Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Business Meeting, Thursday, November 6, 2025

Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 4h 13m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/8057
Meeting page (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/8057

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

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[00:05:45] Mr. Turner. Good evening, supervisors. Good evening, staff. Good evening, Loudon. I'd like to call to order the November 6, 2025 Loudon County Board of Supervisors Business Meeting.

[00:06:02] This room has a hearing loop. If you need hearing assistance, please switch your hearing aid to the telecom mode. If you need a headset, we have those available as well. Please see the clerk to request one. This evening, Vice Chair Turner will lead us in the words of inspiration and the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:06:17] Vice Chair Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have been pretty depressed since 2016 of the direction this country is headed in. And Tuesday night, I finally saw what I hope is a light at the end of the tunnel. And so my quote is along those lines, hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path.

[00:06:41] It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists despite all evidence to the contrary that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us but by us by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is who have the courage to remake the world as it should be barack obama please join me in the pledge

[00:07:08] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Actually, it feels like it means something this time.

[00:07:29] Okay, so I do not have an addition to the agenda, but I know that Mr. Crony does have an addition to the agenda regarding the space strategy. update for the Leedsburg Government Center from the October 21st, 2025 board business meeting. If you remember, then that item went on the consent agenda. And so this is the first meeting past that meeting that she can bring back a reconsideration. A reconsideration, as I am chair, is always allowed, but it does need a supermajority to pass. And so what

[00:08:08] she's going to do is make a motion for the reconsideration and then she'll make a motion for the item and then I will put the item in the agenda as the last action item tonight and we'll deal with that when we get there. So saying yes to the reconsideration does not say yes to the item. It just says we agree to let her reconsider if she'd like to do that. So Mr. Crony, would you like to make a motion to reconsider? Yes. Do I have to make a motion to suspend the rules first?

[00:08:39] I mean suspend the rules, yes. Yeah. Okay, so I move to suspend the rules. Second that. Motion's been made to suspend the rules, and it has been seconded, and she's spending the rules so she can talk about the space strategy update. There's discussion on suspension of the rules.

[00:08:57] Would you like to discuss suspending the rules? No, just that I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss option one and option two during the item when we bring it up. All in favor of suspending the rules, please say aye.

[00:09:12] Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass with six votes of people who are on the dais. That's a supermajority. I'd like to make the next motion, ma'am. Yes. Okay, thank you, Chair Rendell. I move that the Board of Supervisors reconsider its action at the October 21st, 2025 business meeting to move the recommendation of the Finance, Government, Operations, and Economic Development Committee that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to pursue option two and develop options, seek potential partnerships to relocate the government center east of Leesburg

[00:09:48] and accommodate a building size of approximately 300,000 to 400,000 square feet as outlined in the October 21st, 2025 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item. Motion's made to a second? Second. Okay, point of clarification, just to know, if we pass this motion, this still doesn't all this says is that this is the motion she wants reconsidered so that's why the first this sentence is she moves to reconsider the action it doesn't mean the item the action will pass or be reconsidered she's just moving to reconsider the action and so I just want to make

[00:10:26] sure people know what we're doing up here so knowing things were so um so would you like discussion on that motion ma'am no you sure yeah okay anybody else want to have discussion on the motion. Ms. Brooksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will unfortunately not be able to support Supervisor Tacroni in this reconsideration or the following motion. I believe that we have discussed this item and we have fully vetted it in finance. We had it at our last business meeting. We had an option opportunity to ask a lot of questions to staff and the board voted, the majority of the

[00:11:01] board voted for this direction and i don't think that we should reopen the case thank you okay mr turner thank you madam chair i am confused by this reconsideration so we are moving to reconsider the motion that passed at the october 21st meeting and that motion was direct staff to pursue option two if the reconsideration passes the we are then going to make a motion to direct staff to consider option two, which is exactly what we did the first time.

[00:11:30] No, it's not. Well, I do believe it's more, so what you've done now is you went on and read the second motion. Yeah, and that's why I didn't say anything before. I think we have to wait until we get to that motion before and have her discuss it before we get there.

[00:11:45] Okay. I think it's just a reconsideration motion is all we're doing right now. Thank you. I will say this, although I understand what Supervisor Bricksman just said, said the reason I'm going to support this for reconsideration doesn't mean I'm going to support it in the end. It's because there are times I don't know that members of every committee has the full grasp, not the full grasp, but has time to consider things in its fullness. And so Mr. Crony is on the TLUC committee. This went through the finance committee, and then we voted on it on the consent agenda. We did talk about it, but the finance committee had time to sit with it, to ask questions, to have more information

[00:12:23] about it, so it is understandable why a member of the TLUC committee would want to see this reconsidered. And so I do not know, Mr. Crony, where I'll end up on the final action. It depends on the discussion. But I do think that as a member of a committee that this does not come to and come through. I can certainly understand that you and Mr. Kirchner would like to have more information ask more questions and we may end up at the same place or we may not but I certainly think that my colleagues who are on another committee I actually said on both so it doesn't matter who are on another committee have every right to be able to ask all the questions so

[00:13:02] that's why I'm going to support this for you anybody else would you like a closing yeah I appreciate that chair Randall so I do sit on TLUC I'm the chair of TLUC that finance committee meeting there were 24 items on it I was able to pick up the St. Louis one but I kind of missed this one, so I appreciate the opportunity to have staff present it. It is a big project, you know, and the idea is that we'd be moving it to the Ashburn Metro. Leesburg is a central location, so I would like to discuss kind of option one and option two, particularly

[00:13:39] just different options, well, what the consultant studied regarding the two options to get more information. So I appreciate if my colleagues would support it. Motion was made by Supervisor Kirsten, you seconded that right here. All the people say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 513 with Supervisor Briggs been voting against the motion. Supervisor Sainz, Supervisor Glass, and Supervisors Letourneau off the dais. So I will add that item to the end of

[00:14:13] our action items uh tonight and so it will come up as item number five in the action items um the consent agenda is as follows item r1 resolution to recognize the 250th anniversary of the united states marine corps who actually put this motion is this you miss um okay but okay ms umstead will join me down front that is the only um resolution we have today for a presentation Item R2, proclamation to be recognized November 15th as America Recycles Day.

[00:14:46] Item R3, administrative items report for November 6th, 2025. Item 4, proposed traffic calming measures in the self-righting community. That is the consent agenda. I make a motion to adopt the consent agenda. Is there a second? Motion to be made second by Supervisor Bricksman.

[00:15:02] Discussion on the consent agenda. Motion. Seeing none, I'm happy to say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 603. I won't have a voice for a cause tonight again because I was going to have Donkey Love, but there was a death in the family of one of the founders of Donkey Love.

[00:15:22] And so we will do Donkey Love sometime in the new year because all the spaces are taken for voice for a cause between now and the end of the year. So in the new year, I'll do Donkey Love, but we won't have one tonight. I do want to go through just a few of my regional or state activities and then have Mr. Turner do one between the last meeting and this meeting.

[00:15:46] First of all, and I think very important is, so DMV moves, the District of Maryland and Virginia moves, is an effort to try to find a bondable, dedicated funding source for Metro.

[00:16:08] Everyone might know that Metro has been, well, first of all, Metro has been doing in operations really well. We have our Metro, especially the R-stops here, our ridership is back above pre-COVID levels. We have less accidents.

[00:16:23] We have, because they actually changed the turnstiles, as I said would happen, almost no fare evasion. So Metro itself is doing very well. But if we wanted to continue, we have to figure out how to fund it. So DMV Moves is an effort that's been going on for 18 months now of chief elected officials from Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. who are in the Metro Compact.

[00:16:49] We have finally come to some conclusions of how we're going to fund Metro. That does have to be codified, but we have, and which part belongs to what section of the funding, what belongs to the district to Maryland, Virginia.

[00:17:06] I did, in DMV moves, vote for the final structure of what we're going to do. And I'm going to ask some of the Nick Donahue and some of the other people who were in the DMV moves process to come before this board and give an update so everyone knows what's going on.

[00:17:27] I will say that the District of Columbia, unfortunately, did not support the final motion because the way they worked it out with District of Columbia was paying, it's going to pay 38% of DMV moves.

[00:17:44] And they believe, and then next Maryland and the next Virginia District of Columbia believed it should be a one-third, one-third, one-third split. But based on ridership of both metro and buses and other things, that wasn't the conclusion we came up to.

[00:18:03] So unfortunately, it was not a unanimous vote on the funding source of DMV moves. And this is for operations and capital. But it did pass, and we will have somebody come here to talk about it. And then we will codify the vote. I do want to thank Mr. Hemstreet and everyone who we've been working on this for a long time.

[00:18:21] It's been a very heavy lift. And there was a, what was the name of your group, Mr. Hemstreet? What did you guys call yourselves? The people that did the real work? The government partners. The government partners group. And it was led by the county administrator of Fairfax County, Brian Hill.

[00:18:39] And they just did phenomenal work as well. I also want to say that on Tuesday, the 28th, we restarted the mayor and chair's calls during the during COVID shutdown. We had what was called the mayor and chair's causes for the mayor and chairs, the mayor's and chair at largest for all and chair of all of Virginia to talk about things that were going on during COVID.

[00:18:59] We restarted this mayors and chairs call because of the government shutdown. And we now know, we believe that this government shutdown could, will probably definitely last to Thanksgiving, could last to the end of the year.

[00:19:16] Federal government employees have missed their first paycheck. And we're starting to see the effects of the shutdown in our food pantries and other places. When we have the mayors and chairs call, we usually have one person in our delegation from the federal government delegation on the calls or their staffs.

[00:19:38] This time it was Don Beyer to give us an update of what's going on and how soon and things like that. If the shutdown ended tomorrow, the continuing resolution would only go through November 21st, we'd be right back here again on November 21st.

[00:19:56] Mr. Byer, nor does anyone else believe that's going to happen. So what we did on this call and what we're doing is sharing resources, sharing ideals, sharing things to do to help people as much as possible, knowing that it is impossible for any county government to pick up the responsibilities of a federal government.

[00:20:23] We know that for every family, one family fed by a food pantry, SNAP benefit feeds eight families. We know that SNAP and WIC just cannot be replaced by county government or local government.

[00:20:42] So it is the effort just to try to figure it out. I have also had discussions with people at the National Association of Counties to talk about what we're doing in counties on the national level. So it's very hard right now.

[00:21:00] Loudoun has 24.2% of all Loudoun adults who are working work for or have a federal government contract. That number rises to 40% for Fairfax County. So we're seeing some real pain in our constituents right now.

[00:21:16] And the mayors' and chairs' calls is to try to figure out how to best help people during this time. I sent out the newsletter with a lot of resources, and I put it on my chair around the Facebook page if anyone wants to go look at that.

[00:21:31] On the 27th, we had a NACO midsize county call. I am a vice chair of the NACO midsize county caucus. It was our first call, so it was basically just an organizational meeting. And then on the 29th, I'm gonna go, I'm sorry, in the 5th, I'm gonna go to Mr. Turner.

[00:21:49] We had a delegation from the National Association of Counties, quite a few people come in to learn about data centers from Loudoun County. And so they had a reception the night before at Stone Tower Winery, and then did some data center tours and got time to ask questions.

[00:22:12] Mr. Turner was the person on our board who really worked with Beth Erickson and Buddy Reiser to put this together. And so I will give it to him to talk about that effort. Mr. Turner? Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, you pretty much covered it, but this was a superlative effort by Loudoun County to really kind of roll out the red carpet.

[00:22:32] This was a group of 15 to 20 elected county officials and county staff from all over the eastern seaboard. had people there from georgia pennsylvania i think we had some from new york and stonetown tower winery did a phenomenal job they were actually closed we found out after they'd already said yeah we'd be happy to host them on the reception the night prior and so we had the winery ourselves had a very nice discussion at the winery excuse me at the winery and just kind of laid out the the lay of the land for the tour the next day next day they did a bus tour um buddy riser mr

[00:23:12] riser our economic development director took them on a tour around data center alley they wound up here back at the government center and we had a q a session and kind of a debrief of what they what they thought of the day and we spent about an hour and a half answering questions naco was beside themselves with praise for loudon county and how we how we did hosting this And be careful what you wish for, because this week we fielded a request for another tour of Loudoun County from 60 elected officials out of Pennsylvania, and we are trying to figure out a way we can do that and begin to institutionalize this process.

[00:23:52] Buddy, do you hear that? 60 people come and talk to you? Yeah, we're still trying to figure out. We don't think we can do that. We think we'll convert that to virtual, because we all do have jobs. it was a very very good tour naco was very very pleased with the reception they got and i'm sure really did loud and a great deal of credit to pull this off so my thanks to mr reiser and my thanks to miss erickson for phenomenal efforts to support this and stone tower winery and uh the data center tour and they they actually went into a data center and i think it was digital realty

[00:24:27] i can't remember buddy do you remember was it digital realty yeah it was digital realty so the Folks at Digital Realty really outdid themselves, and we really appreciate that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. I think that is all of my updates, and Mr. Hempstreet, I will pass it to you.

