Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting, Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 4h 9m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3287
Official Board of County Supervisors page (Prince William County): https://www.pwcva.gov/department/board-county-supervisors

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:08] Good afternoon. It is 2 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. If those who wish, please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you.

[00:00:28] If we could all rise for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:00:45] Thank you. Welcome, everyone. We were going to begin today's meeting with Agenda Item 3, the Consent Agenda. It consists of nine items. Are there any items anyone wishes to remove from the Consent Agenda because they have specific questions or concerns they haven't been able to have answered before today?

[00:01:08] Okay. Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion for Items 3A through 3F. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Discussion? Madam Chair. Actually, Supervisor Vega.

[00:01:24] Gotcha. thank you madam chair for item 3b just for everyone watching in the lake jackson area this funding is for tar and chip road improvements on north point mcgarth christine lester marguerite fox jacqueline and cobb and i see luke in the back thank you look for your work appreciate it very good supervisor fader thank you supervisor bode thank you madam chair for the folks out there i know that the holy marker has been a long time coming especially for my constituent out of mid county i know martin jeter and other folks from midco been pushing for this for a very long time. I appreciate Justin Patton and all the team on county staff for getting this done. And again, thank you so much for the donation from my constituent who made this possible.

[00:02:00] Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair Bodie. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we can vote. Vote unanimous. Thank you, Ms. Madden. The Chair will also entertain a motion to approve agendas items 3G through 3I.

[00:02:20] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Supervisor Vega abstaining from vote. Thank you very much. We do have three proclamations today, and we've changed the order. We're actually going to start with the proclamation declaring the month of April 2023 as a month of the military child, so Supervisor Lawson is going to come down with me to the podium, and we have Ryan, Heather, Connor, and Carson Harding here,

[00:02:56] Tom, Teresa, Sarah, and Trenton Gordy, Al and Annie Peguero, and Diane Lunsford from Serving our willing warriors if you can join us at the podium

[00:03:04] get under the big screen you'll be on TV

[00:03:38] wow well thank you for being here today you are incredibly important to us and you represent many many Prince William County families who serve

[00:04:14] our nation, and your entire family makes the sacrifice to serve our nation. So I would like to read this resolution. Whereas since 1986, the Department of Defense has recognized military children during the month of April, because of their service commitment and sacrifice to supporting the mission of the armed services, it is important to honor and celebrate our military's youngest heroes. And whereas the month of military child is an opportunity to remember children's role in strengthening the military family and recognize the unique challenges military children face on

[00:04:49] a daily basis with courage and dignity beyond their years and whereas whether it's enduring deployments reintegrating into new states and countries caring for wounded warrior parents or cop or coping with the loss of a fallen parent the military child remains resilient strong and exemplifies an amazing capacity to adapt whereas Prince William County is the proud home to numerous children of military families and by ensuring their safety and support in our schools and communities our men and women in uniform can focus on the challenges and missions

[00:05:25] they face and military children are a source of pride and honor the month of the military child allows us to recognize the often unsung sacrifices and important contributions made by them in support of their parents and thus the nation now therefore be it resolved that the prince william board of county supervisors hereby proclaims april 23rd as the month of the military child and again we would like to reiterate how important the entire family is and especially for the children this is your month to celebrate so thank you very much and on behalf of chair wheeler and the board we

[00:06:02] really do appreciate you not just being here today but um every day as as your family serves our country thank you and i would like to give certificates to the children that are here and for the record my planning commissioner tom gordy who is also a military family he is actually not feeling well so he and his family could not be here today but i have certificates for Connor Connor are you Connor or the baby Connor all right we'll get yes how about Carson who's

[00:06:41] Carson okay daddy will take it and then Josiah Fox Josiah I love your name it's a biblical name isn't it yeah and um and Karsten Fox and am I missing one hang on I think I there it is and evan thank you boys very much thank you and do we have anybody here from server willing warriors i believe they were supposed to have a representative maybe not okay well for those of you that don't know server willing warriors is out in haymarket and they are a great organization

[00:07:21] that does does wonderful things for our military families thank you very much next we're going to

[00:08:41] go with our next large group um which is net it's for national volunteer week national volunteer week, April 16th through the 22nd. And with us today, if you're here off this list or if you're just here with these people, please come forward. Paige Thacker with the Virginia Cooperative Extension. Dr. Allison Ancher for our Public Health Department. Janet LaFleur with the Parks and Rec. Christopher Mayers, Senior Probation Pretrial Officer, Criminal Justice Services.

[00:09:10] Deborah Wright, Director of the Library, like I saw her. Sarah Henry, Agency on Aging. James Forgo, Chief of the Department of Fire and Rescue, and Jamie Pobel, Commander, Prince William County Police Department. If you all want to get over here, that would be great.

[00:09:39] Everybody. They're the most important people. I go through the theory of the more, the merrier. Thank you. And I'm going to start reading while everyone is still getting settled.

[00:10:05] Whereas National Volunteer Week was established in 1974 to celebrate the impact of volunteers in their respective communities and inspire others to serve. And whereas volunteers across Prince William County serve the community with pride and commitment, continuously enhancing the quality of life in Prince William County and supporting the county's strategic vision to be a community of choice.

[00:10:28] And whereas Prince William County agencies, including the Clerk of the Circuit Court, libraries, Area Agency on Aging, Prince William Health District, police, adult detention center, fire and rescue systems, parks, recreation and tourism, Office of Criminal Justice Services, Virginia Cooperative Extension, in Prince William, thrive with volunteer participation, increasing the number of residents who are touched by quality of life services and programs.

[00:10:57] Whereas in 2022, even in the midst of a global pandemic, volunteers continue to donate their time to serve the community. Whereas in 2022, 3,645 Prince William County volunteers gave 291,138 hours in support of our programs.

[00:11:18] the value of their time in the equivalent of 39.4 full-time staff and equals $8,719,575. And whereas individuals and groups play an important role by building a successful, strong, and vibrant community by providing a critical role in the quality of life and well-being of our residents, now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William County Board of Supervisors hereby proclaims April 16th through 22nd, 2023, National Volunteer Week, recognizes and thanks all of our dedicated volunteers

[00:11:54] who lend their time, talent, voice, and support to causes they care about and to urge all citizens of Prince William County to consider volunteering. Thank you. Thank you for all you do. Thank you, Chair Wheeler, members of the board, Ms. Robel, Mr. Shorter.

[00:12:17] My name is Paige Thacker, and I'm with Virginia Cooperative Extension. We appreciate the opportunity to recognize those who volunteer in Prince William County for this year's National Volunteer Week proclamation. It's important to note this year's number of 3,645 volunteers represents multiple generations of the community.

[00:12:36] The skills and experiences they bring to us are invaluable. They're distinguished veterans, teens, adults, youth, parents, grandparents, retired professionals who each share their time and expertise assisting county agencies in meeting their performance measures and your strategic goals.

[00:12:56] And all of this strengthens the Prince William community to be a community of choice. Thank you to the volunteers who contribute their time and passion in support of the county agencies, like the libraries where 230 volunteers support the basic services and special programs, like summer and teen reading programs.

[00:13:19] or the five dedicated volunteers who help the clerk of courts to archive historic records in the county and make them available to the public, the 900 dedicated volunteers who serve and support the fire and rescue system, the 250 volunteers for the adult detention center, the 193 volunteers who support animal control and the police department, the 12 that support the Office of Criminal Justice Services who train and mentor volunteers, some of which support the veterans' treatment docket.

[00:13:49] The 100 volunteers who assist Meals on Wheels delivery and the programs and services within the Area Agency on Aging. The 695 volunteers who support education and quality of life services with parks, recreation, tourism, and historic preservation.

[00:14:08] Or the 225 Medical Reserve Corps aiding the well-being of the entire community, providing support to the efforts of vaccination and testing. Or the over 1,000 VCE volunteer educators providing classes that strengthen families through better parenting, communication, financial education, improves water quality through sustainable landscape education, and cultivating strong partnerships with youth who develop lifelong skills in leadership, communication, and civic education.

[00:14:38] I'd also like to recognize the volunteer coordinators whose talents in supporting these volunteers don't go unnoticed. They're amazing people, and it takes a special person to coordinate volunteers.

[00:14:54] All of you are making a significant difference in the lives of individuals and therefore making a positive impact on our community. We thank you and are grateful that you choose to volunteer in Prince William County. Again, thank you for this opportunity.

[00:15:07] You got somebody in the middle. Pass it down. There we go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. So important during the pandemic. Thank you.

[00:16:14] And last but not least, we're going to recognize Crime Victims' Rights Week.

[00:16:30] And with us today is Marsha Payne, Senior Assistant, Commonwealth Attorney's Office. Marcy. Marcy. Yeah, stand right there. That'd be great. Crime Victims' Week, April 23rd through 29th, 2023.

[00:16:50] Whereas the Victims' Rights Movement has resulted in the passage of laws at the local, state, and federal levels that establish essential rights for victims. And whereas crime victims' rights, acts passed in Virginia and at the federal level have provided victims with ways to participate meaningfully throughout the criminal justice process.

[00:17:11] And whereas crime can have a lasting impact on any person, regardless of age, national origin, race, creed, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, or economic status. And whereas incorporating communities' existing experts and trusted sources of support into efforts to fully serve survivors will develop a criminal justice system response that is truly accessible and appropriate for all victims of crime.

[00:17:35] And whereas the unwavering support of their communities and victim service providers behind them, survivors will be empowered to face their grief, loss, fear, anger, and hope without fear of judgment, and will feel understood, heard, and respected. And whereas we are determined to respond to crime and violence by helping victims find not only support, recovery, and justice, but also a sense of hope for their future.

[00:18:00] And whereas the rights of crime victims are best protected when all participants in the criminal justice process, not only the victims, are appropriately educated about victims' rights. And whereas the National Crime Victims' Rights Week provide an opportunity to recommit to ensuring the accessible, appropriate, and trauma-informed services are offered to all victims of crime.

[00:18:20] And whereas the Office of the Commonwealth Attorney's Victims Witness Assistance Program is hereby dedicated to strengthening the victims and survivors in the aftermath of crime, building resilience in our communities and our victim service providers, and bringing hope and healing to all victims and survivors.

[00:18:39] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby proclaims the week of April 23rd through 29th, 2023, as Crime Victims' Rights Week in Prince William County. Thank you. Marcia Payne, would you like to come here?

[00:19:00] Good afternoon. I am Marcia Payne. I am a senior domestic violence prosecutor here in Prince William County. And on behalf of our elected Commonwealth Attorney, Amy Ashworth, the prosecutors and staff of the Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney's Office, and of course, the advocates in the Victim Witness Program, we say thank you for acknowledging this week.

[00:19:25] The theme, the national theme for the week of April 23rd to 29th, which is the Crime Victims' Rights Week, this year is Survivor Voices. Elevate, engage, and affect change. And that is exactly what the excellent workers in the Victim Witness Program in our county do.

[00:19:45] They make sure that they respond diligently to the psychological and the financial and the emotional needs of the survivors of crime here in this county. They make sure that these survivors understand the criminal justice process and that they have a voice.

[00:20:06] They are an amazing link for us as for the domestic violence team, the special victims unit, the violence crime team. We absolutely rely on their efforts and their work, and they are just an excellent part of our office.

[00:20:22] And so we say thank you for acknowledging this week and the importance of this week for the survivors of crime in the county.

[00:20:31] Okay, we will now continue today's meeting with public comment time.

[00:21:18] The board will hear in-person and remote public comments. We're going to begin with in-person and public comment time. um i will call uh this afternoon we have 11 people signed up to speak i will call the speakers five or six at a time each speaker will have three minutes to share their views and opinions regarding matters before the board we ask that all speakers state their name and generally where they live or their magisterial district at the very beginning of their remarks after the first 15 minutes of in-person public comments we will then close the in-person sign-up list and the microphone is in

[00:21:55] the back. Today, our first five speakers are Martin Jeter, Brandon Johnson, Ayn Johnson, Patricia Kuntz, and Teresa Minns. Please proceed. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wheeler, members of the board. I'm Martin Jeter, and I live in the Occoquan District. I want to talk to you this afternoon about a couple things. First, the Hoadley Historical Marker that you all just approved. Just a little bit more about Hoadley. It was a village from at least the 1800s to the 1960s and the post office was very near where we are right now. The village was named after the

[00:22:35] post office as was the case with most early villages in Prince William County. There were various stores, churches, farms, homes, a dance hall, and even a ball field in this area where the Hoadley Hellcats played ball with other teams from around Prince William County. It's really important to remember what came before us and this marker will help us do that so thank you for improving that marker. I want to recognize Bill Olson while I'm at it who was instrumental in making this market a reality. Bill's given his time and money generously over many decades for many different causes, in particular identifying, preserving, and improving old cemeteries across

[00:23:10] Prince William County and into Loudon and Fauquier County, and he's done that with the help of the Eagle Scouts. He's contributed in many ways to making this county a better place to live, and he's been a role model for me. So thanks, Bill. We really appreciate you. Next, since this is budget season, I want to talk to you a little bit about park funding. Prince William Conservation Alliance, Woodbridge Potomac Community Civic Association, Loca Pelt, and Midco sent you a joint letter last week asking you to adequately fund parks.

[00:23:38] We have a great vision now for parks in Prince William County with a new strategic plan and a newly passed comprehensive plan, but we don't have the continuous, reliable funding stream to match that vision. We have robust goals for land acquisition, even plans for a new regional park right here at McCourt, but we need a funding source to make it all a reality.

[00:23:59] The proffer system was once a source for park funding, but that has been drastically reduced under current legislation, as I'm sure you all know. Parks provide mental and physical health benefits, leadership opportunities, personal growth opportunities, and are reliably at the top of resident surveys.

[00:24:15] They are the great equalizer. No matter what your race, creed, color, age, sex, socioeconomic status, or political positions, parks are there and available for you. This is something you can achieve. There are programs and strategies you can use. Please find a way to match the funding to your vision now, this year, in this budget.

[00:24:33] You will be remembered favorably for demonstrating this leadership. It will be a great legacy for you to leave behind for all your residents. Thank you and have a great meeting. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon.

[00:24:53] My name is Brandon Johnson, and I am in the Woodbridge location. Good afternoon, county supervisors, executive county supervising, Chair Willer. Dear County Executive Supervisor Christopher Shorter, our names are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.

[00:25:15] We have been foster parents to a young male child since April 2020, as of three weeks of age until present. We are the foster parents' soul, hit the son's soul's placement. Our biological children know him as brother, and affectionately, they call him Bumpy.

[00:25:35] He relates to us as family. Throughout our tenure as foster parents, we have maintained a loving, safe, and secure, stable family environment with emphasis on community connections. Our foster son is thriving as a direct result of early intervention services we advocated for him to have.

[00:25:59] We continue with his education and extended community on best practices related to offering him lifelong support. We affirm our desire to adopt the foster son in numerous written comprehensives and, most recently, during a court hearing in December 2022.

[00:26:21] We have no indication that the Department of Social Services Permanency Team desires to be in compliance of assuring services, but services be put into place for our foster son by request of a judge.

[00:26:42] The Department of Social Services Permanency Team has not responded to emails since December 20, 2022. Additionally, the following requests have not been made to our family in accordance to with the Child and Family Services Manual funding maintenance costs.

[00:27:03] Monthly home visits have not been done since January 2021, and then we requested a VMAT six-month review. We are anticipating another illuminating will be distributed by email correspondence to remove our foster son from my care and place him in another family.

[00:27:29] Our foster son continuously displays adverse effects to change. This will unjustly be trauma for him. As a last resort effort, we are appealing to you. we are requesting a meeting in the environment free from retaliation for our family to discuss further concerns. We are requesting transparency in the following areas. Freedom of Act, Freedom of Information Act, PATH-True submitted by county representatives to the Juvenile Domestic Relations Court, VMAO proceedings, VMAP proceedings. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Your time is up. You're welcome

[00:28:08] to submit those comments or send us via email. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Patty Koontz, and I'm from the Gainesville District. I'm here today to speak about the very passionate discussion that took place last week about the learning loss of children during the pandemic. Yes, learning loss did occur, but some supervisors thought that it acted like this loss was permanent or insurmountable, and nothing could be further from the truth. I speak of this because this pandemic is not without precedent. In 1918,

[00:28:47] the incorrectly named Spanish flu spread throughout the world. Approximately one-third of the world population died because there was no vaccine. All of this was in conjunction with World War II. Fathers went off to war, moms were left to tend to the farms or businesses, and kids just had to help out.

[00:29:07] After that, 10 years later, the Great Depression hit, and many kids, like my dad, went to work. He was a newsie at 10. So what happened to those children who survived the Spanish flu and the Great Depression? Did they end up failures because they missed a lot of school?

[00:29:26] On the contrary, those children are now known by a different name, and that is the greatest generation. The children who grew up during a worldwide pandemic, World War I and the Depression, went to war themselves. My dad and my uncle, like many young men, enlisted.

[00:29:45] My dad was 17 and my uncle was 16. They were both sent to the Pacific region. After winning the war, they returned home to San Francisco. Did they go back to school? No. They were given an honorary high school diploma and were thanked for their service.

[00:30:02] But they missed earth science, trigonometry, and British lit. What could they do? Like the rest of the greatest generation, they got busy. My dad got his college degree by using the GI Bill and was a founding member of the U.S. Air Force. My uncle went to work for the phone company and erected telephone poles and wires across San Francisco Bay Area.

[00:30:24] The greatest generation built our national highway system, increased our industry production, and started the middle class. They made us the economic giant we are now. So I'm here to say relax. For generations, teachers have taken kids at whatever level they are on and moved them on the continuum to success, and they're really good at it.

[00:30:48] For proof, our seniors are still being accepted to college, and their future professors will ensure that they know their curriculum. So instead of overreacting, I suggest you take the advice of Winston Churchill gave to the Londoners as they were sleeping in the subway tunnels while their homes were being bombed by the Nazis.

[00:31:07] Keep calm and carry on, and be grateful that we can all still kiss our babies goodnight at night. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[00:31:30] Good afternoon. My name is Mrs. Johnson, Aine Johnson, and I am from the Woodbridge District and again as always because it never fails kindness does not go out of style I truly truly thank the opportunity to speak publicly I do thank shall I say the county representatives of course it's an opportunity to speak publicly but the cheerleaders and emails and hugs and virtually things of that nature that my family gets that allows us to

[00:32:05] continue to endure, not just for ourselves, for other families, because it's never an opportunity for us to speak publicly, but not to speak for other people. And we know that other people have possibly been silenced. So in the onset of it, sure, is it difficult, but it is a privilege.

[00:32:22] It is an honor to speak for other people. Today, I'll just continue to follow up with what my husband started, and I'd like to direct my correspondence or my information today to Mr. Shorter again. Dear County Executive Christopher Shorter, or Chris, because I've heard a couple people call you Chris, but I'm like, I haven't met him personally, so I will not refer to him as Chris.

