Coraggio Consulting Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting, Tuesday, October 10, 2023 Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2023 Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia Length: 7h 2m (video) Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3382 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 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:41:51] afternoon. It is 2 p.m. on Tuesday, October 10, 2023. Before we go on to a moment of silence, I would like to take a moment of just personal privilege to acknowledge the pain and uncertainty felt by many members of our community, specifically our Jewish residents, and our residents who have family and loved ones in Israel and throughout the Middle East at this time. As community members, we must do our utmost to comfort and provide solace to our neighbors in times of conflict. [00:42:19] With that in mind, please move into a moment of silence with me. Thank you. If we could all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. [00:42:36] I pledge allegiance to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice. Welcome. [00:42:59] I know we have a lot of people here for a lot of commendations and a lot of celebrations. It's always wonderful to see people happy and excited in the chamber. We are now on to our Agenda Item 3, the approval of the meeting minutes from September 12th, September 19th, and September 26th. [00:43:14] The Chair will entertain a motion to approve Agenda Items 3A, B, and C. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. [00:43:34] Vote unanimous. Supervisor Franklin absent from vote. And along those lines that Supervisor Franklin is absent from vote, I would like to offer the standard approval to request participation remotely through electronic communication means for Supervisor Franklin throughout the meeting today when she's available. Could I get that motion, please? [00:43:56] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Vote unanimous. Supervisor Franklin absent from vote. [00:44:14] And Supervisor Franklin will be joining us later on in the day. We are now on to Agenda Item 4, Commendations and Proclamations, this afternoon. We have six items on the agenda. I will entertain a motion to approve Agenda Items 4A through 4F. [00:44:30] Approval moved, Madam Chair. Second, Madam Chair. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Sorry, this motion passes unanimously. [00:44:52] Supervisor Vega abstaining from vote, and Supervisor Franklin absent from vote. Okay, thank you. We are now on to the accommodations. I'm going to begin with the commendation for Mr. Schofield. If Heather Schofield, his daughter, and granddaughter Chloe Chedester would please join me for Item 4A. [00:45:12] And Madam Chair, members of the board, in the audience today we have many past co-workers of John's that I'll read out. And after the resolution and after comments by his daughter, if all of those would like to come forward for the picture, we have obviously Heather Schofield, Mr. Schofield's daughter, Chloe Chedester, his granddaughter. [00:45:32] We have Supervisor Noe, the former Coles District Supervisor, Chief Charlie T. Dean, former Chief of Police, Martin Briley, former Economic Development Director and Director of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Sharon Pandek, former County Attorney, Mike Longhi from Finance, Susan Ralsh, former Deputy County Executive, Joe Howard, former County Attorney, Gifford Hampshire, former Assistant County Attorney, Kurt Speer from our office right now, Judge Angela Horan, former County Attorney, Tom Blazer, former director of transportation for the county. [00:46:05] Mary Alice Rowan from the county attorney's office. Maureen Hannon from economic development. And I apologize if we missed anyone else from Prince William County government in the past that's here to honor John and his family. Thank you. Quite the distinguished group, if I do say so myself. [00:46:21] Welcome. Welcome. Commendation. In memoriam, and this is long, but I'm going to read it all because it is necessary to really cover all of his accomplishments. in memoriam and appreciation John C. Schofield where John Schofield who departed part of this life on July 12th 2023 was not only a dedicated but exemplary employee of Prince William County for over 25 years devoted to improving the quality of life for our residents businesses and visitors whereas Mr. Schofield began his career with Prince William County as Deputy Planning Director in 1984 over the next two and a half decades he held many critical staff positions in county government [00:46:57] serving as chief of transportation planning director senior assistant to the county executive and assistance public works director he retired from prince william county in 2009 after serving 15 years as marketing and research director in the office of economic development whereas officials of the county government to whom mr scofield reported and the employees who worked for with or for him describe him as a visionary he is acknowledged as the idea man for many projects which continue to have been at Prince William County for years to come. [00:47:27] Whereas due to his rare combination of intelligence, curiosity, bold thinking, commitment to hard work, consideration, and respect for everyone he dealt with, and an evident, deep, and abiding love for Prince William community, John Schofield was not only able to imagine and identify key projects to ensure Prince William County's future, but he brought people together and enlisted their best efforts, along with his own to bring these projects to fruition through all the complex analysis, negotiations, drafting of ordinances, resolutions, and agreements required to reach the design and construction phase. He remained involved in the shepherding of these projects through the design [00:48:06] and construction process to completion. Many people, elected officials, public employees, and volunteers contributed to this work, but John Schofield was the center of many projects that are still considered premier assets for the county in the areas of higher education, mass transit, transportation, economic development, and regional partnerships. Whereas some of the most important projects with which Mr. Schofield was deeply involved include the location of George Mason University's Prince William campus and the forming of the partnership among the university, county, and city of Manassas to build and operate the Freedom Aquatics and Fitness Center, the design [00:48:46] and marketing of Innovation Park, from land acquisition and subdivision, to recruiting businesses and the installment of infrastructure, to the design of buffers and landscaping. Number three, the formation of the Northern Virginia Government Partnership, now known as the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation District Commission, providing regional and local bus service, and the PRTC's subsequent work with the Northern Virginia Transportation District Commission to create and operate the Virginia Railway Express, and lastly, the design, financing, construction of the Prince William Parkway, a major traffic improvement in Northern [00:49:24] Virginia and one that further unites Prince William into one community. Whereas Mr. Schofield's fine example as a public servant and his generosity of spirit have inspired and prepared succeeding generations of county employees who have gone on to careers in public service in federal, state, and local governments in remembrance of the values he constantly modeled. [00:49:47] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby commends in memoriam and appreciates John C. Schofield for his many years of dedicated service to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Prince William County. His consummate professionalism and his lasting contribution to the quality of life we all enjoy here and hereby extends its sympathy to his beloved family, his daughter Heather Schofield and his granddaughter Chloe Cheddister and his many friends, many of whom are here today, and admirers. Thank you. [00:50:24] Good