[00:24:45] Thank you, Madam Chair. I have four comments for this evening. The first is that Loudoun County residents and visitors now have access to an innovative tool that allows them to discover and navigate the county's recreational offerings. The Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Services and the Office of Mapping and Geographic Information collaborated to create MyPRCS, a dynamic interactive online map.

[00:25:08] A link to the new feature is available at loudon.gov slash myPRCS. Second, Loudon Economic Development's launch Loudon team has deployed a technical services pilot program designed to address one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses. Access to affordable, high-quality services such as sales and marketing, HR, and finances.

[00:25:29] The pilot, which is subsidized through federal ARPA funds, matches small local businesses with expert service providers at no cost for up to 10 hours. The program is now accepting applications at loudandbizmatch.com. Third, the county will begin accepting the next round of applications for the Invasive Plant Species Management Program starting November 15th.

[00:25:52] The first round resulted in 20 projects approved for funding. As you know, the program provides technical guidance and financial assistance to help eligible landowners remove non-native invasive plants, protecting Loudon's ecosystems, and supporting our local economy. More information is online at loudon.gov slash invasive plants.

[00:26:10] And then finally, Loudon County is hosting an event dedicated to giving back and making connections to strengthen our community. It's called Community on Purpose and will be held Saturday, November 15th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Claude Moore Recreation and Community Center. This free event will showcase local small businesses, nonprofits, community groups, and other resources available in Loudoun.

[00:26:30] As part of the event, several vendors will be collecting donations for those in need. More information is online at loudoun.gov slash community on purpose. Those are my comments this evening, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hemstreet. So we're supposed to do the Baker Awards right now, but I'm looking out, and I don't see anybody from the sheriff's department.

[00:26:52] Oh, there you are. Okay, I just, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay. And then, you got it. And is anybody from Brambleton Library here? There we go. And then we're going to go in and do them. They're wonderful. And we have with us Joe Lurch, Director of Local Government Policy with BACO.

[00:27:10] He's going to come up and give an introduction. And then Mr. Turner, Vice Chair Turner, is going to join me down front when we actually do the awards. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the board, Joe Lurch with the Virginia Association of Counties. Very privileged to be here tonight to present not one, not two, but three achievement awards this year.

[00:27:31] I don't know, Madam Chair. I didn't make that presentation, so I don't know. Put me on the spot. I like that. So just a little bit about VACO for county residents who are not familiar with us.

[00:27:46] We've been around since 1934, so we're in our 91st year. We represent all the counties in Virginia, mainly through advocacy, both at the state and the federal level. but we also have education programs, membership benefit programs, and outreach and communications. So the Achievement Awards program has been around since 2003.

[00:28:07] And to give you a little bit about this year's Achievement Awards, our 23rd Annual Achievement Awards program, we had a record 155 entries, which you can imagine for our judges, this is not easy going through all those entries. So we had 57 winners selected from 33 counties.

[00:28:25] So it's truly a competitive program when only 36% of the entries were selected as winners. With the three awards today that I'm presenting, Loudoun now has 34 awards all time, which ranks third all time. Madam Chair, I know you're getting ready to ask. I don't know what Fairfax ranks.

[00:28:45] And then it's also important to note that this is the 13th year in a row that you all have gotten an achievement award, keeping that up. A little bit about what we're looking for in these. We're looking for innovation for, you know, problems that a county and its residents are trying to tackle. Is there intergovernmental cooperation? And I think you can see through some of these awards that you can definitely see that. Is it a model that could be borrowed by other counties? I mean, that's truly something. And even if it's something you picked up from another jurisdiction or a county, have you done a twist on it? So those are the ways we look at it.

[00:29:21] So with that, I will invite the chair and vice chair down, and we'll go through these one by one. And I assume we're going to start off with the financial and cybercrime unit? All right, sounds good. So the sheriff's department is coming down and joining us.

[00:29:46] Thank you. While they're coming, I'll just give a brief description. So this is the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, the financial and cybercrime unit, justice to victims.

[00:30:03] I won't go into a lot of detail, but when I read through these submissions, One thing really stood out to me, how it's really working for the citizens who are victims of cyber crimes, in particular digital currency. I'll note one of the things that popped out of me on the page was they were able to recover $1.4 million for one victim of a crime.

[00:30:23] I mean, that's incredible. The other thing that I really note was that intergovernmental aspect to it, you know, working with the FBI, working with the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Secret Service to really make this a model program to the point where I see that the Sheriff's Office is also giving speeches on this so congratulations and I guess

[00:31:01] we'll go ahead and take pictures. Madam Chair moving on to the next award and

[00:32:31] this is for the Loudon Farm Tour which happens twice a year I think in the third weekend in May and the third weekend in October in spring and in the fall and what really stood out to me on this one was just the involvement with all the different stakeholders in this not just the farmers but economic development the schools getting people out there. I love the fact that you have the QR codes to kind of see you know people checking in so really using a lot of that and just the impact. One of the things that stood out to me was one of the farms I think had a record sales one day of $12,000 so that that that really stood out to me

[00:33:06] so with that I think we'll go ahead and do this one now. All right Madam Chair and then the third

[00:33:50] award is Teen Photographers. And this is the Loudoun County Public Library Program. And what I love about this is it's getting teens that have these smartphones with these amazing cameras, but not knowing really a lot about photography and learning about the basics of it and learning how to use them as professional. The instruction when I read the program was really good. And on that whole model piece, I have a preteen who just got her first phone. And so I'm going to be giving this Henrico County which we use their library system see if they can take that

[00:34:28] up because that would be great I do want to remind everybody mr. Crony if I'm not

[00:36:50] mistaken the tea luck meeting on November 19th has been counsel is that the right date November 19th has been counseled so just so everyone knows that yeah we also have a person who's in the boardroom with us for the working a meeting for the first time. Anthony is here. He's not nervous enough, and so if we can put the camera on him over there so he can be the most nervous possible, that would be really, really great.

[00:37:18] Welcome to the boardroom, Anthony. All right, we have two more information items. They are the significant incident report and the vaccine resources. If the fire and rescue department And if you don't mind, I'm going to actually have Dr. Goodfriend go first.

[00:37:38] I think he won't be quite long. Not that you're going to be long, but I'm just going to have him go first. And then we'll do you, and we'll be done, okay? Dr. Goodfriend, welcome. So, supervisors, I asked for this presentation because as the chair of NACO's health committee,

[00:38:04] I had the opportunity and the necessity to do a lot of reading about some of the information and misinformation and disinformation put out about vaccinations and other things.

[00:38:21] And I just didn't know what was out there right now, what is true, what is not true on both the influenza, COVID, vaccinations, where we're at, things like who can get COVID shots for free right now with anybody. I mean, this is where all these things stand.

[00:38:38] So we do know that I asked Dr. Goodfriend to come give this presentation, knowing that the presentation he gives today could change tomorrow. And I'm aware of that, and we're all aware of that, because the federal government can make some new rules tomorrow. But we still needed to know what was going on today.

[00:38:55] And so, Dr. Goodfriend, I realize that this is a in-the-moment presentation. I realize that, and I appreciate you for being here. And what I would say is, you know, if there are other large changes that come after this presentation, let me know that so we can update the board.

[00:39:13] But I realize that we're keeping this up almost day by day to figure out what's new. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for inviting me tonight, and thank you, members of the board of supervisors. This is a perfect time to talk about vaccinations because the holidays are coming up.

[00:39:32] So particularly for the winter vaccinations, influenza and COVID, RSV for those who need it, this is the time to get it. Get fully vaccinated before you start traveling to parts of the country where there may be outbreaks of these infections and when you start having other things that you're planning for, family get-togethers for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

[00:39:53] But for vaccinations in general, just as a reminder to folks, vaccinations are incredibly important in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include routine vaccinations as one of the top public health achievements over the last century.

[00:40:11] They estimate that routine vaccinations over the last 30 years have saved over 30 million hospitalizations, over a million lives, and have saved individuals and the government over $500 million in direct costs.

[00:40:28] The vaccinations are, in general, safe and effective. They go through routine, rigorous processes and independent processes, first through the Food and Drug Administration to make sure a vaccine is safe and effective. And just because it's safe and effective doesn't mean it's worth giving to people or recommending to people.

[00:40:49] So once the Food and Drug Administration does that, then the CDC has its own process of coming up with recommendations of which are the populations that best benefit from the vaccinations, either because they're at high risk of complications of the infection or they're around people who are at high risk.

[00:41:12] And the best way to keep our most vulnerable folks safe is for everyone around them to get vaccinated. So, for example, the MMR vaccine, measles, mumps, and rubella, is a very effective vaccine. If people complete the series, it's very close to 100% effective.

[00:41:29] Unfortunately, it's not 100% effective. Not many things in life are 100% effective. And also, you can't start vaccinating children until they're over a year old. So one of the challenges is when, particularly with the MMR vaccine, when we see fewer folks taking advantage of the vaccine, we see outbreaks occurring.

[00:41:51] MMR is measles, mumps, and rubella. Correct. And rubella is known as whooping cough. Rubella is German measles. German measles, okay. Protossus is whooping cough. Protossus is whooping cough. German measles, okay. And the worst of the three in general is measles just because it's so contagious.

[00:42:06] And that's why even though the MMR is one combination vaccine, we're not seeing a lot of mumps outbreaks because you really have to get much lower in vaccination rates to see widespread mumps outbreaks. But for measles, it's just waiting for an opening. And so, for example, so far in 2025 calendar year, we've seen over 1,600 cases of measles in the United States. We've seen over 200 hospitalizations due to measles so far. And unfortunately, we've seen three Americans die from measles. So it's a reminder that when you give these infections an opening, many of them

[00:42:46] will take it. Some of the other vaccines, though, are important not for the person getting the vaccine, but for everyone around them. So for example, as you talked about pertussis, pertussis is a critical vaccine because infants, if they get pertussis, get hit very hard. So while we want the our children to get vaccinated it's not a hundred percent uh effective as like mmr or close to it so we want everyone in that family to get vaccinated for pertussis so that infant doesn't get it if me or you get pertussis we may we may get a bad cough from it we may get hospitalized

[00:43:24] but if a six-month-old gets pertussis they're much more likely to get hospitalized or die and then there are other vaccines like the flu and covet vaccine because the virus changes so easily and we saw that during covet that not only do you need to get a booster shot every year to stay protected but it's not anywhere close to 100 percent at keeping you getting from getting sick but it's really good at is keeping you out of the hospital and helping hopefully to prevent you from dying not just you but again the people around you who are vulnerable and what we learned from covet

[00:43:58] And what we know from the flu is people who are senior population, people who have other medical conditions, people in our long-term care facilities where they are in close proximity to each other are very high risk.

[00:44:15] And that's, again, why we want to get vaccinated, why health care providers typically are required to get flu vaccinated. and they may be required to get COVID vaccinated because we deal with people who are vulnerable and we don't want to pass that on to them.

[00:44:32] Again, for us, if we were to get the flu or get COVID, we'd probably do okay between medications that we could take and medical care. Unfortunately, each year, some children die of the flu, but statistically, a very low percentage.

[00:44:50] But, as you had mentioned, there are really good resources. What the federal government says, what we say, is if folks have questions, research. We've got a very educated population in Loudoun County.

[00:45:06] Research at objective websites and talk to your health care provider. That best connection is between a patient and their health care provider. But additionally, folks can always contact the health department. If they're unsure of where to go to, is this a valid source of information?

[00:45:23] You could always email us at health at loudon.gov, and we're happy to be part of that discussion. Health at loudon.gov. Correct. And availability is getting better, particularly if we're talking about COVID and flu shots.

[00:45:39] There were a lot of questions about would COVID shots be covered by private insurers? Would they be available at pharmacies? Would they be available at the health department? They're widely available now. A lot of private individual providers don't carry the COVID shot just because there was a lot of confusion a month or two ago, and it was right at the time when they do their ordering.

[00:46:06] So you may not find the COVID vaccine at your health care provider's office, but definitely we have it at the health department. It's part of the Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccines to uninsured children. It's also part of the Vaccines for Adults program, which is a Virginia program that provides the vaccines for free for fewer locations.

[00:46:31] But the health department, HealthWorks, if you're a patient at HealthWorks, likely has it. There may be an administrative cost, but there's not a vaccine cost. And again, if people don't want to go to those websites, just email us, and we can point you in the right direction.

[00:46:47] And I'm happy to take any questions. You have, or take back any concerns that you have. All right. Supervisors, if you have any questions, please put your lights on. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. So there has been a lot in the news for months about attempts at the federal level to dismantle the CDC and the FDA.

[00:47:17] How would a responsible member of our community go about evaluating this information? Clearly, you believe, and we trust you, you believe it's important to get a flu shot and a COVID shot if available.

[00:47:39] But how do we direct people to reliable information in a somewhat chaotic federal system? And that's a good question. During COVID, when I would come to you with updates, we typically link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a good objective source of information.

[00:47:59] there have been questions about that in the last several months but I always go back to you know one talk to your health care provider that's the best relationship talk to your pharmacist because the pharmacies do a large percentage of vaccinations of Loudoun County residents and particularly the chains have that information and they can discuss any questions you have but also come to us at the health department and we're happy to steer you in a direction, if you have a question about whether the information you're seeing online is objective, fact-based information.