[00:32:45] My family was so proud to be residents of Prince William County and to enter the doors of one of the county buildings. That's this building here. We entered the doors with pride knowing your desire was to bring positive change to Prince William County. Per your own statement, it is truly an honor and a privilege to serve this county in the next chapter. I am privileged to be a public servant. Yet, Mr. Shorter, and again, not making it up, but I'm speaking to you because it's a conversation, Mr. Shorter. Yet, Mr. Shorter is serving the needs of foster children and their

[00:33:20] foster families above your pay grade. We have contacted you on the following dates, Mr. Shorter. January 23rd, January 24th, February 7th, February 9th, March 7th, March 14th, March 21st, April 21st. I apologize, April 11th. Of course, inclusive of today. Each time you have said nothing, and we know that a staff member has received the correspondence because they confirmed in writing of our desire to speak with you. We are now requesting publicly, Mr. Shorter,

[00:33:59] a meeting with you to voice our concerns. You have the legal right, legal. This is not just constituents complaining. You have the legal right, Mr. Shorter, to not only intervene, but to investigate. Thank you. Thank you. Before our next speaker, I'm going to call up our last five, Bianca Lankford, Pastor Eddie B. Pruitt Jr., Frida Benjamin, Andrea Nikoi, and Daniel

[00:34:27] Danielle Powell. Bianca Lankford, Pastor Eddie D. Pruitt, Frida Benjamin, Andrea Nikoi, Danielle Powell. Please proceed. The recent ends, the Potomac District. I'm here to talk about the betrayal to our Constitution, to our children. Betrayal is alive and well. The major betrayal is

[00:35:01] from the Democrat politicians and their voters, Republicans, rhino politicians, and their leaders. Their ongoing betrayal to number 45, President Trump. While he was in office, all he had, he had to fight his own party's betrayal. And that goes on today. And I would like the people that took my donations, knowing I was a Trump supporter, returned them. I've never made it a

[00:35:33] secret. We betrayal from the CDC, FDA, NIH, Dr. Fosche, FBI, CIA, DOJ, and the bioweapon of COVID, the planned. And then the betrayal from Republican Senator McConnell and his loyalty to China, etc. May I mention the betrayal of Beijing Biden? Absolute betrayal to America and his loyalty

[00:36:06] to China. And then unfortunately, we are getting inundated with people from Chicago, Washington, D.C., Baltimore to lead Virginia, Prince William County. The 40 betrayal of the 45 days of early voting with the opportunity to cheat. And that is all it is. There is nothing honorable about 45 days early voting and the glorification of George Soros. Yes, the betrayal

[00:36:42] from him and the way the Democrats equal to the rhinos to support George Soros. And I want to voice my complaint of the volume of the meetings that are held that we can watch on television.

[00:37:06] That is betrayal to the citizens. I should not have to put my volume up to 100 and barely hear it, okay? People in this building have a job. Do it. This is why I haven't been coming. I have nothing nice to say.

[00:37:23] Nothing. Because you all have betrayed America. The majority. We might have 25% of people who love America. We might. The rest of you are glory hogs and you pretend to be Christians and you are not. You are not. When you betray, America is a blessing. So keep cheating us. Keep betraying us. God help us and save us in Jesus Christ, I pray. Save us from your nightmare.

[00:37:56] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Bianca Lankford. I'm a resident of Gainesville, Virginia. I've been a longtime resident of the county since 2001.

[00:38:14] Moved out for a little bit for college, but I came back. Now I'm raising my family here. And I have a daughter who's in daycare, and the daycare that she goes to is right off of Route 29 in Webb Drive. And I'm coming to you today to raise a complaint about the intersection that's at Route 29 and Webb.

[00:38:33] I have witnessed multiple occasions of near misses and car accidents at this very dangerous location. And I'm not the only one that's seen it. I reached out to my friends and other daycare providers, her teachers. They're calling it scary.

[00:38:49] They're nervous to drive through there, and they called it terrible. Just this morning, as I was dropping off my daughter, I noticed and witnessed four vehicles blazing through the intersection after the light had turned red. Multiple trucks, large-scale vehicles, box trucks, and other SUVs.

[00:39:11] The vehicle in front of me was attempting to turn left and nearly was struck by one of these speeding vehicles. So coming to you today as a mother, as a resident, begging you to stop this from happening.

[00:39:28] I'm here today because this happened just this morning. And I go to Google and I searched and I just so happened to see that just today it's on the docket to talk about red light cameras. Praise God for that. So I urge you to do everything in your power to make this county safe to drive in for our families, for everyone, including our children.

[00:39:51] Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Madam Chair Wheeler and Vice Chair Boldy to the entire Board of County Supervisors. I'm Eddie Pruitt, the pastor of Wholeness Tabernacle.

[00:40:08] I reside at 3631 Serenadevity Road, Woodbridge, Virginia. There's a story in the scriptures about 10 men, and they had a problem. and they didn't have the resources or the resolve to solve the problem on their own.

[00:40:28] And they heard about someone who could help them. They went to him, and they appealed to him, and he helped them. But not until as they left that they realized the magnitude of his assistance.

[00:40:46] One of them came back and expressed gratitude. So we'll stand out here today. We came here on the 21st of March to address about the quick take of 1440 Old Bridge Road. That's item 8B on your docket today.

[00:41:04] We appealed to this board, and several of you reached out to us. Supervisor Angry, Supervisor Lawson, Chair Wheeler, Supervisor Franklin. But Vice Chair Bodie met me out in the vestibule, if you will, and we spoke.

[00:41:22] I apologize to him because I should have brought his attention earlier. He convened a meeting with the staff and the county's director of transportation, and they worked out something that will accommodate the church. We came back today to say thank you.

[00:41:41] You all take a lot of hard knocks. Maybe some are deserved. I don't know. But from where we stand today, you all showed us that government can work and help people. So it's my desire, next time you all hear from me, it'll be an invite to our groundbreaking.

[00:41:58] We're going to invite all you all, and we hope you all come. Again, and let me say this as I sit down. I was really surprised that Vice Chair Boldy offered to pray during one of our meetings. Thank you again. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[00:42:17] Good afternoon. My name is Frida Benjamin, and I live in the Woodbridge District. I am a member of the Holiness Tabernacle Church of God in Christ Board of Directors. Being a retired county employee, I remember what it was like not getting a word of appreciation from my clients when they knew I had gone above and beyond what was required of me to help them.

[00:42:49] Therefore, on behalf of all the members of Holiness Tabernacle, some of whom are here today, the many neighbors and friends of the community we serve, and the Board of Directors who are all here today, I would like to thank the Prince William County Board of Directors Supervisors for the diligence in extending our stay at our present location.

[00:43:17] Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon to the Board of Supervisors. I would like to, my name is Andrena Coy. I'm in the Potomac District, and I stand before you as a proud member of Holiness Tabernacle Church of God in Christ.

[00:43:39] I'm here today basically to thank you for your consideration an act of kindness in allowing us to remain at our current location. We have faithfully served the community under the leadership of our pastor, Elder Eddie B. Pruitt Jr., who has a love for people.

[00:43:58] He instills this in his congregation constantly, that we are supposed to be compassionate, we're supposed to be Christ-like, an example to men and women everywhere. I wanted to say one thing that I leave with my students as I work at George Mason University.

[00:44:15] Words are powerful, but actions are impactful. So I thank you all for being the catalyst of change that the county deserves in allowing us to stay and remain where we are to assist our community. You know, there are three C's that I'm going to state upon each and every one of you.

[00:44:37] We thank you for your care. We thank you for being committed. And we thank you for your concern. Thank you once again. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Danielle Powell, and I live in the Potomac District.

[00:44:58] As a longstanding member of Holiness Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, I am here to share heartfelt thanks to this Prince William County Board of Supervisors for your diligence, support, and commitment to the residents, community partners, and religious pillars of this county.

[00:45:15] Holiness Tabernacle has proven to be a vital lifeline for not only the members, but also the neighbors and friends that we serve with our outreach programs. including our weekly food distribution program as a regular volunteer of this program i have witnessed the impact gracious smiles words of thanks and sometimes tears of joy as church staff and volunteer load boxes of food filled to capacity into waiting lines of vehicles if you've never had to wonder about how to make a meal stretch over a few days it might not seem that

[00:45:51] important but as someone who's been on both the giving and receiving ends of this exchange I know that this program provides a needed resource to families and individuals who live here in Prince William County. This board's willingness to work with Holiness Tabernacle, our pastor and local church board, and all interested parties to ensure that this ministry and our outreach work can remain intact while we build our new church edifice is greatly appreciated.

[00:46:22] Knowing that our elected officials are truly listening to us and working on behalf of its residents, is not lost on any of us and so with that i again say thank you so very much thank you very much thank you thank you for all coming out today um we that will conclude our in-person public comment time for today and i will turn it over to vice chair bode for our remote public comment thank you madam chair miss fan how many do we have online this afternoon none at this time all right well short and quick thank you so much miss fan for your help back to you madam chair Thank you, Ms. Van. Thank you, Vice Chair Bodie.

[00:47:02] Okay, well, that will bring us on to conclude public comment time. Item number four goes on to item number five, our public hearings for today. Our first public hearing today is item, there are two. Our first item is 5A, the ordinance to use photo monitoring systems to enforce speed limits in highway work zones and school crossing zones in various magisterial districts.

[00:47:25] I don't believe we have a presentation. We just have a public hearing. Is that correct? Okay. This will officially open the public hearing for Agenda Item 5A. Ms. Madden, do we have anyone signed up for 5A? Okay. Each speaker will have three minutes.

[00:47:50] Please state your name and generally where you live at the beginning of each comment. We have one person signed up today, Teresa Minns. Please proceed. Teresa Minns, Potomac District.

[00:48:09] Yes, we do need to do something about the speeding traffic. Goes right through the red lights. This is true. Our children are in harm's way. Yes, we are in harm's way. Everybody's in a hurry.

[00:48:27] But once again, I stand behind what I said at Citizen's Time. And it's amazing how people reach out to charity. No, we need to be independent and grow.

[00:48:44] So yes, we do need something done about this speeding through red lights. Because it is alive and well, and once again, our children are in harm's way. It is sad that people do not pay attention to what's going on in this county.

[00:49:00] And I'm not talking about the hearings you're having right now. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in chambers who wanted to speak on 5A? Please just approach the microphone in the back of the room. Seeing no one approach the microphone in the back of the room, this will officially close the public hearing on agenda item 5A.

[00:49:24] Vice Chair Bodie, do you want to make a motion for approval? Here, so I move Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Vice Chair Bodie, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Is there any discussion? Madam Chair. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. One, I wanted to thank the team, Transportation, the Police Department, everyone else, and the county staff that got us to this point.

[00:49:43] As we said a couple weeks ago, this will save lives. We've seen the data for this. We've seen the pilot program we did last year. We know that we will see higher compliance with the law. You know, we will see higher chance of people slowing down and changing that behavior that we've talked about for so long as a board.

[00:50:00] I will say, especially in my district, we have that school zone at Old Bridge Elementary and Woodbridge that a lot of people fly through all the time, in the morning, in the afternoon. And I know that we've had people who have had near misses and been struck in that area. So I know that this will have an impact.

[00:50:16] So I know there's some people that have heartburn about these things that we're approving today, whether it's this one or 5B. But, again, this is a pilot program. It's to get more data to make sure that people know that this county is serious about protecting life in these intersections, these corridors in the county. And, again, I want to thank everyone who made this happen.

[00:50:32] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Franklin. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to say this is an example of how when we stay focused on what the county is in need of and really one of the speakers mentioned about care and commitment – When we stay focused and keep our eyes on the boat, this is an example of how partnership within the agencies, how things happen as the community has the needs.

[00:51:06] And so I just want to recognize Mr. Conosales and his team for staying focused, keeping your eyes on the boat, working with us as we move forward with some of the unfortunate situations that we've had. But I know it's just a test, but it's keeping, it's partnership and making sure that things happen.

[00:51:26] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Policing in America has changed and technology has grown. And it's time we implement both of those because whatever has happened since COVID and this blatant disregard for doing the speed limit, which is called breaking the law, you know, these are tools that we need to put in place. And it doesn't negate or take away from policing. It adds to it and it helps because the fact of the matter is folks aren't just paying attention okay and and thank you for your comments earlier man just with the red light

[00:52:02] we'll get to that one but this right here uh ties very well with that because this is a problem i guarantee everybody in this room today has witnessed someone flying past you even today coming here or during school which we're at spring break now watching someone go through a school zone exceedingly fast and that's just unacceptable folks and we can do a lot better this is not going to be the end all be all. I hope that people will just stop and take a break and think about what you're doing as you're speeding. I know sometimes you forget and you just kind of going fast and but when you realize that slow down. I think we are our best agents to this and so we're

[00:52:41] going to have to start talking to our children, our loved ones, our families, our friends, even our enemies and just tell them to slow down people. All right so thanks for for doing this. I'm excited the ballot looking forward to it thank you madam chair thank you supervisor angry seeing no further discussion we can vote on 5a vote unanimous okay 5a we are now moving on to vice 5b which is the ordinance to use photo monitoring to enforce traffic light signals a pilot program in various

[00:53:17] magisterial districts this will officially open the public hearing agenda for item 5b we have two people so far to speak up to to speak our first is Bianca Lankford and then Teresa Minns if you could approach the microphone in the back of the room everyone will have three minutes and please state your name and generally where you live in the county hello me again Bianca Lankford from the Gainesville district just to add some additional color and context I did read through

[00:53:56] 5b in detail online before coming to this meeting today and I did not see the intersection for Route 29 and Web Drive listed as one of the potential intersections for this pilot program. So I'm here today to request that that intersection is considered as part of the pilot and I'd be happy to speak with any of the supervisors or representatives to make that happen. As I've stated, this is a huge problem and it's a very scary and dangerous intersection for everyone who passes through it, particularly on the Route 29 southbound side. It's going

[00:54:32] downhill. So people tend to just hit the gas and keep going. Again, happy to work with you all to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. The young lady before me, she spoke very well at Citizen's Time and now. She's concerned with the safety of her child and everyone else. But my concern is... Could you introduce yourself and generally where you live?

[00:54:59] Oh, sorry about that. Theresea Men's Potomac District. So I'm concerned about the photo monitoring? Or is somebody in your clique getting the contract? Is it self-serving somebody? Because one thing I see going on in this county now is excessive charity and giving somebody benefits.

[00:55:26] Okay, I may not be using my words properly, but anybody with half a brain understands what I'm saying and it's sad the way charity is encouraged instead of independence okay I grew up poor and by the grace of God he looked after me but you guys are thieves okay I have no way and then what gets

[00:55:58] me is you've got all these people backing you it's beyond me so I'm not sure I agree with photo enforcement, because I don't know who's getting the contract and why. Where's the self-serving?

[00:56:16] And this is another thing. I didn't get a chance to thank law enforcement and EMS for what they do, the honorable law enforcement and EMS. Like I said, we are bringing people in from Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and I've already seen how they support the Democrats. So I say it as it is. I am against it because I don't trust who you're giving the contract to and why you're doing it. And I want to thank our law enforcement because I see them everywhere. So once again,

[00:56:55] law enforcement, if you're honorable, I thank you. EMS, they've just been wonderful in the fire department. But for you politicians that are sitting up there and your supporters, no. This is one reason I haven't been coming to the county meetings. It's been too much for me to swallow.

[00:57:18] So God help us, in Jesus' name I pray, amen, because only God's going to get us through this nightmare. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to speak on Agenda Item 5B during the public hearing?

[00:57:34] Just approach the microphone in the back. I have to go through this. Okay. Seeing no one. Okay. You're walking by the microphone. This will officially and legally close the public hearing on Item 5B.

[00:57:53] Supervisor Angry, do you want to make a motion for approval? Thank you, Madam Chair. Motion approved. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Angry, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Discussion. Supervisor Franklin. Sure. Thank you for the opportunity.

[00:58:09] I do want to ask Rick to come up and kind of explain to make sure there's no misinformation about how enforcement is to be done. But can you walk through kind of what the parameters here in the state of Virginia and what are we allowed to do and not do? I've raised concerns about photo enforcement in Washington, D.C.

[00:58:26] I think there's a difference in how they do it in Maryland. Can you please come up and explain what our restrictions are here so that people are very clear about how photo enforcement will work? And then I do have just a couple of comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:58:45] Members of the Board, Rick Canizales, your Director of Transportation. Supervisor Franklin, thank you for the question. I'll give you the generalities, and you can ask for additional details. I know I've got my two experts here that can give you the details within the details. we'll get into that. But the generalities are that photo red enforcement is a way where a camera, which is not only a still camera, but also a video camera, will note violations of people

[00:59:17] that do not stop at a red light. So like I mentioned to you at the work session last time, If a person has passed the stop bar and the signal is still yellow, that person will not be sighted.

[00:59:34] It's once you get to that stop bar, if the light has turned red and you pass that stop bar, you will be sighted for left turn movements and straight through movements. For the right turn movements, you are sighted with some leeway.

[00:59:52] Now, we spoke last time about what kind of leeway we're going to have. We're going to talk this over with our vendor, whoever that may be, once we get an RFP, and see what their recommendation is in leeway. Since then, we have seen many jurisdictions have a very different variety of how many miles an hour it takes to make that right turn before a violation.

[01:00:15] And that's something we will look into for you as we pick a vendor and the vendor makes a recommendation as to what the board would like. But that speed is variable from zero up to other jurisdictions used up to 13 miles an hour. And the point I wanted to make is that this will be hopefully a fair process.

[01:00:35] And this is a pilot program, and so we'll go through this for... Exactly. A year from August, the sunset clause on your ordinance right now is August of next year. And so once we get the results of that, we'll see how the program has worked. Did it work well? Did it not work so well?

[01:00:51] we'll be able to make those determinations about whether we want this to be a permanent program. So I wanted to make sure we cleared up any misinformation that's been out there. I'll also just say that, again, I've raised concerns about how photo enforcement has been done in other localities. I'm very comfortable with how Virginia allows us to implement it.

[01:01:11] I think it will create a fair process. And quite frankly, over the past year and a half, we've heard a lot of concerns from residents about pedestrian deaths that have happened in Prince William County and other type of speeding issues that we've had.

[01:01:28] It's been really a whirlwind since COVID. And I don't know if there's a relationship there or not. But the fact of the matter is we have a problem. And I know some of us have been reached out to by several members of our community that are saying we need to do something.

[01:01:44] I've expressed concerns about our locality not having enough leeway from the state to implement our own mitigation efforts. But this is one of the things that we can do to address this issue. So I am going to be supporting this pilot program.

[01:02:01] I am looking forward to the results that come back to help us determine, did it work well, or what type of activity are we seeing? Did we see an increase, a decrease? All of those things are going to help us determine next steps, but this is the first step, and I think it's the right step.

[01:02:16] And so for those that have reached out to us about traffic concerns, thank you for that. I've seen it everywhere from my emails to phone calls, next door, social media. People are concerned here in Prince William County. So thank you for this. Thank you, ma'am. Supervisor Bodie.

[01:02:32] Thank you, Madam Chair. Rick, before you sit down, I wanted to catch you. So I know that some folks have reached out and concerns about this, particularly being a revenue generator for the police department or for the county. Can you talk through your mindset and how this fits in in terms of the revenue that's going to be generated by this program? At this point, sir, from the information that we receive from the vendors that we have talked to, it seems that by doing both of these programs, this program will be revenue neutral, that we will be able to pay off the $850,000 we're asking for in our next item, hopefully from those funds.

[01:03:09] If there is additional funding, we will come to you and let you know that we do have additional funding, and we'll talk through the best way to do that. We propose that there's a clear nexus of anything we get additional funding on this to safety, safety improvements, safety projects, safety processes.

[01:03:26] But, again, that's only if it becomes more than revenue neutral to us. We'll come back and we'll have those discussions. Again, this is just a pilot program this year. Again, the sunset clause is next year. For us to move forward beyond August of 2024, this board is going to have to take another action and approve another ordinance in order to move forward.

[01:03:47] So we'll get those results to you, hopefully, at the beginning of the summer. by then we should have enough information, more than six, seven, eight months of information by that time that we can base some of the conclusions on to bring back to you and what we see. I appreciate that. And one final question. I know this Ms. Langford was here to talk about that intersection of WebN29. Would it be more appropriate for us to discuss Senator 8A when we're actually looking at the item itself, the program, as opposed to the ordinances?

