, then that community should be part of the writing of that resolution. That's just how it should be. I started writing the Black History Resolution in 2008, and I've written it ever since.

[01:49:54] So when we got a request for other communities, we say the same thing. Well, you need to be part of that. You need to write it. And we make sure that we're talking about what's happening in Loudoun County or somebody from Loudoun County. And so today we're doing the Resolution for Arab American History Month.

[01:50:13] I will read it. Supervisor Crony has joined me down front, and we will go through that in just a second. Actually, would you like to read it? Whereas Arab Americans have made valuable contributions to virtually every aspect of American society In medicine, law, business, education, technology, government, military service, culture, and whereas, National Arab American Heritage Month was officially recognized for the first time by President Joseph R. Biden in 2021 alongside members of Congress and 37 U.S. governors committed to recognizing them throughout the United States.

[01:50:51] And whereas National Arab American Heritage Month recognized and celebrates the history and achievements of the Arab American community through celebrations of culture and heritage. And whereas Mr. Frederick Shawry has been one of the founding activists in the effort to establish Arab American Heritage Month and has been at the forefront of securing proclamations from numerous government officials.

[01:51:12] And whereas for more than 20 years, he has served as a board member of the New Dominion PAC, an organization dedicated to strengthening the political engagement of Arab Americans in Virginia. And whereas, in January 2024, Little River Supervisor Laura Takroni nominated Mr. Showery in a position in the Loudoun County Transit Advisory Board, where he continues to serve today.

[01:51:32] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors does hereby recognize April 2025 as National Arab American Heritage Month in Loudoun County to celebrate the vibrant culture and the history of our Arab American community and recognize the countless contributions they have made to our nation.

[01:51:47] Well, that was a lot of words about me. Thank you. I'll come here.

[01:52:03] Robba gets a lot of the credit. She's been working in Virginia to get, we have a proclamation for the governor, and of course she said, how about Loudoun County? I said, okay, let's do it. Those were a lot of nice words about me, but it's not me, it's the whole community building ourselves up and working together.

[01:52:24] In fact, I saw you Saturday night at the soccer game. You got the inaugural Loudoun Award, and one of the things you said, and I've heard you say before, is that we are all here, whether you're in government or whatever you're in, sports or whatever, standing because we stood on the shoulders of those who went above us.

[01:52:44] God came before us. So we, like so many other communities, are in that situation where maybe after a couple generations people have really risen up from coming here first and then working their way up. I thank the, and all of us, I thank the County Board of Supervisors and these distinguished students who are doing a great job for this honor.

[01:53:09] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And you did a great job reading that resolution, a fantastic job reading that resolution, didn't she? Yeah, give her a clap, yeah. Fred has been an amazing member of the community of the Little River District.

[01:53:28] When I first met Fred, he told me he was an actor. And I'm like, wow, Fred has so many things that he does, and I'm just so happy to have you in my district, And thank you for bringing this forward.

[01:53:43] It is a time to celebrate the community. And, you know, I really appreciate you bringing this forward. So thank you. You're a no-joke actor, right? Like on television actor, right?

[01:54:00] Actor, actor, right? Screen actor, guilt, actor. Yeah, no, that's amazing. And you have done such great work in Loudoun County. So thank you, and thank you as well. Let's take a picture. Mr. Turner, I told him I was walking away like everyone's taking a picture. It's going to be tough.

[01:56:32] Okay, supervisors and student supervisors, we're going to actually take our dinner break now. If you're here for public comment, we're going to be running about a half an hour late. I apologize in advance, but we're going to be running about a half an hour late.

[01:56:50] So we'll get back on the day of supervisors by 630 after rehab time with the students. Students, if you want to come back in the room and keep observing the meeting afterwards, you're welcome to. I will say that this is my favorite day of the year. Mr. Sane says that also. You think I've been here as our favorite day of the year. You all have been remarkable.

[01:57:09] You've been fantastic student supervisors. So congratulations for all the good work. I don't normally allow cheering or jeering in the boardroom because I just don't. But right now I'm going to give you all a hand clap. You guys have been so good. I just got a text from somebody that says she's coming for your job. And I was like, and she could do it too. It would be no trouble at all.

[01:57:31] All right, supervisors, until 6.30, supervisors as well. We are taking a dinner break.

[02:42:50] Listen, we need five. We got five. Let's move. It's 6 o'clock. It's past 6 o'clock. That's not my issue. It's past 6 o'clock, so let's rock and roll.

[02:43:11] Okay, thank you, ma'am. All right, got you, got you, got you. Okay, supervisors, if you're near the building, I mean near the building, near the room, please come back into the room.

[02:43:38] We have six on the desk. There's a quorum. I am going to start. we do have um public comments right now i do want to um this is unusual but i'm going to make a statement before public comments i'm doing this because based on the public comments from the last meeting and based on um the subjects that are being talked about in this meetings in this meeting there are some things i want to clarify and of course anyone can speak on anything they want to for their time. I'm not telling anyone not to speak. I would never do that. But I do

[02:44:13] want people to know some facts before you speak. And so let me just say a couple of things. It is the State Corporation Commission, not the Board of Supervisors, that decides on proposed power routes for the high voltage transmission lines. This one is the Golden to Mars project. The Board of Supervisors may participate in the SEC proceedings, but we don't make the decision. In fact, when we were doing the Aspen the Golden Lines, the Board of Supervisors not only participated, but Mr. Turner and I went into the room and

[02:44:51] spoke in strong support of undergrounding transmission lines. But the SEC rejected that position. So we actually have always asked for undergrounding, and they rejected it, and we didn't just like sit down and take the rejection.

[02:45:10] We're actually appealing that right now. We're appealing them rejecting undergrounding in the Aspen, the Golden. We will likely vote to participate in the Golden to Mars transmission line discussion that's before the FCC.

[02:45:27] We will hold public meetings. We will ask people in the public to express their views directly to the SCC when it comes. By actually going to those meetings where the SCC is and participating in those, the board, HOA, property owners, will have your voices heard by the people who are actually making the decision on the proposed routes.

[02:45:50] And so just to be clear, we hear you all, and we've actually been joining -- well, we've We've been doing this already, asking for the undergrounding, and we were turned down. But we absolutely welcome your voices, but we do not have any control over these roots.

[02:46:11] And based on the last meeting, it felt like some people might have thought we had some control. I did have one lady send me an email, it's a really good email, and she said, she said, hard which I which I which I took to meant took to mean to took that to mean she don't we don't have any control but fight hard and we have and we continue continue to and we will mr. Rogers is there anything that you want to as the County Attorney described about the press the SEC proceedings that will be upcoming the people need to know about in advance okay thank you madam chair

[02:46:49] The application has now been filed with the State Corporation Commission. The next step in this will be the State Corporation Commission will issue a proposed scheduling order. We will take a look at that to see if there's any changes or extensions that are needed. One of the things I know that Loudoun County will be pushing for is having local public hearings where the public can speak here in Loudoun County to the State Corporation Commission.

[02:47:15] I anticipate that the hearing will have those public hearings sometime towards the end of the summer. And given the normal schedule of the State Corporation Commission, they will hold an evidentiary hearing in early fall. Then there's an opportunity to comment on the hearing examiner's report, which I would anticipate would be issued before the end of the year.

[02:47:38] And then the matter goes before the commissioners. There are three commissioners. They're appointed by the General Assembly, and they're the ones who ultimately make the decision as to which one of the alternatives gets selected. All right. Now, having said all that, for our speakers today, you can absolutely speak on any issue you want to and say exactly what you're going to say already.

[02:48:02] I just want to put some of those facts out there. There are a lot of people who are speaking virtually, and so I'm going to try to call you at least three people in advance, and if you're speaking virtually, we'll go to you. The first in-person speaker, in fact, while we're getting the virtual stuff ready, I'm going to start, I'm going to do a couple of in-person speakers.

[02:48:24] So I will first go to James Russell and then Jagadish Sinatari, and then we'll make sure we're good with everyone online, and we'll go back and do Arun Subramoni.

[02:48:46] Good evening, Mr. Russell. Recently, it came to my attention that the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office has entered a 287G agreement pledging to cooperate and trade resources with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, solidifying what is already assumed, that our law enforcement at the county level will not fail to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They will not fail to cooperate despite the number

[02:49:24] of recent overtly political arrests of college students across the country, including in Northern Virginia, for inconveniently holding a position of objection against genocide itself.

[02:49:40] In spite of all of this, our sheriff's office pledges to cooperate with ICE. I've been told by individual supervisors and the board as a whole, I've been told multiple times uh that uh this i i don't want to uh phrase this improperly but that the the board does not have uh authority over the sheriff's office if there's a different way to phrase it let me know

[02:50:16] but uh that there's essentially i i don't know no recourse no recourse for the prospect of overtly political kidnappings of Loudoun County residents at the hands of federal law enforcement I asked the nice lady the receptionist when I called to the one you called to make a reservation I asked what exactly is stopping at this point Loudoun County sheriff from seeing somebody make an inconvenient political

[02:50:53] statement one of these meetings law enforcement walks in grabs and walks them out what is stopping this and there was no answer there is no answer technically i can walk in here object to genocide being county business with our arms manufacturers and our data centers which are used to enable genocide i could be dragged out of this room by law enforcement and there's nothing anybody could do about it technically thank you um let's go to jagadish shinari if you are here

[02:51:28] are you here it's j-a-g-a-d-i-s-h is the first name are you here because he's not he's not down for speaking online okay then we're going to go to are we ready to go to people online okay arun suplamoni and kajong lu good evening good evening as we have experienced and seen the past few weeks and months there is no unanimous agreement on the best route for power lines I am not here to make you convinced one way or the other.

[02:52:09] We can all agree on one thing without any fear or favor. We all want the safest and the healthiest environment for our kids. If Loudon Reserve Drive is a restricted pathway so that kids are safe, cell phone towers are not allowed because it is not safe for the kids.

[02:52:34] Virginia Department of Education does not allow new schools to be built along power lines. How come we are all comfortable allowing 500 kVA power lines through blue and green drops? This is an Erin Brockovich moment.

[02:52:54] We will have blood on our hands, ladies and gentlemen, if we choose to pursue this. Imagine listening to the lady who spoke first tonight. She mentioned that you are not in control of the destiny of this project and you are willing to fight along with us.

[02:53:11] But facts are that the Board of Supervisors recommended the blue route and the green route, choosing to play guard with lives of children, their safety, and their health.

[02:53:28] If you are really with us, with all of us, you should fight along with us for underground options, no matter what. Among the five lines that were allowed or shown in the reports, you chose two, you recommended two, and now I hear that you are pressurizing the school board as well to go back and agree to one of those lines.

[02:53:52] So let us not kid ourselves. Request your conscience and your vote and your support to fight with all of us to reject blue and green lines, which are going to severely affect not just the students and staff and faculty of today, but for generations to come.

[02:54:14] By the way, the recommendations you make and the fight you take are going to be resonating across the country, beyond the room, beyond the county, beyond the state. sir thank you sir um k kajong lu um followed by jicon lu jicon the weather hi um can you hear me hi ma'am thank you good evening chair randall and members of the board uh my name is kajin

[02:54:51] new and i'm a resident of laudan county and a parent of a six-year-old in rosalie carter Elementary School. I'm here tonight to respectfully urge you to rescind the hefty recommendation to advance the green or blue routes for Dominion Energy's Golden Mars high voltage transmission line project. These routes would bring 500 kilowattage plus 230 kilowattage power lines alarming close to Rosalie Carter Elementary and Rockridge High School. Facilities that serve

[02:55:28] thousands of students and staff. These are not just places of learning, they are safe havens for children and workplaces for over 300 educators and staff who dedicate their lives to our community. The Loudoun County School Board has made a clear and courageous decision. They oppose any transmission line on or near school property. I urge you to respect and stand behind that decision. Supporting their stance

[02:56:01] is not only logical, it's a moral obligation to protect our schools. Dominion may assure you it's safe, but I ask you to question everything, their assumptions, their process, and their demissal of the purple underground route, which may offer a safer and more community-conscious alternative. Has it been fully explored and independently verified? Please use your resources to find out. This is not just about routing power. It's about safeguarding our students,

[02:56:36] our teachers, and our values. Please do not rush this process. Pause, investigate thoroughly, and protect what matters most. Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am. Ji Kun Liu, followed by Lauren Lolly Stolen, or Lily Stolen, I'm sorry.