[00:48:34] Thank you. Nobody, okay. So it is hard when what should be trusted sources are handing out information that all the studies of over many, many decades show that the information they're giving is not correct or not valid or hasn't been peer-reviewed or tested or evidence-based or any of those things.

[00:49:08] So to Ms. Umstead's question, it's hard to know. One of the things that I am very concerned about is whether or not parents understand what vaccinations should be given. And so one of the things I've heard recently is that the MMR vaccination is not safe for kids to get all the wants that they should do that.

[00:49:32] I'm sorry. They should do that differently, that a child should get the M, the M, and then later the R, all three separate, which is almost impossible to do. So can you just speak to how safe an MMR vaccination actually is?

[00:49:54] And can you talk to us about the COVID cost of vaccination? I know that for great and obvious reasons, when the COVID vaccination first came out, they were of no charge. I don't believe that's true anymore. I don't know how much they cost now, and I don't know who they're recommended for.

[00:50:14] I have heard that if you're 65 and older, you can get them at no cost. If you have a pre-existing condition, you can get them at no cost. Otherwise, you're going to pay for them, and it's a fairly large cost. I don't know what's true right now, which is one reason I went.

[00:50:30] And, again, I know that what's true right now could be different five minutes from now, but what's true right now. Can I also talk a little bit more about measles because what has been said is that there's measles outbreaks every year. Well, there's cases of measles every year. I don't know if there's measles outbreaks every year to the extent that we're seeing them right now.

[00:50:49] And I've heard people say, "Well, they're not that dangerous," and somebody actually said, "If you watch the Brady Bunch, when Marsha got the measles, all the Brady kids wouldn't got..." I'm like, "The Brady Bunch is not a real show," right? not real. The Brady's are not real people. So there's lots of confusion about the measles vaccinations and lots of confusion about the cost of COVID, who gets it and how, and there's some new information about the MMR vaccinations. So can you take all three of those for me?

[00:51:20] Yeah. So during the time when the CDC and their advisory committee were looking potentially at at COVID vaccination, there was a gap between when the new version of the COVID vaccine came out and when the CDC recommended it. So the challenge is once something makes it onto the recommended schedule of vaccinations by the CDC, then it becomes a requirement for school entry in states, including Virginia, and insurance companies in general will cover those vaccines

[00:52:00] if it's vaccines, if it's on the recommended schedule. There was a period of several weeks when the new vaccine for 2025-26 season came out for COVID, but it had not yet been approved by the CDC as a recommendation. So you go to the pharmacist and they would have a list of questions to see whether you met criteria. And that was because under Virginia law, the pharmacist can only administered if it's on the recommended schedule. That's been resolved. There may be some legacy issues where some folks have not gotten the word, but in general, from what I hear,

[00:52:38] insurance companies are covering the vaccine. If you're six months or older, they may ask whether you've talked to your health care provider about it. And if you have, great, because we do recommend folks who have a health care provider, and that, again, could be the pharmacist, have that discussion um because you want to be informed of what's going in your body but in addition to that uh that's why we have a health department and for some reason for among other reasons is that if you find you can't get the vaccine elsewhere call the health department we're at 703-777-0236

[00:53:16] and again there may be a small administrative fee but we can get the covid vaccine to anyone six months or older at no cost for separating out combination vaccinations that's been an ongoing concern among a minority of individuals for a long time a concern that giving the body too many vaccines at one time may be harmful it's not backed up by any objective information and there's always that risk between when you got your first m the measles and when you come back

[00:53:52] for your mumps you get the mumps and we don't want that to happen to anybody so sending someone away expecting that a hard-working parent will be able to take off again to bring a child in to get the next vaccine and nothing bad is going to happen in the interim particularly in a very international community and a lot of these infections are much more common where they don't have routine vaccinations. And even if it's not our folks that are traveling, we have a very busy international airport that brings in any disease that's existing anywhere in the world

[00:54:31] into Loudoun County. So that's one of the reasons why it's so important in Loudoun County that we're protected. So we very much are against separating out those combination vaccinations. They've been through the FDA process to be safe and effective.

[00:54:47] They've been through the CDC review process to say that it makes sense to have it as a combination. The only one recently where the CDC decided to separate one out was for a pediatric vaccination that in general the pediatricians separate out anyway, just because it had more adverse reactions when it was combined than when it was separated out.

[00:55:11] But other than that, there's not a good argument to separate it out if you want to keep your children safe. And in school, because a challenge is if children are not up to date on their vaccinations and they can get an exemption, if there's an outbreak of that infection in the school, they go home for their safety.

[00:55:31] And then the third was... Is measles outbreaks, is there more cases right now? So as I said, we've had over 16 cases 10 months into the year. Last year, we had under 300 cases in the United States. So this is not just what happens in the United States.

[00:55:50] Typically, we don't have any Americans die of the measles. Definitely, measles comes into our country. In Loudoun County, it's not unusual to get one or two cases that come through Dulles Airport. I think we've had six so far this year. So this is unusual.

[00:56:08] The good news is we have very few secondary cases, meaning that measles case that landed at Dallas Airport, much less likely to pass it on to someone in our community because we have overall high vaccination rates.

[00:56:25] But if you have a child that gets the measles, one of the first things a parent is going to do when they get sick is take them to the pediatrician or take them to the pediatric emergency department where they're around infants that haven't yet been vaccinated. yeah okay good point good point all right dr good friend thank you so much i really do appreciate you coming in and if if anything if you have major changes in other ways just um like to have that conversation thank you and just want to reiterate again this is the perfect time to get vaccinated for covet and flu get it out of the way before thanksgiving because it usually

[00:57:00] takes about seven days for your body's immune system to to to be to beef up in response to it okay thank you very much thank you very much i really appreciate it supervisors we're going to go on and do this significant incident report by acting chief um combined fire rescue chief chavis pro and um is miss mcclellan down coming down for this she's not right so just fire rescue wonderful how are you all doing today good to see you your standard answer i know

[00:57:40] we are ready when you are you might answer it was lit up in red and red but thank you so good evening chair randall members of the board thank you for the opportunity to provide the first quarter fy26 significant incident report for fire and rescue i have with me acting assistant chief

[00:58:19] todd lupton with me and chief nally is away on training so he's not able to be here with us for this evening. Okay. So today's system leadership, members of the fire marshal's office and the family of firefighter Trevor Brown attended the sentencing proceedings at the Loudoun County Courthouse related to the Silver Ridge trial. Based on a motion filed by the defendant's legal team, the proceedings were continued until early 2026. Although not the added closure we're hoping for, we respect and support our judicial process. Our deepest sympathies remain with the Brown family as well as with all system members who

[00:58:58] were injured or affected by this tragic event. We remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting all affected members and to examining, implementing, and sustaining the recommendations outlined in the Silver Ridge Significant Incident Report. As we await a future date in court, our focus continues to be on healing, accountability, learning, and strengthening the safety of our entire system moving forward. During the first quarter of our our system responded to more than 10,000 incidents, 10,281 in total. Of those, over 70%

[00:59:32] or 7,500 calls were emergency medical service related and 2,750 were fire related. This level of activity continues to reflect the steady demand on our combined system of career and volunteer responders. We experienced several significant structure fires this quarter, most of which were residential. Common causes included usual suspects, discarded smoking materials, lithium or e-battery bike failures, lithium or e-bike battery failures, electrical malfunctions, and unattended candles or cooking appliances. Two fires

[01:00:08] were attributed to improperly discarded smoking materials, a fire cause we see all too often here in the county. These fires are particularly dangerous as they can smolder for long periods of time and start on the exterior of a home and and move quickly up the siding into the attic.

[01:00:24] These outside-to-in fires can bypass the working smoke alarms that would normally sound making this type of fire particularly dangerous. If people smoke, they should do so outside and ensure they extinguish smoking materials in a sturdy metal ashtray filled with sand or water and keep the receptacle far away from any structure.

[01:00:45] Remember, put it out all the way out every time. A battery failure in an e-bike was to blame in a Leesburg house fire in August that injured one resident and caused $10,000 in damages and displaced two residents. Although we spoke about this in our September presentation, there are several important safety factors that I'd like to reiterate.

[01:01:06] This incident highlights the dangers of leaving lithium-ion batteries unattended while charging. Always watch lithium-ion batteries for any unusual odor, change in color, excessive heat, change in shape, leaking, smoking, or not keeping charge.

[01:01:21] And if you observe any of these signs, stop using the product immediately. The e-bike was placed in an area that partially blocked the exit to the home. If the fire had grown, the door and exit would have been blocked, preventing the home's escape.

[01:01:39] This e-bike was part of an active recall. always check the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's website for recalls and product safety messages that may affect items in your home. If your product is affected by a current recall, stop using the item and follow directions in the recall. In the first quarter, we responded to one major commercial fire at a data center construction site on Bowmead Circle that incurred damages estimated at over $5 million. Firefighters arrived on the scene and discovered a haze of smoke and water on the first floor where they located an electric-powered platform lift on fire.

[01:02:18] The automatic fire sprinkler kept the fire in check until it could be completely extinguished by firefighters. Our system continues to tout the benefits of automatic sprinkler systems and advocate for legislation at the state level. Loudoun County crews responded to a medical call in the Lovitzville area and found a patient in their vehicle suffering from a severe heat stroke.

[01:02:40] The vehicle was locked, forcing firefighters to use tools to open the door and access the patient. The patient was showing obvious signs of heat stroke and had a core temperature of 107.5 degrees. Recognizing the urgency, they transported the patient a short distance to the Levisville Fire Station where a polar pod with ice and water were pre-prepared.

[01:03:05] Within 10 to 15 minutes of cooling at the fire station, the patient's core temperature dropped below 102. As the patient's vital signs stabilized, they became more alert and were able to speak with responders. The patient was transported to an area hospital and after a short stay were later discharged. To note, all of our transport units in Loudoun County were outfitted with polipods in 2022. This quarter, we celebrated the life and legacy of Captain Danny Wilson, who passed away after 37 years of service. His dedication to Loudoun County and his leadership in recruit training left a lasting mark on our system and on countless firefighters who learned from him.

[01:03:45] His passing reminds us of the ongoing importance of cancer awareness and prevention within the fire service. Also recognized was former Sterling Volunteer Fire Chief Dave Short, who was honored by Loudoun United with the 2025 Trevor Brown Hometown Hero Award. Mr. Short, who I believe is with us, was presented with a plaque by Laura Brown and representatives of our system, Loudoun United, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, and thanked for his years of service to our community.

[01:04:15] It was also a busy 4th of July season for Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Fire Marshal's Office. The Fire Marshal's Office seized more than 2,600 pounds of fireworks during the 4th of July season. An important reminder of our continued focus on safety and prevention. Disposal is the safest and recommended option for leftover fireworks. Unused fireworks left in storage could spontaneously go off and cause serious property damage or severe injuries. For more information on firework safety and the proper disposal of unused fireworks, visit loudon.gov forward slash fireworks.

[01:04:56] Eight members graduated from our officer development school, preparing them to take on leadership roles in the field. Through an intensive three-week program, graduates refine their ability to lead and manage their staff and learn effective methods to mentor, cultivate, and grow our department's personnel. The program utilizes various internal instructors as well as presenters from outside agencies to deliver dynamic presentations and conduct realistic exercises. On Friday, June 27th, we had the honor of celebrating 36 brand new firefighter EMTs who graduated from Loudoun County Fire Rescue's 47th Recruit School in a ceremony at Cornerstone Chapel

[01:05:34] in Leesburg. These graduating recruits completed an extensive recruit academy that incorporated countless hours of EMT firefighter training during the 26-week program. Congratulations to all graduates, especially firefighter Stuart Leake, our top recruit, firefighter Julia Esser, recipient of the Lieutenant Alex Keeper Memorial Award, and the fitness award winner, firefighter EMT Joshua Sapp.

[01:05:59] Our system congratulates communications training coordinator Jeannie Cooper on her recent graduation from the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, APCO, certified public safety executive program. The program allows participants to explore tactics that include management versus leadership, model theories of leadership, leadership styles, public safety leadership issues, and executing and managing change.

[01:06:25] The curriculum combines an academic rigor with a deep personal self-reflection and insight to enable participants to identify their own unique and authentic leadership style. A great example of leadership development within the 911 center. I'm also proud to announce that our system's peer support team has achieved full accreditation through the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services.

[01:06:48] After reviewing our peer support team program and with the recommendation of the Emergency Medical Services Providers Health and Safety Committee of the Governor's State EMS Advisory Board, the system's peer support team was granted full accreditation as a peer support team within the Commonwealth of Virginia.

[01:07:06] The Office of EMS Accreditation is valid for three years. We launched our first ever Heroes for Hornets school supply drive for Sully Elementary School students. After working with liaisons from Loudoun County Public Schools, we identified the students and schools which were in most in need.