[01:04:15] We can talk that through. I think what I've told you previously and with the presentation we did last week, that those intersections are variable. We have to make sure that they're completely feasible. Our vendor will let us know the total feasibility. We believe they are, so we really are good with the recommendations.

[01:04:32] But we can come back to you independently and talk through the intersections that you may want to look at as well or add to it. Appreciate that. So the final thing I'll say about this, thank you for that, Rick, is, again, I know that some folks have seen, as Supervisor Franklin said in other jurisdictions and other parts of the region, these programs be used in very predatory and revenue-generating ways. Like Mr.

[01:04:54] Canizales just said, the thought process here between us and our staff is on safety, on addressing safety concerns that people had for a long time in this community when it comes to running red lights and people not being safe when they go through things. So as we continue to have conversations about safety, community safety initiative, other ways in which we can keep people safe practically by going to the community and instituting things, I think this is a good next step to do that, and I'll be supporting it. Thank you so much madam thank you and my correction uh it's 29 and web i got told so it's in the gainesville district we would be coming to supervisor we are to make sure oh it's in the brentsville district oh i'm sorry ma'am we'll be coming to supervisor lawson to make sure and see what what intersection

[01:05:31] she would like in her district we weren't i that's what i just asked my staff and it's a response i got supervisor oh i thank you thank you for the correction yes supervisor angry thank you madam chair this board also now has very cool technology you can actually go and cut the video recording that we're saying so whatever this mark is i would like for you to go and cut and i'm gonna look at this camera when we install these red light cameras people are they're gonna begin to slow

[01:06:07] down when they begin to slow down yellow does not mean speed up so do not rear-end the car that's going to start paying attention to the red light in front of them and stop. That means you need to start slowing down and stop too. This is going to become a problem and we need to pay attention to that. So I'm hoping once again that people will pay attention to these simple tools that we're going to put in place in Prince William County because our policing will always be policing but we don't want them to show up by the red light now because there's a rear end accident that goes on because it will not be showing up when you run that light because someone will and get that ticket.

[01:06:44] So that is my only request, that you start paying attention and we slow down because, again, just slow down. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Lawson, right, the next one's blank. Thank you. So regarding the web intersection that the speaker mentioned, can you explain to her and to the public why that is not a chosen intersection for this pilot program?

[01:07:14] Yes, ma'am. We looked as a pilot program, as a test, we tried to look at some of the highest ranking intersections for safety. So we took a look at the safety reports that we have, the safety reports we get from the police, what we had observed in each individual district, took those and then cross-referenced them with the district they were in and kind of looked at one of the top intersections within each district that we found had safety issues with those.

[01:07:44] and that's where we landed on crash reports correct ma'am it's all accident crash reports police the rump report right the rump report so the what Madam Chair members of the board I'm Sean Peake lieutenant with special operations so when we did the studies we looked at the roadway incident management program which is our highest intersections of crash data we looked at that comparable with also with requests that we received from you all for those and we tried to we made it so that we had intersections throughout the county in each magisterial district so that's

[01:08:22] how we looked at those intersection and route 29 we can always look at that but that didn't rise to one of the highest locations right thank you um so you looked at data and you worked with our office and we definitely uh the intersection that was chosen for Brentsville was Linton Hall 28 correct one of them and one of the things I remember talking about with you Rick as transportation director was prior to phase three of the 28 road improvements was i recall you said that we could improve safety also on the design of the road is that a can you speak into the

[01:09:02] microphone is that something also that you um you as a transportation director working with engineers factor in uh we do ma'am uh obviously you know uh that we've gone through that intersection with a couple projects to improve as much as we could on each side of that.

[01:09:22] That intersection is one of the most voluminous intersections that we have in the county. A lot of volume going through that. Yeah, I would think the web intersection is, too, with it being on Highway 29. Yes, it is. But the turning movements from Linton Hall, a lot of these accidents happen on turning movements.

[01:09:41] Got you. Okay. And the amount of volume that goes through there with the amount of turning movement that happens through that intersection just makes it a very obvious choice for your district. We do, and I do want to mention that we do have the Prince William Parkway and Sudley Manor intersection also in this pilot in your district.

[01:09:59] So your district is unique where we have two intersections that we're proposing as part of this pilot. Parkway and Sudley Manor. 234 Bypass and Sudley Manor. Okay. Yeah, a lot of turning movement, a lot of volume, improvements way out, $200 million. So we figure we've got to look at that and see what we can do there.

[01:10:15] Okay. Supervisor Franklin mentioned the pedestrian deaths, and that has certainly been a concern for the board, for everybody in leadership of the county. And nobody up here wants to do anything that would harm our measures to keep our community safe.

[01:10:38] However, and this is probably more of a Lieutenant Pete question, I recall from the workshop that we discussed the pedestrian deaths. Correct. How many pedestrian deaths happen as a result of people running red lights through intersections? Richard, do you have that to add?

[01:10:55] To be honest with you and fair with the statistics, we don't have any fatalities related to vehicles running red lights. It's more so with vehicles colliding in T-bone accidents. Okay, that's what I thought. Pedestrians, not so much with running red lights.

[01:11:13] It's more of right turns on red and smaller, lower speed fatalities like that. As we spoke of one example in your magisterial district at Linton Hall and Devlin Road. Okay. So you gave me the answer I wanted, which was I thought that it was zero from the work session.

[01:11:32] So Supervisor Franklin, just wanted to make sure that you were clear on. Correct. Correct. but i don't i'm just making sure that the public understands that the pedestrian deaths well because if i recall correctly lieutenant peak you said sadly that they were all faults of the pedestrian correct yeah and more so and i misspoke at the last board meeting i actually was a few numbers short we had 11 pedestrian fatalities last year not eight okay okay thank you which has been the highest over the last 10 years okay you said it was

[01:12:09] I wanted to add something, too. What's the problem? We're in Q&A, aren't we? Okay.

[01:12:26] So my colleagues are allowed to ask questions, and I'm not? Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then I think that Rick Gonzalez already addressed the concerns of the predatory nature that a lot of us had raised back in the work session.

[01:12:47] I know Supervisor Franklin had mentioned it in D.C. D.C. I don't know, is Marilyn another one that is? I can answer it. So how can we be assured that that is not going to be?

[01:13:02] Because a lot of folks are going to hear this, and they're immediately going to think that it is predatory in nature. And as Supervisor Bode said, you know, just a way to collect revenue. Well, I can assure you as part of me being part of this process and working with Richard and the team, when we design the business rules, it's in fairness to the citizen.

[01:13:23] We did, as Rick had already mentioned, and we sent a message out to the board about the mile per hour on right turn. It's actually also, and I will just add to it, that it's not only on right turn on red. When we worked with the city of Manassas, I misinterpreted what some of their right turns on were, that there was no tolerance.

[01:13:41] They actually have a 13-mile-per-hour tolerance, and also that is a 13-mile-per-hour tolerance with going straight through or left turn. So it's consistent, all measures going through the red light. So if your vehicle is going less than 13 miles an hour as you cross that line, and 13 miles per hour, I've actually studied it over the last few weeks since that meeting to test it several times.

[01:14:04] Your speedometer has a lag time. If you stop and then continue on, your speedometer is going to actually show probably between 5 and 13 miles an hour. So in fairness, that will be part of our business rules. the program that we are working toward would in my impression will be fair to the citizens of prince william county okay because thank you for bringing that up because i do remember we talked about manassas city and and what what appeared to be um i would say absolutely no grace yes but but you we have since found different that they do give some grace and again that's why i mentioned

[01:14:41] a little earlier that we're going to wait to bring back a recommendation on the business rules to you once we get uh with our vendor and and ask them get their their expertise into it as again we've seen stuff vary from some of the townships in maryland uh that you mentioned from for only a couple miles an hour to the city of manassas which graces up to 13. thank you i appreciate it i'm not going to support this today i i have too many concerns about we don't have enough guardrails around it um i definitely like the idea of starting a pilot program for the schools and

[01:15:14] and work zones, but I'm concerned that it's just going to really send a lot of signs that we're out there being too big of a nanny state when it comes to red lights and the intersections, but I have a feeling I'll be outvoted on it.

[01:15:31] I understand. Thank you, ma'am. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rick, thank you for answering all of the questions I sent your way. As many of you in chambers know and probably watching at home, our office put out a survey asking the folks what they thought about this. And so about 760 folks the last time I checked before this meeting participated in our survey.

[01:15:51] And I want to share with my colleagues and with you as well that 60% oppose support for both, 25%, support just for speed, 9%, and support for red light, only 6%. I appreciate the discussion that we're having in regards to this just being another form to generate revenue.

[01:16:11] My concern is does the vendor company, first of all, do we already have a vendor? we know ma'am okay um once we do how are they going to be compensated it's going to be through a fee within the within the camera it'll be a set fee that gets done through the contract so they're not getting a slice of every ticket no they're getting a set fee it can be done in in different ways but we're doing it's going to be a set fee the set fee comes from uh or gets paid from for the tickets that's the first thing you pay off you know you pay their fee uh but it's a It is a set fee that gets taken off of the individual violations.

[01:16:48] Okay. And one last-minute question we got was, will folks get a ticket for a right-on-red? No, not unless, again, and we'll- He says yes. Hold on. You say no. Hold on. They will not get a ticket. They will get a ticket for a right-on-red if they do not stop or go less than what we decide our business rules are when we come back with the contract.

[01:17:16] Okay. So if we decide to go up to 13 miles an hour or 5 miles an hour, that person will only get a violation if they do not stop or roll through the intersection at faster of what we end up deciding or what you end up deciding is the correct speed to go through that right.

[01:17:35] Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rick, I just want to say something to Sean, too. You don't have to get up, Sean. But I want to, we've got to start somewhere.

[01:17:52] And I want to say to you that I know that Supervisor Angry Franklin and I have been really kind of honing in on us starting somewhere because of the fatalities. And so I want you, if you could, just kind of address the time frame, because this happened fairly quickly in addressing this issue.

[01:18:11] How much time did it take you to resource, research, get this on the plank so that we can move forward in protecting our community? And this is where I'm going to give lots and lots and lots of credits to Richard Weinman and Lieutenant Sean Peake.

[01:18:28] They have been working on this effort for about a year now, from looking up at the initial data, doing the research needed to see if it was even feasible for Prince William County. From the time we got the directives to be able to move forward and do a test run and getting the vendors to agree to do these test runs for us for free and getting that information for the board to putting that information together, analyzing the information, comparing it to the information from other jurisdictions, and bringing back a solid recommendation for you to do a test run of what we're doing here.

[01:19:02] And again, I want to emphasize August of 2024, the ordinance sunsets. So unless the board takes additional action to keep this going, we sunset in August of 2024. It is a test of this. And we have to start. And we will do it over.

[01:19:18] You can at that point decide whether you want to increase the program, keep the program as is, and just change some things, or remove the program completely and stop doing it. Well, and I just wanted to say I'm going to support it because when you talk about saving lives and when you talk about putting things in place from a public safety standpoint, I've watched, Richard and Sean, the work that you've put into this.

[01:19:42] And the other thing that I want to compliment you on is the process that you used. You came to each one of our offices, and you asked our opinion about what we needed. And we certainly are not police officers, and we're not transportation subject matter experts.

[01:19:58] But I appreciate that because there's been a lot of fatalities in my district. Yes, ma'am. More than, not a lot, but more than anybody ever wants. And so that's why I'm going to support this. I appreciate the pilot program. I also appreciate, because one of the things I had to adjust to in coming into this seat, is government moves slow, and you didn't move so slow on this because lives were involved, and so I appreciate that, and I will be supporting.

[01:20:25] Thank you, ma'am. So I'm going to jump in since everybody's already had a chance to speak. Just a couple of things. In the staff report, and it's for a later uninitiated, on a certain page, just in case somebody ever reads this, it says staff recommendation based on the recommendations of feasibility.

[01:20:43] It's a recommendation of the county staff to the board to initiate it to fund a one-year pilot program. and the next paragraph says starting in the fall of 2024 that would be my typo okay um we will make sure that's clear um unfortunately in the last two three weeks with the splitting of the resolutions and we've been rewriting these drafts so many times just in case anybody's reading it i want them to know if you find errors like that please let me know and i'll work with a close because i did ask someone and i'm like why does it take so long you know so okay it doesn't take that long and i want and i actually while you're standing up there richard mr wyman i want to Thank you.

[01:21:16] I know that, you know, you are our traffic safety person when we had the death in Cardinal and, you know, actually the three supervisors who share Cardinal. You know, when we all the way back there, we really started talking about this. And it's really been a group effort to address safety in our community.

[01:21:33] And I'm really just grateful for all the hard work you guys have done. So thank you very much. Thank you. We appreciate the board's support on safety. Thank you. Supervisor Franklin. Sure. I just want to clarify, when I mentioned pedestrian safety, I mentioned it in the sense of a lot of the challenges that we've seen dealing with traffic mitigation discussions, period.

[01:21:53] And then Officer Pete may correct me on this, but for the right on red, that is legal, but you have to come to a complete stop. Is that correct? Okay, so we don't want people to think that you're going to get a ticket for turning right on red in D.C.

[01:22:08] You will, but not here in Prince William County. You have to come to a complete stop first and then make a right on red. If you do not come to that complete stop, you will then be issued a photography enforcement ticket. Correct, Supervisor, and I'll just speak for Sean quickly.

[01:22:26] The state code is you are supposed to come to a complete stop before proceeding on a right on red or a left on red. We feel that given that there aren't a lot of fatalities associated with this, but there are a higher number of injuries with pedestrians in this particular situation, we feel that a little bit of leniency on that is prudent because, again, we don't want to be predatory.

[01:22:50] We want to be practical as possible and meet somewhere in the middle. And that's important to note about the injuries because, again, the whole purpose is we want to reduce these challenges, period. Yes, and that's one reason why we're proposing putting on a tolerance of if you slow down to a reasonable speed, which we still need to determine, and we'll work with everyone on that, you would not necessarily get a citation for that.

[01:23:18] Thank you. Supervisor Lawson? Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Franklin, because I had my, I guess I was in the queue for the same reason, because I wanted Lieutenant Peake to weigh in on the right on red. No offense to our transportation guys, but he is a law enforcement officer.

[01:23:36] and a lieutenant at that. So I guess just a little more clarity. You mentioned, or Rick answered for you, but can you shed some light on the business rules? Because when Supervisor Vega asked Rick that question about right on red, I was confused at your answer along the lines of, we haven't established all the business rules.

[01:23:57] First, we haven't established the vendor. So would we be in charge, and does this board have to agree to the business rules that you reach with the vendor? Or is that something that we give authority to staff? Well, there's a few questions in there, so let me just try to wrap it up a little bit.

[01:24:14] We have to create the business rules, which are separate and apart from the code. We talked about this during the work session. The code is very similar to what state code allows, and those are restrictions that we're guided by. So that's kind of what our ordinance will be. Our business rules can be even more stricter than the state code, And that's where you come up with the tolerance of 13 miles per hour.

[01:24:37] If you go back to the video that we showed from Manassas City's red light camera, if you recall, that speed limit on that violation was 15 miles per hour when the person went through the red light. So that's where we're talking about. We set up the tolerance for that, and we come to an agreement that that is satisfactory to you all through our means.

[01:24:57] And then we put the business rules crafted out of the code into our business rules, which the vendor has to comply with. and man let me just circle back to your question the answer to your question is yes the board will be looking at the business rules before you before we approve the program once we get with the vendor we understand who our vendor is going to be we'll set up a contract that'll set up kind of the business rules we will bring that contract to the board and let you know what we have recommended as those business rules we will even come to you before that we will kind of take the same approach that we did with we'll come talk to you before to let you know what we're thinking and what the

[01:25:34] vendors think and we will then come back with the contract after the RFP is completed we pick a vendor we will come back with a contract that includes those business rules in there and you will be adopting them at that point okay thank you I appreciated both of your answers I just for me I'd like to have some of these measures in place more thank you supervisor angry than supervisor Bailey thank you madam chair I said it before let me say it again let us not forget how we got here. Okay. So we are, we are left with only the tools that the state has allowed

[01:26:10] us to use, which is red light cameras and speed zone cameras only in schools and construction zone, which still leaves me with my, our original problem of Cardinal Drive. Because if you tell Ms. Tabbit's family, you know, that's just one or two, three pedestrians killed in the two or three years. I'm not saying anyone has said that. I'm simply saying that pedestrian, whether they're walking pedestrian whether they're driving a car pedestrian whether they're riding a bike you know we got a speeding problem in this county and so what we're doing here are tools that we can put

[01:26:44] in place that hopefully will bleed over into a mindset that says even on car no drive where there's no cameras and there's no speed zones slow down i mean at some point folks are going to have to realize uh we we don't need to have a body count of 50 before we start saying okay let's put everything we can at this i mean we gotta start somewhere maybe this is small i don't think it's small i think it is small to tell you the truth because i put these i already said it everywhere and i was told i couldn't do this anyway but the fact of the matter is we have a problem and again i'm not going to fault our police because policing has changed technology allows us to do more and

[01:27:21] we should be doing more with technology so i'll just stop there thank you madam chair supervisor bailey madam chair i'd like to call for the question please yeah are we yeah so seeing no further speakers. Seeing no further speakers. Please vote. Motion passes five to three. Supervisors Weir, Lawson, and Vega voting nay. Thank you gentlemen for coming out today and spending time.

[01:27:58] I actually probably have to stay around for the agency report. But you know this is for me this is about responsibility and accountability and people need to pay attention to you know the laws and rules that we have in place with regards to red lights and speeding. So looking forward to seeing how the pilot comes out. Okay, we are now moving on to, oh, okay, we have county executive time. Mr. Shorter, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thanks, Director. Thank you, Madam Chair, Board. Two quick things. One, the memo I sent to the Board yesterday as a response to Supervisor

[01:28:38] Bodie and Supervisor Lawson's request for current year estimates in terms of pay adjustments for police, I'm sorry, for fire and rescue, sheriff, and the adult detention center.

[01:28:53] That memo was sent yesterday, and I suspect that we will discuss it this evening as part of the budget recap. I also sent a memo regarding the third quarter revenue update that is coming a bit earlier than usual, and I have asked our CFO to also be here this evening for budget recap and to provide some additional comment and be available for questions related to the revenue update.

[01:29:22] I also wanted to make you aware of a new campaign. We are launching for Prince William County this month, Litter Free PwC. Absolutely. The timing of the campaign launch correlates with April being Glitter Awareness and Prevention and Illegal Dumping Enforcement Month.

[01:29:44] And the great thing about the program is that it is truly a partnership between the county, our community partners, and community members. I would like to take a moment certainly to recognize the group that has certainly played a pivotal role in the effort.

[01:30:02] Many of them were here earlier, and some may still be in the room this afternoon. Dr. Sam Hill, former provost of the Northern Virginia Community College. Thank you, sir, for being here. Dr. Richmond Hill, current provost.

[01:30:21] Rico Fleshman and Leslie Govera. I may be mispronouncing her name, but Leslie Govera. Yep, there we go. keep Prince William beautiful. Apologize for that Leslie. I am sure you will correct me in person.

[01:30:46] And also wanted just to acknowledge Rachel Johnson, the county's communications office. Of course Nikki Brown and Elijah Johnson for their leadership representing executive management. Also want to thank Public Works, Director Tom Smith, Deborah Campbell, Paul Lynch, Monica Gorman, and Kathy Holtzlander for their support in launching the program.