[02:56:58] Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the board. My name is Ji Kun Liu, and I am a resident of Loudoun County and a parent of a six-year-old in Rosalie Carter Elementary School. I'm here tonight to respectfully urge you to receive the hasty recommendation to advance the green or blue routes for Dominion's Golden Mars high-voltage transmission line project.

[02:57:25] These routes will bring up to 700 kV power lines very close to Rosalie Carter Elementary and Rockridge High School. Both schools serve thousands of students and staff. These are not just places of learning as safe havens for children and workplaces for over 300 educators and staff who dedicate their lives to our community.

[02:57:48] The Loudoun County School Board has made a clear and courageous decision. They oppose any transmission line on or near school property. I urge you to respect and stand behind that decision. Supporting their stance is not only logical, it is a moral obligation to protect our schools.

[02:58:09] Dominion may assure you that their power line is safe, but I ask you to question everything, their assumptions, their process, and their dismissal of the purple underground route, which may offer a safe and more community-conscious alternative.

[02:58:26] Has it been fully explored and independently verified? Please use your resources to find out. This is not just about routing power. It's about safeguarding our students, our teachers, and our values. Please don't rush this process.

[02:58:44] post, investigate thoroughly, and protect what matters most. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lauren Lilliestolen, followed by, I think it's, this is back to the phones, Maura Guladona.

[02:59:09] It's Ms. Lilliestolen. Good evening, members of the board. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, ma'am. It's okay. Good evening, members of the board. Imagine for a moment you're a parent of two young children who would be exposed to electromagnetic radiation from extra-high-voltage transmission lines for almost 10 years of their lives.

[02:59:27] You want to think about them as safe from harm as you send them off to school every day, but instead you have to worry about what is happening to them at a cellular level as they walk to and from school, as they play at recess, or as they participate in any manner of activities in and around the school campuses.

[02:59:44] Dominion will tell you that EMR is safe, but you should remain perpetually skeptical of information fed to you by a company that stands to benefit from your belief that EMR is not harmful to your constituents. For obvious reasons, they are an incredibly biased source. Research on the effect of electromagnetic fields is limited at this time, and thus the results are inconclusive, but this does not mean that EMF is safe.

[03:00:09] Currently, there are multiple studies that show a statistically significant difference between the exposure to EMF at a distance less than 500 feet and exposure to EMF at a distance greater than 1,000 feet in the incidence of health concerns such as childhood leukemia or neurobehavioral issues like concentration and memory.

[03:00:28] Is this the legacy you want to leave behind? When we all look back in 10 or 15 years, when we have conclusive evidence that EMF is the cause of all or some of the health concerns that are just associations now, why take that risk? As a parent of two young kids and a resident of Loudoun Valley 2, I urge you to do what is most ethical and take the following steps regarding the Golden to Mars project.

[03:00:52] Please rescind your recommendation of Routes 3 and 4 that utilize school property and would run extremely close to outdoor spaces used by elementary and high school students. Respect and support the school board's decision. The burden of solving this predicament should not fall to them.

[03:01:08] Their questions and comments at the last school board meeting make it evident that they prioritize students, staff, and family well-being. Please join them in their effort to keep students safe, avoid learning disruptions, and acknowledge that school campuses are utilized year-round for camps, sports, and other activities.

[03:01:24] And lastly, please form a joint defense agreement for the SEC process with the stakeholders affected by the Golden to Mars project and help our community fight for partial underground routes. We are in this position due to unconstrained data center construction and lack of foresight for how to power them.

[03:01:41] As a county, let us not be short-sighted again. Please restrict above-ground right-of-ways offered to Dominion. To offer more is to play into their hand. Thank you. Thank you. Mora, it's M-O-U-R-Y-A, Galadona, followed by Adenike Hughes.

[03:02:04] So number five, number six. Ready? Yeah, good. Good evening, Randall and Board of Supervisors. This is Maurya. I'm a Loudoun County resident.

[03:02:21] I'd like to start with a quote from Dominion's SEC filing, page number 7. Golden to Mars routes 1, 2, 3, and 4 cannot be constructed without Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and our Loudoun County School Board approval.

[03:02:38] On the other hand, Respected Chair at Large, Randall, mentioned they don't have any say in it in the beginning of this call. I don't know whom to believe. Anyways, I'll go ahead with my argument. Data center presence in Northern Virginia is growing at an unprecedented rate.

[03:02:54] In top 10 data center cities in U.S., Northern Virginia is five times larger than the next largest data center market and larger than the six closest markets combined. Imagine the demand for power if this trend continues for next 10, 15 years.

[03:03:12] Power companies will want to stand up high voltage power lines everywhere possible. School board is actually intelligent enough to foresee this problem occurring and rejected any overhead lines near schools. I don't see any logical reason why board of supervisors cannot support them.

[03:03:30] Dominion is also converting 230 kilovolt overhead lines in Tyson's area to underground, which shows it's technically possible to alter existing routes. I request you to put the pressure on them to move existing Purple Line to a different route underground and look for a possibility of using the Purple Routes for Golden to Mars by working with EMBA on any height restrictions.

[03:03:53] If Dominion ends up gaining access to school routes, I'm sorry to say that Loudoun County Schools would be least preferred schooling district in the entire United States in the next 10 years. And this will also set precedent to other power companies throughout the country to go after routes near schools.

[03:04:09] Therefore, I ask you to rescind the school route recommendation you have made and also urge you to stop pressuring school board members to change their decision. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to just listen.

[03:04:27] I have not talked to my colleagues, but I do not believe my colleagues have urged any school board members to change their position. I have neither talked to Ms. Donahue, who is the at-large member, nor Ms. Mansfield, who is the chair.

[03:04:47] And I have not received any phone calls from any school board members that said anyone's trying to urge them to change their position. So I'd just like us to work with some level of facts here, everybody. All right, next speaker is Aiden Ike, I think it is, Hughes, followed by Srinivas DeKonda.

[03:05:06] Good evening, Board of Supervisors, Chair Randall. My name is Nikkei Hughes, and this evening I urge you to respect the school board's decision to prohibit overhead high-voltage lines anywhere on school facilities. We thank them for prioritizing our children's and communities' best interests and ask you to do the same.

[03:05:25] As elected officials, it is your duty to be good stewards for our community, and we think this includes respecting other governing bodies' decisions without penalty or political pressure and ensuring data center development does not compromise our health, safety, or quality of life. Data centers save money by being in the Ashburn hub, avoiding extensive fiber runs.

[03:05:45] Why should taxpayers then foot the bill for their power infrastructure? Data centers can determine their max consumption and application, and it's negligent not to factor this in when approving. We want the Board of Supervisors to lead the country in leveraging data centers for community betterment, not detriment.

[03:06:02] Please push to bury the lines. Anyone approving data center applications, which is the Board, not the FCC as I understand, should be well informed of implicit and explicit costs. In 2020, Loudon collected over $330 million in revenue from data centers. What will it be when the next 84 come online?

[03:06:19] not enough to bury these lines? Loudoun.gov shows an interactive map of current and future data centers, but where is the plan to power these centers? The community has seen no requirements for environmentally conservative liquid cooling, leveraging solar power, or a viable grid plan that doesn't crisscross through backyards and over elementary swing sets. Loudoun town residents deserve to enjoy green spaces and allow our children, including yours, Mr. Sains, to play freely under the shadow of trees, not 35-foot high-voltage power poles. We want to sell our homes without the data center alley penalty. These decisions will impose on our communities.

[03:06:58] Don't let Texas, Ohio, or West Virginia, respectfully, be a better model than the richest county in the nation. Please push to bury the lines. We understand the importance of data centers to our economy, but this should not come at the expense of our community's well-being.

[03:07:14] Establish a balance that allows for their presence while safeguarding our residents' health and safety. Please push harder to bury these lines. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Srinivas Dekonda, followed by Danelle Hughes, followed by Karan Kumar.

[03:07:35] Hi. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can hear you, sir. Yes. Good evening, Board of Supervisors. With respect to high-voltage overhead power lines near Rosalie Cotter Elementary and Rockbridge High School, The school board has demonstrated great empathy for the school children, staff, and the surrounding environment.

[03:07:55] As we all know, they strongly voted no to the high-voltage overhead power lines near the schools and recommended exploring underground options. In light of their decision and also to do the right thing, I humbly request you to recent the previous recommendation for overhead power lines like the blue and green routes, which are dangerously close to the schools and residential neighborhoods.

[03:08:18] Also, it is important to note that Fairfax as well as Prince William counties have successfully implemented the underground power lines, proving that the solution is feasible and effective. I ask you to pass the committee's voice to the SEC for underground power lines.

[03:08:35] Please fight for us. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, sir. Donnell Hughes, followed by Kairan Kumar, followed by Sweeney Vas Doma. Good evening, sir.

[03:08:53] Good evening. My name is Donnell Hughes. I'm a parent of a third grader at Rosalie Carter Elementary School. We live in the Loudoun Valley 2 community. Our deck and patio are, according to the Dominion maps, our deck and patio are between 250 and 300 feet from the center line of the proposed Green Route 3.

[03:09:17] We stand at a pivotal moment in our community's history. Decisions are being made that will echo through generations. I'm here to implore you to reject any proposal that suggests the installation of overhead 500 kV transmission lines on public school property.

[03:09:34] Our schools should be sanctuaries of growth, safety, and community spirit. Overhead 500 kV transmission lines starkly contradict the values of our schools and communities. The presence of such high-voltage power lines close to school buildings, recreational fields, residences pose significant risks to our children's health and well-being, not to mention the detrimental effects on property values and community aesthetics.

[03:10:01] As stewards of the future, it is our responsibility to protect our children's health and their learning and recreational spaces. Let us commit to a future where our decisions reflect the utmost respect for our children's well-being and the integrity of our neighborhoods.

[03:10:17] I urge you to champion policies that ensure our schools and communities are havens of education and safety, not collateral damage of power-hungry data center beasts. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mr. Hughes.

[03:10:36] Kairan Kumar, followed by Sweeney Bas, Doma, followed by Cheethan Doma. Good evening, chair and board members. My name is Kiran Kumar, and I am a resident of Ashburn.

[03:10:53] I am here to urge you to reject Dominion-proposed high-voltage overhead power lines that could pass through Rosalie Cotter Elementary School and Rockridge High School. The Loudoun County School Board has already rejected these routes, and the county should respect that decision.

[03:11:13] Yet, Dominion has still included the green route in its SEC filing. This route runs through the school property where young children play, engage in outdoor activities, and develop both physically and mentally.

[03:11:28] Elementary school students are in a critical stage of growth and are especially sensitive to environmental risks. Dominion is proposing 500 kb and 220 kb power lines.

[03:11:45] Those are massive transmission lines near schools. We already have a cell phone tower at Rockridge High School. Have you considered the combined impact of EMF radiation from both sources? What will be the long-term effects on our children's health and development?

[03:12:05] These are the risks we cannot afford to take. Years from now, when people ask who approved the power lines near schools, the blame will fall on you. as a Loudoun County board member.

[03:12:23] Don't let that be your legacy. Do the right thing. You can reject the school board with the reason we are in 21st century and there are better alternatives available, including one of them is underground options.

[03:12:42] Dominion has not done enough research to find a safer solution. You must reject all routes that impact our schools, protect our children. Their safety must come first. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:12:58] Thank you, sir. Shwini Vass Doma, followed by Chetan Doma, followed by Sarah Hussain Bazar. Good evening. Board of Supervisors, the green and blue routes have been denied by the school board yet.