[01:07:27] We were honored to deliver several boxes of collected supplies graciously donated by our Loudoun community. In summary, the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 reflects a strong, resilient, and responsive system, one that continues to serve Loudoun County professionalism, compassion, and dedication. Our success this quarters are a testament to the teamwork of our career and volunteer members and the continued support of the Board of Supervisors and our community. At this time, Chief Lefton and I stand at the ready should you have any questions.

[01:08:00] Thank you, Chief. Questions? Yeah, Supervisor Jacrani. I don't really have a question. I want to just thank you chief pro for helping um with the noise um issues at aldi fire station i really appreciate all of your help helping the neighbors out um it's always good to know that um you care about the neighbors and you want to try and make things um compatible you know and that so i really appreciate that i want to thank you for doing that in the little river district it was this guy i it was you well thank you thank you and they're very happy they didn't they just wanted trees

[01:08:39] and i said well look you got all this other stuff so thank you very much supervisor um briskman thank you um i just uh wanted to thank you guys for your quick response um in the tragic riptide square um incident that happened a couple weeks ago um the community is still hurting obviously i was wondering if i'm not sure if my colleagues know much about what happened maybe you could give them a quick rundown and then if you had do you have any updates at all i know it's still under

[01:09:15] investigation but if you have any updates um so maybe not publicly um that is a criminal investigation as you all are aware um you know a suspect was taken into custody there's a lot of work being done between the laden county fire marshal's office um and the lcso yeah so um for fear of saying the wrong thing in the wrong forum okay okay well i'll give you a call i mean it's in the newspapers that someone was charged and unfortunately someone passed away who was not

[01:09:51] the person living in the house that was apparently allegedly set fire but again thank you so much for um your work on that and uh the community is very thankful we know that you guys got there as fast as you could and um you know it just makes us appreciate you more thank you all right and on the following saturday um the sterling volunteer fire company and the crews from the first battalion and folks from the office of emergency management safety and security did a canvas of that community so there was also an opportunity for them to do some public outreach immediately following that

[01:10:27] event oh actually that reminds me um i was over there putting some flowers on the fence and talking to some community members and um they were wondering if there could be a community meeting of some sort uh maybe it cascades to just talk about fire safety um for the community given what happened i i figured you guys would be amenable to that at some point um not to put you on the spot sorry but i kind of assumed you would be amenable to that she's nodding her head she's yes we will do it thank you thank you so let's coordinate that thank you thank you both very

[01:11:02] much we appreciate the update uh next up why don't we do the yes there thank you thank you thank you i actually have one more thing i want to do significant not with you all you're good you're good mr cifro um so significant entry report actually is is all of our law enforcement in our our our enforcement and in loudon we have we have fire and rescue we have um sheriff's department We also have animal services as part of the, so if you ever look at your significant incident reports, you'll see animal services in that report, too.

[01:11:39] I did have a question from a constituent about an animal service matter, and if animal service doesn't mind coming up, I just want to ask a quick question of them before we leave the dais on the animal services matter. Point of clarification, Madam Chair.

[01:11:55] I saved my questions for animal services because I thought that they were going to be doing their own thing. No, they rarely do, but if you have questions, you can ask them now. I do have one question. Okay, you can ask them now. Are you sure? Yes, I'm sure you can. Sorry, I would have asked it in the last presentation, but I thought that you were coming, and here you are.

[01:12:14] So I was just looking at... Do you have anything you want to present before questions? Typically, we are just present in the event that the board has questions, so we do always come to Significant Incident, and we're available. Okay, all right. Thank you. I was looking at your calls for service.

[01:12:30] And the chart on the first quarter, FY26, and then statistics on first quarter. And there's such a spike from 2022 to 25. I was just wondering if you have any ideas or analysis on why there was such a spike on calls received.

[01:12:54] Not really. I think the volume of calls we receive is significant, but it's not actually resulting in a larger number of responses. So, I mean, statistically insignificant. I think calls, responses are actually only up about 1% to 2% year over a year.

[01:13:11] So we are receiving more calls. My guess would be that it's typically just we are more visible and people are more aware of us. But our dispatch does a really great job of ensuring that folks are getting information to minimize unnecessary responses. Okay, thank you. It just made me worried, like, maybe you need more staff because that line is...

[01:13:29] It is. It is a significant jump, but I think we are hoping that that has leveled in a number of different ways. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Sure. Anybody else for animal services? So I recently became aware of a constituent issue where a dog in the house is likely being, I don't know if the word abuse is, it might be too strong of a word, He's being taunted by a kid in the house, an older kid in the house.

[01:14:00] And so I think abuse might be, I mean, his head's being pushed down and things that taunted may be more the correct word. And the dog is responding with small nips in that type of thing to just the one person that's doing this to him. When that happens, when you have, I guess, what you call an incompatible person in the house with an animal, just in general, how do you handle that?

[01:14:27] Are there some programs that people can go to that teach people how to coexist with an animal, especially if it's a child? The animal, in every other circumstance, seems to be a very gentle animal.

[01:14:44] Doesn't nip, doesn't do anything, doesn't do anything. But with this child, it does because of some taunting that's going on. And we want, you know, we always want to make sure families can be as harmonious with their animals as possible. So what are your thoughts on that? Absolutely.

[01:15:00] So at Outta County Animal Services, we're very fortunate to have trained behavior staff. So in the event people are having issues in their home with their pets, we do have a person who has been certified in animal training and behavior, has a master's degree in animal behavior. So they can call us for advice.

[01:15:17] We very routinely get calls from members of the public who have, you know, brought a baby home and, you know, the cat may be, you know, urinating outside the litter box because of distress with the baby in the home. Or dogs who are snapping at toddlers because that's very common that once toddlers start walking that that's sort of they move like little Frankensteins, right?

[01:15:35] And that scares a lot of dogs. So we want to do our best to try and try and help people keep those animals and the children and the family safe. So we do always offer advice in terms of if someone were to call and say, hey, I'm having this issue, especially if they say we may have to get rid of our pet, our goal is to always keep pets and people together when it can be done safely.

[01:15:56] There have been situations due to a number of different complexities in the home where we have worked with, you know, CPS or other entities to try and ensure compatibility and safety for safety plans for families in the home. But ultimately, it is the responsibility in the home to ensure that the child and the humans are safe.

[01:16:16] And obviously, the priority in the home is the child. Human safety is always our priority, certainly. Human safety is always our priority, exactly. But if there is a crime being committed towards an animal, if there is an actual act of animal cruelty.

[01:16:34] I think it's more taunting than cruelty. And we're happy to discuss that with them. You know, and we're very fortunate that we don't see a lot of actual offenses from minors, but that certainly is something that can throw up a big flag. So if such a thing were to occur, we would conduct an investigation.

[01:16:51] Typically, we refer to, you know, either mental health or family services, depending on what the nature of the allegations might be, if there's a way to make sure those services are delivered to the family in an effective way. If you can endorse me in one last question. I know that, like, family services or CPS, if a family's referred, they then can't talk to you all anymore because it becomes a HIPAA issue.

[01:17:14] So then you find out what's going on through the family, or through whom would you find out? Voluntary information that may be shared from the family would typically be best, but essentially once we provide information to family services, they will let us know whether or not there's a determination of some sort, but they will not provide us understandably with elements of what's going on with a minor child.

[01:17:37] Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you, supervisors. All right. Well, it's still a little bit early to go to resolutions, and we don't have any public speakers. So I'm going to go on, and I'm going to go to the first, I guess it comes from one of our committees, And it's the assessment methodology for personal property taxes, and this will be coming from Commissioner Wirtz.

[01:18:10] And so we're going to do this right now and get you out of here. How does that sound? Thank you, Madam Chair. Very much appreciated. Welcome, and we're ready when you are.

[01:18:26] Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. I have here with me today, oh, the item that I'm here to discuss is review of assessment methodology for personal property and business personal property. Here with me this evening are Doreen Dilley.

[01:18:43] She's my deputy of personal property. Phil McAlevey, my deputy of business taxes. And Randy Bauer, who is director of PFM Group Consulting. He was kind enough to travel in to be with us tonight.

[01:19:00] I felt it might be a good idea to have him available should there be any questions relative to the methodology that was utilized to prepare the results of the study that prompted some of these changes for us. The purpose of the item is to report on changes to assessment methodology resulting from a consultant's review of assessment schedules utilized for the valuation of business personal property and valuation methodology for some other classes of personal property.

[01:19:36] Our goal is to ensure that assessments reflect the fair market value of property. Based on the benchmarking results, the assessment schedules of most classes of business personal property and some classes of other personal property are changing.

[01:19:53] These changes will impact the taxes levied within each of these classes of property for fiscal year 26 beginning January 1, 2026. an item was brought to the FGO EDC last month. However, I thought it was important to come to the board since this is a significant change in long-standing practice, and I thought the board members may have questions about some of these changes. Mr. Wurts, can I just pause for a second?

[01:20:25] Fiscal year 26 doesn't begin January 1st, does it? It does not. It's going to affect half of the the fiscal year okay all right that's right okay yes some background the constitution of virginia requires that all property be taxed except that which is specifically exempted that assessments be uniform within the same class of property and that they be at fair market value business personal property and some classes of other personal property assessments are calculated based on a percentage of the original cost of the property while others are based on a recognized pricing

[01:21:00] guide. Assessments based on purchase price are derived by summing the original cost of all the items by your purchase and multiplying by an assessment percentage. This methodology is intended to reflect the decline in value as property ages. Virginia code 58.1.35. I should have put my cheaters on. 3503B provides that the methods of valuing property may be different.

[01:21:33] Among the separate classes of properties, so long as each method used is uniform within each class and reasonably approximates fair market value as determined by the Commissioner of Revenue. The current assessment methodology has been in place for many years.

[01:21:50] Her review last commissioned in 2019 for computer equipment and computer equipment in a data center resulted in no changes to those assessment schedules since none were recommended at that time. So why is the methodology changing? This most recent study included a review of all types of personal property, including vehicles, not just computer equipment. The findings indicate the need for modifications to assessment schedules and conversion of some items from cost to book

[01:22:25] value. Advances in technology have improved the availability of automated valuation data. the declining percentage of cost that's historically been used was only used as other options didn't exist. However, there's a vast availability of current information about sales of various types of property that didn't exist before, which is why the Code of Virginia prescribed a percentage of cost methodology. We want to use the latest, most comprehensive valuation information to ensure

[01:23:02] accurate assessments and uniformity. So what did the study entail? Mr. Bauer is here, as I mentioned, to answer any questions about research and findings, but the study entailed looking at assessment schedules utilized by Loudon and those of five other Virginia jurisdictions, I'm sorry, five other classes of property for computer equipment and a data center, general computer equipment, furniture and fixtures, machinery and tools, and heavy and other earth moving equipment. The benchmark study included six Northern Virginia jurisdictions, the counties of

[01:23:41] Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, and the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax. And four additional jurisdictions with data centers were included as well, Falkier County, Chesterfield County, and Ryco County, and the city of Virginia Beach. The study also examined other financial reporting methods used to depreciate assets that comply with generally accepted accounting principles. And I'll pause there for a moment in case there are questions about the study that was performed, what was looked at, some of the conclusions that were made.

[01:24:18] Mr. Bauer is here to provide that, or if he just wants to generally describe the tasks that he undertook to do the review, that'd be fine as well. Supervisors, do you have any questions yet? Because we can finish and then have the questions at the end.

[01:24:37] I think it's probably best. That's fine. Thank you. So why now? Why are these changes being made now? Actually, there's never a good time to make changes. There aren't. But we have current data, and I don't think it makes sense to undertake a study and then ignore the results.

[01:25:01] So that's why now. The most notable change is the assessment schedule for computer equipment in a data center is being lengthened from five to six years. It's going to start at 60 percent versus 50 percent, and it declines to five percent versus 10.

[01:25:19] Furniture and fixtures and general computer equipment are being combined into one schedule. This strikes a reasonable balance across a wide range of property. As an example, the property that's included in this class includes a forklift restaurant table and a point of sale cash register, and they're all gonna be valued within this group.

[01:25:41] It's gonna simplify reporting by taxpayers because they won't have to report that separately. The assessment schedule for heavy construction machinery, such as bulldozers and cranes, is being lengthened from five to seven years and will begin at 70% versus 50% and has a floor of 10% after seven years versus the current five years.

[01:26:06] This recognizes the longer useful life of this type of equipment. The assessment scheduled for machinery and tools, which applies to equipment of manufacturers, large and smaller scale high tech, as well as breweries and non-farm wineries is being lengthened from five to seven years and will begin at 70% versus 50 and has a floor of 10%.

[01:26:30] This change also acknowledges the longer useful life of this type of property. Regarding vehicles, we will continue to use J.D. Power's official used car guides. This is the successor to NADA used car guides as the primary source for vehicle valuations.

[01:26:50] However, a percentage of cost methodology is used for cars, small pickups, trucks, vans, and SUVs not listed in the J.D. Power official used car guide. This most often occurs with newer model year vehicles where used sales data is limited.

[01:27:08] And I'll tell you how this changes the valuation. I'll give you an example. So for subsequent model year vehicles, right now that would be 20, 26 model year vehicles. Some of those are out now. We're going from 100% of purchase price per DMV to 95% of MSRP.