afternoon. My family and I want to thank the board and the Prince William County employees who worked with my father, John Schofield, for honoring him and his work with the county. My father deeply loved this community and he was extremely dedicated to the county and its residents so thank you for recognizing him those who wish are welcome to come up and join us for a photo we'll figure it out it's right right up around here [00:51:03] so now that we're warmed up with commendations and a long one we are on to [00:53:26] item 4c commending the Westminster at Lake Ridge for their service to the Community. Supervisor, actually Vice Chair Kenny Bode, please join me at the podium. If anyone is here to observe the accommodation for Westminster at Lake Ridge, please gather in front of the chambers if you'd like right here and you'll be on the camera. Sure, thank you Madam Chair. I'll [00:54:00] let everyone get settled a little bit before I start reading. Is everybody ready for me to read [00:54:34] it? Okay, awesome. All right, whereas Westminster at Lake Ridge is a non-for-profit continuing care retirement community that was founded in october 1993 and whereas the westminster at lake ridge community is comprised of 235 apartments and cottages 40 assisted living spaces and 60 skilled nursing care beds to serve the varied and diverse needs of their residents and whereas the residents and staff of westminster at lake ridge embrace the volunteer spirit by mentoring students at Rockledge Elementary School, creating a candy striper program to provide additional resources [00:55:12] to those in their care center. And whereas Westminster at Lakeridge partners with local recycling and reuse organizations to prioritize sustainability efforts for their residents and for the greater Prince William area at large. And whereas Westminster at Lakeridge created the Creater Professional Development Endowment Fund in 2015, which provided over 80 academic scholarships, and more than 20 employees have received assistance applying to U.S. citizenship. [00:55:40] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby extends its grateful appreciation and commends the Westminster at Lake Ridge for 30 years of care and service to our community. Congratulations. Good afternoon, and thank you. We, the family at Westminster at Lake Ridge residents and staff, would like to thank you for this acknowledgement. [00:56:09] We look forward to the future of 30, the 60, the 90 more years in Prince William County. We thank you very much. All right. Thank you. [00:56:37] We are now on to 4B and 4D, commending the work and role of direct support professionals [00:57:59] and the proclaiming of October 2023 as Disability Employment Awareness Month. I believe Dr. Payne and Ms. Thimer are here to join me at the podium. We'll be reading the commendations and proclamations consecutively. And if there are anyone else that's here for these, feel free to move to the front of the chambers also. [00:58:20] Okay. Just you two ladies? Okay. Work and role of direct support professionals in our community. Whereas direct support professionals play an essential role in our community by providing vital care and support to veterans, senior citizens, and individuals of all ages with intellectual, developmental, and other disabilities to receive services, and whereas they dedicate their time, compassion, and expertise to ensuring the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of some of the most vulnerable members of our society, thereby enhancing their quality of life, [00:58:54] and whereby providing a wide range of services, such as personal care, assistance with daily living and community activities, employment support, companionship, and medical assistance, DSPs contribute significantly to the independence and dignities of those they serve. [00:59:10] DSPs demonstrate unwavering dedication to their profession, continuously striving to improve their skills and knowledge and advocating for the rights and needs of the individuals they serve, and whereas DSPs tirelessly, often behind the scenes, to ensure the individuals they support can lead fulfilling lives and participate fully in their communities, now therefore be it resolved that the Prince William County Board of Supervisors hereby celebrates, honors, and commends the work of direct support professionals, recognizing their extraordinary dedication and commitment to enhancing the lives of veterans, senior citizens, and individuals with intellectual, developmental, and other disabilities who receive services for [00:59:47] severe chronic health conditions. And then I'll go on to National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Whereas October 2023 marks the 78th anniversary of National Disability Employment awareness month with the theme advancing access and equity and whereas the purpose of national disability employment awareness month is to educate about the disability employment issues and celebrate the many and varied contributions of workers with disabilities and whereas the unemployment rate for working age persons with disabilities is currently about twice as high as it is for persons without disabilities and whereas the prince william county is committed [01:00:25] to ensuring compliance with the federal disabilities act and other disabilities rights laws on the state and local level that enable the rights and freedoms for disabled individuals to work and earn a living. Whereas employers benefit from a diverse workforce to include the hiring of individuals with disabilities and recognizing the essential role that people with disabilities play in our county's continued and economic success. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby proclaims October 2023 as National Disability Employment Awareness Month, be it further resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors [01:01:02] hereby calls upon employers, schools, and other community organizations in the county to observe October with appropriate programs and activities and to advance the important message that people with disabilities add value and talent to our workspaces and our communities. [01:01:18] Thank you. So, next to me. So, good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Wheeler, Board of County Supervisors, citizens, and my counterpart here, Emily. I'm Rachel Payne. This is Emily Timer from Ditlake. We're honored to accept this proclamation on behalf of Ditlake and commendation for our employees and the people we serve. [01:01:42] So on the national level, National Disability Awareness Month, or NDEAM for short, is an opportunity for the nation to celebrate the many and varied contributions of America's workforce with disabilities. Here in Prince William County, I am pleased that for 58 years, Ditlake has and continues to connect individuals with disabilities with employment options of their choice, educate the community about disability employment issues, and celebrate the contributions of Prince William County workers with disabilities. We welcome and encourage anyone with questions about disability employment to reach out to us, and we are a partner in this community. We are also thankful to the county for recognizing direct support professionals who are [01:02:20] often called DSPs for short. A Week in September is dedicated to highlighting and recognizing the efforts of professionals supporting individuals with disabilities. However, the work they do is every day and we celebrate today and every day their contributions to did lakes mission mission through their steadfast commitment dsps ensure the individuals we and other service providers support can take full advantage of living and participating in their communities the recognition by the county is a testament to a community that not only honors but acknowledges the service and dedication exhibited by dsps daily and the contributions of workers with disabilities [01:02:58] throughout the county. On behalf of every member of the Didlake family, myself and Emily, we express our heartfelt gratitude to Prince William County. Thank you. [01:03:11] We are now on to 4E, proclaiming October 