[01:31:18] Critically important to us. We certainly heard the board and heard your comments some weeks ago about the need for us to pay closer attention to making sure that we were keeping Prince William beautiful, and so I'm certainly excited to launch the campaign. The campaign works to address and includes new public service announcements available in English and in Spanish with a clear call to action for the community as a whole to

[01:31:53] work together to improve and preserve the natural beauty of the county, not only during this special month, but really year-round. The Litter Prevention Program will work to make sure that we are keeping the county clean and litter-free. It also includes promotion of community events like dumpster days, social media engagement, and promotion to continually raise awareness about the importance of this initiative and the collaboration for Litter-Free PwC. So I encourage

[01:32:28] everyone to participate in Litter Free PwC. I hope you will join me in thanking the group who have led this initiative and brought us to this point. We are certainly committed to keeping Prince William County a place of natural beauty and one that can be enjoyed by all. So with that, Madam Chair, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shorter. Okay, that brings us on to the county attorney, Ms. Robel, the floor is yours.

[01:33:01] Thank you, Madam Chair. We have no items for closed session this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that brings us on to Item 8, Agencies. Our first one is the resolution to support the Automated Traffic Enforcement Pilot Program.

[01:33:19] We've talked about that a lot. So if anyone would like to make a motion on 8A. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Vice Chair Bodie, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Any further discussion on 8A?

[01:33:34] I'm sure I can get to my button, but I'm trying to get... Oh, well, so Supervisor Weir, then Supervisor Bodie. Madam Chair, I move to divide the question into three whereazes. Second. There's a motion on the floor to divide the question, I believe, in terms of how do you exactly want to do that.

[01:33:56] You've got three now therefore via resolved clauses. I'd like to vote on each one separately. Yeah, why don't you get the motion, and then we can vote on that. And you made the motion, and who seconded it?

[01:34:11] A motion made by Supervisor Weird, seconded by Supervisor Lawson. Any discussion on that existing motion? I'll just say I don't think we need to divide the question. It's pretty, it's a one. Really?

[01:34:30] Oh, okay. Sounds great. Not a chair. Nope, no discussion, apparently. Can you read it? Yeah. The motion is to divide the question into three parts with each. Now, therefore, we have resolved clause. I want to go back to the motion before that.

[01:34:47] Can you read that? We can't. We have to vote on the question first. Seeing no discussion, please vote. Motion fails, four to four. Okay.

[01:35:05] Going on to the motion that's on the floor. Any discussion? Yeah, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just wanted to reiterate how important I think these different ordinances are, and now we're re-initiating the program itself.

[01:35:22] Just want to highlight that Ms. Langford and other folks like her who have reached out to us in public, also through our various offices, we hear you. We hear you. We know there are intersections and corridors in this county that need attention. We know that we need to do more. I appreciate, again, the partnership we've built with the community and our county staff to move this forward, and I know there's still work to be done.

[01:35:45] I know there are still intersections out there that have been talked about recently that we need to get to. This is step one. I want to acknowledge and highlight this is step one to get us rolling on this, get data make sure we're doing this right making sure that we're not uh having unforeseen consequences with this and just know that we know there are other areas that kind of need work that aren't in the original business rules that i know that folks are working through with the vendor whatever vendor that may be um and we'll continue to work through this process so please continue to reach out to our offices as folks continue to see uh uh concerns whether they be an intersection where they see where they be in uh school zones work zones wherever it is because you are best

[01:36:22] eyes and ears on the ground you experience these corridors and these intersections every single day we do too as we travel through and forth through our districts but you see them too and we're only doing our best work when we hear from you so thank you so much again madam chair are we supporting this in whole thank you supervisor lawson thank you madam chair um you know i wanted to divide the question because i wanted to support two-thirds of it and not the red light cameras which i have already laid out why i don't so um that motion failed but I certainly support two-thirds of the program, and I'll be anxious to see how

[01:36:59] this pilot program goes. Staff, again, I know you've poured a lot of time into this, and thank you for doing that. We do all we can to constantly communicate with the police department about speed enforcement and intersection improvements.

[01:37:15] As much as we want to legislate 100% safety, that's just not realistic in the world that we live in. And I had another point I was going to make, but now it's escaped me. But I, again, just want to thank staff for the diligent work that you've done on this.

[01:37:35] Seeing no for the discussion, please vote. Motion passes 5 to 3. Supervisors Weir, Lawson, and Vega voting nay. Great. That concludes 8A. That's on to 8B. We've been here before. We do not have a public hearing.

[01:37:56] That has been closed on item 8B. It's in the Occoquan Magisterial District. Vice Chair Bodie, would you like to make the motion on 8B? So moved, 8B, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Vice Chair Bodie, seconded by Supervisor Franklin.

[01:38:18] Discussion? Supervisor Bodie? Thank you, Madam Chair. First, thank you to Pastor Pruitt and to the entire congregation and folks I met with from Holiness Tabernacle for bringing this to our attention a couple weeks back and giving us the time to sort of defer and huddle up with staff to find a really good, creative way to give you all the time that you need to transition and get your new sanctuary under construction, which I believe is going to be in Woodbridge, the Woodbridge district.

[01:38:45] So I'm handing them off to you, Sir Asher Franklin. Take care of them, please. But in the meantime, we're more than welcome to stay in your sanctuary as we work through the issues. I also want to thank Rick Canezales wholeheartedly for the work he did. It takes a real guru like Rick to work with the different agencies, whether it be VDOT, whether it be contractors, whether it be utility companies, to work through issues like this so we can see things in a piecemeal way so we can really deliver real results for constituents such as yourselves.

[01:39:14] So I wanted to say thank you publicly, Rick, for your work. I also thank you to the congregation for your understanding and working with us through this process. And with that, Madam Chair, I have nothing else to say. Thank you. Supervisor Franklin. Sure, yes. Just want to thank the congregation for coming out and speaking both the last time and this time.

[01:39:32] I think what we saw is an example of red tape that often takes place in government, particularly local government. But I think what you also saw is how, when we work together, we can get through that red tape in an orderly fashion. So I just want to thank you all for your patience.

[01:39:49] I want to thank Supervisor Bode for resolving this issue rather quickly and working with the congregation. I am looking forward to having them in the Woodbridge District, and I promise to take good care of them. Thank you very much, and thanks for everyone who worked on this.

[01:40:05] Seeing no further discussion, please vote. Vote unanimous. Wonderful. Thank you very much. That brings us on to 8C, the community services to apply for the Virginia Opiate Abatement Authority.

[01:40:23] The resolution, I know we've talked about this in the past. I don't believe we have a presentation, correct? We do? Okay, sure. Yep. Come on out. Ms. Mader, and the floor is yours.

[01:40:40] Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Good afternoon. Should I start going before you get it? I'm here today with the PowerPoint that's in your packet to provide some information regarding our partnership opiate abatement authority application that I hope that you will support so that we can proceed forward.

[01:41:06] Thank you. Which one do I use? The Virginia Opiate Abatement Authority was established by the Virginia Assembly in 2021 as an independent entity to abate and remediate the opiate epidemic in Virginia through financial support from the Virginia Opiate Abatement Fund.

[01:41:41] This is also known as the Opioid Abatement Settlement Agreement. And there are three opportunities for Prince William to gain funds from this settlement agreement. The first one is through direct distributions to the counties.

[01:41:57] And starting in FY22 through FY2039, it is estimated that the county will be receiving $4.3 million in funds that will come directly to the county. The second opportunity is through individual distributions through the opiate abatement authority itself.

[01:42:16] And this opportunity is earmarked for Prince William County, although it must be applied for. All of the funds must, you can also receive an additional 25% incentive, which is referred to as the gold standard, If we agree, and we are planning to agree, that all funds will be used for abatement efforts, that they will be evidenced based in treatment, that reporting outcomes to the opiate authority on an annual basis and allowing the authority to monitor our programs

[01:42:56] and maintaining separate accounting records for the funds. This will allow us to gain the additional 25%, and that total will be $1.9 million. And added together for the direct distribution that we have to apply for, as well as the one coming to the county, it's expected that Prince William County will be receiving $350,000 over 18 years of ongoing funding.

[01:43:22] And the third opportunity is what we're, I'm here today, is the opiate abatement cooperative partnership projects. The authority has not set out really any guidance in terms of restricting the number of partnership projects.

[01:43:38] But the partnership projects must be at least two localities, a city and a county, two cities and a county, or a region, to be able to apply for these funds. The applications that we have been discussing have been with Manassas City and Manassas Park around these partnership applications.

[01:44:05] and George Mason University as a partner. You can have other entities join the partnership as long as you have that city and county partnership. We've partnered with George Mason as they have just been awarded some funding to establish an empowerment center, and we feel that our missions are aligned to prevent opiate use and overdoses.

[01:44:27] This has had to be a very fast collaboration with the cities in order to submit the application by the May 5th deadline to the Opiate Abatement Authority. And we've sought ideas from localities and community groups. And this is a list of some of the ideas that have come forth, with the top three being what our cities and what we are asking you to approve and support as we move forward.

[01:44:54] We're hoping to consider all of the ideas here through some of our existing programs or other partnership applications and possibly grant applications. The region is also, in Region 2, putting out a survey at the end of this week that will go out to Alexandria, Arlington, Prince William, Loudoun, and Fairfax to ask the community to weigh in on the use of settlement dollars, and we will be looking at those results and trying to incorporate some of those ideas and thoughts as well.

[01:45:25] These are the two partnership applications that we will be making, and at present it will not impact any of the individual distributions that Prince William County is set to get, either those that are earmarked that we must apply for or the direct distributions.

[01:45:48] Both applications have a key position known as the community opiate coordinator. This position we've included because we are the only locality that does not have this key position and many of the localities actually have more than one position fulfilling these tasks.

[01:46:08] This position would provide the leadership planning and coordination of all the opiate response efforts within the county and the two cities. The positions will develop and implement data collection tools and conduct analysis related to the response efforts that will be used to make decisions about future initiatives.

[01:46:27] The positions will collaborate with external and internal partners to identify coordinated responses to overdoses and provide leadership and oversight to committees, coalitions, and administrative oversight to the two initiatives if they're funded.

[01:46:43] The one application in addition to the coordinator has the peer recovery pipeline, and this is focused on a phased approach to train and develop work-ready peer recovery specialists for employment with public or private agencies.

[01:47:02] Right now, to become a peer recovery specialist, there is a state certification for that, but it requires 500 additional hours in order to complete that certification, and it's often unpaid. This initiative would offer specialized training provided by George Mason University to develop peers and increase their skills.

[01:47:23] And George Mason would be paying them while they are considered interns in training. And after the George Mason training, community services would expose the interns to different kinds of peer settings and work and then provide them paid internships.

[01:47:40] The cost for this program is $1.6 million, and we're asking the Opiate Abatement Authority for $1.4 million, as Manassas Park is using some of their individual distribution of $2,000 to contribute to this initiative, and George Mason is using up to $215,000 of their empowerment funding to support the peers in this.

[01:48:04] We believe that this peer pipeline will create work-ready peers that are in high demand across our region. and we would train and provide internships a year-long total for up to 20 peers a year.

[01:48:21] The second application speaks to enhancement of treatment services. The office-based addiction treatment is a model of care for individuals with opiate use and substance use disorders. This model of care provides medication management, integrated primary care, and therapy and treatment, counseling, relapse prevention, psychosocial assessments, and interventions.

[01:48:50] While community services has been offering medication-assisted treatment since 2016, this particular model would allow us to expand our capacity, integrate primary care, and engage individuals quicker.

[01:49:10] Right now, the state requires that we offer priority populations treatment within 14 days. This particular model and adhering to these standards would allow us to get individuals that are interested in medication-assisted treatment in within 48 hours and has a 24-hour component to it.

[01:49:29] The cost for this program is $1 million, and the ask for the authority is $800,000 as we anticipate revenue for this particular care model. DMASC considers this a gold standard model and does reimburse at a higher rate.

[01:49:47] If you approve of our two partnership applications with the cities, we would plan to submit this before the May 5th deadline. If awarded by the Opiate Abatement Authority, the award issued is for a period of up to five years at a time.

[01:50:04] We could ask every five years for these initiatives to be renewed for up to 18 years, We provide an annual budget, but if we need the funding for longer than five years at a time, we must reapply and go through the entire process.

[01:50:23] We also would be looking at what funding the Opioid Abatement Authority would provide for these partnerships. The application period does close May 5th. It's planned to reopen October 1st through April 1st. We could make more partnership applications and also plan to see if something isn't funded, whether it would be considered for individual distributions.

[01:50:49] But we really wanted to get the partnership applications in first since there's nothing that counts against us and there's no limit to making those applications before we looked at our individual distributions. We have used, of the two individual distributions that have come directly to the county, last late summer, early fall, it was approximately close to $300,000.

[01:51:15] We've met with the police department and fire and rescue and prioritized a media campaign to prevent fentanyl use in youth and what we're calling leave-behind bags, and these would be opiate overdose education referral information that we would provide for the fire department when they go out and deal with overdoses and in community events to help educate and provide information to connect people to services.

[01:51:44] Any questions? Supervisor Bailey. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lisa, for your detailed report. This is excellent. Can these funds be coincided with the CRC in any way?

[01:52:03] No. These are specific to opiate abatement treatment and prevention, and the CRC is more focused on crisis behavioral health. Now, the CRC will have a withdrawal management component that perhaps over time a partnership or something may be needed, but we're looking really at the withdrawal management specific to the behavioral health crisis.

[01:52:29] Okay, and then my second question is that you said you have two, you want to apply for it by the 5th. Yes. But you will have another opportunity in October. Correct. Okay. Yes. There's another opportunity for further partnership applications.

[01:52:46] Okay. And the third question is, those partnerships, is that something local or is that regional? It can be both. If it's local, then they are requiring at least one city and county to make application, and we have both cities that are willing to get on board with these two applications.

[01:53:07] We are also looking at partnering with our region. Fairfax is leading that application, and we are considering partnering with them around a youth residential substance abuse detox and treatment center. That is a very large ask of the Opioid Abatement Authority and is definitely needed in the region because there is not a residential substance abuse treatment center for youth.

[01:53:33] So we are looking at partnering with them for that application. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bode, then Supervisor Weir. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Matron, for your efforts in this and for the presentation. You mentioned a couple of benchmarks here where you do a little bit more outreach.

[01:53:55] So the front end, you were talking about reaching out to the community and our partners to look at other ideas to use some of this money for. and also at this last and public campaign sort of help raise awareness for what's available out there and really help mitigate it and reduce how many overdoses we see.

[01:54:12] Can you talk a little bit about, and I know this is early on, but some of the ideas you have about how to do some of the outreach. How are you going to be going through media, social media? I know you're partnering up with law enforcement and EMS, like you just said before, but what other ways in which are you looking at and envisioning partnering with folks to get the word out on these?

[01:54:28] So in reference to the community survey that's going out, that is a regional effort that is really about making sure that the community is aware that we have this funding and what do they feel are some ideas or needs so that we're trying to be exhaustive within our community of what needs to be there.

[01:54:50] The fentanyl campaign is one of the initiatives of how we've already spent some or are spending some of the direct disbursement of the funding. And that really has been to try to get the word out to youth in particular who don't realize that pills and some of the substances that they're using are laced with fentanyl and there are overdoses and some deaths occurring.

[01:55:18] So we have found we're partnering on this with the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth for their statewide campaign. So we're sort of starting this, and they are partnering to hopefully take some lessons learned perhaps from Prince William County for the statewide campaign to really help youth understand what fentanyl is, how deadly it is, how it could be in substances, and then also what are signs of overdoses.

[01:55:44] Some of our further ideas, and particularly with the peers and where we're going to have internships, is really trying to get individuals more in the community that are not necessarily coming in for treatment, reaching out to the community. You'll see on your list there's a strike team that we're not proposing funding for now, but we would like to be able to look at considering this where when we get noticed that there are overdoses happening in particular areas that we're able to send out a team with resources and referrals and trying to offer engagement into treatment right away.

[01:56:19] Thank you. Just one small follow-up. Thank you for that, and I appreciate how much you're thinking about this on both ends. I guess my only other question or comment is, should we approve this and begin to move forward I'm going to say this because I always say please reach out to our offices because we want to be messengers for this as well and I'm sure you're already thinking about this Lisa but please reach out to the school division as well because we know a lot of these transactions get started on social media between kids that know each other at school so that I just want to leave that with you as well thank you we've got in one of our that we've already reached out to the opiate pat we have some school representation there so absolutely Thank you.

[01:56:58] Thank you. Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. All in favor of this, but I'm looking at page three of the staff report, and I'm curious. I'm all in favor of five-year budgets, but how reasonable is it to expect that your salary, fringe benefit, and operating costs are going to remain static and not change over a five-year period if this is to remain revenue neutral?

[01:57:31] It is something that we consider not only for the five-year plan, but in sustainability planning. In terms of the peer application, we have planned some of those costs and escalating hourly rates in some of our expenditures.

[01:57:50] We also anticipate that we may not get 20 peers initially to cover some of those costs. In terms of long-term, too, it is a program that we are hoping to train.

[01:58:07] It will show a need and people will actually get hired, and they may be able to be hired in positions before they actually complete the internships. So we anticipate possibly some cost savings then at that time. We also don't necessarily think that we would have to run the peer training for the full 18 years as we may be able to saturate with the peers.

[01:58:32] There also may be some peer learning, some learning from doing this, and my understanding that George Mason is very familiar with training peers and finding maybe better ways to, more cost-effective ways to do this. In terms of the OBAT, some of that has been considered as well in terms of salary increases, but I think we've tried to be somewhat cautious on the Medicaid revenue As I mentioned, by doing the gold standard, we are able to get a rate from Medicaid that is higher.

[01:59:04] So we are hoping that we may be able to generate more revenue than we anticipate. But at the end of the day, you're not anticipating spending any more than you would receive from both the Opioid Abatement Authority and the Medicaid fee revenue combined?

[01:59:21] I think that we're... I mean, that's what it's showing me because you're showing a direct correlation between your expenditures and your revenue totals. I just don't, I just have no expectation that your salaries, fringes, and operating expenses won't increase over a five-year period.

[01:59:39] I'm just trying to be realistic about where the cost is on this. Well, I do have our budget manager with us who is very familiar with these figures, if I may ask her, too. Good afternoon, I'm Robin Fontaine and I am the budget manager for CS.

[01:59:59] So actually what I did was in the first year when we get grant funding, we cannot fill the position, obviously, for full 12 months. So I anticipate the positions to be filled approximately nine months. With this funding, we're allowed to carry over any balances from year to year.

[02:00:17] In addition to that, I budgeted the positions at midpoint of the salary range to give a cushion to allow us to hire folks at different levels and at different times to also provide that cushion for increases as you go and to also take into account that some people may be hired at a higher rate than others.

[02:00:39] So those are the kind of things that I built into. And as Lisa said, the other thing is the revenue generation for the different app, for the especially the OBAT. We will definitely be generating a lot of revenue, and we definitely took a cautious role on what we said.

[02:00:57] we would generate revenue and therefore asking for a little bit more funding in the application. Unfortunately, in the application, we have to give them a static number across all five years. I couldn't give them an escalating number, so I essentially looked and put in the dollar amount and then took the average of all five years, and then that is the amount that we asked for.

[02:01:19] I appreciate your candor and your creativeness in coming up with that, and I don't disagree with the methodology. I'm just, I'm not sure I'm fond of an application that requires you to give them a static number over five years.

[02:01:34] I mean, that's an issue, I guess, for us to deal with. But I do appreciate the explanation. Thank you. Yeah, so essentially I did work in an amount that would allow us to give the typical market rate adjustments, COLAs, performance adjustments.

[02:01:51] And so essentially what I'm asking for builds in that amount over the five years. And then, as Lisa said, we know that, especially on the peers, they will be, you know, not filled for the full amount of time, and the hope for that particular one is that they will become gainfully employed, and, you know, we're hoping, you know, employed here, so.