[01:27:32] For current model year vehicles, we're making no changes to those. it's 90% of MSRP. For prior model year vehicles, as an example, 2024, we're going from 75% of MSRP to 80% of MSRP. And for two prior year model vehicles, that would be 2023 this year, which does not happen that we have that many that are not in the guide, but we're going to a 70% of MSRP assessment. Currently, boats, recreational vehicles, motorcycles, trailers, tractor trucks,

[01:28:08] and heavy trucks are based on a percentage of the vehicle's purchase price. Beginning in 2026, motorcycles, campers, travel trailers, recreational vehicles, tractor trucks, and heavy trucks will be valued using JD Power Evaluation guides. Those may be assessed by either ABOS Marine Blue Book or J.D. Power, depending on which ones, which of those guides have that data.

[01:28:39] A sample of campers, recreational vehicles, and heavy trucks previously valued based on cost going to Book will increase as the percentage of cost methodology has not reflected actual fair market value for these items. Cargo, horse, and utility trailers, the schedule is being lengthened from six to eight years and increased.

[01:29:01] It's going to begin at 80% and end at 10%. So what can be done to address the impacts of any potential increases in valuation? During the FGO ADC meeting last month, some board members expressed concerns that a change in assessment method from a percentage of cost to a valuation guide for heavy trucks could pose an unexpected financial burden on businesses.

[01:29:28] Virginia Code 5813506A48C, if you want to look that up, allows the governing body of any county, city, or town to create a separate class for this property. Under 5813506B, the board can set a different rate for this class so long as it does not exceed the rate for the general class if the board so chooses. The board is already committed to a vehicle personal property tax rate of $3.09 for tax year 2026. Additionally, the board has authority to set a separate rate on

[01:30:05] any of the classes of property listed in 5813506, which contains various classes of watercraft, aircraft, construction equipment, motor vehicles, trailers, semi-trailers, motorcycles, camping trailers, motorhomes, computer equipment, and business equipment. Heavy trucks can have a separate rate. The 2025 rate on this class is 415. The board has not set a separate rate on this class for next year. While the assessment methodology will be effective January 1, 2026,

[01:30:40] property owners will not feel the financial impact of any change until the first half personal property tax payment that will be due May 5th of 2026. In conclusion, updates to personal property assessment methodology will more accurately value certain classes of vehicles by utilizing additional pricing guides to more equitably assess additional property classes. Overall, some assessments will increase and others decrease, but will align assessments in Loudoun County with other surrounding

[01:31:16] jurisdictions and more accurately reflect fair market value as prescribed by Virginia law. Heavy trucks will see the most significant increase in assessments. However, the values will be more accurately reflect fair market value.

[01:31:34] Combining schedules for general computer equipment and furniture fixtures under one classification of business equipment would reduce the workload of businesses responsible for tracking and reporting this class of property and updated assessment schedule will more accurately reflect the fair market value of business equipment as it ages.

[01:31:54] We will be notifying property owners about these changes by letter and working with the public, with public information to make sure the word gets out. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Mr. Wirtz, are you aware that Mr. Kirshner has every bit of, every type of, all those properties you were talking about?

[01:32:12] Yes, yes, ma'am. But that's supposed to be confidential. I know, I saw him sneaking around my house here. Assessing things, assessing things. we have aerial imagery as well which is used utilized in personal property assessment as well mr crony i love it well don't worry i don't have a heavy truck or a boat so um thank you mr words and thank you um uh consultants and what's your name i didn't hear it's a randall

[01:32:50] Okay. Thank you for coming. So the question I had is about, I'm glad that you are updating this and that you came to the full board. I appreciate that. So it says the general lifespan for data center equipment is typically five years, but you showed a trend that some equipment is still in use between six and eight years, indicating greater longevity and a longer useful life for that property, for that personal property.

[01:33:26] I'm wondering, I saw that you went from five to six years. I'm wondering why you didn't go to eight years. One of the things that we did was we looked at our comparator jurisdictions. We do have to manage this data as it comes in.

[01:33:44] Taxpayers have to maintain the records in order to report that as well. We could have come up with a 20-year schedule on each of these classes of property, but we felt that it levels off after a certain number of years, and that's why we cut it off on that year.

[01:34:05] At the sixth year, right. And you kept, it looks like the last three years, you actually reduced the depreciation, right, more than the current? It went down to five. More than the current, yeah. Correct. Yes. Okay. So you've increased it in the beginning, but then it goes down more at the end.

[01:34:25] That's correct. Okay. Okay. So with the heavy trucks, I think what you're saying, I think what I heard you say is that, you know, they're going to have the largest increase because it's book value. You're doing more of the fair market value, right? But we could move them out of the general class as far as the tax rate, correct?

[01:34:49] You can. Okay. So are they considered tractor trailers? I'm looking at the other item that you had on October 14th. What does it look like? Table 10. Are they considered tractor trailers?

[01:35:07] Because I see boats. I don't believe that was broken out in that item. Motorhomes, motorcycles. So let me, let me. Yeah. I don't believe it was broken out as it is now. We tried to make things a little more clear after the previous meeting with finance.

[01:35:27] So that's why this is a little, a little different than it was. That class is not. We did not last list every type of property for which there could be a separate rate on that chart. Okay, okay, but we could do that to provide some relief.

[01:35:44] Mr. Croney. You can. We could. Okay, sorry. I'm not looking at you. You always push it, man. You always push it. Okay, thank you. That's okay. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. I do have two questions, one that's directly related to what you talked to, and one that's kind of indirectly in terms of valuation.

[01:36:01] The first is on the, especially the heavy equipment you talked about, I assume that we anticipate that we're going to see an increase in valuation because of the new valuation methodology. Is that correct? Which class are you talking about?

[01:36:17] The heavy equipment. Yes. Yeah, heavy trucks, correct. Yes. And we don't know exactly what that's going to be yet. That has not yet proceeded or has it. We do not know exactly what that's going to be. There was a sample that was provided in the item just so you could see what could happen on that type of property.

[01:36:40] Is that representative of the entire pool of trucks, tractor trucks that we have here in the county? I do not know if that's representative. It's just like polling. It's a sampling. It is. It's just like talking about the average house in the county.

[01:36:56] Were you required to do this under state code or it's just a better method of evaluation? so therefore you chose to follow this methodology? It has not been done for such some time, and I felt it was time to do that. I don't know if you recall when we've had discussions with the board in the past about tax rates and methodologies.

[01:37:17] I've referred to the study we did in 2019, and a board member did reach out to me and ask me about updating the study, and I took the opportunity to do that. The code requires that I assess it for market value and tells me the methodology that is to be used.

[01:37:36] We probably should put it on a regular schedule to do this on a five-year basis. Just look at the study to tell us, is anything needed? I think this is a big change because we have not done that in the past. So I don't know if that answers your question.

[01:37:55] Yeah, it does in part. Will the new methodology of using a use of JD, I think it was, but the new methodology, will that be an easier methodology to follow? Because it's kind of general market, okay, and it obviously is going to be more accurate.

[01:38:11] We can reinforce the evaluation with data. Yeah, okay. Will there come a time where we think that your standard cars will be able, there will be enough market information on your used cars and whatnot, there will be enough market information to follow a similar methodology? We're utilizing that information now for regular used vehicles.

[01:38:32] For the cost approach, we're only doing that on new vehicles where there aren't a lot of sales. Okay, fair enough. The final question I have is a little off topic, but I read this or heard this the other day, and maybe you can shed a little light.

[01:38:47] My understanding, a lot of our data centers, of course, they're replacing their equipment, but they're replacing it in large part with the NVIDIA chip machines. Are those coming in at higher valuation because of the type of chips they're using? Do you have any information on that? If not, can you get back to that? I don't know if Mr. McAlevey has seen any of that or Mr. Bauer.

[01:39:06] We have done work with the county as it relates to data centers and some of the revenue estimating work. And the newer types of chips are definitely a more expensive chip. And as the Commissioner of the Revenue noted, the length of time that the data center equipment is tending to be longer.

[01:39:26] So we've looked at corporate filings and also conversations that we've had with the data center industry. And there is a lengthening of the useful life of that equipment. Some of it may be the more expensive chips, and some of it may just be better quality of the equipment. But that is, in fact, what we're seeing in our work around the data center industry.

[01:39:46] So it will increase the valuation we anticipate? I know I'm out of time. Mr. Bricksman. Thank you. When do we think this will be implemented? January 1 will be the effective date of the methodology.

[01:40:04] Of 2026. Exactly. The fiscal implications won't be felt until May when the first tax bills are due. So we have to act really quickly if we want to change the class and help out our small businesses that are using the larger pieces of equipment.

[01:40:22] The board can set the rate on that class any time prior to our levy. Okay. I'm trying not to make it real difficult for our county administrator and budget office because this is not customary.

[01:40:40] But we will be bringing an item back in January for you to affirm rates for 2026. Okay, so that may be the opportunity. Okay, well, I'll talk amongst our administration and finance committee to see if we can do that.

[01:40:55] Hopefully we can. I know Supervisor Luturno was also interested in that. So, also, when I read this and I asked this question at finance, and you had a really great answer, And that is there's some equipment that is depreciating a lot slower than data center equipment, right?

[01:41:17] The data center equipment immediately falls to 50%. I think we're moving it to 60% or the other way around, right? So it immediately falls. So can you explain to my colleagues why it's not the same as some of the other equipment?

[01:41:34] Well, if you know earth-moving equipment, someone might keep one of those types of equipment for 25 years. So it makes sense to have a longer schedule on something like that versus a laptop, computer, or tablet or something like that, which does not have as long a lifespan.

[01:41:53] But, Mr. Bauer, if you want to comment on that. Yeah, we definitely agree with that. you do see equipment in business use that will keep a useful life for a longer period of time than a data center. The data centers are all about speed, and that is constantly improving.

[01:42:13] But the way you said it of finance that I understood as a layperson, I mean, I have an MBA, but I'm really a layperson on this sort of stuff. You guys are so in the weeds. But the way you said it was, it doesn't have resale value. People aren't going to want to go and buy those servers as they might want to go and buy an earth mover because it's sort of it's not as valuable when it's used. It's like used office furniture. Exactly yeah so I just wanted to it helped me a lot when you when you said that so thank you very much thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank

[01:42:47] you Madam Chair. I want to clarify you said that furniture and general computer equipment would fall into the same class. Yes sir. Just for the people watching at home that is a small retail business has computers to do their business. That's general computer equipment, not the internal guts of the data centers.

[01:43:06] Yes. Okay. And Supervisor Kirchner touched on this about why now, and you said we might want to consider doing a five-year basis reassessment as a regular schedule. That caused me to think.

[01:43:22] I was at Idaho National Labs last week, and in the discussion, they had a lengthy discussion, for example, about the cost of gas turbines and gas equipment related to gas and one of the things they said was in the last year the cost of retail cost of gas equipment natural gas equipment has gone up tenfold if we did a five-year assessment in a turbulent market like we have in the data center community right now i'm thinking at the latest we might want to do a three-year assessment because it's so turbulent and prices are all over the map what are your thoughts on that well one of the things you want to be aware

[01:44:00] of is you want to have some predictability for the business community. So you don't want to be changing this every year or every other year. Businesses want to have some reasonable expectation about how their equipment is going to be treated for taxes. So it wouldn't be something that you'd want to change on a regular basis necessarily, but you definitely want to take a look at it on a regular basis. And then if changes are warranted, they should be recommended.

[01:44:28] So let me drill down just a bit, because it sounds to me like your assessment methodology has been updated from what we've been using. And the impression I got was we normally figure out the cost and depreciate from there, and that kind of sets our schedule. And now we actually have algorithms that are going out and looking at the true fair market value of this equipment.

[01:44:48] So in a case where that's fluctuating, when you assess computer equipment in year one and in year two, there's been a tectonic shift in the marketplace, and the cost of that value of that computer equipment has gone up substantially. Is there a mechanism for you to reassess in a subsequent year and actually raise the value of the assessment? Or is once you're locked into the starting point, that's your starting point? Virginia code requires based on cost for that type of property if we're talking about computer equipment and a data center, which is why it makes sense to review our methodology on a regular basis. And then if we

[01:45:24] see something something in the market as you're describing then we can respond to okay and then the last thing is that is this the assessment being used by our comparator jurisdictions did we are they are they all roughly actually we were lower than almost all of our all of the other jurisdictions we were compared with on our assessment schedules yeah we as the commissioner of the revenue pointed out we benchmarked 10 other local governments in virginia and in nearly every instance when you you're mostly starting at 50 percent of the original you know the original

[01:46:01] cost and most of the jurisdictions are higher in some cases significantly higher than that so i think this does kind of bring you more in line with your peers but you still will be in most instances on the lower end of the scale interesting thank you you say that again just for the media can you just say that one more time thank you very much any other questions thank you very much i appreciate your time here thank you thank you we do have one um resolution we're going to do right now ms umset's going to join me down front for a resolution for um 250th anniversary of the

[01:46:40] united states marine corps oh you will you the co-sponsor okay well then have oh i thought miss

[01:46:52] okay sure sure sure oh i still have the mic up here thank you ma'am let me thank you yeah all

[01:48:00] right uh this is a resolution on the 250th anniversary of the united states marine corps whereas on november 10 1775 the continental congress established the continental marines to serve as an elite fighting force prepared to defend american liberty at sea and on land giving birth to what would become the United States Marine Corps and setting a legacy of valor and sacrifice for 250 years.