2023 Crime Prevention Month. I believe Sergeant Thomas [01:03:46] and Officer Harris are here to join me at the podium, and Deputy Chief Jared Phelps also. Welcome. Crime Prevention Month, October 2023. Whereas the Police Department is sponsoring a national crime and drug prevention recognition program in October, known as Crime Prevention Month. And whereas this marks the 40th annual Crime Prevention Month, which provides a unique opportunity for Prince William County to join forces with other states and local law enforcement [01:04:22] agencies, as well as communities across the county and the country, in promoting cooperative crime-fighting efforts. And whereas it's essential that all residents of Prince William County be aware of the importance of crime prevention programs and the impact on their participation can have on reducing crime, drugs, and violence in Prince William County. [01:04:41] And whereas the police community partnerships, neighborhood safety awareness, and the cooperation are important themes of Crime Prevention Month, now therefore be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby proclaims October 2023 as Crime Prevention Month in Prince William County and calls upon all residents to join the Prince William County Police Department in supporting the 40th annual National Crime Prevention Month. [01:05:05] Thank you. Thank you, Chair Wheeler. I want to say good afternoon to everyone. As mentioned before, this is October's Crime Prevention Month. [01:05:21] I just wanted to give you some events that we are doing just to serve the community that we serve. We're doing a social media campaign, and within that campaign, we're going to have tips and awareness strategies just to kind of keep the residents safe. [01:05:37] A variety of youth engagement programs, such as station tours. Actually, tonight we're going to have a mentor program with the Nova Bulls. That's a semi-pro basketball team in the county. We're going to discuss officer safety with them, along with safety when it comes to weapons. [01:05:58] DEA drug take-back that's going to be on the 28th of October. We're on October the 17th at 6 p.m. We're going to have a virtual neighborhood watch meeting. The 25th of October, we'll have our trunk-a-treat. [01:06:14] That's always fun. And we just celebrated a national coffee with the cop. It's a pleasure to serve. Thank you. [01:06:38] Last but certainly not least, we are on to 4F, proclaiming October 2023 Domestic Violence Awareness Month. [01:07:07] I believe Ms. Christy Cataturano of the Commonwealth Attorney's Office is here, as well as Ms. Diatolo of ACTS. Can you join me at the podium? Are they both here? And anyone else who's here? I'm still in here. [01:07:31] This is the camera angle these days. Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Whereas anyone can be a victim of domestic violence regardless of age, race, gender, or position in the family, and whereas most intimate partner violence victims are women, men are also victims of intimate partner violence as well, and whereas over one-third of homicides occurring in Virginia are related to domestic violence, with women likely to be killed at the hands of an intimate partner and men more likely to be killed as a bystander. [01:08:07] And whereas, whether by a parent, sibling, spouse, or partner, domestic violence often threatens the physical health and mental well-being of its victims and can lead to anxiety, depression, and feelings of helplessness. Whereas children who are exposed to intimate partner violence as witnesses having resulting trauma that can translate to behavioral and medical problems that it can affect them for the rest of their lives. [01:08:32] And whereas the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office and agencies like the Office of Criminal Justice Services are among many government entities that have specialized programs and personnel to help the community handle instances of domestic violence in the greater Prince William area. And whereas organizations in the community like Community Partner Acts Domestic Violence Services, Turning Point, continue to be at the forefront of community healing from domestic violence. [01:08:58] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby proclaims October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Be it further resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby recognizes and stands in solidarity with the victims of domestic violence. [01:09:17] Be it further resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby urges all residents to take advantage of the efforts and activities of the many departments and organizations in Prince William County dedicated to combating instances of domestic violence within our community. [01:09:33] Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for the awareness of our domestic violence services at Action and Community Through Service, also known as ACTS. Our organization's been around for 54 years. [01:09:52] Our domestic violence department's been around since 1980. And we are still creating our mission where we are creating a community where no one goes without or suffers alone, and we really strive to be advocates in domestic violence. [01:10:09] We have programs for children ages 5 and up, and we also have adult programs, both available in English and Spanish. We have our core advocacy program where we help with anyone that needs protective order and intimate partner violence. We also work closely with the Prince William County Police Department with our Lethality Assessment Program. [01:10:31] We've had that partnership with the LAP program since 2018, and we have our safe house, where anyone who is in a high-danger domestic violence situation can get free from that. We have case managers that can work with them to give them education and resources and support. [01:10:48] And we also have education and outreach, where we're teaching the community more about domestic violence, dispelling the myths that it affects men, women, children, and it spans all socioeconomic status race you name it you know no one is immune to domestic violence and so it's important to communicate communicate and get the awareness out there and thank you so much for for your time and recognition thank you honorable chair wheeler honorable members of the board i'm christy [01:11:27] catterano with the commonwealth attorney's office and i'm pleased to accept this proclamation on behalf of the office of the commonwealth's attorney um the honorable amy ashworth and the citizens of Prince William County, the City of Manassas, and City of Manassas Park. When Ms. Ashworth took office, she worked hard to expand services and assistance to all the victims of domestic violence. Our office focuses on the crimes that do the most harm, and Ms. Ashworth has created units in that office to address those crimes to include a domestic violence unit of which I'm blessed to be a part of. Our domestic violence unit focuses on crimes involving intimate partner abuse and abuse within a family structure. We prosecute [01:12:07] serious and repeat offenses and strive to end domestic violence within households by reviewing every domestic violence charge that gets filed. And in cases that are less serious, after consultation with the victim and with a police officer, we offer the offenders the possibility of avoiding criminal conviction if they can complete services intended to prevent future violence. This program called Early Diversion won the 2022 Virginia Association of Counties Award and is being considered for implementation by other jurisdictions. The offenders who enter this program currently have a 99.6 compliance rate. We also have a victim witness program staffed with [01:12:45] highly trained individuals that meet with the victims, accompany them to court, keep them updated on the status of their case, coordinate meetings with them, the prosecuting attorneys, and do everything they can to be sure that the rights of the victims are upheld and that they get the services needed. We attend community events and work with a variety of community agencies, such as acts to