[03:13:15] The Board of Supervisors is still pressuring the school board, allowed them to billionaire schools. The residents believe that the school board made the right decision by denying permission for Route 3 and 4.

[03:13:32] Both of my kids will be graduating from Rockridge in the near future, and I just want them to be safe while growing up in this area, as I am sure many people agree to. Everyone is calling the school route least impacted, but that is not necessarily correct.

[03:13:54] These roads will be impacted all the children going to Rosalie Carter and Rockridge High School. I request that the board keep the decision of denying Route 3 and 4. Based on your decision, it will be decided safety of our children.

[03:14:12] The blue and green, immensely close to the crosswalks and the school. Putting the dual circuit 500 to 230 kV power lines underground, something Dominion has not considered, which is why I'm strongly urge them to looking to keep our children safe because how close they are to the school.

[03:14:36] They don't want to mention this as a possibility because it's more expensive to have the power lines underground. All the routes need to be researched carefully, especially paying attention, partial underground for the purple route.

[03:14:51] With your authority and being able to utilize resources you have, verify the undergrounding route for purple has been carefully searched. At the end of the day, no, in fact, route doesn't exist. We need you to make best decision for all of us.

[03:15:13] The Board of Supervisors Support School Board have made already all the lines opposed by school grounds. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Chetan Doma, followed by Sarah Hussain-Bazaar, followed by Nanditha P. Good evening.

[03:15:40] Good evening, Board. My name is Chetan Doma, and I'm a 6th grader at Stonehill Middle School. I want to respectfully urge the need to rescind the request to construct the 500 plus 230 kilovolt dual circuit transmission lines in my schools.

[03:15:59] Please do not allow this decision as this would cause catastrophic effects on the health of children such as myself. We request that you ask Dominion Energy to construct underground power lines near the purple route. The blue and green routes are not no impact zones.

[03:16:14] Dominion's research is very flawed and has no proper evidence. I can't wake up every morning walking to school with giant towers overhead. You must support the school board's decision of denying the blue and green routes as they made it for the safety of the students.

[03:16:30] Dominion won't disclose info about underground for selfish reasons because of the expense, even though they're a very wealthy company. We are at school for around eight hours, and we cannot expose ourselves to high-voltage transmission lines for eight whole hours.

[03:16:47] With the authority of everyone on the board has, please fight hard and look into all of the routes provided by Dominion, especially the purple route underground. This request is not to be rushed, for this is very severe. Don't trust Dominion's research saying that the blue and green route should be built.

[03:17:06] All of these routes have not been looked into yet, so please look into them and make the student the safest decision for the students of Loudoun County. Please overrule Dominion's decision for the school routes. Thank you for your time, and have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Very good job, young man. Sarah Hussein Bazar, followed by Nanditha P., followed by Malak Haliba.

[03:17:28] Good evening. Good evening, board members. Good evening to the Zionists. If you're reading this, it means I have been killed, most likely targeted by the Israeli occupation forces.

[03:17:46] When this all began, I was only 21 years old, a college student with dreams like anyone else. For the past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.

[03:18:04] I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents, anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people's side. By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now I am finally at rest, something I haven't known in the past 18 months.

[03:18:27] I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause, I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people. I ask you now, do not stop speaking about Gaza, do not let the world look away, keep fighting, keep telling our stories until Palestine is free.

[03:18:47] For the last time, Hossam Shabbat from Northern Gaza. We are Hossam Shabbat from Northern Gaza. We will continue sharing their stories until Palestine is free. It should not be controversial to say that we should all be against murdering civilians, stop funding this genocide with our tax dollars.

[03:19:06] Because of our tax dollars, 15 paramedics were blindfolded, handcuffed, executed, and later found after eight days of disappearance. The Israeli occupation forces knows that you will ensure zero accountability and consequences.

[03:19:24] Do you think it's time to shift your narrative on the rogue state? Stop aligning yourselves for profits over your constituents. You are all civil servants. Listen to your constituents and do your job to serve your community and not big corporations.

[03:19:43] Free Palestine. Thank you, Ms. Bazar. And Deetha P., followed by Mala Kalba, followed by Servan. I'm going to spell your last name because I don't want to mess it up. I apologize. It's D-U-G-G-A-R-A-J-U.

[03:20:04] Good evening, members of the board. As a resident of Sterling District, I and the families of the 2,400 students who voted for you to protect everyone, not just some, are here to urge you to take back your recommendation and support school board's decision to not allow blue or green routes.

[03:20:24] Supervisor Sains, with due respect, the power lines proposed for this project are much larger and more dangerous than the one you referred to in the last meeting near the school that your son attended. These are dual circuit 500 plus 240 kilovolt extra high voltage power lines that will go less than 300 feet from Rosalie Carter Elementary School grounds where little children will be playing and studying.

[03:20:49] And every child who is a walker will be walking directly under these lines. I'm a mother of two children who go to Rosalie Carter and Rockridge High Schools. I would not sacrifice their health and safety for anything. Dominion has not been honest or upfront. They showed us six underground routes in August, then cut them down to two in December, and finally in January of this year, told us none were possible.

[03:21:13] They're using scare tactics and urgency and forcing to make bad decisions and not push for underground routes. Their feasibility report is flawed. We had some engineers go through it, and we found so many flaws they have neglected and or omitted to push their narrative.

[03:21:29] Please work with Dominion and help them solve the issues they are talking about that prevent them from choosing these underground routes. Where there is a will, there is a way. Please have the will to fight for 2,400 students and thousands of families that will be affected. In 2018, after a four-year fight by the coalition to protect Prince William County from a dominion, they agreed to partially underground the line that cut through a historically African-American community.

[03:21:57] Please fight with us to do the same here in Loudoun County. This is a minority community that is being suppressed here too. If the board members who represent us won't help, then who will? The need for more power lines is just going to grow. Please do not give them new rights of way.

[03:22:14] They will come back in a few years and build on the orange route anyway because they have the right of way and they will trick us into cutting through our community twice. We urge you to rescind your recommendation to the SEC for the green and blue routes that go next to our schools and many of our homes.

[03:22:29] Data centers may be good for our economy, but if their needs pose a threat to our health and safety and displace us, how can we not begin to hate them? Please make everyone's safety your first priority before making any future decisions. Ma'am, your time is up.

[03:22:47] Thank you. Your time is up. My mic seems to keep going. Are you turning my mic off? So you are turning it off. Okay. Okay. So I will hear an echo if you don't turn it off? Oh, they will hear an echo.

[03:23:04] Okay. All right. I understand. Malakalva, followed by Sir Vaughn, and it's D-U-G-G-A-R-A-J-U. Good evening, Board of Supervisors. My name is Malakalva.

[03:23:20] I'm standing before you today, not just as a concerned parent, but as a voice for our children who cannot advocate for themselves. The decision to place power lines on school ground deeply troubles me, and I know it troubles many others in our community.

[03:23:38] Imagine for a moment the daily lives of our children, they come to school to learn, grow, and feel safe. Yet with the power lines looming over their playgrounds, soccer fields, and classrooms, how can we assure them their safety? The potential health and risk associated with electromagnetic fields, also called EMF, are not just statistics.

[03:24:00] They are real fears that we, as a parent, carry in our hearts every single day. Our children deserve better. They deserve to play and learn in environment free from shadow of potential harm. The school board has recognized this and has taken a stand against the power lines on school ground.

[03:24:19] It is disheartening to see the board of supervisors is endorsing a plan to put our children's health at risk in favor of dominion and interest. We voted for you because we believe you could make decisions that prioritize the well-being of our families.

[03:24:37] Not put them at risk. We are not just talking about numbers and data. We are talking about the lives of children. Each child is a precious individual with dreams, hopes, and future that we must protect. The anxiety stress that these power lines could bring to our school community unacceptable.

[03:24:59] Our school should be sanctuaries of safety and learning, not a place of fear and uncertainty. The community voice is clear. We have protested. We have signed petitions. We have spoken out because we care deeply about the well-being of our children. We are not against progress, but we believe the progress should not come at an expense of our children's health and safety.

[03:25:23] There are alternative solutions that can meet our energy needs without compromising our values and our children's futures. I request you from the bottom of my heart to reconsider the decision. Let us work together to find a solution that prioritizes the health and safety of our children.

[03:25:42] They are our future, and they deserve nothing else than our full protection and support. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you, sir. Back to the phone, it's Shurvan, and I just do not want to mispronounce your last name.

[03:26:00] And then from there would be Sridhar Shonda. Good evening, Chair and members. Chair Randall, as you mentioned at the beginning of this hearing, this meeting, we understand that SEC ultimately makes the decision on Dominion proposed lines.

[03:26:22] I was present in the auditorium during the Aspen to Gold SEC hearing and was truly inspired by your speech and a strong recommendation for undergrounding. However, the one significant change that has deeply impacted our community this time is the Board of Supervisors' recommendation of the blue and green routes over the others.

[03:26:47] I respectfully urge you to reconsider and withdraw the Board of Supervisors' recommendation for green and blue routes for 500 kV and 230 kV overhead transmission lines along Rockridge and Rosalie Carter schools.

[03:27:05] The school board has overwhelmingly rejected the blue and green routes, and we strongly request that there be no direct or indirect pressure on them from the county board of supervisors.

[03:27:20] Their decision should be respected and upheld. Even after school board firmly rejected the blue and green route, Dominion has blatantly disregarded this decision by insisting on the green route in their proposal to SEC.

[03:27:37] This bullying tactic against our community is unacceptable and must be strongly condemned. We urge the Board of Supervisors to stand with the residents and schools in rejecting these actions and ensuring the community voices are truly heard and respected.

[03:27:57] In previous discussions, we have heard that Board of Supervisors supports undergrounding the transmission lines. Could you please clarify the specific actions taken by you or your staff in this regard? Have you conducted an independent study or is the decision primarily based on Dominion's assessments?

[03:28:20] We request that you work with PJM to explore the possibility of extending the 2028 deadline for constructing the power line. Allowing more time would enable Dominion to thoroughly evaluate and implement an undergrounding solution.

[03:28:38] I request you to consider the long-term impact of your decision, using a seemingly... Sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Sridhar Shonda, followed by Sandra Madhapala, followed by Srinadi Dekonda.

[03:29:01] Madam Chair, thank you. As a family, as a father of two kids, we really appreciate board and school board for recommending to go underground route of power lines. I really sincerely thank school board for rejecting overhead power lines in their own school area.

[03:29:25] Madam Chair, thank you for clarifying before this call, saying that you all recommended an underground power line, and you all said no to overhead power lines near the schools. As a father of two kids who are attending at Rosalie Carter and even Rock Ridge, we are worried.

[03:29:44] I see every day the kids who grow near to me or within our community who are starting their career or carrying the life coming year at Rosalie Carter are going to leave or going to study in an area where there is a lot of EMF and which is health hazard.

[03:30:04] we all know everyone take care everyone knows the health of kids is high important and i'm a little bit worried when dominion states on their documents produced to sec that the route three and the four is least impact i really don't know i mean what is the word least impact we just passed away from pandemic where everybody knows human human is more valuable than the least impact word of financials we are creating these power lines for the safe for the improvement of humans, and you are sacrificing the health of kids who are generations who are there for building this country.

[03:30:41] I urge everyone not to pressurize anybody to choose school routes for power lines. And thank you, everyone, who is choosing or endorsing not to go over power lines. Thank you, everyone.

[03:30:57] Thank you, sir. Chandra Madhapala, followed by I think the next person's in the room. The last name is M-A-D-D-I-P-A-T-L-A.

[03:31:15] Are you in the room? Is number 19 on the phone? No, not in the room, not in the phone. Okay, we're going to go to the next person then. We have number 20, and then after that we'll go back to the person in the room, which is Raj Katapali.