[01:48:32] And whereas the core values of honor, courage, and commitment form the foundation of the Marine Corps' identity and culture, and whereas from its earliest days, storming the beaches of New Providence during the Revolutionary War to raising the flag at Iwo Jima in World War II, to fighting in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the United States Marine Corps has stood as our nation's first to fight and has played a decisive role in every major conflict in American history.

[01:49:09] And whereas the Marine Corps concept of operations of armed combat, amphibious operations, And expeditionary readiness has safeguarded America for two and a half centuries, making it one of the most battle-tested and respected military organizations in the world.

[01:49:29] And whereas beyond the battlefield, Marines have demonstrated compassion and resilience, delivering humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and life-saving assistance across the globe, embodying the values of honor, courage, and commitment in service to humanity as well as to our nation.

[01:49:49] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors hereby commends and celebrates the 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps, honoring the generations of Marines who have defended this nation and encourages all residents of Loudoun County to thank Marines and their families.

[01:50:12] Thank you. I just want to say a little bit about the uniform I'm displaying today.

[01:50:27] This is a Marine Corps dress blue uniform worn by a soldier by a Marine in the early 1920s. So this Marine would have fought in World War I, victory medal, two stars.

[01:50:43] And he also participated in the Battle of Bella Woods. On the Battle of Bella Woods, that's where the Marines earned the title of Devil Dogs due to their tenacity during the German offensive during that time, 1918 in June.

[01:51:01] Now, also, some quotes came out of that, one by a young Marine captain that yelled out, Retreat? Hell, we just got here. So they did not retreat. As a matter of fact, they pushed back and punched back. And due to their actions there, they also were awarded a very honorable award from the French government, and that's the French forage, which I'm wearing here on my sleeve.

[01:51:31] This was presented to the 6th and 5th Marine Regiments, and to this day, they still wear it. And the only difference between what they wear today and what this Marine would wear, as it is here, are two extra cords signifying that he was at the battle.

[01:51:49] So I just want to say early happy birthday to my brothers and sisters, you devil dogs, and Semper Fi. Thank you, Daryl. I appreciate that piece of history. Very good piece of history. Forged by honor, commitment, and courage are the core values of the United States Marines, and we stand steadfast to protecting and defending our country.

[01:52:16] Happy birthday. This is a little unorthodox. So the Air Force birthday was on September 18th. It was our 78th birthday, okay, just to give you an idea how young we are.

[01:52:32] I was in a joint assignment at U.S. Central Command when Desert Storm hit. A joint command is the command is represented by all of the services. There's actually seven services, but they're all represented in a joint command. And it was the first time I had ever worked shoulder to shoulder with Marines in the headquarters.

[01:52:53] And I could walk into a military meeting, and in five minutes, in any military meeting in Central Command, I could tell you who the Marines were in the meeting. everybody else talked about well what does this mean for for um all the politics all the fluff because every other service will promote its officers and enlisted below the zone early you can get promoted early except the marine corps the marine corps gets promoted on time so you'd be in the meeting for five minutes everybody else is talking about the politics of the issue at hand and the marines are looking at their watch going what are we trying to do here can we finish this

[01:53:30] meeting and get out of here and start the mission it was it it just jumped out at me yeah i was so impressed that i actually went to my marine colonel who is my boss at central command and said and i was a i was a major and i said what would it take to do a service shift to the marine corps as a major and he actually researched it and he came back and he said you can't he said you would have to go back through basic you'd have to be a marine infantryman you'd have to start all the over again it's just not practical but that's how i impressed i was with the marines they are no

[01:54:04] nonsense what's the mission get me out and let's do the job it's really impressive i'd like to thank herb herb has done so much for the veterans marines army navy air force coast guard he takes a lot he has a lot on his plate and he takes his time out and still recognize the veterans god bless you her okay let's take happy birthday and let's take a picture

[01:54:35] Anthony I just want to make sure do we have any speakers here online for public comment this

[01:57:50] evening because we don't have anybody in the room and then we don't have anybody on our on our list but do we have anybody we have anybody online so we have we supervisors we have no public comments this evening um break um wonderful so we we don't have too much more to do what i'm going to do is i'm going to finish the action items and we're going to go we're going to finish the action items

[01:58:22] except for item number five and we'll do that after closed session we'll do the two other action items right now because they're pretty easy and then we'll do item number five after closed session so we'll do items 2b 2c 2d um and and then we'll go to closed session come back at a closed session do board comments do item number five and then we'll be finished so um if you have any nominations please put your lights on right now for me miss brixman thank you madam chair i nominate roger

[01:58:56] sternitski as an at-large representative on the heritage commission also on behalf of supervisor glass uh i nominate mr raheel kamar as the broad-run representative on the transit advisory board all right thank you anybody else mr kirschner i have two nominations for this evening i nominate uh carol hodgson as the catoctin district representative on the latin health commission and i nominate a sue manche i guess it's manche's correct pronunciation as the catoctin district representative on the heritage commission wonderful anybody else seen uh mr riser when you come on

[01:59:34] down, please. Price is right, yeah. Come on down. But you watch when you're homesick with your grandma every time. You and grandma, Bob Barker. Okay. We're all a little tired up here, evidently. Hi, Mr. Reiser, how are you? I'm good. I was trying to get my deputy county administrator to join me tonight, but she wouldn't come up, so. Okay. So we have

[02:00:08] Two, we have the Development Advisory Commission and the Economic Development Council. So let's do 2C first. Supervisors, Mr. Advisor, do you have anything you want to give to us or say to us before we? No, just that this is, we bring this item to you every year at this time.

[02:00:27] The Advisory Councils, both the REDC and EDAC, both meet with all of the applicants that are in the system as of the time that they are having those meetings and make these recommendations to you. You are free to take the recommendations individual one at a time or to not accept those recommendations or nominate whoever you want. But these are the recommendations of the advisory bodies.

[02:00:55] Okay. Supervisors, I'm going to go to Ms. Brixman for the motion because it's an economic item, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to abstain on this item for two reasons. One, I haven't spent enough time in the item and looked at the nominees themselves.

[02:01:11] And I don't think it's, I think I should not say yes or no until I spend some more time. And two, I can say that there is one person who I have some concern about, but I don't want to have that discussion on the dais, and I have that discussion off the dais with Mr. Reiser.

[02:01:28] And so for those two reasons, I'm going to, for 2C at least, I don't know about 2D, but for 2C, I'm going to abstain on the item and I may or may not bring this back or bring one of these people back the next time, just letting you all know that right now, because I do have an issue, a concern with one of them.

[02:01:51] If there's no questions, Ms. Brixman, would you like to make the motion on 2C? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. i move that the board of supervisors nominate the candidates to serve on the economic development advisory commission as recommended by the economic development development advisory commission and presented in the november 6 2025 board of supervisors business meeting action item motion is made and seconded by mr kirschner discussion on the motion mr brixman no ma'am no discussion on the motion anybody else all right all people say aye aye opposed that would would be me and then we have two people who are off today so that'd be six one

[02:02:28] two I'm upset I'm sorry I'm abstaining I'm not opposed I'm abstaining thank you first thank you for saying that two people so I'm going to abstain we have two people off today as and everybody else was a was a was an eye and then 2d mr. riser no no further comments no further comments give me one second Ms. Brickspin, would you like to make that motion again?

[02:02:53] I have a question. The EDAC motion? The rural. Oh, no, I had some questions on the rural one. Well, you have some questions on the rural one before we go to a motion? You can't ask the questions in the motion? Yeah, I could, actually. Yeah, I could. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[02:03:08] Yeah, it's okay. I got it. I move that the Board of Supervisors nominate the candidates to serve on the Rural Economic Development Council as recommended by the Rural Economic Development Council and presented at the November 6, 2025 Board of Supervisors business meeting action item.

[02:03:29] Motion is made seconded by Supervisor Kirshner. Discussion on the motion or question, Supervisor Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was curious about, first of all, are there rules in the bylaws that somebody has to live in Loudoun County to serve on this rural economic development?

[02:03:48] I don't believe it's rules. It has been a best practice. We do know that you have to either own a business, run a business, or live. But I don't believe that the bylaws require residency. That's exactly why I strongly encourage. Okay, thank you. And then, so do you know why Jesus Diaz was not recommended for nomination?

[02:04:10] I do not. We do not try to influence the conversations that the advisory council has. Unless we have red flags, we didn't see red flags. So I wasn't privy to their discussions or why they decided that. Okay.

[02:04:28] Okay. That's not helpful, but okay. Okay. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Good. Mr. Crony. Thank you. So, Mr. Reiser, I have a question about kind of how many people are leaving.

[02:04:48] It's a 15-member board, and there's 13 members whose term expire at the end of December. Only five were eligible for a second term, and this leaves eight new appointees. I'm kind of wondering, we seem to be losing a significant amount of institutional knowledge and rural experience with the new bylaws.

[02:05:12] So members can only be reappointed to two consecutive terms, is my understanding. Could they serve after being off of REDC? Could they come back? is there a certain amount of time they have to be off? Because, you know, I looked at the resumes and there's no real comparison between who we're losing and the people applying for the committee.

[02:05:38] When the bylaws were redone, I think one of the concerns was having the same people term after term after term. So I think the board purposefully tried to set term limits. And...

[02:05:55] The way that it turned out, a lot of the people were assigned to fill out extra terms. And so this is not an ideal situation. The turnover, I would agree with you, is not ideal. But this is in line with the bylaws as they stand now.

[02:06:15] And could they reapply? Because, you know, again, there's 13. I think you're limited to two terms. And you can't come back. The county attorney's office has given us the direction that that is not in the bylaws as it currently reads. So I think we are bringing back some bylaw changes as part of the board's process after the first of the year.

[02:06:39] But as we were advised, they cannot, after two terms, they can't reapply. Okay. So I know that you have four that you're recommending, and then there's four that will remain open. you know, if you don't find kind of the quality candidate, will you be recommending a change in the bylaws? Just to be clear, we are not recommending, this is RADC recommending. But yes, I think we, as we have gone through the process, that we will have some thoughts about,

[02:07:15] you know, really both advisory groups and how we can go forward with them. But we're doing that through the board's process of the new bylaw template that we're working towards. Yeah, and I would say that I may disagree with my colleague, Supervisor Bristman.

[02:07:31] I think they should live in the county. I don't know what your opinion is about that. I think we have experience in the county to serve on this committee. So what's your feeling on that? I just believe that there are business leaders here who have done amazing work and have businesses that don't live here that have given value, I think that it is a best practice that they should live in the county.

[02:07:56] Okay, thank you. I just don't have a point of clarification. She didn't say that. She asked the question, but she didn't give an opinion one way or the other. She just asked a question. So just to keep her from under the bus, just make sure that is it.

[02:08:12] To your question, Mr. Coney, is it they can't serve more than two consecutive terms or more than two terms? Our interpretation after consulting with the county attorney's office is that they can serve two terms. Two terms, period.

[02:08:29] I'm going to make the same discussion on this one. And this is my fault. I have been incredibly busy, and I have just not had time to go through these names as much as I want to and should before I say yes. There is one name on this one also that I have some concerns with. And so I'm going to abstain on this one as well, and I may bring them back.

[02:08:47] Mr. Advisor, I'll call you. I'll call people from REDC. call other people and I'll do my due diligence on these names before the next meeting supervisors but right now I just don't feel like I've done enough with that. So the motion was made by Supervisor Bricksman. Would you like a closing? Sure thank you Madam Chair. So we are going to have nine people on a 13 seat commission after this after tonight well if they all get confirmed and yes we did decide when we were reviewing all of our boards and commissions and advisory bodies

[02:09:21] that two terms would be the limit so that we can get new viewpoints and perspectives on our advisory bodies. I remain I generally agree that owning a business in the county living in the county is uh is um a good thing and best practice um i also know that mr diaz brings a lot of really valuable experience and he does work in the county um and so i might i'm not going to do

[02:09:59] it tonight i want to do a little more research and talk to a few more people um but i might bring him back and and nominate him he has especially been very valuable he comes to all the meetings comes to the Farm Bureau of Meetings and has done a lot of work around Workforce.

[02:10:18] But this is the recommendation of the RADC. Well, actually, with that said, I would like to amend my motion to include Mr. Diaz as a nominee. Well, if she did that, would somebody else have to come off?

[02:10:35] No, the RADC did not recommend a full, I don't like to use the word slate, but they did not fill. And he has not served two consecutive terms. He has not. Okay. Sure. Yeah, we're filling nine of 13 seats. And actually, you can just friendly amendment to your own motion, and you don't have to do that.