help meet those needs. Acts provides an invaluable service to many, many of our victims. We all know someone who has been affected by domestic violence or intimate partner violence. And by bringing community awareness, we can continue to remind everyone that there are countless people, victims and survivors, their children, families, friends, and communities impacted by domestic violence. And not one of us [01:13:23] should stop until there is zero tolerance and all victims and survivors can be heard. Those who endanger our community are being held accountable to a higher standard than ever before in the history of this jurisdiction. Ms. Ashworth is working hard to make sure that that continues and that we continue to be able to help those affected. And I want to thank you again from myself, Ms. Ashworth, and all those who work with the Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney for this proclamation to recognize and bring more awareness to domestic violence. [01:13:55] We are now on to our consent agenda, which contains of six items because 5C has been withdrawn due to a request from staff. [01:15:02] Are there any items anyone wishes to remove from the consent agenda item? Do they have specific questions on or concerns that you haven't been able to have answered before today? Madam Chair. Supervisor Bailey. I'd like to withdraw or remove 5F, please. [01:15:23] Okay. Seeing no other ones with questions, if I could get a motion for 5A, B, D, E, and G. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. [01:15:42] Any further discussion? Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just like to note on 5A that there is now a provision or language in there regarding a clawback or reimbursement for a portion of that funding that was not in the original report, Just for the public's benefit. [01:16:03] Thank you. Madam Chair. Supervisor Brody. Thank you, Madam Chair. 5B, authorized public hearing for the Old Bridge Road, Prince William Parkway intersection project. I want to thank Rick Canizales and his team for being flexible and hearing the concerns of the business owners and the folks in that area that have a lot of impacts and access concerns for those folks that either live or have businesses in that intersection. [01:16:29] We hear you. We'll get some additional alternatives, and we'll be working with you all to come up with a better alternative for that that we're evaluating now. So just wanted to make sure that was said, and again, I want to thank Paolo, Rick, and his team for being responsive to that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Seeing no for the discussion, please vote. [01:16:53] Vote unanimous. Supervisor Franklin absent from vote. And that brings us to 5F, Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it. I just wanted to bring to the community's attention 5F is in reference to hopefully restoration and uplifting for our Williams Ordinary that's located in Dumfries. [01:17:14] And I want to say my appreciation to Seth Hindler Voss and to Rob at the Williams Ordinary for always keeping our history in mind as we go forward. This application for a grant will be an opportunity to restore, rebuild, renovate, and uplift the community at the same time. [01:17:36] So just wanted to thank you for the opportunity. I have no questions. Just want to thank you for the opportunity of keeping our history in mind, particularly in Dumfries. Thank you. Thank you. Could you move 5F then? I move forward 5F. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Boddy. [01:17:54] Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. vote unanimous supervisor franklin absent from vote okay that brings us on to item number six public comment time the board will hear in person and remote public comments we're going to begin with in person this afternoon we have at this time 14 people signed up to speak i'm going to call the speakers five 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 magisterial [01:18:32] District or generally where they live at the beginning of their remarks. We will close the in-person sign-up list after the first 15 minutes of public comments. Our first five speakers this morning are Patty Koontz, Carl Greeten, Richard Jesse, Charles Seltman, and John Bloxton. Please proceed. Good afternoon. My name is Patty Koontz and I live in the Gainesville District. Yesterday [01:19:11] I came across a post in Nextdoor that was written to disparage Supervised Franklin. In it, the question was raised as what she has done for Woodbridge. Obviously, the author did not look very hard. Last year, I contacted Supervisor Franklin to see if she could help my friend and his nephew who disappeared. She worked very hard for the family of Jose Guerrero, who was brutally murdered right before Christmas. She arranged meetings with Chief Newsom, the investigating officer, and the family on more than one occasion. Then she started an arrangement to speak to my friend every few days to see how the family was doing. By her acts of compassion and kindness, [01:19:49] the family knew that someone was working with them. They felt and heard they were understood. And though Jose did not come home, they knew someone was there to help. The Post asked, what has Supervisor Franklin done for Woodbridge? The answer is quite a lot. But there's so much that isn't spoken of for many reasons. One is because many times privacy is critical. [01:20:12] When I expressed my thanks for all she did, she simply said, no thanks needed, that's what supervisors do, 90% of the job is helping constituents. I have come to believe that Supervisor Franklin actually embodies the term public servant, but the most important word being servant. [01:20:29] Supervisor Franklin is always there to help her constituents in need. However, she's leaving the word public out of it. That, I believe, is because their needs are private, and they need to stay that way. That is what a true public servant does. [01:20:45] serve without platitudes. But the author of the letter that was posted didn't care or understand that. His agenda was to slander every supervisor that doesn't agree with him. Sadly, he is not alone. We have all witnessed horrible memes of supervisors dressed as dictators riding money trains or strung up in ropes. They've endured awful articles full of falsehoods and being screamed at as they walked into this building. My question is, how does this build an environment of communication. It just fuels negativity and resentment. Our country was formed on the belief [01:21:19] that opposing views meet and discuss with civility and come to a solution that is in the middle. That is how democracy is supposed to work, but no one is interested in that anymore. It's so much more fun to rant and rave and get attention in the papers and in the nightly news. We've lost our civility in our county and our country. Where we go from here remains unknown, and I pray it does improve. I personally would like to thank Supervisor Franklin and all the supervisors doing what they can to help their constituents. We need to remember it's okay to disagree on issues and [01:21:54] have a robust discussion, but what's not okay is trying to destroy the dignity of a person that simply disagrees with you. Thank you. We don't allow clapping or booing or hissing just in general for those who are new to the thing. Even if we agree, we just ask everybody to refrain. That said, I'm being reminded that the fire marshal asks everybody who is not up in line to take a seat, if possible. [01:22:23] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. I'm Carl Gretton of the Gainesville District. That was not my social media post. We are here to appeal to your morals. The citizens and representatives of Prince William County have stood here for approximately two years and have implored you to decide against the digital gateway. [01:22:41] We have heard from supervisors who are against the digital gateway. Since we do not often hear from the Democrats about your side of the debate, we can only assume you are for the Digital Gateway. We would always like to hear your current stance. As representatives for