[03:31:35] No, he's there. Okay, we can give it a sec. Can you hear me? We can hear you, yes. we can hear you okay good evening respected board of supervisors my name is Srinadi Decona and I stand before you as a concerned and committed member of the Loudoun Valley 2 community the issue we are discussing tonight is not just about the infrastructure it is about the fundamental right to a safe and healthy environment the school board has already demonstrated leadership by almost unanimously rejecting all proposed power lines prioritizing the safety of those

[03:32:14] they serve they listen to the science to the people and to the overwhelming evidence of harm And now we turn to you. You have been entrusted with the responsibility of safeguarding this community, and we urge you to uphold that duty by continuing to participate in the meetings and fight to reject the proposed blue and green overhead power lines, which are still being considered.

[03:32:34] Thank you so much for representing us and fighting for us. Your leadership has already made a difference, but this fight is not over. The decisions ahead will shape our community for generations, and by standing firm, you're protecting not just us today, but the future of Loudoun County.

[03:32:50] Your continued advocacy is critical in ensuring our home and schools remain a safe place to live, learn, and grow. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it's Raj Katapali. I think that person is in the room.

[03:33:07] So you will be followed by Radhika K. Good evening, sir. Good evening. - Good evening, members of the board. My name is Raj Khatibali. I'm a resident of Loudoun County. I'm here to urge you to rescind your recommendation on Dominion's Golden-to-Mass overhead transmission lines where you recommended Route 4 and Route 3 as least impact.

[03:33:29] I would urge you to reject all the overhead pipelines, power lines, especially near schools. The construction of extra high-voltage overhead power lines presents a serious long-term risk impacting thousands of children, generations to come. It is critical that the board does not simply accept Dominion's claims regarding the feasibility of undergrounding these lines. Instead, you must demand underground solutions and rely on independent assessments to ensure they are properly evaluated. If Dominion is allowed to proceed with overhead lines in a new right-of-way, they will continue expanding this practice in the future.

[03:34:06] Laudan Guanty has already approved more than 100 data centers with already existing many more and many more likely on the way and as our energy demands increase Dominion will continue to expand the transmission corridors at their discretion leading to a county filled with extra high voltage lines cutting through schools and residential neighborhoods. I urge you to stand with us and uphold the school board's decision by opposing overhead power lines near schools and children's. Children's safety should never be compromised in the name of progress. It is our responsibility to provide them

[03:34:45] with safe and healthy learning environment please push dominion to either place these underground or co-locate them along existing transmission corridors rather than creating new pathways that risk our children's safety thank you for your time and consideration thank you sir um i think it's uh radhika k followed by rama uh sardina i'm sorry saridina and um the radhika k you is in the the room from what i see or should be in the room r-a-d-h-i-k-a only once going twice okay

[03:35:24] lama um sorry dina followed by marinda athakam i think it's a-m-a-r-e-n-d-a-r that's the first name i am so sorry i really i i i just don't want to mess anyone's name up but just being people's name means everything and it means something and it's just i just i don't want to disrespect anyone by messing the name up.

[03:35:53] So if I do not pronounce your name right, when you come up, please correct me. Hi, this is Ramah Sarginna. Good evening, dear board. Many speakers have already talked about the potential health issues due to the high power lines over the school zone.

[03:36:12] My younger kid is studying in Brazali and should come back to Rockridge High School later and my elder one will be attending Rockridge High School in a couple years from now. Please don't let these high power lines drain the power out of these little kids and staff while they are innocently spending their quality time in pursuing academics or playing in the school ground. In the name of democratic process, it is unfair to throw a couple of choices and ignite the differences within the community and disturb the harmony.

[03:36:42] Hence, I request the board to uphold the school board's decision and also reject all the routes proposed by Dominion and press for the underground lines as the only option. Let Dominion worry about the feasibility and other logistics which are less critical than the health of the kids and the staff in the schools who knows dominion may carve a sixth option too if we all reject these five routes but i am sure and i'm damn sure the kids who are and who will be studying in the rosalie and rockridge schools doesn't get a second chance let's ensure the safety of their made in life

[03:37:18] thank you both for giving the opportunity thank you sir um number 24 is in the room i do believe um um a-m-a-r-e-n-d-a-r is the first name yeah oh will you say your name for me sir please yeah i was that close thank you so much i go by amarticum you go by you go by the full name thank you sir you're ready when you are good evening uh chair randall and uh respected board i'm amarticum resident of loudon county and a father of two young children studying in rock

[03:37:57] and Rosali. When cell phone towers are not allowed in school zones due to electromagnetic field impacts and radiation I'm not sure how Dominion is thinking they can construct a high-voltage transmission lines around the schools and community. The proposed routes would bring a 500 kV and 230 kV power lines dangerously close to Rosali Carter Elementary School and Rock Ridge High School. Close to 2,500 children currently studying and many more future students every year will be exposed to the radiation and that continues for 10 years of their early life. And there are 300 plus staff dedicating their lives for the students and there will be their health will be impacted very big time. School board made

[03:38:37] a decision to reject route three and four with great humanity and keeping children's safety as priority. And I would like to request board to show the same humanity and honor the school board decision and in fact requesting the board to say no to overhead power lines and recommend dominion to expand their research on the underground lines which is possible and implemented several locations across the country country dominion says it's not possible or feasible for the underground lines but is that cross verified by any independent study board should recommend for an independent feasibility study for the underground power lines

[03:39:15] which is feasible in many other areas in many other countries finally progress and prosperity should not come at the cost of children's and public safety saving the budget or time or increasing the revenue of the county should not be the goal it's the mankind and children that need to be kept safe in any circumstances thank you so much thank you sir thank you um ram ruper ruper ready and then followed by raj jakunela followed by vinoid ready good evening

[03:39:51] Madam Chair, Board members, and fellow residents. I live in Ashman and I am one of those affected by the Dominion proposed power lines, all of them more so by green and blue. We need real answers. You say you have no role in selecting routes, but on what basis did you recommend the blue and green routes? How did you measure the impact? Because from where we stand, your decision punishes the wrong people. Our kids at Rosali Carter and Rockridge high school will face daily emf exposure that's more than 2 000 families affected i did not buy

[03:40:27] my home near a state highway loudon county pathway is a state secondary highway a right-of-way for public utilities instead of suggesting that route you are endorsing dominion to go through our schools and our backyards less than 20 feet away which we bought for premium prices dominion never disclosed how many homes are within 50 feet of those lines where emf radiation poses serious risk they counted multi-family buildings as single homes hiding the true impact and yet you call these are the least harmful option if it's so no big deal buy our homes yourselves now you need to

[03:41:06] stop saying we have no role in picking the road but then why recommend the blue and green why push for those roads and let's go even deeper why didn't you think about this when you approved more data centers you saw them coming you knew the demand was rising and now because of your choices our community is paying the price if you didn't foresee the needs for the increased infrastructure you have clearly failed do you think you have the moral right to continue in this position and here is a real question why some board members are pressuring the school board to accept these rules the school board job is to protect our kids not make trade-offs between one community and

[03:41:44] another if their role is to keep the students safe why are you working against them you don't you don't get to wash off your hands you created this problem you took a beautiful residential community and turn it into an industrial corridor now you need to fix it not dominion not the sec not the school board because at the end of the day this is not about the power line it's about the power your power and how you choose to use it so do the right things project these roots stop pressing the school board fight for underground lines and fight for the people who trusted you

[03:42:18] thank you thank you sir um i think i'm at um number 26 raj um jukan nula followed by the annoyed ready followed by daya aaron is he in the room last name is j-u-k-a-n-u-l-l-a are you in the room or on the phone no all right let's go to the next person on the phone then thank you can you hear me

[03:42:57] okay we can hear you just fine good evening board members my name is vinod and i appreciate the the opportunity to speak today. I am here as a concerned resident regarding Dominion Energy's decision to include the green route in their application to the SEC. Despite the Loudoun County School Board's clear rejection of the overhead power lines on school property, the elected body thoroughly evaluated this issue and decided against allowing overhead power lines on the school grounds. Their decision was made with careful consideration of student safety, environmental impact, and the well-being of the surrounding community.

[03:43:38] Ignoring this decision undermines local governance and sets a troubling precedent where corporate interests take priority over community concerns. Board of Supervisors and Dominion Energy should respect the school board authority and not attempt to circumvent or pressure them into reversing their decision.

[03:43:59] Respecting the school board decision means respecting our community and the future of our children. I ask the board to advocate for transparency, accountability, and adherence to the decision that has already been made. Let's work together to ensure that Dominion does not undermine the authority of our local representatives.

[03:44:17] Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. I think that the next one is Daya Arun, followed by Laura, I'm sorry, Leya Arun. Good evening, board members. My name is Dia Arun, and I'm a junior at Rockridge High School.

[03:44:41] I'm here tonight to ask you to reconsider the proposed power lines near our schools, not just as a student, but as someone who cares about long-term consequences. The facts are undeniable. Studies show that prolonged EMF exposure increases risks of childhood leukemia and other health issues. The World Health Organization classifies these fields as possibly carcinogenic.

[03:45:06] Virginia's own guidelines prohibit EMS near new schools. So why allow them near existing ones? Some argue this route impacts the fewest homes. But fewest doesn't mean safe. If even one child gets sick because of this decision, that's one too many.

[03:45:23] There's a solution, the partially underground blue route. Companies like Microsoft are willing to make it happen. Other countries already bury high-voltage lines. Why can't we? This decision will set a precedent.

[03:45:39] If we allow power lines over schools today, what's next? Will future projects ignore student safety too? I urge you to prioritize health over haste. Review all alternatives and choose the underground option.

[03:45:55] Our schools should be places of learning, not a necessary risk. Please do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you. Laia Arun followed by Sam Moutreja.

[03:46:12] Good evening, board members and community leaders. My name is Laia Arun, and I'm a student at Rockridge High School. Tonight, I'm here because I'm scared, not for myself, but for the thousands of kids who will walk under these high-voltage power lines every single day.

[03:46:28] We're told school is a safe place, but if these transmission lines go up near Rosalie Elementary and Rockridge High, that safety is gone. The science is clear. Prolonged exposure to EMS is linked to childhood leukemia, cancer, and other serious health risks. The World Health Organization calls these fields a possible carcinogen, so why are we even debating this?

[03:46:48] Some say this route affects the fewest homes, but since when do we measure safety in numbers? Since when is it okay to sacrifice any child's health for convenience? If Virginia bans EMS near new schools, how can it be okay for existing ones? There is a better option, the Underground Blue Route.

[03:47:05] If Europe can do it, why can't Lowning County, one of the wealthiest in America? This isn't just about power lines. It's about what kind of community we want to be. Do we prioritize profits over people, short-term fixes over our children's futures? I'm begging you. Listen to the parents, the teachers, and the students.

[03:47:22] Choose the underground option. Show us that our lives matter. Thank you. Thank you, young lady. Sam Moutreja, followed by Laksham Naraya, Chandra Mouly.

[03:47:39] Kareeming, I am a resident of Loudoun Valley 2 in the Sterling District. I am deeply concerned that the Board of Supervisors are believing everything that Dominion is saying. We need to question everything and independently verify whatever they submit.

[03:47:56] We looked at their underground feasibility report, and it is flawed. They rushed into dismissing all underground routes and are using scare tactics to force us to choose between terrible above-ground options. What they call as least impactful are, in fact, the most impactful routes from the perspective of being closer to homes, closer to school children.

[03:48:18] And if anyone still cares about the environment, then the impact on Broad Run Park. Please don't alienate us, calling us the least impactful route. That is what we are urging you to resign. I am urging the board to please support the school board in their decision to oppose all the routes on school property and work with Dominion to find underground routes.

[03:48:40] Chair Randall, you are correct that you don't make the decision, but by recommending any above ground lines, you are helping make the decision. Do not give them new right-of-way that they don't currently have. Otherwise, in two, three years, they will come and build on the ones that they have right-of-way on.

[03:48:59] And we will be fooled by this divisive tactic that they are using. They don't want to work hard to find underground options because no one is forcing them to do that. Let's work together to find a solution where we are not sacrificing hundreds of homes or our school children.