[02:02:11] i i i get it i just and i really do appreciate the creative manner in which you approach the problem i i'm just a little annoyed at them requiring you to come up with a static number and then having to work backwards to achieve it which that's just bad policy but good job thank you did you get the information you needed in order to vote okay supervisor lawson thank you Madam Chair, I think Supervisor Bode already took care of it, which was to encourage you to work for or work with the school system, right?

[02:02:51] Sadly, some of the opioid overdoses are from Prince William County students or student ages, but it sounds like you're already on top of that. Okay. Seeing no further discussion, please vote.

[02:03:08] Oh, I thought there was a motion. I am so sorry. So moved, then, Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bode. Any further discussion? Please vote. Motion passes, 7 to 1. Supervisor Franklin, abstaining from vote.

[02:03:25] Okay, thank you, Ms. Madren. Thank you and your staff for coming out and answering questions. Appreciate it. Good luck. We definitely need help, so thank you. With that, we are on to, yes, can I get a motion on 8D?

[02:03:45] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any discussion on 8D? Seeing none, please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Supervisor Franklin, abstaining from vote.

[02:04:02] Okay. Great. That moves us on to supervisor's time. I think last week I started to my right. I'm just going to start to my left this time. Oh, actually, can I get a motion on 9A, which is an appointment? Second. Motion made by Supervisor Vega, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Any discussion on 9A? Seeing none, please vote.

[02:04:28] Okay. Sure. Thank you. I appreciate it. Sorry, everybody. So I was late to the game because I'm looking at my agenda in my book and I'm missing number nine. So I'm looking at thinking what the heck happened here and now I'm thinking the agenda is reprinted up here with supervisors time So I think the board packet what maybe he did, huh?

[02:04:55] No, I know something was going on in my office. I don't know. I was missing number nine in my board book and I'm I need to withdraw this appointment for the time being So, I don't know who moved it, but if, oh, Supervisor Vega and Bailey, if you would so kindly withdraw it, Mr. Woodard is possibly going to serve the Veterans Commission at a later date this year.

[02:05:26] I'll go ahead and withdraw my original motion. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so 9A, we'll skip over 9A, and we're not going to vote. Okay. Okay, well, why don't we start with Supervisor Bodie then?

[02:05:43] Yeah. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Not much from me this afternoon. Just wanted to wish everyone had a happy Easter. I know I did. Had a great time over at church on Sunday. It's amazing how quickly children can pick up Easter eggs.

[02:05:59] But when you ask them to clean their rooms, it's suddenly a hardship for them. Just wanted to leave it at that. Hope everyone had a good Easter. Hope everyone has a good Passover, Ramadan, and all the other holy seasons. We're celebrating this time of year. On Saturday, I had a chance to go visit the Casa Brumar Foundation meet and greet over in the city of Manassas.

[02:06:18] It's a great time and opportunity to celebrate and learn more about all the opportunities there are for the LGBTQIA community in our community. I wanted to give a shout out to my Human Rights Commission appointee, Evelyn Brumar, for her constant and dauntless support for that community.

[02:06:35] And that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Bodie. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Boney, that is actually very funny. Coming from a dad, and as a mom, I can relate to that. The only thing that I have today is that I would like to thank Chief Jim Forgo for the 40 years of service to this county.

[02:06:59] If you're listening, Chief, you really touched my heart last Wednesday at the Fire and Rescue graduation, and I know that you grew up in this county and you've served Prince William County for 40 years. And it's been an honor to work with you, and I wish you nothing but the best in your retirement.

[02:07:23] And I just, again, want to thank you. You are the epitome of a public servant. Thank you. Supervisor Weird. I'd simply like to thank the Prince William Conservation Alliance for inviting me out to the Blue Bell Festival at Merrimack Farm. You'll get the bill for my suspension damage later.

[02:07:42] I was really pleased at the size of the crowd, and it truly is one of the most underutilized and undervalued assets of the county. Thank you. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's that time of year. This Saturday, the Lassie League has their opening day ceremony at Cloverdale Park, so come on out.

[02:08:02] And I want to say thank you, Mrs. Angry, for keeping me around for 33 years. All right. Love you. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. I know that I did.

[02:08:17] We were able to attend an early service on Sunday, so I hope everybody had a wonderful time with their loved ones as well. Just one thing, I want to remind folks that on Thursday, April 20th, that is next Thursday, the County Transportation Department will be holding a public information meeting on the 28 bypass.

[02:08:34] The meeting will begin promptly at 630 and will be held at the Manassas Park Community Center. That's all I have. Thank you. Supervisor Franklin. Sure. It's very short. I mentioned this before, dumpster day in spring and fall, May 13th, from 10 to 2 p.m. at Fred Lynn Middle.

[02:08:52] And the fall will be September 30th from 10 to 2 at Ripon. And we will have a shred truck. And then on May 19th, I will host Bike to Work Day at the Woodbridge VRE station. Please pre-register by May 12th for a free T-shirt and the bike raffle.

[02:09:08] And we will have free refreshments and giveaways while supplies last. So I hope to see you all there. I do want to acknowledge the litter campaign that our county exec mentioned. I'm very excited about this. I think it's completely necessary. I'm sure my colleagues can attest to this, but we get a lot of emails and phone calls saying, what are you doing about the litter?

[02:09:31] And so then I send our cleanup crew out to clean up wherever the area is. But we also have to understand that the county cannot do this alone. We have to take responsibility in cleaning up our own communities. When we see trash, we have to make sure that people have enough trash receptacles.

[02:09:50] And we have to work with our HOAs to make sure that they have trash mitigation efforts in place. I know one of my HOAs, they have a fox running around. So when people put out trash for Trash Day, the fox can come in, rummage through the trash.

[02:10:05] So kind of an education effort to that end. But the bottom line is we have to all do it together. We can't just be on the county to keep our communities clean. So I invite everyone to work with us on that. And then lastly, I just want to acknowledge a 17-year-old student who was killed several days ago, a car accident, Freedom High School student, Esteniz Leo Arturo Serrano Hernandez, 17 years old.

[02:10:36] There will be a memorial at Freedom High School on Friday. I think they're still working on the details, but we'll make sure to send that around. But just pray for his family. Reach out if you can. Offer any type of support you can, prayers, whatever, they will take it. And then also to the Freedom High School Eagles community, please reach out to them and send your regards.

[02:10:58] So with that, I yield. Thank you, Supervisor Franklin. I just have a few things. On Wednesday, April 5th, I was lucky to attend the graduation of the ceremony for the Prince William Department of Fire and Rescue recruit class. 22-2. We have a great class of recruits coming on. It's great to see people coming to work in the county.

[02:11:20] Last Saturday, I was able to also attend the Casa Brumor Meet and Greet in Manassas. Their organization works with LGBT community in Prince William County region and does a great job supporting the youth. It was a great turnout. This morning, I got to tour the Public Safety Communications Office because this is telecommunication telecommunication workers week recognition I'm messing that up but it was great and I actually happened to overlap with the s FCC people from the FCC the federal communications corporation who were touring also and and had a great you know very grateful for for all they do in our public safety

[02:11:59] communications office and more on that later so um with that we don't that's it for me you didn't go I am so sorry supervisor Bailey I got thrown off because I went this way and I was I forgot all about you. I am so sorry. Supervisor Bailey, please go. And then I will talk about dinner.

[02:12:24] I'll be fast because I want you to talk about dinner. Thanks, Madam Chair. On April the 5th, myself along with my friends and colleagues attended from Voice met with the Sentara Foundation to present a commendation for their service and their support of the CRC. And it was a wonderful time. It's the Potomac Foundation. They are so very committed to making sure that we are healing minds in our community, and so we thank them for the support and being in partnership with us continually on this endeavor and this initiative. On April the

[02:13:03] 5th, my office hosted our first public safety task force meeting, and thank you to Chief Newsham and his team, Captain Robinson and Kevin Major Hubrich for attending and supporting and to Chief Galen from Dumfries and offering your suggestions on the public safety issues that we're having in the community and we will continue to have those meetings as we invite other members from the community to participate in that endeavor.

[02:13:36] On the 8th I attended the Dumfries Community Easter Egg Hunt, and the Easter bunny, we had two Easter bunnies, and they were alive and kicking with their Easter eggs, and we had a great time over in Jen Park, so thank you to Mayor Derek Wood for that endeavor, and to the Pillars Church for supporting the community in that way. On April the 10th, I enjoyed a wonderful community partnership appreciation luncheon at Grand Park Middle School, where the social worker and the principal were just acknowledging

[02:14:13] the endeavors that we put forth to support the kids at Grand Park Elementary School, so middle school. So thank you so much for that invitation. On the 15th of April, I look forward to attending a town hall with my colleagues and our current delegation just to understand what has occurred in the General Assembly. And then on May 13th, it's that time again, we'll be having our annual collective mental health walk in Local Shade

[02:14:48] Park. So I look forward to partnering with my colleagues in that. It'll be from 10 to 2 p.m. in Local Shade Park. We'll have the same agenda. I'll bring that forth later. But on May the 13th, And we're fortunate to have one of our own to be one of the guest speakers at the 5K Walk, Ms. Allie Krieger, the Olympiad.

[02:15:10] So we're excited about that. And I think that's all, Madam Chair. That's all I have. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Bailey. So that brings us to we have no closed session, so we are going to recess until our evening session.

[02:15:31] It's really early. This is so unusual, I don't quite know what to do. But the board is going to eat dinner tonight at Firebirds for any board member who wants to join us. And we are going to leave from the back at 5.15. So that gives everybody about an hour to come to the back.

[02:15:50] Field trip. Yeah, anyway. And then we will be back at 7.30 for our budget recap presentation and then hearing from the public with our legal budget public hearing. Thank you.

[02:16:41] Evening.

[02:17:37] Welcome back to the board chambers for today's meeting's evening session. We're going to start off with a recap from the county executive on the proposed fiscal 2020-2024 budget. You know, just every, just for expectations, please note that this evening we're here to ask questions so we can make decisions regarding budget markup next week.

[02:17:58] And then after we ask questions, we are going to have our legal budget hearing and to hear from the public. So, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bode? Yeah, just very quickly, so this is all just receiving information, asking questions. We actually have comments and things we want to change next week, right?

[02:18:14] Yeah. And do you want us to wait until after the presentation? Yes, please, and yes. And we're also going to go systematically around the dais so we make sure everybody, you know, gets to ask one set of questions and then another set of questions. To that end, we're going to be going to our dais twice, yeah, allowing board members to ask questions and then move on to the public hearing.

[02:18:33] So with that, Mr. Shorter. Madam Chair. Supervisor Angry. Oh, yes, yes, Mr. Supervisor Angry. Can you read your Coya statement, please? Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, before the budget recap and public hearings on the proposed FY24 budget begins, I need to declare a personal interest in this matter.

[02:18:53] My wife is a special education instructional aide with the schools. As a school employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by this transaction. I will be participating in this matter because I am able to do so fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Angry.

[02:19:10] Mr. Shorter, welcome. Thank you, and good evening, Madam Chair and board. Appreciate the opportunity to address you again as part of the budget recap. I'm joined this evening by our CFO, Michelle Atry, and by our budget director, David Sinclair.

[02:19:30] Also, our deputy county executives are here with me and directors and other leaders in the atrium. So that said, Madam Chair, you've given great ground rules and set a good scope. The objective really of this presentation is to make sure that we are representing what we've heard since the budget was proposed on February 28th.

[02:19:55] As you know, this evening is really intended to represent some of the new information that we have in terms of the general revenue, also to make sure that we are clear about some of your priorities, certainly what we've heard through some of the work sessions through public comment. And this evening, after I'm done with the presentation of these slides, I've also asked our CFO to provide some general remarks in summary of the memo that was sent yesterday

[02:20:35] to, again, provide just an opportunity to ask questions about the revenue and surplus. So we'll start with really where we were on February 28th.

[02:20:54] And so as a reminder, we proposed on February 28th a real estate tax rate of 97.7 cents, down from our current rate of $1.30.

[02:21:10] That still represented a 1% increase over what we are currently paying which would have cost taxpayers an additional, on average, $49. Ultimately, we also, through approval that evening, advertised a personal property tax rate of $2.15, which represented, I should say, we have built into this budget a rate of $1.80, as represented on this slide, which is up from the $1.65.

[02:21:50] We'll talk a bit more about what that means. As you can see on this slide, each 5% or 5 cent increase represents an additional $1.4 million. We also advertised a fire levy rate of 75 cents, which met the rate that was advertised for current year, and that is also 75 cents.

[02:22:22] So I wanted to start there. I think we all felt it important to make sure that we started with where we were on the 28th. And as, again, we heard from you, certainly as we began to understand more fully our actual revenue picture, we are here, and the purpose of this evening is to talk about where we are now in terms of priorities before I officially hand the budget over to you as a board.

[02:22:58] As you can see represented on this slide, four, or essentially, well, I'll say two columns, one representing where we were in February and the other representing where we are now. As you can see, we are proposing a, at recap, a 96.6 cent tax rate.

[02:23:23] This represents a reduction from where we were, obviously. We're also recommending, as part of this recap, a fire levy rate slightly reduced from 75 to 72 cents.

[02:23:40] It's important to note that this is, again, due. In February, the average residential appreciation as we saw it at that time was 6.5%. We now have additional information, which puts the average real estate appreciation rate at 6.62.

[02:24:03] This gives us some additional room to breathe. And because of that, one of the early priorities as defined by this board and certainly discussed on the 28th was the priority to mitigate the increase in real estate assessments for our residents.

[02:24:24] And in that, we have included here as a priority reducing the tax rate. Let me see. And happy to, and I'm sure we will talk a bit more about this slide and what it represents.

[02:24:43] What that means for us in terms of the general difference between what we proposed And what we are proposing now as part of this recap is still represents a $23.4 million increase in terms of the bottom line to the county.

[02:25:05] This also represents, in terms of the county school share, $13.4 million additional going to the schools and approximately just over $10 million to the county.

[02:25:25] In addition to the real estate tax, the additional real estate tax revenue, we wanted to also make sure that we covered and talked a bit about additional revenue that has now come to us and that we wanted to make sure we were clear about and talked about with you, the CRC.

[02:25:52] We receive state funding, actually approved on the 28th, on the same evening as the budget proposal. We approved funding from the state for the CRC and adolescent services.

[02:26:10] As you can see on this slide, we also represent the costs associated with those services are represented as well. So we have the revenue and the expenditure match. There is also additional revenue from the 234 bypass transportation, the special tax district, and the acquisition, if you will, of the property for the CRC.

[02:26:36] As you all know, there's additional lease revenue from the leasee associated with that property that we represent here at the 916,000 mark. Again, this represents the additional revenue as well as the additional expenditures associated with the proposed budget as it currently stands that the staff and team came up with.

[02:27:05] The difference between these two is represented as the net revenue less expenditure line, and we'll talk about that in the next few slides. Ultimately, what this represents for us on the bottom line is about a $10.3 million surplus, if you will.

[02:27:27] We will talk in the next few slides about what that means, given your priorities, based on the individual conversations we had with you and what we've heard from our residents over this last few weeks.

[02:27:44] As is custom here, we are approving a five-year plan, and so we represent over the five-year period what this additional revenue means to us.

[02:28:03] Ultimately, we'll talk a bit about this capacity, and given some of the priorities that we have listed in the following slides, how we fit those into the capacity, the new capacity that we have.

[02:28:23] So I'll say, ultimately, we heard loud and clear. Certainly, as part of the original budget proposal, compensation, staff compensation was one of the number one priorities.

[02:28:40] And so here we're going to talk a bit about the staff's compensation and some of the guidance and direction we have received and certainly some of the feedback that we've received from staff and from the community.

[02:28:57] We have also highlighted some of the items that we've heard from our work sessions and public comment, and we touch on capital in these next slides as well. So what was clear to us based on your guidance and direction is that you wanted to see And we have presented here costs associated with increases to fire and rescue, the adult detention center, and the sheriff's office.

[02:29:34] What you see in the farthest left column is where we proposed on the 28th without the 3% step increase. So with this 3% step increase, that proposed increase for each category here for fire and rescue, it would have been 9.8%.

[02:29:56] For the adult detention center, 7.2%. And for the sheriff's office, 9.8% for this current budget. Ultimately, what we are representing in the following columns is what the increase by percentage it would be to move those employees up by that percentage.

[02:30:23] So by way of example, if we heard from you that we wanted to move police, I'm sorry, fire, rescue, ADC, and sheriff to 12.5%, for example, that would be an additional 7.9.

[02:30:41] That would cost us a reoccurring $7.9 million. That would be, that would not include the additional 3% per step. So we would be essentially at a 15.5% increase for each of the categories, and the 3% is already built in, to be clear.

[02:31:05] So for $7.9 million, at 12.5%, we would need to find the resources for that amount. So I know we will come back to this, but I wanted to make sure that I demystified this slide as best as can.

[02:31:28] Each of the rows in this slide, Fire and Rescue, ADC, and Sheriff, matches with the percentage increase. So again, I am sure I will come back to this slide to answer additional questions.

[02:31:45] What is also represented here on this slide is what we also heard from community and what we heard from you about the need to invest in veterinarian services. What is represented here is the three FTEs we believe it will cost.

[02:32:05] The police department sent in a proposal outlining expenses associated with this operation. And so we have here the FTEs that it will cost, as well as the operational expense associated with the service as well.

[02:32:23] In addition to veterinarian services and compensation, there were a number of items in our individual conversations with each of you that also came, was clear were priorities for this board and for our residents.

[02:32:44] And so we have represented those priorities here and expect that we will go through some conversation and discussion about what each of these represents. We start with community events. This funding represents costs associated with 1.5 FTEs, but includes, and I'm happy to go over it in more detail if needed, large-scale community events that this community has grown used to having, as well as some

[02:33:16] additional funding for smaller-scale events. Landscaping, this came from a conversation with a few of you as well, and represents costs associated with planting and maintenance in each district, and that includes the cost in perpetuity.

[02:33:41] So it would cost us to make sure that we are maintaining the plots that we plant in the FY24 budget year in perpetuity. Reforestation program, this is tree planting and the cost associated with maintenance.

[02:34:02] The grant writers, we heard publicly about this and certainly in private sessions with you, the need for us to fund grant writers and take it more full advantage of the state federal funding that could be brought to bear here in Prince William County.

[02:34:20] We are obviously not sure where these FTEs will program into, whether we would house them centrally in finance or we would put them somewhere else in the organization. But that we will certainly figure out if the board decides to move forward with this cost in these FTEs.

[02:34:42] The park and recreation maintenance cost here is a build back, if you will, into our budget for the costs associated with three FTEs. This cost would be used, the funding would be used to support a janitorial contract to help maintain restrooms within our system and allow for the staff that's currently providing that service to focus on parks.

[02:35:13] and park maintenance directly. The tourism master plan, we heard from Supervisor Bailey on this. And again, this would be really a master plan that helped countywide and could be brought to certainly provide some additional expertise and guidance, strategic guidance on providing a more strategic tourism effort for our county.

[02:35:45] We've also represented on this slide, you know, what it would cost to increase the current public defender salary supplement. We, based on the state's contribution of 7% and our current contribution of 15%, we are now at a point here where we are showing what it would cost for each 5% addition to that supplement.

[02:36:18] And so we give an example here where we increased from 15 to 25 and what that cost would be. I did send out a memo some weeks ago outlining where we were with the Affordable Housing Fund and the need to move the affordable dwelling unit ordinance forward and then attach the fund to that ordinance.

[02:36:45] In terms of capital additions from our February 14th presentation, we have here represented facilities associated, well, a master plan, which was approved via directive last week.

[02:37:09] and the senior center library and co-located senior center and library were already pushed forward by way of master plan, and we are now at a point where we are prepared to include those if the board moved in that direction.