your constituents, what is your opinion? [01:22:58] Since you receive money from developers and you have not returned that money, we see that you are bought and paid for with your decision to approve. When we talk to Prince William County citizens, the response is always, follow the money. What will it take for you to make a sound judgment? It appears that whoever pays you the most money is the answer. [01:23:17] We will see what happens to President Biden with his bribery money. We still do not understand why board members outside the immediate district do not vote with the board member that is geographically closest to the decision at hand. We would not expect supervisors to vote for issues that arise in other districts. [01:23:35] Do not back the lunacy. Victor, Margaret, Ann, Kenny, and Andrea, we are appealing to you on a personal level to vote what your Prince William County constituents want instead of you taking money to decide. If this is the beginning of a socialist board of supervisors, the only reason we can figure out why the five Democrats are voting for the digital gateway is to put your stance on a failed Prince William County because this will be gateway bankruptcy. [01:24:01] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Richard Jesse. I'm also in the Occoquan District and also running for the school board to replace my wife, Lily. Last fall or early spring, we had what we call at the School Board Thriving Futures, where we honor kids or teachers that do remarkable things. [01:24:33] And we had about two or three state champions in indoor track. And the ironic thing about that is there is no indoor track in Prince William County. There is no indoor track anywhere close to here. [01:24:52] So I mentioned a couple times at the school board that we really should consider having an indoor track, particularly since we're building a new high school off of Minnieville Road that might be an area that we want to consider. [01:25:09] It is going to cost money, but, you know, it will also create a lot of opportunities for our kids. It will create opportunities when you think about if they have a track meet down in Richmond or wherever the indoor track is, they have to travel down there. [01:25:29] If it's an overnight event, they have to put up hotel expenses. So money is being spent on other things, but it also should bring money into this county with people coming for hotels and meals. [01:25:46] So I do really strongly support that we have an indoor track. I don't know where it's going to be built. I do hope and recommend that it's built close to the new high school that's coming up. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. [01:26:07] My name is Charles Seltzman. I live at 9618 Bonaire Drive in the Gainesville District. I have lived there for 42 years, a location 300 yards as the crow flies from the previously proposed alignment of the Route 28 bypass. [01:26:26] I'm speaking in reference to Resolution 10D. The County of Fairfax has already pulled out of this proposed alignment for the human impact of five residential homes. Note that the Prince William County Board of Supervisors was perfectly fine with the taking of 55 homes plus an unknown number of trailers. [01:26:53] I would like to remind this board because I was here at that meeting. It, the board, voted to reject the original realignment 8 to 0. 8 to 0 for its human impact. [01:27:10] Then on hearing that they were going to lose all those dollars, they turned around. They reverted to their political alignment and voted to approve a week later. As a personal aside, I would like to mention, because my wife literally worked for his Secretary of the Treasury, under President Carter, the amount of acreage brought into the National Park Service almost doubled, primarily in Alaska. [01:27:44] The Democratic Party used to be the party of the environment and the preservation of nature. Once this land is gone, it is gone. This is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. [01:28:02] Thank you. Thank you. Before the next speaker starts, I'm going to call up the next five. The next five speakers after Mr. Bloxton are Alan Thomas, Geraldine Thomas Freeman, David Seary, Lindy Atkins, and Audrey Okius. [01:28:24] Please proceed. [01:28:38] Yes. Good afternoon. My name is John Bloxton. I've been a resident in Prince William County since May of 1980. Lived in Cat Harpen since fall of 82. Born in D.C., lived in the Northern Virginia area all my life. Have four generations on our farm and loved it here. [01:28:54] Cat Harbin was always meant to be the farming community, rural and pristine. Gas and grocery at Alvey's store, plus the post office, was all we ever wanted. The sweeping changes that Prince William County wanted to avoid were the rural crescent designations happened anyway. [01:29:11] Each time, a new housing development here, then a shopping center there, and nobody minded those upgrades because they were in Gainesville or Haymarket. I remember when Toll Brothers built Old Route 15 into a four-lane divided highway, thousands of homes being built in Heritage Hunt, and they were the new kids on the block. [01:29:33] The Royal Crescent was always meant to be a temporary injunction on residential and commercial development. Growth in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William has been tremendous. All locations drastically grew their residential footprints, attracted businesses to provide tax revenues, and used that money to build an infrastructure to support the populations. [01:29:54] Meanwhile, Prince William County reaffirmed the Rural Crescent Policy to maintain a farming community. The new homes in Cat Harpen are million-dollar houses, setting on a required minimum 10-acre lot, and the owners play the land-use game with the county to reduce the taxes. [01:30:09] Truth is, it stopped being a rural farm community some time ago and became a bedroom community for commuters. It's not a question of building thousands of homes that will further increase our traffic problems, and it's not a situation where an outside entity is trying to exploit the residents of Page and Elaine. [01:30:29] This is an initiative started by us, people who have lived here for 30, 40, 50 years, to leave this area, which has grown up around us tremendously over time. benefits of job creations, tax revenues, and landowner support makes this an easy win for everyone. [01:30:46] In closing, I want to make it clear that my family and friends who are residents along Pageland Lane support the proposed data center changes to the comprehensive plan for Prince William County. Thank you. Thank you. [01:31:02] And our next five speakers, I'll just read them off again. Alan Thomas, Geraldine Thomas Freeman, David Seary, Lindy Atkins, Audrey Atkins. Good afternoon. My name is Dave Sarey. I've been a resident of Gainesville for 24 years, and I support the Digital Gateway. [01:31:20] I think there's no other project on the horizon that stands to do as much good for the county as the gateway. There are some people who oppose it. They have their reasons. But I think if you look at what it'll do for everyone in the county, it's by far the best thing the county can do is to go ahead with that plan. [01:31:49] I just want to say there's a lot of division in the world. Personally, I think the world, the whole world needs a new holiday. just one day a year everyone puts aside their pet ideologies religions or beliefs cultural beliefs and just realizes that we all share the same DNA we're all members of the same species and we all inhabit the same little speck floating in infinite space and maybe if we got our individual acts and [01:32:24] collective acts together to make the world a better place for everyone maybe we could do that Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. [01:32:43] My name is Alan Thomas. I live at Bristow within the Magisterial Brinsville District. Thank you first to Ann Wheeler and other members of the board, Victor Angry, I see over there, for the 2024 Comprehensive Plan and Change. [01:33:06] The reason that I'm here, first, my family in farm history is we've been there