[02:10:54] Just friendly amendment to your own motion. The seconder can say yes to it instead of doing a whole other round of questioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Is my seconder okay? You okay with that? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thanks for that information. I'm good, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right.

[02:11:09] why is your line up because i have a question on the amended motion there's not an amended motion there was a friendly amendment it was a friendly she amended her motion no she didn't amend the motion it was a friendly amendment it was accepted by the by the maker of the motion and the second there there's no there's no discussion on a friendly amendment it's a friendly amendment it wasn't then i have a question on the motion you have a point of clarification sure go i guess it's that um i wanted to ask mr riser a question um so the the objective of the redc was to create leave four slots open to create a staggered term does the board nominating someone

[02:11:48] to fill one of those four open slots and somehow affect the staggered term i believe that the staggered term is was created by the actual bylaws I think that they did not recommend a full one somebody for I'm trying to not use sleep they did not recommend a full compliment for reasons that they chose which was that they didn't find the right people that they thought should fill those spots it wasn't about the staggered terms okay thank you okay motion was made and friendly

[02:12:25] amended by Ms. Bricksman and accepted by Mr. Kirshner. All the people who say aye. Opposed. And I will abstain. So that is 5-1-2-1 with five people saying nay, Ms. Crony opposing, two absent, and me abstaining. That was fun. Okay. Supervisors, we're going to go into closed session. Does anyone need to take a break before closed session? Well, because

[02:12:58] everyone's walked up to dance at least once. Mr. Turner, will you read us in the closed sessions, please? Yes, Madam Chair. I move the Board of Supervisors recess this public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to section 2.23711 of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding a specific legal matter requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. I further move the Board of Supervisors recess a public meeting and enter into closed session pursuant to sections 2.2, 37, 11, A8, and 19

[02:13:34] of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body and discuss reports or plans related to the security of a government facility, building, or structure, or the safety of persons using such facility, building, or structure.

[02:13:50] Motion to be made by second, Mr. Briggsman. Discussion on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass with two of the glass. I will turn it off today. We are in closed session.

[02:14:06] We only have number five back. You want to read this back out?

[03:37:25] Wow, wow, look at this room. I move the closed session be adjourned, that the Board of Supervisors reconvene its public meeting, that the minutes of the public meeting should reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed session, and further move that the resolution certifying the closed session be adopted and reflected in the minutes of the public meeting.

[03:37:44] Motion to be in second with Supervisor Briggs for any discussion on the motion. Seeing none, all people say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Would everybody please affirm. Affirm. And I affirm as well. Well, that motion was unanimous, 6, I mean 7-0-2.

[03:38:05] All right, let's go to board disclosures and board comments, and then we will do the last action item, and then we will be out of here. here. Disclosures and comments. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. By way of disclosures, on October 22nd, I had a meeting with Curata Northfield Development on the Residences at University Center application on October 31st.

[03:38:31] I met with Curata Partners on the Concord application on November 6th. I met with representatives from Curata Northfield Development Fairfield on the Residence at Dulles Plaza application. i had the honor of commending brenda davis who is retiring as the manager of the cascade senior center after 16 years at their holiday party sorry their halloween party last week and cascades marketplace had an awesome autumn day i was able to attend looking forward to attending vaco this weekend where i will be moderating a panel on child care and on child care as an economic

[03:39:09] development tool and necessity, really. Last week, I stood with New Virginia Majority, religious leaders, Loudoun for All, and the Chantilly Immigration Forum to call on LCSO to discontinue their partnership with ICE. We heard testimonials from three community members who told us their children's grades are suffering, that they live in fear and do not want to go to school. One 13-year-old girl has started cutting herself. Another has watched a friend lose his parents. I've heard from two different LCPS sources that kids are not going to school because

[03:39:44] they fear ICE or they fear coming home to find their parents have disappeared. Just yesterday, a community member was pulled over by LCSO on Route 7 and was asked his immigration status because he had a driver's privilege card instead of a license. The driver refused to answer the question and asked to speak with an attorney. The LCSO then called ICE to the scene. The driver refused to get out of the car and so fortunately he was not detained i'm working on getting further details about this incident but this is the second time we have learned that lcso lied to us when

[03:40:20] they said that they do not ask about immigration status until someone is arrested and or booked into the adc so it happened in this case and it also happened that the newspaper heard it over dispatch that they were asking for someone's immigration status. I again call on LCSO to be more transparent about their partnership with ICE and discontinue using county resources to assist an unlawful federal immigration plan of mass deportation. I want to congratulate our first

[03:40:55] female governor, our first Muslim statewide elected woman, Ghazala Hashmi, and our first african-american attorney general on their wins this week we are very excited to work with you on gun violence there have been 12 557 total gun deaths and 368 mass shootings this year the deaths include 190 children under the age of 12 and 871 kids ages 12 to 17 thank you thank you

[03:41:25] Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. On disclosures, I met with Ben Wales and Stephen Collins on the residences at Dulles Plaza on November 5th. I just want to remind the public that next week, November 11th, is Veterans Day. There are two events in Leesburg. The first one is at dawn at Balls Bluff National Cemetery.

[03:42:01] The VFW and American Legion always have a really nice event there as the sun comes up. It's usually cold, and we've been trying to get representatives from the Coast Guard there for many years.

[03:42:21] The Marines and the Navy and the Air Force are always in the Army, always well represented, but for some reason, Captain Ernie Brown of the United States Coast Guard has yet to join us, so we were hoping that he will make this his first year there. And then at the Marshall Center in Leesburg is the 10 a.m. ceremony on Veterans Day.

[03:42:49] they always do a wonderful job and I want to thank all of Leesburg's residents who were at the Halloween parade. I got to hand out candy to a whole bunch of kids and some of their parents and they were a total delight and I really want to commend one young woman on her costume. She came as a black hole so she was wearing all black and she had a little little sign indicating what

[03:43:22] she was but it it was a a really fun parade thank you uh mr crowing thank you chair randall i want to offer a big congratulations to both lightridge and independent high schools marching bands both in the little river district lightridge's 220 member marching storm it's the largest high school Band in Virginia is a three-time Bands of America regional finalist. They have been invited to perform in the prestigious London New Year's Day Parade in 2027, which attracts hundreds of

[03:44:00] thousands of spectators and is broadcasted to millions of viewers globally. We had a mayor, a Lord Mayor, come and present an invitation, which was a lot of fun at the school, so I really enjoyed that. The Independence High School marching band earned the Virginia Class 6A championship and the Commonwealth Cup championship on October 25th. Their 184 student band have won an impressive three championships and three Commonwealth Cups in a row. So we have really

[03:44:37] talented students in Loudoun County and I want to wish everybody a congratulations. I had the pleasure of attending the 10th annual Loudoun Wine Awards on October 25th. Walsh Family Wine won two awards and the tasting room manager at two Twisted Posts won an award for the wine ambassador.

[03:45:00] Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to Loudoun's Farm Wineries for continuing the tradition of agriculture in western Loudoun. On October 28th I had the pleasure of touring Kirkpatrick farms, their sustainability programs in Aldi. They are passionate about the environment, including the removal of invasive species, and their philosophy is let Virginia do the work to rewild as much as possible with a hands-off approach to revegetate natives, and they have an extremely rare species in one of their ponds, an otter family, which was really cool to see,

[03:45:40] So their ponds are really healthy in Kirkpatrick Farms, and I'm really proud to take a tour and see and meet the naturalists that they have from the Northern Virginia Community College. He's an intern, and that's a great way if other HOAs want to work with NOVA to sponsor an intern, they have an intern, they have a naturalist program.

[03:46:02] Lastly, I will be holding open office hours at the Heartland Community Clubhouse on November 20th from 3 to 6. I welcome any Little River District resident to stop by, discuss any concerns or ideas that they may have, or just say hello. I'd love to meet you.

[03:46:18] More details can be found on my Facebook page and will be in my November newsletter. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of disclosures, on Monday, October 27th and Thursday, October 30th, I and my staff met with R&D Baseball and their council about their upcoming minor special exception application.

[03:46:38] i just want to say i echo much of what's been said about the um veterans day coming up first of all i want to thank all of our veterans in the county and across this nation for the sacrifice that they have given to serve this country some of them giving the ultimate sacrifice obviously and we remember that on memorial day as well but just the fact um it's it's it's quite a sacrifice as those of you who have lived in um families who have served in the armed forces and i've always admired it and we it's certainly a day that we should continue to celebrate and honor those who

[03:47:16] have done it there's obviously a lot of different ceremonies around the around the county the one that I often attend and enjoy there's one in the town of Lovitzville which will hold a ceremony on Veterans Memorial Day so maybe Mr. Brown will come there this year I don't know who knows thank you Madam Chair that's all thank you very much Mr. Sainz thank you Madam Chair by way of mandatory disclosures on october 24th my staff and i met with uh mike romeo for wasc

[03:47:51] and their um representatives or their client regarding the dullest east residential application um just like to remind folks that uh i know we have a lot of food insecurities or people who who need assistance right now in the county, in the area.

[03:48:14] So we do have a lot of food bank and food pantries, one being Loudon Hunger Relief. They have operations in Leesburg and in Sterling. They're readily available to help and assist. We have the Dulles South Food Pantry, which I know they rebranded recently, but I forget their name.

[03:48:37] So I'm hoping that folks please go to these websites or search and get the assistance that you might need or share with a neighbor or a friend. And I'm hoping our folks in the boardroom here with us who are representing our two newspapers will also put this information out in their publications to make sure people have this information readily available to them.

[03:49:02] Also, I'd like to remind folks that this Saturday coming up, November 8th at 8.45 a.m. in front of Briarpatch Park in Sterling, off of Sterling Boulevard, we'll be doing a Sterling Boulevard cleanup. So if you need community service hours or if you just want to get out and help your community by doing some cleanup, the good folks at the Sterling Foundation will be doing their cleaning of the Sterling Boulevard, again, starting at 8.45 a.m. in front of their Briarpatch Park in Sterling.

[03:49:33] And then we also this weekend will have American Revolution synopsis honoring black patriots and loyalists at the Thomas Bolch Library Saturday, November 8th from 10 o'clock a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m.

[03:49:53] Please go check that out, because as a lot of folks, well, tend to not realize, we did have some black African Americans who fought and died in the American Revolution. Actually, one of the first persons to die to start the American Revolution was an African American in the streets of Boston.

[03:50:15] Say the name again. Crispus Attucks. Thank you, Madam Chair. So please go and learn about this unique history. Again, this will be this Saturday, November 8th, from 10 to 4 at the Thomas Bulch Library. And we just had our elections this past Tuesday.

[03:50:32] I'm happy to see that people went out in record numbers to exercise their rights. I always encourage people to go vote. And we did it safely and orderly. So thank you, Loudoun County. Thank you.

[03:50:48] Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. one disclosure on friday october 31st 2025 my staff spoke with scott donches from donches law about the application for pantovic property rezoning thank you that's all you got um i have one disclosure monday my staff met with ben wells and other reps of the residency at dulles legy 2023-0029 i want to thank judy brown and ricky keach and everyone at the allowed in's um elections for once again and always running an amazing election.

[03:51:23] I don't know what the final turnout was. I know it was over 50%. I'm not quite sure what the final number was, but our Allowing Elections Department does an amazing job running free and fair elections, and they just do such a good job. And so I want to acknowledge them, and I want to thank them as well.

[03:51:41] I also want to say that I did go watch both Governor-elect Bamberger's acceptance speech, but I also watch Lieutenant Governor's Winston Sears concession speech. And I will say that it was nice to get back to a concession speech that was gracious and that didn't accuse anyone of rigging the polls and didn't whine about why they lost and didn't do any of that. Lieutenant Governor Sears said that she wished Abigail Spanberg well and that she offered her help when she needed. And there are times when we have gotten so far out of bounds that we

[03:52:16] We forget that a concession speech is normal and healthy and a good tradition for our country. And Governor Lex Van Berger's acceptance speech was lovely and brilliantly done.

[03:52:32] But I did appreciate the concession speech by Lieutenant Governor Sears as well. As we get toward Veterans Day, Veterans Day is the one holiday or the one commemoration. makes me a little emotional because I have so many veterans in my family and of course I've talked about my father quite a few times. He had two tours of duty, two tours of combat duty. My husband was a was an Air Force veteran. I have nieces and nephews who are who are veterans and so veterans and their families and their families deserve so much of our love and support and I

[03:53:10] want to thank them for that every time. And then finally I would say that we did just have a huge election in Virginia. And yes, I am very happy with the outcome of the election for all the obvious reasons that you might think that I would be happy. But I'm also thrilled that so many people got up and got out and voted. During the election day, someone stopped me. Actually, the media stopped me and kind of asked me, why am I out here? And I said what I always say, which is people died so that I can vote. And I would do it every single time. I would crawl to the polls over broken glass

[03:53:46] if I have to vote, and so I was really, really thrilled with being able to vote and also with the outcomes, with the fact that so many people got up and got out and voted. I do congratulate all the winners, and I say thank you to everybody who ran because running for office is very, very hard.