[03:49:16] Fight like they did in Prince William County back in 2018. After four years of fight, they've won the fight against Dominion to partially underground the route that was impacting their community. Why can't we underground existing 240 Purple Line and then build a find-it on that path?

[03:49:32] If we push them hard to think, there will be solutions that are not going to tear up our communities. Where there is a will, there is a way. Have the will to fight for our communities and schools. Data centers may be good for our economy, but please do everything you can to stop these impacts on communities like ours.

[03:49:51] Use your resources to validate Dominion, what they are saying. Work with them to find better solutions. Support the school board decision and show the rest of the county that you will not recommend to sacrifice schools or any homes. Only underground should be your recommended option.

[03:50:07] Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir. Number, yes, good evening. Good evening, sir. Good evening, members of board. My name is Lakshmi Narayan Chandramuli.

[03:50:23] I'm here to express strong support for Loudoun County's school board decision to reject placement of 500 kV overhead power lines in our school. I urge the board to rescind any prior recommendation that would allow these lines so close to where our children go to learn. The school board has taken a prudent and responsible decision in light of existing research.

[03:50:44] The studies have shown weak but consistent association between long-term exposure to high-voltage power lines and childhood leukemia. And further research is still punding on other potential health impacts especially in children. One thing is very clear. The long-term impacts 10 to 20 years down the line is very difficult to predict. As a parent, I find that uncertainty deeply distressing. We should not be placing our children in a situation where unknown health risk may emerge 10 years after the bad decisions are made. School board is right to act with caution, and I urge the board to do the

[03:51:24] Finally, school zones and child safety equate to public interest, and with that in mind, I request county to take the issue of undergrounding to both Dominion and RCC and act in the interest of general public. Thank you. thank you thank you very much um shayra um chain moddy i'm sorry chain media not not not in the phone not in the phone okay um kathalina leon is coming up and i believe she is coming up with an

[03:52:03] interpreter after her will be isabel alcom and by the way we can absolutely turn the air off on this this good lord no it doesn't feel good it feels cold everybody come raise your hand buenas noches presidenta randall soy catalina leon miembro de la nueva mayoría de virginia residente de

[03:52:37] lesburgo por más de 20 años soy madre de tres niños y estoy pasando un gran desafío en vivienda vivo en un apartamento de dos cuartos pagando dos mil doscientos en renta incluido un bill de internet obligatorio que nos impusieron de 90 dólares.

[03:52:56] Me quedé sin trabajo, dedicándome a cuidar a mi hijo más pequeño que sufre de autismo. Estoy aquí para agradecerles el aumento de un centavo destinado al fondo en vivienda. Es un gran avance para empezar a buscar soluciones por la crisis de vivienda a largo plazo.

[03:53:17] Estamos decepcionados de que no han incluido un programa de vales de vivienda en el presupuesto este año. Pero vamos a seguir abogando que se asignen 10 millones del fondo de vivienda para un programa de vales de vivienda locales porque vendría a ayudar en una manera directa a la familia que está pasando desafíos con los incrementos descontrolados del alquiler.

[03:53:46] Gracias. Gracias. Good evening, Board of Supervisors, Chairwoman Randall. I am Catalina Leon, a member of the Virginia Neo-Majority and Lesbor resident for over 20 years. I am a mother of three children, and I am facing a significant housing challenge.

[03:54:06] I live in a two-bedroom apartment paying $2,200 in rent, including a mandatory $90 internary bill imposed on us. I am an employee and have to dedicate myself to caring for my youngest son who has autos.

[03:54:24] I am here to thank you for the increasing in the housing fund. It's a bigger step forward and starting to find solutions to the long-term housing crisis. We are disappointed that a housing voucher program hasn't been included in this year's budget, but we all continue advocating for $10 million from the Housing Fund for a local housing voucher program because it would be directly help families facing challenges with uncontrolled rent increases.

[03:54:56] Thank you. Isabel Alcombe followed by Jefferson Rivas. Good evening. Good evening, board and supervisor.

[03:55:12] My name is Isabel, a mother of leader with the Virginia New Majority. Today we are here together with our community to recognize the hard work we have achieved through our education campaign with the goal of improving opportunities for our students in our county schools.

[03:55:33] We would like first thank you to the school board members for listening to us for implementing free after school pilot programs as a part of the 2025 school budget. Today we'll be voting as an our community representative. We we hope to count on your support to approve this motion and budget which will allow us to offer more resource to our children to improve them in the access to an environment and of recreational athletic and educational opportunity which the

[03:56:10] key is stretching each student's skills and fostering their interest in improving education in our county. We thank you in advance trust and you will support this positive change for our low-income communities. We look forward forward to continue to work together building new opportunities and change we want to see producing well prepared our student professional in various educationers in athletic areas who will be able to serve our nation in our community thank you so

[03:56:45] much thank you jefferson rivas um and then we're going to go to our waiting list and we may be able to get everybody off the waiting list it's very possible we'll be able to do that mr rivas hello you'll be followed by um edick allman hello good afternoon i'm jefferson a student from the sterling area we thank you for listening to each of our requests and taking our voices into account and funding the free after school pilot program many of us students have dreams and

[03:57:24] desires to become professionals in the future and each of you is a fundamental part of providing these opportunities whether in a professional or athletic career so that we can become great examples of prepared citizens. We know that this is just the beginning of a productive effort to

[03:57:54] promote these programs which we will offer a ray of hope to all children who due to limited resources have not had the opportunity to participate in activities such as sports art or music this effort will directly benefit our schools we are confident what that we can achieve great changes for

[03:58:27] everyone and that together we will continue to build a productive and opportunity filled environment in our county schools thank you for your attention young man public speaking not always easy great job sir um eric i'm sorry edick all men followed

[03:58:54] by thomasina i'm sorry thomasa balancia followed by sam z edic edick are you here you're on the wait, Liz, you're first. No? Okay. Tomasina, I'm sorry, Tomasa Balancia, followed by Sam Z.

[03:59:18] Are you here? Okay. Is Sam Z here? There we go. And you're going to be followed by Donna Wadowski. Good evening. Good evening. For the past year, hundreds of us have been speaking and have been met by deafening silence and inactivity from this elected body. It was refreshing to hear the opening remarks from you chairwoman randall acknowledging the limit in your power and your willingness despite it to fight hard i wish that willingness was extended to all of your constituents equally

[03:59:57] with the same level of conviction i say this for many issues that have been brought to this board representing the most vulnerable communities tonight i bring a concrete ask to this board so with within your power and with the current budget proposal for the working class and their families in Loudoun County, I am asking that this board commit $10 million for a local housing voucher program. Yes, the county has other affordable housing initiatives, but they barely scrape the surface of our need. The working class that makes Loudoun County a great place to live,

[04:00:36] work, and visit deserves to be affordable for those who are working in it to live in it. Acknowledging this, one of the most important protections for our working families are our unions. SEIU members are here tonight. In the past few weeks, two of their members have been snatched up by immigration enforcement for statements of free speech. We are all in this together, and we will continue to demand our elected officials represent us, all of us. Thank

[04:01:11] you. Thank you. Ms. Wodowski, followed by the last speaker, which is Omir Butt. Good evening. Good evening. I want to send a special thank you to Supervisor Glass and Supervisor Umstead for coming to our Jewish festival in a non-election year. How ironic that the anti-kidnapping crowd here has never once advocated for the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th. To the Loudoun

[04:01:47] County residents who voiced concerns about Dominion Energy, I at least hear you. I was part of a five-person bipartisan team of citizen activists who fought Dominion when they tried to put ugly electric transmission towers across the western part of Prince William County and Falkier County.

[04:02:10] My job was to follow the money. Then Republican Gainesville Supervisor John Stirrup led a town hall that was attended by over 800 citizens. The Republican-led Prince William County Board of Supervisors also on board with the citizens. I went to the SEC hearing to speak. It was held in another county on a weekday at 8 a.m. Dominion had their paid speakers there. It is where I first

[04:02:44] met the actor Robert Duvall, who spoke eloquently. The outrage expanded to thousands and yielded advocates such as the Piedmont Environmental Council and the ancestors of slaves who were buried in its path, to name a few. The Mellon family granddaughters who lived in Falker County used my home to film a documentary about our fight with Dominion. We will always need electricity, but not at the expense of our citizens' health and the decreased value of our homes.

[04:03:22] The good news was that we won. The bad news, it took a year out of our lives and was a constant and prolonged fight. One thing you do have is the power of the vote, so use it. Thank you. And our last speaker will be Omir Butt.

[04:03:41] But before he starts speaking, I will say that we're going to do board comments immediately after, and then we're going to go to item number, I think it's number eight, hold on just one second, number four after that.

[04:04:00] We'll go to four after that, but we will do board comments. And so there may be some of my colleagues who might want to speak on what some of the speakers have said tonight. Thank you, sir, for coming. our last speaker. First of all I see my my shirt is matching your blazer. It's not by design to impress you or persuade you, okay? Okay. My name is Amir Abad. This is my son Ahil. He also goes to Rosalie Carter. I heard a lot of speakers today and past few weeks and since last year I have been advocating going underground

[04:04:38] for the issue that we have at the Dominion Energy Power Lines. To an extent I do understand how it's frustrating to you guys to say that it's not in your hand and but from our residents perspective I'm also a resident of LV2 Laudan Malley 2 estate it's frustrating for us to be thrown into the options that are saying these are the five options we have which has divided our whole community so I feel like this is by designed Dominion put

[04:05:11] those five options in so two options that are stated to be least impacted but they're going through the schools no parent in their right mind would be okay with that while the other three options are not through the school are not the least impacted least impacted quote-unquote so what it what appears is this is by design to divide us so there's no clear one option presented so So Dominion can go ahead with the option they like because on surface they can say that, oh, residents cannot make up their mind, so we'll just do what we want to do.

[04:05:52] So let's not let them take the best of this situation while the residents are the ones who are suffering. So what I suggest is let's take a back step and think about other options which would best suit the residents who live here.

[04:06:10] Dominion will keep on doing this because we got here not overnight. The number of data centers over the years have built in, they were allowed by the elected officials that these residents have elected.

[04:06:28] They made those decisions and these data centers are here. So my one cue to many of the residents who are listening to me at home, think about this. How did we get here? Who are the elected officials that we selected?

[04:06:43] change your decisions moving forward thank you thank you sir thank you okay supervisors let's go on and do just out of respect for um everyone who was who has spoken if you'd like to let's go and do board comments right now and so if anyone would like to just board comments engine or whatever those board comments might be um i will go first to miss umstott uh thank thank you madam

[04:07:09] chair i do not have any mandatory disclosures i did i did enjoy going to the black patriots and black loyalists presentation by alicia cohen at russ library along with supervisor glass Sunday evening I want to simply make a bit of a correction to the record one of our speakers

[04:07:42] mentioned the death of Hassam Shabbat and described him as a journalist and he was a journalist but he was also a Hamas sniper with company one of the Beit Hanun battalion so folks often have different roles that they play in life but he was not the innocent person that he was portrayed to be thank you thank you mr sanes um we're not gonna we're not we're not doing back and forth

[04:08:19] we're not doing back and forth we're not mr mr sanes we're not doing back and forth goodbye goodbye all right mr sanes thank you madam chair uh thank you to everybody that uh spoke this evening to us on various issues as always say you could have been anywhere you chose to be with us here today to share your thoughts and concerns on the various topics that are near and dear to your hearts we appreciate you taking the time to do so i have no mandatory to close disclosures this uh

[04:08:56] this evening and that's it so thank you mr crony thank you chair randall and um i don't have any disclosures tonight and i do want to thank everybody for coming out i respect the school board's decision to reject the overhead lines near the schools and prioritize the health and well-being of students in the school community and i just want to say i'm not pressuring my school board member to rescind her decision and i have not provided direct or indirect pressure on the school board i see that the community unanimously supports undergrounding and i hear you

[04:09:36] and will fight with you to ensure your voices are heard the county is amending the comprehensive plan to include a map identifying all existing approved and potential new high voltage transmission corridors to minimize electric infrastructure build out on communities. The need for power lines will continue to grow because data center load is expected to increase with AI. Data centers do provide us significant revenue, but the electrical infrastructure required for the transmission of electricity to meet load growth is having an impact on our community's well-being.