[02:37:29] We also have here a senior center and the Quantico Creek. This amount, the $2.5 million, has not been vetted by our Public Works team, but wanted to include the amount that we discussed here, and we are certainly happy to do some additional research if the board decided to move in this direction.

[02:37:54] We also have funding here for the Dale City Master Plan, which the board has already decided to move forward, or at least provide a directive on. So what we have in terms of our proposal, all of the numbers built into this budget assumes a $1.80 personal property tax.

[02:38:24] And so what you see here is what it would cost us at this tax increment. So we advertised a rate up to $2.15, and you see here represented on this table what that $2.15 would get us, but we have also walked it back what $2.10 would get us, what $2.05, et cetera, et cetera.

[02:38:49] What you see represented in the numbers is the fact that we are already on schedule to go to $2. And so by next budget year, any, well, I'll explain in the future slides what this revenue actually means and how it will actually not represent the same amount in future years because we anticipated going up to $2.

[02:39:17] All right. I think I explained that well. All right. And here it goes. So, yes, this represents what in FY25, 26, 27, and 28, what those same numbers on the previous side mean for us in terms of actual revenue.

[02:39:39] And so I'm certainly happy to answer questions associated with this after we hear from Michelle. This slide just represents the remaining milestones in our budget calendar.

[02:40:00] Tonight, obviously, we're presenting as budget recap. Next week will be our first actual markup where the budget is essentially yours, and we begin to hear from you in terms of priorities and direction, and on the 25th, actual budget adoption.

[02:40:21] And so with that, Madam Chair, I don't know if we want to take questions or hear from Michelle Atreid in terms of a summary of the revenue. Actually, I'd just like to go forward and have a summary of revenue and get it all the way, and then we can sort of methodically ask questions going down the dais.

[02:40:59] It's just one slide. Good evening. Michelle Atreid, your CFO. As part of this budget recap, the county executive asked me to update you on the status of the third quarter general revenue update. And we are projecting a $34 million increase for the third court, well, for the year, but we've updated it to $34 million.

[02:41:19] The main drivers of this increase is personal property tax. About $22 million of that is related to vehicles. As you know, in the last two years, we've been in unprecedented times where vehicles have appreciated versus depreciated. And this time last year when we were projecting the dollars, we did not have the NADA, J.D. Powers guides loaded into our system.

[02:41:40] So we were guessing a little bit, not guessing, but it was not as precise. This year we have sped that time frame up so that we could get those values loaded in for the FY24 budget and hopefully have a much more accurate prediction here. The other piece of this is about $6 million, which is from Business Tangibles, our commercial side, primarily data center driven.

[02:42:04] Motor vehicle license tax, small increase, I won't really talk about that. Sales tax has just been another one that has continued to grow year over month over month, year over year. At some point, we keep thinking it's going to slow down, but we are expecting a small increase there.

[02:42:20] Food and beverage tax, as you know, that's a new tax for us this year. We originally set the adopted budget at like $24 million, which we knew was a pretty, I think I said this time last year when I was presenting, It was a very fiscally responsible amount because we weren't sure how long it would take businesses to get on board, the enforcement efforts and notification.

[02:42:41] And we increased that to $30 million. We're now, it looks like we're on track for $35 million. What's challenging is it's not coming in in systematic amounts each month because we're continuing to get new businesses online and they're having to pay, you know, the taxes from prior month. And so it's not really easy yet to have a trend analysis on it.

[02:43:00] But we do think we're on track to get about $35 million this year. The other one I want to talk about is investment income. The main drivers there is the Fed fund rate. Interest rates are continuing to rise, and that has been beneficial to our portfolio. We've been able to recognize some gains on investments. And so all in all, it's about $34 million total.

[02:43:19] Obviously, that would get split with the schools as part of the general revenue share agreement. We would then follow your principles of sign. Well, first we would fund our unassigned, our unassigned fund balance with that surplus. then we would share it with the schools, and then we would fund our other reserves, such as revenue stabilization, EDOF, and then our capital reserve, of course.

[02:43:37] And I'm happy to take questions. Okay. So now we're coming to the question portion of the evening. I'm assuming everybody might have questions. Not sure. We can just sort of work our way down the dais.

[02:43:55] Supervisor Angry, could we start with you? You're good. Okay. Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. If we could start with slide six on this one and get a housekeeping issue out of the way.

[02:44:10] I kind of have an issue with conflating the 234 bypass with the CRC. Your CRC adolescent services funding and your CRC adolescent services expenditure cancel each other out.

[02:44:26] Your 234 bypass has nothing to do with CRC property acquisition lease revenue or the debt service. So your actual net should be negative 737, 777. I mean, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[02:44:43] It should be in separate categories. I'm just going to interject and say this was just additional agency revenue, which is why this wasn't meant to be a CRC slide. Madam Chair, I'm well aware of that. I'm saying, generally speaking, from a fiscal standpoint, you want to report it in different categories so that you don't conflate one with the other and give it an expenditure total at the bottom.

[02:45:05] If you wanted to have 234 bypass separately and then do a total net at the bottom, that would be great. But including it with the CRC expenditures and the CRC funding gives you somewhat of a misleading answer at the outset.

[02:45:21] This is my housekeeping issue and sort of, you know, the way I look at things. I appreciate that. I think what the team was representing here is just the revenue. But I certainly understand your point. It would be more transparent if you just broke that out separately.

[02:45:38] I mean, you could literally put it at the bottom and give a net total after you give the net for the CRC, but by putting that in there, it doesn't give you quite a true picture based on the way that you have it represented, just the way I look at budgets and that.

[02:45:55] I just want to confirm a couple of things. If I understand this correctly, the additional revenue to the general fund generated by the newly proposed real estate tax at 966 is an additional little over 10 million dollars and if we left the computer and peripherals at 215 that would generate another 4.2 million for

[02:46:24] roughly 14.4 total that is correct okay um tipping females and if i understood mr treed properly of the personal property tax 23 million roughly is attributed to vehicles and only 6 million to peripherals in terms of the increase? Are you talking about the FY24? Yes, the increase. Yes, the increase in FY24, the $23 million is all real estate taxes. I was speaking on Q3 revenues.

[02:47:01] I was looking at the personal property tax one. I don't have that sheet in front of me. Yeah, that one. Okay, yes. That one, roughly $22 million was vehicles and about $6 million was data centers. $22 million, $23 million. So it's mostly vehicles and not peripherals. That's Okay, I just wanted to confirm that, and that's all I've got for the moment.

[02:47:35] Okay, moving down the line, Supervisor Lawson. Thank you. So back to the 234 bypass district. Yes. I do remember, and I don't know if Rick's in the room, you know, every year we have in March a meeting of supervisors from the Gainesville-Brentsville Poles District.

[02:47:58] I don't know if Supervisor Bailey, are you in the 234? tax district well anyway i recall that we're coming close to the end uh where everything will be paid off is that right dave 2000 2026 i mean i'm sorry 2026 yes thank you mr shorter um so december 27th 2026 okay so it's it's i think it's additional two cents if i remember correct

[02:48:26] yes um on their real estate bills so where do we get the a million 80 000 um and as as much as i support the crc i'm also struggling with juggling that money when i'm wondering if and i'm not i'm not saying that i just want to ask questions so want to be clear um we if we could find the funding for the additional operation costs of CRC elsewhere and maybe in the transportation district this year,

[02:49:03] if that gets us to where we need to be prior to the expiration day of 2026? Right. I'm not sure if I follow fully. Okay, so I'm sure you're aware of this supervisor lawsuit, just for the folks listening. The transportation district was originally created way back in 1991 want to help pay the district's cost and that's just it the property owners petitioned the county to create the district okay to help finance the 234 the original 234 bypass road project

[02:49:42] the county's general fund has already paid the debt service on that project okay it is the district that is responsible for financing the portion of the project within its district boundaries and for several years um the uh commercial assessments and that's another key point of this it's it's commercial properties that have the additional two cent rate it does not apply to residential correct um they kind of the the assessment of the district kind of trickled

[02:50:17] along. It was slowly, slowly appreciating, but it was never, um, on track to reimburse the general fund for its full share of costs within the district boundaries. Um, that has changed within the past couple of years. And because of, uh, rising commercial assessments within the transportation district, it is reimbursing the County's general fund that has already paid the debt service costs for the original refinancing. Okay. And so we're seeing, depicting this as a revenue coming into the general fund for costs that the general fund has already incurred. It's

[02:50:56] a reimbursement, so to speak, and it falls to the bottom line in terms of the proposed budget. Yeah. So essentially it's a surplus of that tax district. Is that a way to know? I would say, I would characterize it as it's money that is owed the general fund.

[02:51:13] i get that that we have spent that essentially we have expended over right right um where i'm going is because a few years ago rick gonzalez was talking to us about maybe raising it to two and a half cents or and and that didn't that we didn't have to do that but it's my understanding we're now on pace to maybe the district pay the county back ahead of schedule is what and i maybe misunderstood the conversation a month ago, but I'm asking the question, essentially, is there

[02:51:49] a path where we could pay this, the district could pay the county back sooner so that we can end that special tax district and then find the money for the CRC elsewhere? Is that an option?

[02:52:06] If I understand it correctly, I mean, if it's a special tax district, then the tax amount has already been established and I'm not sure that we are in a position to to change that what I'm hearing is that we have essentially paid the debt service so what what is being collected now is all sort of general general revenue Dave feel free to jump in I would just add that the two cent rate has been advertised for fiscal 24 but that is certainly an option moving forward

[02:52:42] we are on track for the district to end with the fiscal year 2027 budget okay that's where i was going like are we on track to end it sooner than i believe ahead of schedule i i wouldn't say ahead of schedule okay it's going to be close but so it's not it's here oh no it's not rick so it's not imminent like next year or this year no okay that's what i need to know i won't make it an issue then because i thought it was sooner than 26 or 27 which is why i was raising it because of course

[02:53:17] i'm thinking well then i'd prefer to give that money back to the the commercial industrial districts that are paying into it if it could be paid off earlier but it sounds like that's not an option it's certainly not the case in fiscal 24 okay we will i promise you we will be keeping a close eye on that okay in some next budget years okay so it is looked at every year

[02:53:41] Okay. All right. Sorry for all that long division on that. All right. And then regarding the commercial and industrial, the newer assessments or the new values that have changed the dynamics of the real estate, right?

[02:54:02] correct do we have an average of what those assessed values are it's my understanding from a quick phone call with Ms. Atreid yesterday data centers have risen at a rate higher than the rest of the commercial industrial properties hi yes so commercial properties on average overall have appreciated about 18 percent and if you break that down by sector industrials 19 percent data center, 15%, and then retail, 4%, hotels, 5%, and office, 3%.

[02:54:40] Okay. I can't write that fast, but, Michelle, I bet you would put it in an email to us. I think it went out earlier today. Good to know. Okay. Yes. Okay. But if you didn't get it, I'm happy to send it. Great. So just real quick, you said on average it's 18? On average, 18% across all commercial property types.

[02:54:57] Okay. The leading drivers, the largest increases are in the industrial at 19% in data centers. at 15 percent wow so industrial at 19 wow okay thank you i think that's all i have for now thanks thank you madam chair uh mr shorter county staff thank you for the presentation thank you for hearing a lot of our concerns as we've gone through this budget process and and highlighted some of the tweaks we can make next week uh my first question is on slide 11 um and i know that

[02:55:34] you actually explained this quite well mr shorter i just want for the public and for the i see a lot of our our folks in the fire and rescue department here so um that's like exactly so you you've broken up well in that last section where we have the proposed increase um and that doesn't include the three percent uh uh cola that's just the the market adjustment right and so you'd be looking like you said at at uh 9.8 uh 7.2 9.8 there correct then in that right portion um same thing Those are the costs of increasing to the market adjustment to 10%,

[02:56:12] but that doesn't also include the COLA, which is still going to be added as well. So for an increase to 10%, that's the market increase, and we would still increase the initial 3% through the COLA to 13%, then to 15.5%, 18%, and then finally 20.5%.

[02:56:29] You got it, except we call it step for Labor Region. But yes, that is exactly correct. What we wanted to represent here is more consistent with the pay scale, the pay analysis that was done.

[02:56:47] So we wanted to only include the market adjustment on this slide. But we did not want to misrepresent the fact that there was still a 3% step increase, that that step increase is built into the proposed budget and does not need to be accounted for again in these numbers.

[02:57:07] So what you see represented here by way of 4.7 at the bottom line, if all three public safety departments, if you will, were included, represents a 10% increase across the board for all three.

[02:57:29] And I'll leave it at that. I was going to say something that I won't leave to you all. Fair enough. And I appreciate that clarity there. I wanted to make sure that folks were aware that, to your point, there's not going to be a hidden increase in the expenditures needed because you've already built in that 3% step into what's already been done.

[02:57:49] We're not doing this instead of, essentially. Next slide is slide 12, just to dig a little bit deeper into some of these. Community events, you spoke to it earlier. Can you give us sort of a little bit, spark this version of the kind of events that you were touching upon with that extra, those extra 1.5 FTEs?

[02:58:08] Sure. So events include the Neabsco Boardwalk Light Show, the Patriots Day celebration of public safety personnel at the park in Gainesville.

[02:58:29] I'm sorry, I don't have the full language here. But it also includes the five at McCourt Plaza on Fridays. So it includes mental health walk in Potomac District and the staffing of 1.5 FTEs.

[02:58:53] Dave, is there? Okay, Cat Harpin. Cat Harpin. So I appreciate that. I need that list. I wasn't listening, but that's okay. Could that list be set to the board at some point? Sure, happy to. This is just by way of example of some of the large-scale events.

[02:59:13] I think what we are also wanting to make clear is that the funding is not limited to just those events. So there are obviously other smaller-scale events that we would like to include. I imagine that Seth and Parks and Recreation will have some perspective on other community events that would be included.

[02:59:36] Sure. Thank you. And then to jump down to reforestation program, FTE associated with that, are there any other operational costs built in that 302,000? Trees, you know, maintenance costs, anything like that? Or is it just the single FTE position that's at 302?

[02:59:54] It does include trees, shrubs, planting, the maintenance associated with. There are some ongoing costs that we assume. And if you want to jump in, Dave.

[03:00:11] If you recall, Mr. Bode, there may have been some information sent by the Department of Public Works to the board that laid out some various options for the board to consider in terms of the magnitude and the scope of the program. What we were envisioning here is maybe less by way of maintenance.

[03:00:30] This would be a voluntary program with property owners and HOAs. largely it would be uh the trees the shrubs uh native of course um but that that would have to be something the board would have to i think decide at a future date in terms of the scope of the program and specifically how it would operate yeah so this is sort of foundational the voluntary foundational power part of that yes sir correct sorry to interrupt but i appreciate that grants writers you said that you guys aren't really sure where they're going to be housed

[03:01:04] necessarily right now um but i'm i'm would imagine that on those lists could be parks and rec because i know there's been a need uh requested there sustainability that's another thing that's been discussed recently so what all could you add a little bit any at all to that on some of the things you're thinking of in terms of those grant writers yeah i would actually i would work with the team on it but i i wouldn't put them in a in one of the agencies that um that ultimately may be a large so i imagine that many of the grants that we would be writing for would be sustainability

[03:01:38] they certainly would be parks and recreation but i'm not sure that i would house the writers there i may house them in management and budget there will certainly need to be a go no go process many of these grants come with some requirement for match and we need to more centrally control as an organization when we are making the decision proactively to apply for grants.

[03:02:04] So I would want to put them somewhere within the organization, even in executive management, where we had some level of line of sight on what it would actually cost us and the quick ability to get to a yes or no in terms of applying.

[03:02:25] Before I leave that, just a final thought there. I hope that some interactivity there might be thought of in terms of our congressional offices. Because we have, especially with that new Congresswoman Spanberger, for our area, there's a lot of interest and synergy there between our, what we're doing on the county government level, and things they can help us out with.

[03:02:43] So I'm hoping that as we get more grant writers, there's that more thought of collaboration with our federal and state partners. 100% agree. I imagine that for us, this is a start. We, a grants office is probably more appropriate for an organization this size where we are not just writing grants, but we are doing grant management.

[03:03:03] And I would say grants management centrally to say we are managing just, not just the inflow, but the actual monitoring of grant costs or grant expenses. So two FTEs to start the process. I imagine that those two FTEs will pay for themselves in time.

[03:03:23] just in terms of the number of grants and grant funding that's out there and available. And then two final ones, if I could, Madam Chair. The Public Defender Local Salary Supplement. I appreciate that you guys included this. I know quite a few of us, including myself, mentioned this in our conversation.

[03:03:40] Do we have data on what neighboring jurisdictions are doing with their salary supplements so we can compare what we're doing before markup next week? I actually have not seen that research. I would want to do some homework with the staff to see what other jurisdictions are doing by way of supporting state employees via supplement.

[03:04:04] Yeah, because I've been on record supporting this. I just don't want to get to a point where we undershoot where we go, and we're still in that arms race competition as we lose quality folks to other jurisdictions. My final question is about the Affordable Housing Fund. I won't step on Supervisor Franklin too much with this question, but can you add any more elaboration?

[03:04:23] Because you mentioned that, yeah, we have to get the ADU ordinance in first, but you have it here. So I'm assuming there's some thought into leading with some money into that fund before we get the ordinance. I do. We have discussed as a team some opportunities to redirect funds that would be certainly within scope.

[03:04:44] There's a reserve that we could certainly tap into. The challenge is or the opportunity here is that we need to define via ordinance what this fund will do.

[03:05:01] And I think the Virginia Code is clear that we need to have that ordinance speak to the fund before we create the fund. So we will certainly be prepared to come to the board with funding options, both short-term and long-term, once we get to a point where we have an approved ordinance.

[03:05:25] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. County Exec, thank you so much for the continuity that you've presented for us from last year's budget to this year's budget in terms of just process and format.

[03:05:42] It's easy to follow. And so on page six, I'm just going to go through quickly. My questions will be very clarifying just before we go to next week, just very clarifying. So for the CRC piece, what I'm seeing is the $343,000 as revenue surplus, am I?

[03:06:03] You are correct. Okay. And so that says for me, as we go through the initiative of the CRC, that we're on track in terms of the funding, but also that gives us an opportunity because in terms of the strategic plan for the CRC, we're looking at ongoing funding potentially from the state and from DBDHS to support it for the ongoing.

[03:06:27] So it won't be, you know, just us carrying the financial burden. Am I? To be clear, you're saying that the state support is directly focused on the CRC and CRC services. Yes. That state funding, to be clear, is for all intents and purposes, special purpose.

[03:06:47] We can't use that state funding for other general fund expenses. Absolutely. So if I'm understanding your question, yes, the answer is the thinking is, based on the work that you all have done, that this will be ongoing and that we have gotten some indication from the state that they are going to continue to support the CRC.

[03:07:12] Thank you. That's clear for me. And then as we go on to page, I appreciate the budget markup considerations because that was on point. The only one, well, no, only one, it bodes well that that's our focus. And so that helps me in terms of future requests.

[03:07:32] Also, just clarity again, the 3% is not added into those numbers that we see on page 11 for the budget options. that is correct okay just wanted to make sure but your proposed to us the 6.8 4.2 and 6.8 is what we got from Gallagher your proposal that is correct okay that is correct that is not so we're not at that juncture we're going forward okay just wanted to make sure now under that for the animal services for the veterinary clinic that was a request from we've been like the CRC

[03:08:09] We've been on this train also in making sure that we are supplying, servicing our family members on our four legs as well. So the staffing, three FTEs, that's the veterinarian and the two techs.