over 100 years, a very old farming family. We've determined that we no longer can do that, much change, and we are doing our best to be available for questions or whatever as property owners whom are trying to sell. [01:33:37] one of the things I want to let you know we are very involved in our community I'm on the RUATAN board and we make things such as the Noakesville Day happen the raising of the flags and what not to go through Noakesville all community oriented things and we would hope and wish that those types of things keep going on and that we be around for them [01:34:07] And the reason I'm here is there was an invitation from my supervisor for a town hall meeting with an open forum. We wanted to meet our neighbors and discuss these things that we've done and wanted to do for the county. [01:34:27] And as well as we wanted to find out and learn some things about the Bristow crossings and development as well as the data center. What exactly was going on there? However, as we sat down, we were asked to leave, so we had no choice but to get up and go, and this is something that I'd like for you folks to know. [01:34:53] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Jarlene Thomas. Can you bend down the microphone? It can't hear you. My name is Jarlene Thomas. We've been in the Brentsville District for many years. [01:35:13] Our family's been on the farm or in this area for over 100 years. And we have ancestors that were buried there, actually. But the reason we're here is because we saw an invitation about a town hall by Janine Lawson. [01:35:34] And so we felt it was an opportunity for us to go and speak with our neighbors. The meeting was being held at New Bristow Village Clubhouse. And we wanted to go there and talk to the people and find out what their concerns are and also just tell them a little bit about our history in the community. [01:36:00] And so while we were there, we were asked, well, not us in particular was asked to leave, but anyone who was not living in specific communities should leave because all of a sudden it seemed like it became a private meeting. [01:36:23] And we just wanted to know why. It's embarrassing when you're being told to leave a meeting if you don't live in a certain area. And we are here because we would like a public apology from you, Janine. We haven't heard from your office, and so we don't want this to happen again. [01:36:48] I mean, you're running for an important position, and you're supposed to be representing the public. And to ask people to leave a town hall meeting is not right, and that's all I have to say. [01:37:06] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Lindy Atkins. I live in the Gainesville District, and I'm here to support the PW Digital Gateway Project along the Page Long Corridor. [01:37:27] I would say that I lived in Prince William County for 53 years. I've been a homeowner and a taxpayer for that time. Wife and I have raised our family here. Daughter went to the public school system here. [01:37:44] And the digital gateway project seems to be a win for the county to give the much-needed commercial tax base, which would relieve the tax burden a little bit on the residential homeowners who pay the taxes of that. [01:38:06] So, again, I would urge this board to support that program also. Thank you. Thank you. And before our next speaker, I'm just going to call up our last five, Teresa Minns, Alan Gloss, Amanda Foster, and Jason Stanford. [01:38:25] Please proceed. My name is Audrey Atkins. I'm here with my husband. We live in the Gainesville District and have lived here for over 40 years. [01:38:41] We are in support of the Prince William Digital Gateway for reasons of taxes and other things that will happen because of this gateway, and we ask that you support and vote yes on December the 12th for the rezoning of this area. [01:39:07] We thank you very much, and we thank you for your hard work. We know how hard you guys all work, and we thank you so much, and that's it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Our next five speakers are Teresa Minns, Alan Gloss, Amanda Foster, and Jason Stanford. [01:39:34] Teresa Minns of Potomac District. [01:39:51] Well, I want to thank our law enforcement and our first responders for all that they do. They put themselves in harm's way. And I tell you what, I was here when this Democrat board took over. [01:40:09] And we had Black Lives Matter come in here harassing Supervisor Vega, calling her a racist and everything else. And this Democrat board didn't do nothing to stop them. They were also wanting to defund the police. [01:40:26] So you people who come up here and say, oh, Franklin's wonderful, Wheeler's wonderful, where have you been? where have you been? And Vega's husband did not come here and protect her like Supervisor Bailey's husband did. And Supervisor Bailey was not harassed and intimidated the way Supervisor Vega was. You people need to start watching Citizens Time, all Citizens Time, ones you agree [01:41:01] with, ones you don't. Because the crap that I heard here praising this Democrat board, I'm not going to sit back because one thing, you'll never say I didn't fight. We will probably go down because our borders are open. We have sales throughout the place. You know, you people make me sick. And I'm talking about the citizens that don't come here and find out what's going on. [01:41:31] And for that bypass on the 28, bypass 28, you should have seen all the dirty-handed things that were going on. And Wheeler was in it with the supervisor, no, what is it, chairman up at Loudoun. [01:41:49] They came here and explained, oh, oh, oh, because all eight voted yes, we could bring it back and kick those people in the trailer park to the side. Those people were just getting along. They did not have the money to be here and protect themselves like they did the first time. So yeah, you guys go ahead praise this kind of praise this kind of stuff that goes on and when you're kicked to the side we have a two-tier justice system remember that just remember that you people better start [01:42:27] listening to citizens time because and I want to say it again the crap I heard here praising this Democrat board no it's a gang of five a gang of five there's nothing honorable about these five I got to see it. [01:42:43] If you don't like what I say, I don't care. When you find out I'm right, suck it up, all right? And God help all of us, especially with that open border. Next speaker, please. [01:43:20] Ellen Gloss-Coles. I'd like to talk to the board about largesse. A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to meet with County Executive Shorter. During that meeting, we discussed the EV chargers that are out front of the county building and other sites around the county. [01:43:39] I articulated my displeasure that people were coming to charge their cars without reimbursing the county for the electricity to use. According to a 2021 study, the average EV owner has an annual income of 2.3 times higher than the average American. EV owners tend to be white, college-educated males that own their own homes. [01:43:58] Why is the county subsidizing people that can well afford to pay for their own electricity instead of subsidizing people who can't pay their light bill? You are forcing those poorer citizens to subsidize rich people and their toys. I know Mr. Shorter has briefed the board that he is working towards an agreement with a charging provider to recoup the county's expenses. [01:44:17] In the meantime, though, I'm calling out a suspension of the service until an agreement is in place. The county should not be asking people just scraping by to subsidize rich people's toys. This board obviously acknowledged that people can't pay these massive tax bills when you voted unanimously to extend the payment deadline. [01:44:38] Chair Wheeler's most recent financial disclosure shows about $4.25 million in stocks and bonds and zero personal debt. No mortgage on her home she just bought in the gated Dominion Valley or her million dollar summer home on Waterbury Avenue on Long Island Sound, just off of a private beach. [01:44:54] Do you