[04:10:12] More data centers mean more transmission lines and substations. I attended the Route 50 Safety and Operational Study Public Input Meeting in Middleburg, and I want to thank all the staff who attended. We had about 20 volunteers who sat at different tables and took input, and it was very well attended by about 100 people from the Middleburg community.

[04:10:38] They do show up when we have public meetings, So I was really pleased to see everybody, and I'm glad people came out to give their input on some of the recommendations that the consultant was proposing. There is a public meeting for the Runway 30 Aviation Noise Mitigation Project on Thursday, April 10th at 7.30 p.m.

[04:11:00] The meeting will be held virtually, and I had the pleasure of participating in Scrape for the Grape on Saturday at Zephaniah Farm Winery. We had about 400 volunteers, and we, well, not just at where I was, but 400 volunteers total, and over 3.5 million spotted lanternflies were destroyed.

[04:11:23] So that is great for our wineries and our communities. Next chance to volunteer is Saturday, April 12th, from 10 to 1, and I want to thank Mike litman for organizing this and lira it is a great community event i will definitely participate next year and i want to give a shout out for matt rogers for coming with me he's always my partner and we have a good time thank you matt rogers is my chief of staff so good for you matt um

[04:11:56] miss glass thank you madam chair uh one disclosure is on monday march 24th my staff met my staff participated in pre-meetings to discuss both ashburn station village and ashburn north substation also on march 26 i attended the nbta meeting and where we received a brt update

[04:12:26] which is the bus rapid transit and this this transit has about 28 routes that would serve approximately 282 stations this system would provide service to 1.1 million residents and 860 000 jobs across nine northern virginia jurisdictions and i had asked a question on what did it what do they mean by the bus rapid transit because we have been talking about um

[04:13:02] having our um our uh bus possibility to go from um here in loudon county down to prince william as well as from here to um frederick maryland and they were saying it's it's less of a like a um a long haul like we do from um from here to dc it's more of a it's it's a middle ground where um the routes are a little bit longer and it's spread from jurisdiction

[04:13:38] to jurisdiction and this wouldn't occur until about 2045 so this is about a 20-year um program process that we're talking about and they've also nvta has started their five-year strategic plan update which they had a little discussion on that also went to the nvrc meeting on march 27th and most of the discussion was regarding federal workers had lost their jobs so there was a presentation from virginia career works they spoke on resources and assistance available for folks

[04:14:15] to transition who transition out of federal workforce and help them seek out new employment and career opportunities in virginia so if you want to find out more information you can go to vcwnorthern.com for more information and i'm sorry i'm sorry go on okay and all on uh oh how Almost 25 seconds was it yesterday we went I was participated with some of my colleagues to the Children's Science Center construction launch party which was very exciting

[04:14:55] to actually see the the hole in the ground where the science center is going to be it's very exciting to see that your time is up all right there you go I know it feels a little different doesn't it a point of clarification on Ms. Glass you you're talking you're not talking about the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority when you say NVTA you're talking about the Transportation Alliance yes okay and there's nobody who is none of us are appointed to the alliance so you went because you wanted to go I just want to make sure that we got that straight

[04:15:34] You said, like, five-year program and things like that. You're not on NVTA, the authority. You went to an alliance meeting. Yes, I went to one. Okay, all right, very good. I just want to make sure, because that can get a little confusing. Thank you very much. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[04:15:52] I wanted to make sure that I addressed a conversation I had with Sophia Syed this morning from New Virginia Majority. She wanted to make sure that the full cent of revenue on the tax rate will be going into our housing fund, and I was excited and happy and proud to tell her that, in fact, yes, that will be the case moving forward.

[04:16:14] She was also very concerned about fully funding our schools. I was able to confirm with her that we are fully funding our schools. And then she also asked me about the LCSO agreement with ICE, 287G. It's a WSO agreement.

[04:16:30] It's a warrant service officer agreement. I've been in conversation with LCSO folks about that agreement. It is apparently so that they can serve warrants inside the jail to hold people for another 48 hours if they have been criminally charged.

[04:16:50] I'm still very concerned about it and investigating and asking a bunch more questions. This is a very new agreement. it was signed on march 27th by sheriff chapman and um we will be one of only three jurisdictions in the state to have such an agreement it's going to be loud in bedford and smith county once smith county gets theirs approved by ice these agreements are happening um uh at the initiation of the law enforcement agency and that's the information i have right now but um i will be in communication and trying to get more information to the community as I can.

[04:17:30] I want to clarify, there are two bodies that have authority over Dominion and their choices on power lines. One is the SCC, which is appointed. The other is the Virginia General Assembly. And there have been bills on undergrounding in the Virginia General Assembly that have not made it through and not made it through to the governor's desk.

[04:17:52] Senator Srinivasan brought one that did not make it through committee this year that would have piloted undergrounding in loudon county i know that folks are very concerned about this i hear what you're saying but i want to make sure folks understand the people that have control or authority over dominion are the general assembly not the loudon county board of supervisors we cannot quote unquote reject a power line route nor do we help design them i attended a hidden lane community meeting for the superfund site last week they have now found PFAS in the water in the plume so they are monitoring that and working on it with the

[04:18:29] community I was able to attend the dedication of the Lovettsville fire station which was great and exciting and the place was full and I was really proud I got to stand behind that big red fire engine which I've never gotten to do before and welcome the community to their new fire station on gun violence three months into 2025 there have been 3420 total gun deaths 66 mass shootings they include 60 children under the age of 12 and 235 teens ages 12 to 17 thank you madam chair gosh miss briggsman i can't imagine why you were in lovetsville that's really unusual never

[04:19:04] happened before wow you were in lovetsville what what a shocker um mr latourno all right good evening um i do want to address the the topic that the majority of our speakers spoke with which the power alliance tonight um so i want to start with this which is all of us up here are parents every single i was thinking about that during the thing tonight every single one of us are parents so we certainly understand where everybody's coming from because you're concerned about your children and i'm concerned about my children also it's just a natural thing for us to do

[04:19:41] But I'm going to give a few numbers. The orange line up Loudoun County Parkway is within 500 feet of 1,161 homes. The green line is 128 and blue is 64. Within 250 feet, the orange line is 312 homes and blue and green are 12 and 30.

[04:20:14] And within 100 feet, 125 homes would have a 500 kV power line versus one or four for the other lines. I know that a lot of politicians want to just tell people what they want to hear, but I'm not going to do that. The reality is Dominion almost all of the time gets what it wants, right? And when it comes to undergrounding power lines, Dominion isn't paying for it.

[04:20:35] We, the rate payers, are paying for it. The state corporation exists to determine what the best value for the rate payers is, the whole rate payers, all of them, not just the ones in the line of color, everybody. And so when they make their decisions on these routes and one line comes in way more expensive than the others, they usually say no because they don't want the rate payers to pay more.

[04:20:57] This body has been advocating for data center operators to be paying for undergrounding power lines. We went to Richmond. We sought legislation to do that. It did not pass, as Supervisor Bristman said. That is the answer to this issue. Otherwise, we know what's going to happen.

[04:21:14] It is a binary choice between green and blue and orange. And for all the people who came in tonight and said, we need to do the honorable thing, tell me how it's the honorable thing to tell 1,100 people now that they have to have 500 kV power lines. There's no winners in this.

[04:21:31] Absolutely not. The science, I understand the science, but we've got to be based in fact. The reality is this cell phone close to my head like this is producing as much or more EMF as a power line would. We use them every single day. there are studies all over the place if you think those of us actually sit up here haven't done that research it's insulting of course we have i've read hours of stuff on this it's just not there there is no link national cancer institute doesn't make a link or a recommendation so we're stuck dealing with the facts on the ground as they are the best that we can and that's what motivated

[04:22:07] the board's decision to try to do the least amount of harm for the most number of people at least when it comes to having a visual impact the power lines and i am out of time mr um vice chair turner thank you madam chair i wasn't going to say anything but i do want to add a few things to what supervisor letourneau just said um the recommendation the board made was in the absence of any decision by the school board at that point and we said priority one is berry and the second priority is blue and green in that order the school board has since decided that they don't want, they're going to prohibit the power lines on blue and green, and they

[04:22:47] can do that. If that's county property being used for the purpose that it was designed to be used, the SEC, if I'm saying this correctly, Ms. Rogers, please, if I incorrect, correct me, the State Corporation Commission cannot override a decision by the schools not to allow their property to be used for power lines because the property is being used for schools, which is what it was intended to be used for. So that decision is done. The Loudoun County Board's recommendation that was made prior to that for undergrounding first and then blue and green second is now moot.

[04:23:23] Our recommendation is to bury the lines. To Supervisor Letourneau's point, that is probably not going to happen for the reasons he just described. This is out of our hands. This is entirely in the hands of the State Corporation Commission. So if we want to have a third meeting with 36 speakers demanding this board do something about the dominion power lines from golden to mars by all means it's public speaking time and you can talk about anything you want to but again this board has no power to affect that decision other than to tell them what we would like as we have done with the aspen to golden line and as we will continue to do with the golden

[04:24:03] mars line thank you thank you um so it's it's hard because because well first of all mr eternal is correct we all have children and we all have children that we didn't give birth to but love and care about and to assume that anybody runs for office so we will hurt your children is is just not correct um there is some misinformation out there but i also hear people saying um do more fight harder use all of your tools and i say that on this day especially because you know for for

[04:24:41] For two months, I've been saying, well, the Democrats in Congress don't have any power. They have no power. And then today, Cory Booker stood up and did a 25-hour and five-minute filibuster. And so I – not that I'm going to go do a 25-hour filibuster, Dominion.

[04:24:58] So what I'm hearing people say is use all the tools you have to fight. I believe we have done that. I believe we are doing that. But I also believe that it's always okay to take another look to see if there's any stone we didn't unturn, anything we didn't do, anything we should have done different.

[04:25:20] I'm not going to go back again into history. It is not true that this board, or the last board, or boards even 10 years ago put the data centers in place out there right now. That was zoning that was done in 2003, literally. And I've said before, I won't criticize that board back in 2003 because there's no way they could have known the data center community was going to be what it was.

[04:25:42] There was just no way they could have known that. And so this is nobody's fault. And as I always say, data centers are a double-edged sword. There is a lot of revenue we get from them, and they do community work. This is the other end of that sword.

[04:25:57] It's never that it's all one thing or the other. It's a double-edged sword. And I think we should realize that, that just as people have demanded to pay less in taxes, and they are because of data centers, largely because of data centers, there's also this side to them.

[04:26:13] And that's why it's a conversation that we have to have on both sides all the time. I will commit to doing this, talking to staff and talking to whomever I need to, to make sure that we've done everything that we possibly can. I think we have. I think we have.

[04:26:29] but it never hurts to go out and find out again, especially since we have communities that are as concerned as you are. And quite frankly, you know, if it's me, yeah, Mr. Letourneau is right. We've read all those studies, and I believe in science.

[04:26:48] I don't know that I want to live that close to a power line, even though I've read the studies. And so we do absolutely hear you. Finally, I do want to say that Cory Booker broke the record of Strong Thurman. Strong Thurman stood on the phone for 25 hours to filibuster against civil rights.

[04:27:08] Today, a black man stood on that floor for 25 hours to filibuster for democracy. Thank you. All right, supervisors, we're not going to take a break until we do item number four, because we have people who are here for item number four. Would the staff please come to the table for item number four, And then after that, we will take a break.

[04:27:28] We'll do nominations, and then we'll take a break. We have two closed sessions. Good evening.

[04:27:51] Supervisors, do we need the resolution? Do we need the presentation? I actually don't need the presentation. Do you all need the presentation? Okay. I'm going to go straight to a motion. Yes, I am. Do you want it?