[03:08:25] Am I correct? Is that the veterinarian? I just want to make sure that that's correct. Okay. Now operations, what is that? That is the materials, the equipment, that is pharmaceuticals, the cost associated with running a veterinarian program based on the police department's sort of forecasted, if you will, proposal associated with the program.

[03:08:57] So that's just not from the community or from the board. That is also inclusive of the police recommendation. That is their recommendation. Yes, that is their recommendation. Okay, perfect. And then most of the questions that I had, Supervisor Bode has asked already on page 12.

[03:09:16] My focus, really, the grant writers, two FTEs, and again, point of clarification, that is not necessarily for something specific, but for the county to be able to take through grant writing and subject matter experts for the county to take advantage of other opportunities like the legislative grants that have been proposed to us currently.

[03:09:46] Yes, the full scale. And appreciate, I think, the kind of across-the-board support for this. And I'll say that, and I think I've sort of alluded to it already, the grant writers would be specifically focused on writing for the purpose of pulling federal and state support and funding. There are a number of other skills needed associated with monitoring, oversight, and ensuring that we are actually leveraging these funds in the way that

[03:10:21] we should. And so I would say that this is just a start, and I'll likely be coming back to you all next year with some opportunities for growth in this, what I think is going to likely be a grants management office. Oh, that's awesome. Because I think the agencies have done extraordinarily well, I know, in the last three years providing grants to us, but this just expands that. So I appreciate that. The other two things on this page is the tourism master plan. This is something that I know that the director from Parks and Rec, I thought I saw Seth something, oh, there he is right there,

[03:10:58] that he'd been talking to us about in the past, but it really started growing out of COVID. And so I appreciate you including this on this slide because it gives our community an opportunity as it relates to Parks and Recs to grow.

[03:11:16] And then public defenders supplement. Now, that is not, I think that this is the example increase that you've said from the 15% to 25%.

[03:11:32] I agree with Supervisor Bode. I would like to see a comparison, if you would, with other regions, other counties, so that we'll make sure that this is something that we're in par and it's accomplishing what needs to be accomplished.

[03:11:55] Thank you very much. I appreciate that, and we will do the benchmarking and provide that to the board in preparation for your markup. Okay. Thank you. And it goes without saying, I don't want to beat a dead horse about the Affordable Housing Fund.

[03:12:10] That is absolutely needed. Let me go to my last slide on the 13th, page 13, for the Quantico Creek. I want to thank you and thank Public Works. This is something we've been working on quite a bit over the last three years as well.

[03:12:28] This will offer an opportunity once we focus on this. And I know there's, I don't know about the matching funds or anything. We probably need to delve a little bit more. But this will help us from offerings from a commercial tax base once we get this done for the district across the county.

[03:12:49] So I appreciate you including that. I just wanted to bring that to the fore. And then my question on the senior center, revitalization of an existing building. There needs to be more homework there? Is that what the TBD is?

[03:13:04] Correct. Okay. We'll have to do some additional work in terms of coming up with an actual number. I don't know, and maybe the team could help me with this, if a master plan has been done for this. side. We would, based on the notes here, would be looking at an existing facility. So this is a renovation versus a new build, if you will. So yes, it will require some additional costing.

[03:13:35] Okay. I just needed points of clarity, so I appreciate it. Thank you very much. We got one more thing. If I may, on the senior center, a master plan is actually a terrific idea on that, because revitalization costs obviously depends on the building that's being considered.

[03:13:54] We have to make sure it's sized correctly. Plus, we need to also evaluate the operating costs, not only for the facility, but the new program operating out of there. And so we have more homework to do with staff on that for the board so that we capture all the costs of this idea.

[03:14:16] Okay, thank you. And it's a part of the strategic plan for the Potomac District. But I do understand the process that we have to go to to get to where we are. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Bailey. Supervisor Franklin.

[03:14:32] Thank you. Don't really have any questions, just some comments that I'd like to make, particularly on the residential. I'm happy that we're going down again. So I think that's hopefully welcoming news to those paying attention. Hopefully we, well, I don't have questions, I have comments.

[03:14:51] So hopefully we can support those efforts. I also like to say for our public safety, including fire and rescue and our ADC, I think it is time that we have a real discussion about what those numbers look like and what we can do for those employees, not because they ask, but actually because we need to be competitive.

[03:15:16] So I'm hoping next week we can really drill down and get to a compromise, particularly for fire and rescue, that everyone can live with. Landscaping, I hope my colleagues, even if you don't support the rest of the budget, that you will at least support landscaping activities, because particularly in the Woodbridge district, it's been quite a challenge, particularly the North Woodbridge corridor.

[03:15:42] So, obviously, it has to be each district, but in Woodbridge, we've had quite the issues there. And so, obviously, we're revitalizing that corridor, but landscaping is going to be incredibly important. Affordable Housing Trust Fund, we've had discussions about this.

[03:16:00] That's a directive I issued probably two years ago, and so it is time, I think, that we have a discussion about actually funding it. And then I'll just kind of point out the rec center and the senior center. Those are things important to the Woodbridge District as well.

[03:16:16] I've said this a thousand times, but if you've been to the senior center, you know it sits on a hill. There's not great parking. We have to finally kind of come to a resolve in terms of are we going to have a new senior center, and I think we should. The library is still going back and forth on do we do a new library, do we remodel the current library.

[03:16:34] So those are all discussions that I'm hoping we can have next week. So thank you. Thank you, Serraza Franklin. Serraza Vega, any questions? So just to be clear, what you have listed here is for us to decide whether or not we're going to go ahead and fund it, correct? Correct.

[03:16:50] Thank you. My question is, I know that I've asked for relief for spouses who have lost their significant other veterans who have died in the light of duty, and I mentioned that as one of my interests. I don't see it here. But just want to ask you, Michelle, if that is still estimated to cost about $350?

[03:17:07] Yeah, my estimate has not changed on that. Okay. I can talk to you about it offline. Yes. Thank you. Sure. So we've gone down the line once, Madam Chair. So I'll just say you're up next.

[03:17:22] Yeah, I'm up next. Okay. I thought she had more questions. Okay. Just a quick two things. Can we go back to slide six? So I'm going to agree with Supervisor Ware for a moment and say, you know, it is agency revenue and additional expenditures, but I don't want anyone to conflate that the 234 bypass district is paying, somehow paying for the CRC, or that they're tied together, right?

[03:17:56] That, you know, it's not meant to, this just happens to be extra revenue that we're getting in from the 234 bypass transportation district because of the increase in appreciation of the commercial land, and we just happen to have extra money, but it's not really tied to the CRC or paying for the CRC, just so everyone's clear.

[03:18:14] That's absolutely correct. And I'll say that what we were representing on this slide was really a need for us to make sure that we were clear on February 28th when we proposed the budget. We proposed it with certain assumptions around revenue, where those assumptions have changed because we've received new revenue and indication of additional funding.

[03:18:39] That's what's really represented here, and you're right that these are not tied together in any way. So I, the supervisor, we're, you know, so I understand, I mean, but I know you didn't present them to conflate them that way. I just want everybody to clear. I just have a really specific question, and it's on slide 11, and it's, you know, we have fire and rescue, adult detention, and the sheriff.

[03:19:04] I would like to add and have staff over the, you know, give to the board before next Tuesday those same numbers for the public safety communications office. the people who are are like shift workers and their managers sure is that that's not that i don't think it's that much work and so and just just in the same kind of format if we could get that for the public safety communications office okay and then send out the whole board okay so

[03:19:40] um everybody's gone once um would anybody like to go again supervisor angry yes thank you Madam Chair, we'll stay with this slide right here. The assumes no increase in adoption fee. What is that for?

[03:19:58] Where does that fit in here in operations? So as part of some of the public comment and some of the questions received, it was assumed that we would raise some of the funding associated with this program by increasing adoption fees for residents or pet owners or would-be pet owners.

[03:20:20] And instead, we held the current adoption fee constant. So we did not assume any increase. So the cost that you see here doesn't assume any change in the current adoption fee. And because I heard some citizens last week or whenever I was saying that's something they could live with, I believe I heard that.

[03:20:46] So I don't know if that's something to maybe just kind of check if that's going to benefit somehow us getting there. then, you know, if they were kind of asking for it, I think it's worth investigating what that increase could look like. Because I think the other vet doc came in and said those prices are very high.

[03:21:02] Like, we got the best rate in town, even to the point that it could go up a little bit and still be a great rate. So I think, you know, for that particular piece, because I'm all, as you know, for those three positions there, there might be something just to look into. I just want to make that publicly known since it was mentioned.

[03:21:20] I think we have a little more on that. So if I remember the first public hearing correctly on March 21st, and I hope I'm not mischaracterizing any good intentions, I think some of the speakers were suggesting that the cost could be defrayed by increasing the existing adoption fee.

[03:21:43] One example was from $45 up to $200. That's not necessarily a recommendation of county staff, But we do have some information if the board is interested in increasing the fee to help defray some of the total costs that are represented on this slide.

[03:22:02] We can send that information out to the board for your consideration next week. And I would only say that because I think it's worth asking since I do believe we heard folks mention that. So, I mean, I'm not saying do it, but it's worth us taking this next week to kind of fill out the folks and see if that's something.

[03:22:20] And, again, staff isn't necessarily making that recommendation, but we'll provide the information for you to get started. And I just have one more question on slide 12, and it goes to the community events with the 1.5 FTE, and I think it's like, yeah, $550K.

[03:22:37] So if I heard you correctly, you said, like, events that the districts are doing, such as, you know, you read off a list of events. I did, yep. So has the county, because you would notice as being here doing this, has the county funded local events like that before out of general funds?

[03:22:58] Would this be new, or is this something that we've done in practice? Not typically. Right. For example, the Neabsco Holiday Lighting was done with a grant last year.

[03:23:16] The grant has run out. That's going to cost about $150,000, I believe, to continue. you we have smaller community events i know supervisor bailey you have your your mental health 5k walk coming up here in a few months while that may only cost you know so and i'm only bringing this i ask this question because this is new i mean what is the parameter for something like this i mean you have seven districts here and so what's going to be then i mean we this is the discussion point we probably should really be talking about here versus just doing this

[03:23:53] because we probably want to set something that says two each or one each or none, personally, but to figure that out, I just caught that. I didn't know what that was, and then you started reading off events, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, this seems new to me. Yes, it's a good point and one that we would absolutely have to create some guardrails around in order to be fair.

[03:24:16] I do, you know, I would say without having the benefit of being here and seeing how creative the staff have been in terms of providing some financial support to make these events happen, you know, community events require funding.

[03:24:37] And I think that if we want to see them grow, if we want to see our residents participate in these kinds of activities, then we may have to use general fund dollars to do so. So I'm certainly open to the board's guidance or direction on this.

[03:24:56] If funding is received as part of this budget, we will absolutely go back and make sure that we are providing for some engagement, some rules of engagement around how we, how in guidance to step direction to staff on how we approve funding for specific, specific events.

[03:25:16] Okay. And just the last comment I'll make is this slide. I don't know what slide that was. That talked about some of the upcoming projects. Yeah, what's that, 13? You notice that the Dell City Neighborhood Library Master Plan is on there. You know, this is something, I mean, we've built up a profit, I think, of like $700,000.

[03:25:35] I don't know if that's correct. But, you know, that library, you know, the Dell City Small Neighborhood Library has been one that we've been looking at doing something with for a while. So, you know, that dollar figure may be there. I don't even know if we're really looking at the general fund or how that's even working out.

[03:25:50] But I know we've been kind of stashing, if you will, some pecans, you know, to figure a way to get this thing done without, you know, again, it's my job to be fiscally responsible. So I'm not looking at just going into the general fund to do all, you know, magical things.

[03:26:07] But that's one that I know as far as Dale City goes, we got to look at that library. So I just want to make that comment. I will just add that during the past year, staff has completed a number of staffing plans, such as the Judicial Center Expansion Master Plan, the master plans associated with the Woodbridge Senior Center and Community Library.

[03:26:30] There is funding that is left over from those completed master plans that could be repurposed if the board directs staff to do so for the master plans on this slide. without impacting the bottom line capacity that Mr. Shorter concluded in his budget recap presentation.

[03:26:51] Thank you. That was very valuable. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Weir. You don't need to pull slide six back up, but I do have a technical question on that. With respect to the 234 transportation monies, if the proposed rate was known, why wasn't it included in the original budget?

[03:27:20] We did not have the assessment information specific to the district at the time that we were formulating the proposed budget in early February. That commercial assessment information was still a work in progress and was not known until early March.

[03:27:43] In the future, I mean, could you just put a placeholder in there or something so that it doesn't just, I mean, for it to just pop up at this stage just seems a little, it's a little unusual for me. The only other thing I've got is, and Mr. Shorter, if you could put this together, Mr. Sinclair, if you could put this together before next week, I'd really appreciate it.

[03:28:03] Could I get a more definitive number on what adopting a real property tax rate of 9.66 and a C&P tax of either 2.15 or 2.12, what that would generate an additional revenue, and what the delta would be between that additional revenue and a 15% across-the-board hike for the fire department, CRC, sheriff, and the public safety communications department.

[03:28:38] And if you could just spreadsheet that out to what the delta is between the increase in revenues and what the cost of that across those four divisions would be. Very good. I'd really appreciate it. And just so I'm clear, and Dave, feel free to ask a few questions as well. That is market adjustment at 15, not market and step?

[03:28:58] Correct. All right. Because you've already got the step built in, correct? Right. Okay, yeah, it's just the market part. Okay. That's all I got. Thank you. Supervisor Lawson?

[03:29:17] Well, you teed that up beautifully, Supervisor Weir. What did I do? What I would like to do is have a discussion about, and this isn't necessarily for FY24, but since we're talking about FY23 and the $34 million expected surplus, that's through the fiscal year, not through the third quarter, right?

[03:29:43] That's through the fiscal year, correct. I would like to ask my colleagues to support me on asking Mr. Shorter to prepare for the fourth quarter retroactive pay April 1st.

[03:30:01] Didn't we have that someone somewhere? We have provided the information. Yeah, I know, but yeah, I want it to be discussed on next Tuesday. Okay, but you know you have the information. I thought you were asking them to provide the information.

[03:30:17] No, I have his email literally in front of me. Okay, great, great. But for staff's sake, I think I want to give them time to prepare. Yes. And I'd like to think that there's consensus up here for a fourth quarter retroactive pay.

[03:30:34] you said 15% so right right so because he preceded me at the 15% we'll go with that okay so looking for for some guidance or I should say we should expect some guidance from the board on next Tuesday directing a current year salary

[03:31:02] adjustment for the public safety staff that we've identified yep and and we have provided the cost associated with that effective April 1 yes sir very good thank you and then like supervisor angry I don't like the idea of this community events expenditure especially without parameters and I

[03:31:36] I also want to be careful that we're not competing with nonprofits that like to put on holiday events. And so I'm not excited about using public funds for something like that, especially without parameters around it, some really serious parameters.

[03:31:53] And if Supervisor Bailey or Mr. Shorter could just refresh my memory, Quantico Creek, what are the needs there? Quantico Creek is, there's a cleanup that's needed to be done at Quantico Creek, similar to what we did in Supervisor Franklin's district for the creek, you know, when we did the dredging.

[03:32:24] And it needs to be dredged. It needs to be cleaned up. There's some carcinogenics in the water. It's been really in bad shape for about 20, almost 20 years. Okay. So that's what that is. Gotcha. Good to know. Supervisor Franklin had that really cool, I forgot what it was called.

[03:32:45] What was it called? That's what I couldn't think about. Is that what, or are we talking about actually dredging? I'm talking about dredging. Okay, so you're referring to probably Neabsco Creek when it was dredged about four or five years ago? Neabs, before I got here, yeah. Before, yeah, yes.

[03:33:01] Okay. And it hasn't been done, period. It's in bad shape. And I'll add or I'll say that our public works team did reach out to the supervisor to understand the scope and scale. We would need to do some work to make sure that we costed it out properly.

[03:33:20] So a placeholder of $2.5 million. I'm sorry, real quick, Mr. Shorter. No offense, but you all are really distracting us. Sorry, Mr. Shorter, go ahead. So what I was saying is that our public works team did reach out to Supervisor Bailey to better understand the scope, the scale of the project.

[03:33:40] We would still need to do some additional work. A placeholder of $2.5 million makes sense, but I am by no means suggesting that with this number, that that is the limit of a project like this.

[03:33:56] So I want to be clear about that. And I don't want to say something in Supervisor Franklin or Supervisor Boating's districts about their creeks, but it's my understanding that several waterways have continual problems, and I know that where to also dump the sludge or whatever we call it, the silt is a problem.

[03:34:28] So is it fair to say that we could have a comprehensive discussion about waterways in the county? Absolutely. I don't know that I can commit to doing that in the next two weeks as part of this budget process.

[03:34:45] But it absolutely makes sense for us to be much more thoughtful about and comprehensive about our, you know, sort of bringing something to you that outlines where our true problematic areas are.

[03:35:00] and where we would recommend some additional support. Okay. Supervisor Franklin, is it Neabsco Creek? Yeah, Madam Chair. So, yes, Neabsco Creek was dredged, I want to say it was about 10 years ago, actually, maybe like eight. I was on the board.

[03:35:16] It was Supervisor Principe's last term. Right, right, right. So the challenge we're dealing with now is we have some arena owners who are willing to dredge now, But they need somewhere to put the silt, as we've been discussing.

[03:35:34] Now, as a reminder, I have a directive out currently, at least for Neabsco. So I know that that's kind of already in the works. And I know Public Works has also discussed potentially using other parts of the landfill if we can find space.

[03:35:54] But there's not a lot of space. also i know quantico um is an option um so that's kind of where things are just legitimately finding space i mean i remember that directive we do have a public hearing and we've sort of digressed and we still have people waiting to speak at the public hearing i mean you know and so i madam madam chair i appreciate that we're all aware of that but i i'm just talking it's an item and i think it was a great board conversation about it because it's a serious matter for waterways thank you supervisor bode any further questions yeah thank you madam chair just a couple quick

[03:36:32] things um this slide is actually perfect um wondering if staff could get back uh between now and tuesday on potential monies for two other master plans uh oakwood park and uh and davis ford park and then i don't know if this could be ready by next week but also uh potential monies for a feasibility study for a new lakeridge boathouse I got supervisor Bailey yeah mr.

[03:37:06] shorter thank you so much for bringing it to the board's attention that I you know I had just forgotten that that I had had that conversation with public works and this this is a project Quantico Creek is a project that we've been working on for at least three years it just it's coming up now because it's in the rotation and so that's where the focus is is going to be in partnership with discussions with Quantico, yeah, with Dumfries.

[03:37:33] The mayor in Dumfries has brought it to our attention as well. So that's something, as it relates to waterways, I think it's something that needs to be on the radar in terms of us just going forward and making sure that everybody's waterways. And whenever I put something up for my district, I'm very inclusive with everybody across the board.

[03:37:52] So it is a good time for everybody to talk about their waterways, but Quantico Creek is one that is very old, and it's affecting homes. And so we're going to – that's why this is on your radar right now. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you.

[03:38:07] And I wanted to – this project also – and correct me if I'm wrong, this is a question – that it also could be potential when we look at those two grant writers that we can get other funding as we project out.

[03:38:26] Am I correct in saying so? Absolutely. There's considerable infrastructure. We were talking about it earlier, dollars out there, federal and state, to do these kinds of projects. There's no guarantee. I mean, obviously it's grant writing, but, yes, you're absolutely right.