[03:54:05] And so if you put yourself out there to run, I appreciate that. If you want, I congratulate it, and I encourage everyone who didn't win to stay in the game. We need all voices. Thank you. We have one more item tonight, and it is the last item that Mr. Crony has brought up.

[03:54:21] It's the space strategy. We have suspended the rules, and we have done the first motion to reconsider. And so now this motion will be the actual motion that she wants to put on the floor. Mr. Crony, you should know that we did not know, Mr. Hemstree did not know, to bring staff for this item.

[03:54:42] So there may be questions that Mr. Hempstree can answer, but there may not be staff questions for this item. So just know that going in, so that's where we are. And so knowing that, and so knowing there's no reason for a staff report, because there's no staff here, I'm going to encourage you to make the motion and then have discussion within the motion.

[03:54:59] Okay, that sounds good. Okay, so I move that the Board of Supervisors direct staff to pursue Option 2, as outlined in the October 21st, 2025 Board of Supervisors Business Meeting Action Item, and develop options and seek potential partnerships to relocate the government center east of Leesburg and accommodate a building size of approximately 300,000 to 400,000 square feet and return to the board with a comparison of these options to the estimated costs of option one.

[03:55:32] Second. Motion is made and seconded by Mr. Kirster. Mr. Crony. Okay, thank you. So my motion keeps option one in the consideration set for the future government center. It directs staff to provide the projected costs for the government center in Leesburg and the Ashburn Metro.

[03:55:50] If option two ends up considerably more expensive than anticipated or future issues arise, this motion gives us the flexibility to move forward with option one. I would like to see the cost for the construction of all the buildings for the Leesburg campus versus a public-private partnership with a lease obligation and building purchase at the Ashburn Metro.

[03:56:15] Loudoun County owns the Leesburg campus, so I'd like to see what it costs to build all four buildings all at once versus working with a developer to either lease something and then eventually purchase it at the Ashburn Metro 'cause we don't have land there.

[03:56:37] I think the reason for me bringing this up is that a central location in Leesburg is more convenient to everybody in the county. I feel it's important to plan the location based on how it will best serve all residents. I'm also interested in seeing the long-term cost to lease a building with the option to purchase.

[03:56:58] The study projected a developer partnership would result in a cheaper project that could be constructed more quickly, but what about the long-term lease costs? I'd like to see whether it would be more cost-effective in the long run to build all the buildings at the campus in Leesburg all at once that the county owns.

[03:57:17] And also, I just think, I know the argument was that many employees would benefit from being near Metro, but I would like to say I think a lot of employees do live in the western part because it's more affordable, the housing, so I don't know how many employees would actually leverage taking the metro to get to the government center.

[03:57:39] So those are my reasons for bringing it forward. The space strategy says we should focus on owned versus leased spaces for county operations, wherever practical, and I think we really do need comparative cost estimate between option one and option two I know that option two a lot of the costs will be coming in closed session so I think it's good to be able to compare the two and I really want to be convinced that we would have reduced costs by going to the Ashburn metro

[03:58:14] thank you Mr. Crony um Ms. Bricksman thank you Madam Chair if I might through the chair ask mr. hemstreet a couple questions absolutely mr. hemstreet i believe the item that came to finance we did discuss um the cost comparisons between the leesburg and or you know a partnership closer to metro and we were told that staff has great confidence that option two would be less costly so we do believe option two would be less costly to construct supervisor tacroni is bringing

[03:58:53] up uh you know i think total costs right because the vehicle for ashburn or somewhere east we didn't we didn't say well that was my next question we did not say we didn't say eastern loudon so we did not say any specific area uh in eastern loudon we would be proposing at least purchase vehicle now you know there are differences in cost over time keep in mind if we did construct it at the government support center site in leesburg we would be financing that so those numbers are going to be relatively similar the difference though is if we construct something

[03:59:32] on our property we will be uh have to put that into the cip whereas a lease purchase isn't necessarily in the cip so there's some advantages to that the other issue is remember timing is a concern so we we are getting pressure because of the expansion of the courts that's what's driving this decision so we need to be out of this building somewhere between 2030 and 2032, 2033.

[03:59:57] And we believe the partnership gets us there quicker. It does. Yeah okay. I think that the analysis in the item makes it clear that option number two is the best option. I understand this was on consent and I guess I'll just say that to my colleagues that if you ever want an item from Finance to come off consent, they can always come off consent, so you can ask questions, and also staff is always willing to brief on any item that's coming to the full board. If you have

[04:00:33] questions, you can get some answers from staff. I'm comfortable with the decision that was made and the recommendation from Finance and the vote that happened at the full board, so I won't be supporting the motion. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. So to me, Supporting this motion is really just part of keeping our options open.

[04:00:54] Can I ask one question, Mr. Hemstreet? Yes. Mr. Hemstreet, when do we anticipate, if this motion passed, when do we anticipate that the board would be able to be briefed on the analysis that's done? So we're targeting sometime in the next six months.

[04:01:09] Next six months. So, and in that, I mean, I guess the Leesburg option, I'm going to call it, at least closer to the Leesburg, what I would call the more central location, that would be a complete build-out.

[04:01:27] And could that not be accomplished by kind of the time frame we're looking at or would it be more difficult is what you're saying? It could. We would need to start design like at that end of that six-month period. I mean, the board would need to tell us this is where we're building this here start right now, and that would have to happen sometime in the next calendar year.

[04:01:47] Fair enough. I think there are two reasons. I mean, I understand probably where the board is leaning. Obviously finance had a much more robust discussion on this. I was not able to watch that discussion, but my staff was able to and kind of gave me the cliff notes, so to speak. I do think we should at least keep our options open.

[04:02:02] I mean, I do feel like the location that in terms of the estimated cost of the option number one, it is a little more centrally located and I would like to see ultimately the comparison. I don't think it's gonna be a whole lot extra work. I do think obviously it will be some extra work, By keeping our options open, I think we ultimately, I think we're being good stewards, and I think, you know, those of us who represent Leesburg, Western Loudoun, we'll be able to answer those questions a little more succinctly, if indeed we do go with the option that the finance chose to go with to our constituents, but maybe we will be surprised in that analysis

[04:02:40] and have an opportunity to kind of reconsider what the finance committee decision was. And to Ms. Brisman's point in terms of pulling this off, I mean, these are the rules and the procedures. We don't have to be schooled on how something comes off or doesn't come off.

[04:02:58] I think this is an option that we had, and we looked back over when we had more time, and that's why we're asking this board to reconsider it. Ms. Umstead. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. If through the chair I could ask Mr. Hemstreet a couple of questions.

[04:03:18] Is county staff at all concerned about Leesburg water and sewer capacity in providing those utilities to facilities at Boland Park? No, I think Loudon Water would probably need to provide those utilities.

[04:03:39] Okay. The other question is, off the top of your head, do you recall how much money we've already spent in planning for a new government center at Boland Park? I don't know. I can find that out, but I don't know off the top of my head.

[04:03:57] All right. Okay. Should we consider that money lost if we don't pursue a new building at Boland Park? Oh, no. I mean, the money we've spent has been part of the analysis to get us to this point, which was looking both at the feasibility of building a new government center at that government support center site or pursuing, you know, another option in Eastern Loudon.

[04:04:26] So, no, none of that money would be – that's all been part of the analysis. okay I will support supervisor to cronies motion to keep the options open thank you mr. Sainz thank you madam chair can I direct a question to yes would staff VR I guess mr. Hemistry would you feel that the analysis that was already done and price comparisons that was presented to finance when and

[04:05:00] then when finance made their decision do you feel that was kind of doing what Supervisor Tricone is kind of asking for now or what she's asking for is kind of a continuation of that? So my interpretation of the motion that's on the table is that whenever we come back with the options we're negotiating, we'll bring back the same information that we presented previously because that information is available now. So you're saying you pretty much would give us what the information that was already provided to the board? Correct, because the only other decision would be to proceed with construction in leesburg and we would start the design process for the

[04:05:40] facility right and that and then you're spending real money at that point and we've already kind of already had that conversation finance when finance made their recommendation yes okay all right uh thank you i will not be supporting the motion i will continue with the the motion that was decided out of finance thank you mr turner thank you madam chair uh associate myself with supervisor brisman and supervisor sains's comments i happen to be at that finance meeting a reconsideration of a motion that's passed through to the board on consent i would think

[04:06:18] at least as a minimum requires the board member to review the the tape of the meeting so they can see exactly what happened everything that we're asking for here in this motion was discussed at length in the meeting and i had already figured out the where i was going to head just based on reading the item because the item was very thorough in its comparison very thorough in its cost comparisons and I think we're all pretty jealous of staff time and how precious it is and how efficient we want to be this to me just rehashes information that's already available to all the board members and I won't support the motion thank you so I I wouldn't have said this before mr.

[04:06:58] Turner but I I don't know that we need to be criticizing one another on what were watching and not watching. I just sat here and said that I'm not going to vote on two of the items tonight because I didn't have time to research the names. And they were in our package, but I have time to research the names or abstain on the item. And I think it's okay. I think all of us are really busy people and we are not on that committee. You don't always have time to go back and look at it and know what's going on. So I don't know that, I don't know that, you know, that's coming down on each other is necessary. I guess,

[04:07:31] Mr. Crony, I'm just a little, so first of all, I don't think that Leedsburg is, Leedsburg is not central to Loudoun County. It's not. Leedsburg is the county seat, which means something to me. But it's not central to Loudoun County, and it's not the largest, not the biggest population in Loudoun County.

[04:07:48] Mr. Hemstree, if we, would it take up any major more staff time to do what Mr. Crony is asking? No, we would just be repackaging the information. I mean, but so it would be not, it's no, it's no, it's, it's, it's no skin off the staff teeth one way or the other.

[04:08:14] It's not doing anything. It's not, it doesn't cost. We've, we've already provided that information. It's the process of updating. Can you tell me again in my time, and if I need to cut you off, I will, why you want this? So I did listen. No, I did listen.

[04:08:30] You guys, hold it. Stop my time. Y'all, seriously, the talking and the sniping and stuff with one another up here, stop it. I swear to God I'm going to call people out there. Just stop it. It's not necessary. I asked her a question. She was answering. Let it go.

[04:08:46] Go on, Mr. Croning. You can stop my time back. So unlike what some of my colleagues said, I did listen to the tape. I think the motion was to basically pursue option two without looking at option one, without at least having it in the consideration set.

[04:09:03] I did not see an estimate anywhere in that item. There was no estimate that was in that item. So I don't have that information. I would like to know what the estimate is to be able to compare. Mr. Hemstreet, is there any information in option one that was in the item already that we would be able to go back and look at?

[04:09:26] I would want to go back and look at the item. There was no estimate in the item. I'm asking Mr. Hemstreet. The number that we provided is somewhere between 230 and 250 million. And all that was for option two? For the construction in the Leesburg site. So then what she's saying is correct.

[04:09:44] There was no information provided for option one. Which leads me to my first question I asked you. Wouldn't you have to do something more to provide information for the other option that wasn't in the package already? We have estimates for the building.

[04:10:02] I believe we have provided it to the board. Now, whether or not it was provided in the October 21st item, I would need to go back and look at it. It's possible that it could have been in the November 2024 item. It could have been in one of the other items that we had.

[04:10:18] Because we have discussed this with finance and with the board on two or three occasions at this point. So I would need to go back and check exactly when we provided that number. But the estimate to construct the building is somewhere between $230 million and $250 million. If the board wants us to pursue that, the next step would be for us to proceed into design.

[04:10:38] And it's about a $20 million design effort. Mr. President, if you don't mind, ask Ms. Campanteep one more question. Will approving this motion tonight slow this down significantly? It will not. I don't have any concerns about it. I'm just saying, I just want to be clear, we're going to provide, we'll update the information we provided previously and provide it as a comparison to the other options that we're bringing forward that's how i'm interpreting the motion okay would you like to have a closing yeah thank you chair randall um so this is basically as uh supervisor kirschner said just keeping our options open

[04:11:12] allowing us to have all the information in the consideration set when we deliberate in closed session when we start looking at proposals from developers for the eastern site. So it does kind of not close the door completely on option one and it just provides a little more of a comparison. I think it's important to look at both as far as the costs so that if things don't end up going the way we think they should go

[04:11:48] with negotiations, we do have that as a backup and as a possible solution for our government center. So, and you know, I do wanna just say that, you know, I look at items, I will start pulling items from finance, if that's what my colleagues would like, I'll just start pulling 'cause I cannot attend all the finance committee meetings, I'm sorry.

[04:12:14] So that'll be my next step. But I hope that everybody will consider, you know, just allowing both options to be looked at when we're deliberating on costs. Thank you. - The motion was made by Supervisor DeCrony, seconded by Supervisor Kirschner, I do believe.

[04:12:32] All people say aye. All opposed to say nay. - Nay. - That motion will pass 4-3 with Supervisors Turner, Brickson, Sains, voting against the motion, and then two supervisors off today's.

[04:12:52] I do believe that is it. I do believe that is it. Yeah, I think that's it. Thank you, everybody. We are adjourned.

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