[04:28:15] We've seen much of this before, though. the presentation we've seen before it's it's a shorter version of it actually we appreciate that it's four pages but we've seen it but we've seen it before so if you're sad we can do it y'all okay okay all right okay then um i move the board of supervisors ratify the tentative collective bargaining agreement between the service employees international union virginia 512 and the loudon county and and loudon county virginia as reflected in attachment one to the April 1st, 2025 Board Supervisors Business Meeting Action Item effective for the period of

[04:28:49] July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. By approving this motion, the Board hereby expresses its good faith commitment to appropriate the funding necessary for the county to meet its obligations under the collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Virginia 512, with the understanding that all funding remains subject to annual appropriations and is contingent upon budget adoption as the Board exercises its plenary authority to determine the budget following extensive budget hearings and further that each fiscal year financial commitments are subject to and contingent on appropriations by the Board for the fiscal year.

[04:29:29] Motions made and seconded by Supervisor Turner who actually asked me earlier if he wanted -- so you guys have to say it though. I second. Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Turner. There's so much I want to say right now. I want to thank Supervisor Sane, Supervisor Umstead, who the three of us started in our first term to walk toward this goal.

[04:29:55] We started in small ways. Could we just get a room for employees to talk with their union just in case they want to hear about information? We were voted down. Everything we tried in that first term, we were voted down.

[04:30:12] second term we were able to do some things different and get the get the discussions started in a real and earnest way I have never I do believe and I will say this about my colleagues who sit on the other side of the political aisle and have maybe not agreed with my stance on unions I know that they are people who care very much about our county employees and I've never believed did anything different, even though they have a different philosophy. But I've said this before. I am a child of union. My grandmother was an international garment worker. My grandfather

[04:30:52] was a Pullman porter, the very first union that allowed African Americans in the union. My father was postmaster union. And my son right now is in Local 26. I know the value of unions. I know what they do. I know how they change life. I know what solidarity looks Like, not just in fighting for your budget agreements and your contracts, but really fighting for one another in very real, very life ways.

[04:31:19] I also know that when I arrived in this county, we were underfunding our employees. We were losing our employees at a very fast clip because they were not getting paid enough, and they were underpaid and overworked.

[04:31:34] And with the help of county administration, we put a compensation and classification study in place and really realized what we were doing and why we were using employees. And we realized that actually having to rehire employees, especially first responders, actually costs more than just paying them what they were worth from the very beginning.

[04:31:53] Unions help us do this. I believe what we're doing is the right thing to do. I believe that our county employees are public servants, and that as public servants, we need to appreciate them, we need to value them, we need to pay them what they're worth, and we need to give them the benefits that they well deserve.

[04:32:11] I am so proud to have worked on this since I've been on this board, and I am very, very grateful for this moment that we are at right now. Ms. Bricksman. Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. So, just a couple details. Thank you, staff, for all of your hard work on this. It's been a road, and Madam Chair, you definitely started with the bricks a while ago.

[04:32:40] We have wages and supplemental pay increases over the next four fiscal years. We have a union bank of leave of 1,500 hours included. We have annual leave accrual increase of 0.5 additional hours per pay period.

[04:32:58] We have a 401A matching contribution. So those are just a couple of the really great things that are coming with this contract. And it is not lost on me that Loudoun County is standing up and tonight approving this contract when we have someone down in the White House who is trying to strike union contracts and union benefits from our federal workers.

[04:33:24] I am extremely proud to be standing with our workers tonight and giving them a voice when it comes to pay, benefits, and working conditions. I think that this creates a happier workforce, which creates a more productive workforce, which in turn creates better services for the county as a whole.

[04:33:45] And SCIU, my friends in the audience, I am so proud of all of you. I'm so proud to stand with you in solidarity this evening as we approve this contract. And I think it's really impressive that on March 14th, 100 percent of ballots cast were for the contract.

[04:34:03] So that means a job well done for the negotiators, our staff, and for your negotiators. Congratulations, and I'm super proud to support. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you, Madam Chair. So the original decision to move in this direction was, I think, a 6-3 vote on that board, and no secret that I oppose that.

[04:34:23] i have not changed my mind after all of this i do believe that this board itself demonstrated the way that a board can move forward and take care of employees and increase pay and increase benefits and listen without having collective bargaining and in fact we haven't had it until this moment with one of our employee groups the reality is the number of employees that voted affirmatively to be part of this was very small it was a very small percentage of our entire workforce which i think is indicative of the fact that we generally were doing a good job

[04:34:58] that said i will vote in favor of the agreement tonight because the rules are what they are whether i voted for them or not this is a fairly negotiated agreement it took a long time i'm not convinced all the pain was necessarily worth it but it took a long time our staff i think did an excellent job and i want to thank all of you for sticking with it i want to thank the union for being part of this process and and coming in and bringing forward some of the ideas that are incorporated in this contract and to me the right thing to do is to vote in favor of an agreement

[04:35:36] that's been fairly negotiated and represents the will of the majority as well as what you know has been negotiated between the two parties so i will do that this evening thank you thank you Mr. Sains. Thank you, Madam Chair. We'll quickly thank the county staff. Thank you to our county employees, county union members, and Chair Reynolds Wright, as she mentioned earlier in her comments, we've come a long way since, what was it, 2016, when we simply brought a motion to say, hey,

[04:36:11] Can we have a flyer in the county team member break room? Can we put a one-pager in the orientation PowerPoint to let people know that we have unions here and if you're interested in hearing information, there's no pressure.

[04:36:29] You can get the information and make a decision if you want to hear the information, join or not join. There's no pressure at all. We failed on those numerous votes, but look where we are now in 2025. It's been a long, windy road, but I'll give credit to a lot of folks in the audience who stayed the course. Ms. Nelson, Dr. Julius, Dr. Julius Randall, and a lot of other folks that have come and gone and been part of this process. So, you know, this is a testament to

[04:37:08] your work, advocating for yourselves and for your fellow employees. We have done a lot of things in this county, increased pay since we've been on this board, and benefits, and I think we've listened to you all, not just SEIU, but in other factions as well, and we've implemented a lot of things over the years. So again, this is a testament to your hard work and advocating.

[04:37:35] So I just want to, again, thank you, county employees, county staff, and to this board as well. As Mr. Letourneau mentioned, he was definitely not in favor of this, but to his credit, and all of us, but we've negotiated, listened to folks, brought things to the table, worked with staff, and we've come to this juncture here this evening.

[04:37:58] So obviously we'll be voting in favor of it with jazz hands. So congratulations to all, and keep fighting the good fight, as my grandmother likes to say. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have a lot to say. I want to thank the unions for your hard work and your perseverance and hanging in there.

[04:38:16] I think this is a historic moment. I'm really proud to be a part of it. I've been in the military for my whole adult life, the majority of my adult life. I really hadn't had any exposure to unions. I kind of got thrown into the process in the middle a couple of years ago, and it was an eye-opening experience all the way around, and it was a lot of hard work on both sides.

[04:38:38] A lot of people put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this process, and I think the outcome is very, very good, and I'm really proud of the work that all of us have done. Thank you. So, Mr. Turner, I actually do want to thank you because when we had our own marathon meeting that we started at 9 or 10 in the morning and we went to like 1 or 2 the next morning, you were there every moment of that meeting.

[04:38:59] so um with me and and that was you know we had many many meetings for the ordinance that was one of the hardest ones and you stayed there with me to staff this has been hard john this has been hard um it it has um you know but but i've learned so much through this process and i thank you all mr himstreet you you you never say what something should be but you have been um there every moment that I had a question, and you answered all of my questions, and we had many, many meetings about how this works and what goes here and that type of thing, so I really do appreciate your help.

[04:39:36] Mr. Rogers, your office has been phenomenal, fantastic, thank you so much. To the union members, I don't know what to say, I mean, Julius, how long did we have lunch over here that day when it was still the, what was it, with the Drunk Elephant place over here yeah that place we settled with him for like hours and hours and talking Patty you are you're just there are no words there are just no words for you miss Nelson and who you are and and thank you Kevin and I had I don't know lots of meetings in the middle of Giants because that's where I seem to see him all the time all the union members and I want to thank you

[04:40:16] very very oh she's not here but thank her very much for us please for all the union members you know when I think of does this need to happen I think of what's happening now nationally. I think of how many of our rights that we've had for years that are being pulled back and rolled back and stripped away. So when you think we don't need this because I may have agreed with some of those words at some point, but actually no I wouldn't have, but I especially don't agree with those things right now because we are watching in real time what it looks like when the legislative body doesn't protect, doesn't know how to protect people or doesn't try to protect people at all. We're watching it in real time. And so we have

[04:40:54] come a long way in the past years with employees pay, employees' rights, employees' benefits, but I don't believe for one minute that if we don't try, these things cannot be stripped away. I know they can't be stripped away, and it's important to me that at least while I'm here, we do everything in our power to put them there, to put those rights in and to keep these rights in at all times. And so I am extraordinarily proud of the work that we've done, and I think my father would be proud of me. I do. So thank you, everybody.

[04:41:25] I made the motion Mr. Turner seconded the motion on 50 say aye any opposed that motion passes eight zero one thank you can't clap supervisors let's do our by the way John and Jeremy thank you Bob thank you Jeremy I'm out of popcorn let's do our nominations if you have a nomination please put your light on Mr. Crony

[04:42:06] Okay. Thank you, Chair Randall. I nominate Monte Johnson for the Advisory Commission on Youth. Okay.

[04:42:30] All right. All right. Thank you. I just want to make sure that doesn't make more than three for him, but okay, we can check later. We can check later. Yeah. Okay. What? I don't know. There's two nominations now, though. Do you have a nomination? Do you have a nomination? All right. I nominate Keisha Miller for reappointment to the Family Service Advisory Board. I nominate Linda Essay to an at-large seat on the Disability Services Board.

[04:42:48] I nominate David Brent to an at-large seat on the Agricultural District Advisory Committee. I nominate Angela Wilder, and welcome back, Mr. Wilder, to an at-large seat on the Community Services Board. I nominate George Overkamp to an at-large seat on the Board of Building Code Appeals.

[04:43:05] And I nominate Shahir Ahmadi to a large seat on the Board of Building Code Appeals. Okay, let's go look at number six. Oh, you don't want to take a break before this? Okay.

[04:43:27] I don't know. I think it's going to take a while to be honest. We do seven. We put on consent. I just, I don't have my paper. Okay, it's the bamboo. Okay. All right. Then sure, let's do seven. I mean, I'm sorry, six.

[04:43:42] on down mr um rush and mr quentin you coming with him you can come down you can come down miss quentin good evening gentlemen i would like the presentation is six pages actually five good

[04:44:13] evening chair randall members of the board um we're here to present on the municipality um equality index scorecard summary um the purpose of this is really to present the findings and the review of of the county's LGBTQ+ policies, programs, and practices, and we'll give you a little bit of background on the MEI as well as the scorecard that was presented by MEI.

[04:44:40] So this was a board member initiative that was presented by the Algonquian District and the Broad Run District offices that were approved in June 18th, 2024. It directed staff to review our policies, programs, and practices and to apply to the MEI. The Municipal Equality Index is developed by the Human Rights Campaign It benchmarks inclusive laws and policies and services of LGBTQ+ people and it rates it with a scale of zero to 100 with the criteria.

[04:45:14] It is normally a process that they invite jurisdictions to, but Loudoun self-submitted our policies to that to be judged by their criteria. So with that our score was an 81 out of 100 which I think that is a pretty good scorecard.

[04:45:35] There are several different areas that they focused on was non-discrimination laws which we scored a 30 out of 30. The municipality as an employer it was a 22 out of 28. There were six points that were there that were around some of the language around non-discrimination our procurement which we are in lockstep with code but they specifically wanted certain languages that are certain language added to that which we've spoken to our great procurement team and that will be reflective as of july 1st of this year so that will be a part of that

[04:46:12] the municipal services area that was a five out of 12 that area points could actually be gained if we continue down the road of establishing a human rights commission, and those points would be added there.