[03:38:42] Right. We have to start somewhere. So the other thing that if – could you explain to me, and it may be something I just – I know but I don't know. when you said the district can pay it back to the county. What does that mean? So it was just to say that we set, just like we set the tax rate and advertise the tax rate when the budget is proposed for this discussion, what I'm hearing is that we can also, for the tax district, set a tax rate above the 2%, which would advance that debt, which would advance the cost,

[03:39:22] what they are paying us ahead of schedule. Okay. And that was in response to Supervisor Lawson's question. Okay. I just wanted to, it wasn't clear in my mind. Did I say that? And then lastly, I want to. Supervisor Dave wanted to add to that.

[03:39:38] I'm sorry. On that particular transportation district by state code, I don't believe that rate can exceed 20 cents. Not that the board would ever go there. I just wanted to clarify that. Okay, that makes sense. And then lastly, I want to go back to slide 12 for the community events.

[03:39:58] Certainly, we don't want the county to bear the burden of anything that it shouldn't. But I'm just going to use the 5K. That was a community event that community requested in terms of pairing that with the CRC and the growth of the CRC for mental health.

[03:40:20] And so if that means that we apply for grants again to support it, whatever that means, but I think are we at a juncture now, because I recall former Supervisor Canlan had the 4th of July Patriots Day activity last year, and the board supported that as well.

[03:40:45] So are we at a point now with our community events as we serve the needs of the community that this is something that generically we might want to look at or that the region is doing in terms of serving the community? I am happy to follow the board's direction on this.

[03:41:03] I will say yes, that having the internal capacity to manage special events for an organization our size, yes, we should have that capacity. Whether it's at this level or some lower level of investment is ultimately guidance I will, you know, be happy to take from the board.

[03:41:25] But our community is obviously calling for the ability to participate in special events here. And whether as a government we are sponsoring those events or not, I think is up to us.

[03:41:43] And so the last question that I have is, when you talk about our fiduciary responsibility and being accountable, if we are doing it individually out of our districts as we serve in that way, would the cost be more or less if we did it out of our districts?

[03:42:02] And I'm just trying to, in my head, compare that as it relates to the county having relationships with vendors or whatever that means, whatever that activity is, would it be more or less if we do it in this fashion? I think having the county have some, again, internal centralized capacity to help vendors who are interested in doing special events in the county will ultimately save us funding and it will make us, from a customer service perspective, a much easier government

[03:42:39] to deal with if you are trying to do a special event in the county. We certainly need to be a place where these kinds of events can happen, and we can pull them off seamlessly and smoothly.

[03:42:55] We can't do that if we don't have a team with expertise and that could reach across our entire government quickly to assess cost, to make sure they understand overtime associated with whether it's police or some other overtime.

[03:43:12] And so, again, whether it is us investing in sponsoring the entire event or the government being able to provide for a smooth handoff of an event, we do need some additional capacity within our government to pull these kinds of events off smoothly.

[03:43:36] Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Franklin, do you have any questions? I just want to clarify on the dredging issue. I talked to the county attorney, and it looked like those discussions started in 16-17 and was completed in 19, so we were all correct.

[03:43:53] And then I'll also just say in terms of public events, I think we understand the concerns, but we should be careful, because once you provide something to the public, they expect that each year. And obviously, we will want to continue to explore grant opportunities.

[03:44:09] And if nonprofits want to host events themselves, obviously, you know, we go that route. But just want us to be careful when we give something to the public. It's hard to take it back. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. And to your point, Supervisor Franklin, that's why I think this conversation is really important.

[03:44:27] Can you refresh my memory what the total cost for Patriots Day was? See if I have that here. You have Seth in the back. I think it was approximately $50,000. It may be a little less than that, Supervisor Vega.

[03:44:42] I think Mr. Callen paid that from his office budget. And that's another point that I wanted to make. You know, not dinging anybody who's having events out of their district, but it's typically funded through our office. At least that's how I've done things. And to Supervisor Lawson's point about competing with other events, we have National Night Out.

[03:45:02] We have the Valor Awards. I just got an invitation to the 7th Annual Prince William Fire and Rescue Medal Day Ceremony. And so when we're talking about what the needs are and what folks, you know, are telling us, I think that they would much rather see that money be given to them in pay increase or additional staffing opportunities that we are all seeing across the board where we have shortages.

[03:45:24] So I just want to put that out there, prioritizing how we're using the funding. And, again, I've learned firsthand that sometimes, you know, doing things and making separate calls, you save a lot more money than actually, you know, growing government, which is pretty much what we're trying to do here, adding another, you know, facet to it that I personally don't think it's necessary.

[03:45:44] If I want to host an event for my district, it should be paid out of my supervisor's account and not have, you know, another fund designated over half a million dollars for these community events. Thank you. Absolutely. I just point a clarification that Chamber pays for the Valor Awards.

[03:46:02] Right, which we don't, it's fine. Right, but Supervisor Lawson was saying, you know, if you have other groups, Supervisor Franklin also mentioned it, so we don't want to be competing. So if we already have so many other, you know, events already taking place, it's kind of redundant for us to implement another one and compete with the ones that already exist.

[03:46:23] I will say in terms of events, you know, the one of the things that started this was the lights on the boardwalk which we got through a grant that cost around I think only $120,000 to continue and so you know it does bring in tourism and it does bring in people from around the area so there's that sort of balance you know and I know that the community enjoyed it but there were other ways of you know perhaps you know that was funded with a grant and instead of funding it straight out of county funds if you had people who did those kind of events maybe they could get corporate sponsors to sponsor but you would need

[03:46:57] the staff in place to be able to bring that money in so that's another way to approach it so we're not using general fund revenue for it so just a thought madam chair so how did we um get that event that was a grant that was a grant from i don't remember where the seth where was a grant for the the lights at the boardwalk that everyone loves so much it was a one-year eighty thousand dollar grant from it was arpa good evening seth handler boss department of parks recreation and tours or direct director yes ma'am it was actually from the vtc the virginia corporation we didn't

[03:47:33] use our arpa funds but it was from vtc yes ma'am vtc had a share of arpa funds which they disseminated to the dmos throughout the region we were the recipients and we do look at that at that as a community-wide event that served citizens from all over the county plus out of the out of the the county throughout the entire region and we thought it was a great opportunity to show off the brand of the county to draw on folks from out of town and really get folks to equate prince william county with a with a quality event that really stands out from other events throughout the region so i would consider it a tourism event but thank you awesome thank you okay so that will

[03:48:13] conclude our questions and we can now go on to hearing from the public regarding the public hearings we have two separate public hearings the first one is 12a through 12i the proposed annual budget computer equipment and peripheral solid waste there's there's a whole list we have and then we will go on to uh 13 yeah 13 um right now we have uh eight people speaked up uh signed up to speak i will call them up actually we only have seven uh five at a time our first five speakers

[03:48:50] tonight and each speaker will have three minutes please state your name and generally where you live in the county um barbara dodge alberto calamano chance williams dennis carroll and margarita moibo moibin i apologize please proceed is this yes it is okay is it on uh good evening

[03:49:26] members of the board my name is barbara dodge from the coals district uh i see that the democrats on the board are up to their sleight-of-hand tricks again, hoping the tax-paying citizens of Prince William County will not notice. While implying that the board is listening to the citizens by considering a flat real estate tax rate of 96.6 cents, we will really be paying more in the fire levy, stormwater, landfill fees, along with the extra 4% meals tax, thus allowing you to

[03:50:03] spend an additional $150 million more than last year. That doesn't sound very flat to me. So what are you going to do with the additional $150 million? Are you adding additional police to our woefully understaffed county police to help stem the rising crime rate? We are 363 officers short of what our comprehensive plan calls for to support our county population. No, not a single new police officer while crime has reached a seven-year high level. Homicides in 2022 were up

[03:50:39] 100 percent over 2021. Aggravated assaults are up 99 percent and motor vehicle theft is up 64 percent and overall violent crime is up 70 percent since 2019. The increase in police salaries to make Prince William County more competitive with other jurisdictions is a welcome step in the right direction, but it's not enough. More actual police officers are needed. So what seems to be your tax

[03:51:12] dollar spending priorities? Pushing and implementing the ideological Marxist-based equity programs on the county along with indoctrination programs for enhancing divisive and destructive LTGBQ plus and gender identity ideology on our students, and of course your own salaries, which you propose to increase, 67% for board members and 70% for the chair.

[03:51:40] These priorities are not serving citizens of Prince William County, but rather abusing them during a period of high inflation. Let's get our priorities straight and ditch the political ideological agenda and actually try to serve Prince William County citizens.

[03:51:57] Please may God bless Prince William County, State of Virginia, and the United States. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Alberto Calamano. Okay. Chance Williams.

[03:52:26] Good evening. My name is Chance Williams, and I reside in the Potomac District. I am currently the student representative to the Prince William County School Board, as well as a proud member of Robotics Team 2068 The Metal Jackets from Osborne Park High School. We are a team comprised of leaders and innovators who always strive for excellence. Our team has a long history in our community with our longtime sponsors and mentors coming from companies such as Lockheed Martin and Aurora Flight Sciences. This team is devoted to outreach and impact, including Roboticas para

[03:53:04] Todos or Robotics for All, which is a program dedicated to making robotics accessible for all in which teams sent Lego robots to schools in Ecuador and continues to work with teachers there to teach them and their students about how to participate in robotics. The team has also made strides to increase diversity in robotics using hashtag this is a girl thing, which works to increase the number of girls participating in STEM across the nation. In the program, female metal jackets seen behind me hosted our afterschool STEM lessons for underprivileged girls in our community, many of whom have never experienced STEM before. Robotics opens doorways

[03:53:41] for students, helping them find their dream job or possibly linking them to an employer. Robotics is engineering, but it is also business and programming involved in a well-functioning team. The Metal Jackets started one team and prevented the loss of another, both within Prince William County. The Metal Jackets are not new to government as we have made separate trips to Richmond to advocate for STEM, including Senate Bill 806, which grants funds to Title I schools for STEM plus competition teams. Osborne Park is not a Title I school. This grant only applies for Title I schools. We have invited and talked numerous times with delegates such as Delegate

[03:54:18] Brianna Sewell and Delegate Donica Roan. There are many programs that I'm leaving out, and I invite you to learn about them and to attend our workshops. But all of these programs require money. Inflation is becoming more apparent in everyday society, but for STEM, it is unreasonable.

[03:54:35] Robotics is expensive, but it enriches the lives of students everywhere. I ask that this board honor robotics and its importance. This is not just, this is just as if not more investing than other sports, such as football or soccer. I ask this board to consider the importance of a STEM Center. Counties around the nation are hives for robotics and what it brings. Prince William County should be the next hive. The students are ready to engineer the future. I ask, will you all help

[03:55:06] them? Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. My name is Denise Carroll, and I reside in the Coles District. I am here not only as a resident, but I'm also the robotics and STEM specialist for Prince William County Schools. I'm very proud of my students. I have been running the robotics program for Prince William for 15 years. When I first started, there were only three schools that had a robotics program. We're very proud to say that each and every Prince William County

[03:55:41] school has had a robotics program or has a robotics program. That includes the traditional schools and the independent schools as well. Year after year, the program grows, and even during COVID, that was no different. The teams built and programmed robots via Zoom. We actually put robots and paper bags at schools and kids would pick them up and then they would build on Zoom and they would leave them on their front porch and then another student would pick them up and they would take them home and they would build. We continued to keep that program live because of the coaches that we have. I brought some of my elementary coaches with me tonight too. Year after

[03:56:21] year the program continues to grow. There's not been a year that we haven't had a growth in our program. Even during the virtual year when that did have a slight, I'll back up, except for during COVID, but then we had more than anyone else that had a program. Each year, there's a new set of students and parents. They become alumni and continue to return to mentor and volunteer in the community. I invite you to any of our robotics events to see the craziness that we have.

[03:56:49] Our program has grown, but what breaks the norm across the nation is the number of females that continue to grow. Last year, 38% of the robotics program was female. That is unheard across the nation. We are looked at for our standards by both VEX Robotics and First Robotics and wonder how are we doing it. VEX Robotics called us the mecca of robotics on the eastern end of the United States. Our students are blowing away the competition. At the FLL State Championship this year, two-thirds of the teams came from Prince William County. At the VEX State Championship

[03:57:27] in Doswell, 40% of the teams for high school were from Prince William County and 60% of the middle school were from Prince William County. Teams are coming to us and coaches are coming to us from all over the Commonwealth. We have had coaches and teachers from Fairfax, Chesterfield, and Virginia Beach come to our training classes because they're not getting the resources in their own community. A recent chamber meeting that I went to at Loudoun County, a parent stood up and said, why is Prince William better than us in robotics? We're Loudoun. I was, the host said

[03:58:04] and apologized. And I said, no, actually, I'm very proud of that. Thank you very much. What we need now is a home and what we need is a place for training so we can have a place for the students to have more tournaments. Teachers can have more support. And my ask today is to help to find a vacant facility that we can have a home for our team. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sorry, we don't allow clapping or noise or anything, but that's okay. Next speaker is

[03:58:36] Margarita Moylan. Then our next two speakers are Justin Engel and Mitch Nason. My name is Margarita Moylan and I reside in the Gainesville District. As a resident of Prince William County for the last 22 years, I had high hopes that the data centers that have already been built would relieve the tax burden on the residents. Sadly, but probably not surprisingly, the board has chosen to work

[03:59:14] the budget numbers in such a way that the citizens will not feel any relief at all. You have the power to adjust this, and you should. We are all having to pay higher prices for gas, for our groceries, for our utilities, and higher costs for services. Have some compassion for the stress your constituents are feeling, and reconsider the real estate tax. Remove the added meals tax.

[03:59:46] Apparently, even the chair of Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Ann Wheeler, is avoiding the meals tax since she had her $5,000 a plate fundraiser at the Palms in Tyson's Corner.

[04:00:05] Charge the data centers a higher rate to be in line with Loudoun and Fairfax County. That is where you'll find your budget funding. Why are you selling Prince William County short? Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[04:00:26] Is Justin Engel here? Justin Engel, Coles District. So I saw that slide with several million dollars on it for proposed projects. I guess we're trying to figure out a way to spend that 4% meals tax that the people didn't want. I'm not sure that you listen to the people in this county and your constituents.

[04:01:04] You have priced out the elderly from living in this county, and at the same time you want to build a senior center for them. I thought this hurts me. The only way that my parents, my elderly parents can afford to live in this county is in my house. In my house where I go to work 60 to 80 hours a week to make the mortgage payment, to pay for it, to run a business in this county, taxes collected in this county. And I watch you present these slides for spending 35 million on this, 25 million on that, increasing taxes left and right. And the citizens of this county are

[04:01:41] the ones saying that they don't want their taxes increased. Where did we come up and say we want to spend $25 million on this or $35 million on that? I see $2.5 million going towards dredging Quantico Creek. Have any of you been down Quantico Creek? There is a 10-foot high bridge to clear your way into Quantico Creek. There is nothing but houses back there. The dredging project on the absco creek that businesses and people of this county you're not going to forget

[04:02:17] the boaters i'm sure you remember when they came in here and the boat tax against that for dredging everything that came about because of that there i'm not sure you people realize how many people live in this county due to our natural resources our streams our creeks our watershed everything that is important to people that love that aspect of this county and at the same time we want to destroy it with the data centers and everything else 2.5 million to a dredging project on a creek

[04:02:53] that has absolutely nothing on it i don't even understand where that comes from you this board spent 750 000 to dredge private businesses spent 250 000 to help dredge the one creek that has fire boats and everything in it that the Coast Guard decided that it was no longer safe for them to get out of. Your private businesses help fund that. Listen to the people of this county. I invite this entire board. I would love to put together a collective field trip so that the people, the members of this board, can actually see these areas that we talk about and that we talk about

[04:03:30] dumping money in. I want you, you people, all you board, I invite you, encourage you. Come see Quantico Creek, come see Neabsco Creek, come see Powell's Creek, come see the Occoquan River. I want you guys to see that in the Royal Crescent, the areas you're talking about. Next speaker, please.

[04:03:51] Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. Mitch Nace, my address on file. 18-year lieutenant in your fire department, the president of the principal and professional firefighters. I'll stand before you today the same way I've stood before you for the past six to seven months, and that's to underscore the ongoing staffing crisis in your fire department. I also will say thank you to each and every member of the board today for the comments that you all have shown in support of your fire department to try to get a meaningful compensation increase put in place so that we can try to stave off the ongoing staffing crisis that we're facing. To put a pin in that, because this is the last time I'm going to have the ability to speak to you all this budget season,

[04:04:28] that's going to be out of town the next two meetings, I want to just highlight a few numbers. FY 23, we've lost 53 firefighters in FY 23. That's 33% above the previous five-year trend. And as we go into the fourth quarter, oftentimes that's the highest number we see as we see retirements around the July timeframe.

[04:04:51] And so we're anticipating roughly 70 people down in FY 23. Of course, we know the rationale and the reason behind that. We are currently the lowest paid fire department in the Northern Virginia region. As you all discuss the market adjustments that need to be made and that you all are going to deliberate on next Tuesday, I just want to remind everyone that the analysis that was provided by the pay consultant, once corrected by staff, show us roughly 20% behind the market in the region and starting salary.

[04:05:21] And so just use that as a bookmark or a bookend as you're having your discussions, your deliberations over the next week. Finally, I want to move on to the future of our fire department. with the new chief that's coming in next month, I think it's important for us to realize where we've come from and where we still need to go. The vacancies that we currently are experiencing do not include the 81 FTEs needed to get to four-person engine company staffing, just so that everyone understands what that is. We currently can only guarantee three people on a fire engine 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365, whereas the regional and national standard

[04:05:56] as four. Not just that, but 16 years ago next week, we lost Kyle Wilson in a house fire in Woodbridge. And in the line of duty death of losing Kyle 16 years ago, we said that we would increase the minimum staffing on our fire engines from three to four. That's not the case on any fire engine in the county right now that's staffed by career personnel. So understand that while we're asking to stop the hemorrhaging now, we're still 81 people behind making that change. And that's just four-person engine company staffing for the engines. The national standard for trucks and rescues is five. We only do four. We don't have EMS supervision that is provided both in

[04:06:31] Loudoun, Fauquier, Fairfax, EMS supervisions, the type of things where people can provide blood transfusions on the scene of severe accidents in addition to support personnel that are needed. I say all of that to say there's a lot that's still needed in our fire department. The first step is shoring up the existing staffing plan through the compensation discussion that you are going to have next Tuesday. The second step is fixing it going forward. Lastly, just in the last 10 seconds, to the staff that's been putting in the work over the past couple months in budget season, thank you so much for your dedication. And since I'm not going to get a chance to see Ms. Gossiata before she leaves, good luck in your retirement. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone

[04:07:11] else in person who has not spoken who wishes to speak to item 12A through I? Seeing no one approach the microphone, I will turn it over to Vice Chair Bodie for remote public comment time. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Phan, good evening.

[04:07:26] Do we have anyone online? No, not at this time. All right. Thank you, Ms. Phan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. This will officially close our public hearing for 12A through 12I on the budget. We will now move on to our second public hearing, which is the proposed effective real property tax increase.

[04:07:46] Ms. Madden, do we have anyone signed up for 13A? Is there anyone in chambers who would like to speak to the public hearing 13A? Seeing no one approach the microphone, Supervisor Bodie, I will turn it over to you.

[04:08:11] Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Phan, anyone online? No, not at this time. All right. Thank you, as always, for your assistance, Ms. Phan. Have a good night. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Back to you. We are on to item 14, adjourn the meeting. I will entertain. Did I say we officially closed the meeting?

[04:08:27] Okay. Sorry. We officially closed the public hearing on 13A. So moved, ma'am. Motion to adjourn by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Supervisor Bodie. Angry. Angry got me. Seconded by-- okay.

[04:08:43] It's angry. Okay, sounds great. All those in favor, please vote or whatever. Yeah, please vote. Vote unanimous. We are adjourned. Brake trains do not follow us.

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