[04:46:28] And then with the law enforcement areas, there was a 12 out of 22, and there was a portion in there that had asked if the jurisdiction had a dedicated liaison within their law enforcement organization, which we do not. However, with looking further into that, there are partial points that could be granted based on trainings that are given to law enforcement around issues of this as well.

[04:46:52] And we scored an eight out of eight under our leadership. So looking at our comparative regional jurisdictions, Alexander Arlington and Fairfax scored 120-24. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that when Fairfax first started this years ago, they scored a 56 on their first round and we scored an 81 just by way of comparison as well.

[04:47:16] I think that really talks more to just the work that we're doing overall in the county in these areas for all demographics as well. So the key findings were, of course, there were lower scores in the municipal service area as well as law enforcement and then our lack of a human rights commission, which the board has instructed us to do.

[04:47:39] And with that, I will pause for questions. Can we do questions inside of a motion? how about this we're going to do questions inside of a motion yes um miss bricksman would you like to make a motion i would madam chair thank you very much um i move that the board of supervisors direct staff to apply annually to the municipal quality index and implement measures to improve the county's overall score where feasible motion is being seconded by who who seconded ms glass ms glass by seconded by ms glass miss bricksman thank you madam chair and thank you so much for

[04:48:16] the work. I really appreciate it, Mr. Quintine and Mr. Rush. I just want to be really careful here. The MEI is actually under the HRC Foundation, which is not as much of an advocacy group as HRC. The HRC Foundation is like a 501c3, I believe, and nonpartisan. So I just wanted to make sure that we're clear on that. I'm super proud. I mean, I think this is a really great score um out the gate i know that mr hemstreet wasn't worried about it for one minute and and

[04:48:49] he was right when we first started talking about it um i i believe that we'll we will improve our score um over the next couple years i think with um the law enforcement issue we may not get to 100 and i don't know that we you know and as we discussed i don't know that we want to just get points to get points i mean we and that's why it says we're feasible we want to be able to do what's right um for our employees and what's right for the county and and work on stuff where we think it's where we think it's important and and productive um i'm really glad to hear that the procurement resolution issue has been resolved um look forward to that coming in july

[04:49:27] um and uh i think that as i said with the human rights commission will will gain a lot of points so so i think we're going to get there and um appreciate my colleague's support thank you

[04:49:51] Thank you. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, staff, for all the work on this. Just a couple of questions. I know you said annually. Do we have to do this annually, or could it be like every other year? And then what is, just a quick, give us kind of what is the staff timing, or how much work was put into doing this, and what do you think the time, how much work would staff be putting in going forward if we were to move forward with this annually?

[04:50:07] or so we're on a self-submission basis so it's whatever cadence we would want to submit that information for ones that are not on that self submission cadence they actually sort of foyer the records and they they do it that way to get the the information so it could be every year if that's what the board wants or whatever cadence they would like when it comes to staff time i I think the initial heavy lift was understanding what the criteria was, what they were looking for, and being able to gather all of the information.

[04:50:45] But now that we've gone through this first cycle, I really don't foresee that being much of a lift annually to pull these things together. - All right, thank you. - Ms. Glass. - Thank you, Madam Chair. - And thank you, Mr. Rush, Mr. Quindine, for the presentation and for the discussion had regarding the MEI. So when we build new facilities or renovate old facilities, do we

[04:51:20] incorporate single occupancy restrooms? So I don't know if I'm the perfect person to answer that when it comes to like the construction, you know, piece as well. I know specifically here it was more about those restrooms with the placard that's on it is what they were actually looking for I think there are some that exist you

[04:51:53] know in in the county and that section of the scorecard we actually pulled some of the language that was based on the code and we submitted that to them and in our initial submission we thought that that would be points that would be granted um however their criteria said that that was not um that didn't meet their criteria okay so we didn't receive points for youth bullying prevention policy do we have one of those already or do we need to create one um so i'll speak to the flex points as as a whole i think a lot of

[04:52:28] this when you read the criteria there are specific languages or there's specific language that they're looking for um our practice here is a lot of these things are already in place but it's for all people right and all different in all demographics and we don't explicitly call out uh this is for individuals that are lgbtq plus and so there are some of the things that that are listed here within the flex points um that i believe that we're we're doing a great job because we've extended it and we've taken all people into consideration which is the practice and the

[04:53:03] in which we use within the county so as I had mentioned before because this is sort of a third party you know vendor that's actually looking and scoring these things I don't necessarily know that the the flex points we have to create areas to meet their criteria just for points because I believe that the quality in which we're delivering is is more important than than the points itself again thank you for the presentation I look forward to continue to work to make sure that everyone in loud and feels welcome thank you mr letourne all

[04:53:41] right um do we have to pay hrc to have this evaluation no okay good so i was going to ask you the same question about the flex points i understand there are only flex points but and maybe this is a question for mr hamstreet but we don't turn anybody away from our homeless shelter for instance right we provide services to older adults who happen to be lgbtq plus don't we i mean I mean, we don't discriminate against anybody who's seeking county services, right?

[04:54:09] We do not, and I'll defer to Mr. Rush to answer that more completely. I think the issue is our documents don't specifically call out specific groups in terms of who we provide service to. Right, and that's my problem with this.

[04:54:26] I mean, we shouldn't be punished because we serve everybody, but effectively we are because we don't get the flex points. Some of the other jurisdictions get more flex points. Another opportunity for flex points is an openly LGBTQ plus elected or appointed leaders. I don't know about appointed leaders.

[04:54:42] I don't know if our boards and commissions, I have to imagine we have some LGBTQ appointed leaders, but we didn't get points there. The elected leaders, that is not up to us. That's up to the voters. So I just don't find much value in this. I mean, if we want to do a self-evaluation, that's fine.

[04:54:59] And the important thing to me is whether we actually provide the services. And you said it. We do. I think we do a good job, and I would be concerned if I heard from any member of the community that we weren't, but especially if we weren't because of somebody's sexual orientation or something. That's never a place where we should be.

[04:55:16] So I was not supportive of this effort. I thought it was flawed. This only underscores to me that I think it is flawed because you have to have a specific call-out and provide specific policies for one specific group in order to get points. And we shouldn't operate like that.

[04:55:31] I don't think it's the right way to go. so I will not support the motion here first of all thank you all back to mr. Sane's question when he says annually does that mean once a year or once every 12 months so they're they they have a period in which they open up the submissions and I believe it runs from like August to November okay and so it's whenever they open up their time to collect data my issue with this when When Ms. Brickson first brought it to me to my issue this very second, it has nothing to do with the scoring,

[04:56:11] although I do think the scoring is flawed, and I thought the scoring was flawed when I read it the first time. I don't think it gives nearly enough scores to people who are being harassed and bullied, to be quite honest, because they are in the LGBTQ plus community.

[04:56:27] So I don't like the scoring, but my issue has always been this. I don't believe Loudoun County makes policy based on what third-party vendors say we should do or should not do. Many years ago, when we were talking about whether or not to allow firearms in the county building, I had a supervisor that kept pushing, let the NRA come in here and do the research.

[04:56:52] They have all the information they have. And I was like, no, we're not letting the NRA come in here and do the research. They are a third-party vendor, and they have a political tilt. The HRC, and by the way, we should say what it means. It means Human Rights Commission. Some people might think it means Hillary or Martin Clinton, but it means Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Campaign.

[04:57:13] The HRC is a pseudo-political organization. They just are. They just are. And we should not be letting pseudo-political organizations speak into county policies to this degree. I don't really, no matter who you are, it wouldn't matter with me who you are.

[04:57:32] And so I know I'm going to get blasted by people and by my part in all this, but there is a, you know, if I'm not going to do it for one political organization or pseudo-political organization, I'm not going to do it for another pseudo-political organization.

[04:57:47] I believe that this should not, we should not be taking the scores of a pseudo-political organization that we had nothing at all to do with. And I will also say the score of our county leadership was 8 out of 8.

[04:58:03] 8 out of 8 for county leadership. I see county leadership as everybody, all of us. We're killing it for county leadership. And so I have a lot of issues with letting political organizations define county policy.

[04:58:20] And that's been my issue for a long time. So I don't know if I'm going to abstain or vote no, but I can't vote yes on this. Ms. Bricksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. So I would be remiss if I didn't thank Supervisor Glass's office and my staff for working so hard on this, and thank you for co-sponsoring with me, Supervisor Glass.

[04:58:40] I think this is about inclusivity, and that's one of the conversations we had yesterday about this is about inclusivity, and there's a reason why we get the Forbes Top Employer designation, because we are a welcoming community, we are a welcoming county.

[04:59:00] at the professional level and hopefully at the external level and I did a while back have conversations even with Visit Loudon who wants to be able to say Loudon is an inclusive community because it helps with it helps with visiting you know visitor needs I I think that different communities ask different things when they're advocating for their communities I think that you know, women's advocates ask for certain things when they want to make sure that an

[04:59:38] organization is inclusive of gender, you know, women. I think that, you know, different communities like, you know, the African American community or the Hispanic community, they ask for different things based on what would make their community feel welcome, what would make their community feel comfortable and safe. And this is what this community has asked for. And I'm really proud of Loudoun for responding. To Supervisor Letourneau's comments, I'll just say what I said before.

[05:00:09] The motion says where feasible. And I don't think that we should, you know, necessarily do something unproductive, just change language, just to change language, just to get points. I'm really proud of our score right now. I think it's going to improve with the Human Rights Commission. I think it could improve when we do the procurement update hopefully we can work with lcso to have some improvement there and we're going to get up there in the 90s and and i think that we should be really super proud of that i think it's going to help with recruitment i think it's going to help us with with more employer ratings if we ever apply for other things like that and so i really appreciate

[05:00:47] my colleague's support on this and again thank you i'm really proud of our county right now thank you all right so I need to take a break motion made by Supervisor Brixman and second by Supervisor glass I do believe right all people say aye aye opposed that motion will pass six no it's six to one that moment should we pass six to one thank you supervisors did everyone do their disclosures when they did their comments you're good because I didn't hear this cool I hear disclosures going

[05:01:25] on. Disclosures are good? No one had him. Okay. We're good with that? All right. So before we go to closed session, I need to take a break. So I'm just going to do that. So let's take a 10-minute

[05:01:37] break, come back and read in closed session. We're back. And Mr. Turner, will you please read us into

[05:16:28] both closed sessions? I move the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to Sections 2.2-3711 and 829 of the Code of Virginia 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. I further move that the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to section 2.23711A7 and A8 of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel pertaining to insurance and the payment of claims for the

[05:17:03] incident at Silver Ridge. Motion made and second. Discussion on the motion? I have All the people say aye. Aye. Opposed, motion passed 702. Ms. Glass has left the dais and of course, Mr. Kirchner is not here. Closed session.

[05:45:52] No, we did not. Okay, we are out of closed session. Ms. Bricksman is going to read us out of closed session and I will talk about Mr. Turner in just a second after she reaches out.

[06:28:52] Oh, Madam Chair, I lied. I have the ones that are moving into closed session. Ms. Bricksman is not going to read us out of closed session. Can somebody get a little language to read us out of closed session, please? I move that the closed session be adjourned, that the Board of Supervisors reconvene its public meeting, that the minutes of the public meeting should reflect that no formal action was taken in closed session, and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting.

[06:29:14] Second. Motion is made and second with Supervisor LeTernal. Very quickly, discussion on the motion. I will say that LeTernal was in the closed session with us. He had to leave. He left at 10.15. What we will do at the next meeting is he will certify and he will affirm up until the time that he left.

[06:29:35] He will do that at our next, the next time we're on the dais, actually, or the next business meeting. He can do that at the next business meeting. Next business meeting he will affirm until the time that he left, but he was in there until 1015. So, any other discussion on the motion? All in favor say aye.

[06:29:52] Aye. Any opposed? That motion passed 60. We're through with everybody, please affirm. Affirm. And I affirm as well. I think that's everything. We are adjourned.

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