recognize this car? How about that person in it? That is none other than the five million dollar woman herself, Ann Wheeler, in her fancy new electric Mustang, saddling up to the county's free EV charging trough. Nothing is more egregious for someone working two jobs to afford to live in this county, while that rich lady sitting right there in the center mooches off taxpayers who make their way less than she does, even though she has the means to well pay for it. Now we have grown accustomed to Ann Wheeler taking and doing what she wants, but is the rest of this board so [01:45:29] married to its party and its failed leader that you'll sit idly by while she does it? Mr. Shorter, turn off these chargers until such time as your agreement is in place, or put in place rules preventing people like Wheeler from using them. Turn them off because the people cannot afford Ann Wheeler's largesse anymore. [01:45:49] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, my name is Amanda Foster. I'm a resident in Haymarket in the Gainesville District. [01:46:08] I know that this is related to item 11A regarding the pedestrian bridge at Graduation Drive and Route 15. I know there's a motion to defer a decision to delete the bridge today, and I am imploring the County Board of Supervisors to keep this alive. [01:46:28] I'm one of two families whose lives were destroyed by pedestrian accidents at this location recently. It is our expectation that the county will take our traffic and pedestrian safety seriously. [01:46:44] Route 15 existed before Dominion Valley was there. Dominion Valley was built, and then a high school across Route 15, and then part of the neighborhood across Route 15, and then James Long Park across the highway, a bike and running path, and the library. [01:47:03] The expectation is that residents are going to maneuver around the community, and they have every expectation to do that safely. It is also my understanding that this bridge has been contemplated for more than a decade, and I feel like it is irresponsible that we knew that a bridge was necessary and it wasn't built, And it also wasn't built when it would cost a lot less money. [01:47:25] And now we can't use funding as the reason. And that another family might be impacted is only a matter of time. And so we need to stop worrying about who said what. We have to figure out how are we going to build a bridge to keep the residents safe. [01:47:43] And I also think this is really important because there are other places around the county. It's not just the Gainesville district where there are schools and residential neighborhoods that are built across busy highways. I mean, I personally have intervened when I saw toddlers on Route 15. [01:48:01] Like, it happens, and we need to make sure that it is safe for the residents in the county. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Jason Stanford. [01:48:22] I'm president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance. Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment today. For more than 30 years, the Alliance has championed multimodal transportation improvements that improve our quality of life and economic prosperity in our community. [01:48:37] And I'm here today to share the Alliance's support for the resolution to further study the northern alignment of the Route 28 bypass. Supporting this resolution simply allows the Prince William Department of Transportation to finish the work necessary to provide you, the board, with all the information that you will need to make a decision on this issue. [01:48:59] Failing to complete that work and fully examine all of the available options would be a disservice to your constituents and the region. Furthermore, regardless of whether or not you ultimately decide to proceed with the Route 28 bypass in the future, the need to address the travel demand in this corridor does not go away. [01:49:21] In fact, transportation planners and experts have been trying to address this issue for decades. While the Route 28 bypass is the most recent iteration of that effort, it will not be the last because the need is too great. Failing to act is not a real solution. [01:49:38] 90% plus of the trips in Prince William County are taken via automobile. Without another roadway option, thousands of new vehicles a day will need to use this critical corridor by 2040 and create gridlock along the existing Route 28. The geography of this community has made it impossible to find a path northward that has zero community impact. [01:50:01] Whether it's the homes along existing bypass route, the businesses along Route 28, or the taxpayers who will be stuck with the bill for more expensive and less effective options, there is no perfect solution. But when taking all the factors into account, existing studies have shown that the Route 28 bypass would provide the smallest total impact to the community while providing the greatest long-term travel capacity benefits at the lowest cost of any option currently being considered. [01:50:30] The Alliance urges you to not join the long line of Prince William County boards that have kicked this can down the road for the last few decades. Their inaction has created this situation that we're in today, and failing to act will only make things worse. [01:50:46] Please approve this resolution to allow the experts and professionals in the Prince William County Department of Transportation to complete their work and provide a true fact-based assessment of your options for the future. Thank you. Thank you. That will conclude our in-person public comment time. [01:51:04] We will now move to our remote public comment time. We have nine people online to speak today, and I will turn it over to Vice Chair Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Ms. Mann. How many folks do we have today? There are nine speakers. [01:51:20] Let's begin. Your first speaker is Mark Shuffler. Good afternoon. Mark Shuffler, Coles District. [01:51:37] My comments are in regards to item 10D related to the Route 28 bypass. I strongly request you reject advancing the design of the new alternative 2A because the new alternative does not provide additional roadway bike pad capacity over the bull run, which is the major component of the benefit of the project. And two, the new alternative was not modeled as part of the MVTA evaluation process. This was the main reason why the [01:52:13] alternative was changed from Alternative 4, widening Route 28, to the current Alternative 2B in September 2020. Saying this, due to the escalating cost of the project and lack of ability to get more funding, I recommend that the Route 28 bypass in general be canceled and funding returned to the NVTA be reallocated as part of the next funding round to support submitted projects such as the 234 Suddenly Manor Drive Interchange or the Route 28 Centerville Road Innovative [01:52:49] intersections phase two. Prince William County will not lose any MVTA funding as jurisdictions in general will be allocated projects based on the amount of funding the jurisdiction generates over time. Thank you for considering these comments. Thank you, Mr. Scheifler. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Mike Ketchmerick. Mike Ketchmerick, Heritage Hunt, Gainesville. [01:53:19] I oppose your plan to vote on the Prince William Digital Gateway during the lame duck period. I think you should defer to the will of the voters and allow the new board to address this issue. The voters' voice needs to be heard and respected on the issue. The chair in the primary was defeated on this issue, and it should not be up to the current board to push this plan despite what the voters want. [01:53:42] Let the new board decide this critical issue and not impose your defeated agenda on the county. You should not give away all the future county authority to regulate data centers. Past Republican boards did that, but this Democratic board needs to take the responsible course and preserve future county options. [01:54:02] You have plenty of hard work to do before you should even consider the Pageland Industrial Park and other data center's projects. You should first approve a modern-day industrial noise regulations before any approval. Approving new projects is the easy part. The hard part is developing the regulations and establishing the monitoring, oversight, and enforcement provisions. [01:54:22] Prince William County needs to start doing the hard part now. This has to be done for approval, not after approval. You need to set the regulations while you still have the leverage to do so. [01:54:38] You should not surrender all future county authority data center industry by approving projects that regulations and enforcement procedures are established. This board needs to first establish who will be responsible for noise monitoring and how will this be conducted. [01:54:54] Then what enforcement procedures do you have, if any? How will you ensure developers and data centers will be held to whatever standard is established? Setting the noise level can be the last step in this process. This should not take three years to establish as is now planned. [01:55:10] Such delay will only hand all power to the data center industry. Delays will cause the regulation to be non-applicable to PageLand and other projects. Only DeShonda Jefferson can take on this effort because she will attack the problem with new perspective. [01:55:27] She will not follow bad practices of previous Republican-led boards. Supervisor Lawson previously was the leading data center supporter. She fought for low taxes for data centers and their approval anytime, anyplace. Only in the last two years has she changed her position. And if she wins, she will go back to her pro data center position. [01:55:46] Set up the controls before any new approvals. Take on the difficult effort first before considering new approvals. Do not cave in to the billion-dollar data center industry and the large landowners who are only interested in cashing in on their half-million-to-a-million-dollar-per-acre windfall, $5 million to $10 million, or much more, depending on how many acres they will be selling. [01:56:08] Look out for the interest of all county residents first and foremost. Thank you very much for considering these comments. Thank you, Mr. Kashmiric. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Charles Wilson. [01:56:30] Mr. Wilson, if you're trying to speak, we cannot currently hear you. Mr. Wilson, if you can unmute yourself, I believe it's star six on your phone. [01:57:03] We'll come back to the Wilsons. Your next speaker is Carol Blazer. Item 10, Route 28 Bypass. [01:57:24] Per the Route 28 Corridor Feasibility Study, Alternative 2A had the highest negative impact on all aspects of the environment, historic sites, and hazardous material. On our county's side of Bull Run, we have trailers, townhouses, apartments, single-family homes, stores, gas stations, and a hotel. [01:57:43] What are we going to destroy in this area for the bypass? 2A had a medium negative impact on noise. At the April bypass meeting, no sound walls were on the roadmaps. Residents have been told from the beginning that even though the county didn't require sound walls, they were putting them up. [01:58:01] Now we are being told trees will be the buffers. Go sit at Taco Bell on Route 234 and listen to all the loud speeding cars. This will be the bypass in the back and front yards of all neighborhoods in its path and ruin the quality of life for all residents within at least two miles of the road. [01:58:18] The first traffic study in 219 had the bypass adding over 23,000 daily trips and creating failed intersections along its path, doing nothing rated higher. The current traffic study has a bypass reducing traffic on 234 and 66, adding more traffic to 28 from the west. [01:58:38] This bypass is supposed to help commuters from Manassas Park, City, and Yorkshire. Most commuters are going north towards Dallas or east towards D.C., not the Manassas Mall. 24 had the highest negative impact on environmental justice, having the highest number of minority and impoverished households in the corridor. [01:59:00] It had the relocation of residents at 120 homes. The neighborhoods all along the path are middle- to low-income families with many Hispanics. Where are the families going to find comparable, affordable houses? You are taking people away from their families, friends, schools, and medical doctors, probably to other counties to find affordable housing. [01:59:21] One of the guys working behind our home said he had been doing this job for 20 years and had never seen anyone put a ground-level road parallel to a stream going through floodplains, wetlands, and watersheds. He said there's a lot going on back there and was surprised by the possibility of a road. [01:59:39] Maybe he knows more than we do. Stop this project now and spending money on a road that will not alleviate traffic on 28, but will destroy an unprecedented number of homes, have a negative impact on our environment, and threaten our watershed. [01:59:55] PWDOT has tried to get this road approved five different times with no success and now again have run into environmental issues causing them to change direction. What a surprise. You need to come up with a better solution that doesn't destroy our environment and displace families that can't afford to move. [02:00:14] I think this Board of Supervisors have moved away from protecting the quality of life for its citizens and really don't care about the impact of your decisions on us. When you start taking a large number of homes with no place for people to go, you need to make sure it's the only and best option. [02:00:30] In this case, it is not, since it will not provide the solution you are seeking and will only destroy families and negatively impact everyone in its path. Thank you, Ms. Blazer. Next speaker, please. [02:00:47] Your next speaker is Ali Imam. Ali Imam, Gainesville District. Thank you, respected supervisors, for your hard work for Prince William County. [02:01:03] I support PW Digital Gateway and the Pageland Corridor. This corridor is uniquely suitable for data centers because of nearby existing high-voltage transmission lines as well as fiber optics availability. This is considered optimal for data centers because less new infrastructure is needed. [02:01:26] Also, data centers, compared to other types of commercial uses, result in fewer vehicle trips, lower lighting levels, and less outdoor noise. More of our county staff has said that Pageland Lane is the only opportunity left to significantly increase commercial tax revenue and create a more robust local economy. [02:01:49] So please vote yes on December 12th, and do not delay because this board is the most knowledgeable board for this project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Imam. [02:02:05] Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Zafir Imam. Zafir Imam, Gainesville District. I support the Prince William Digital Gateway. [02:02:22] Data centers in the Overlay District do not incorporate any more than one-fifth of their land as open space, while data centers in the Digital Gateway will incorporate over one-third of the total acreage as open space. Please support the Prince William Digital Gateway. Thank you. [02:02:39] Thank you, Mr. Imam. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Ken Nahr. Ken Nahr, Gainesville District. I fully support continuing the Route 25 pedestrian bridge project to Brentsville or Battlefield High School in support of public safety. [02:02:59] In addition to the gateway actually developing less than 1% of the county's land and affecting less than a half a percent, 1% of the Occojuan watershed, it will add over 900 acres to publicly accessible open space in new parks and trails. [02:03:15] As we have heard many times over the last two years, over 70% of survey respondents want more public parks and trails in Prince William County. Prince William County has engaged in data center development for almost a decade now and has roughly 40 operational data centers. [02:03:32] The current data center overlay district and the data center footprint is entirely inside the Aquacon watershed. There has been zero detectable impact on the water quality and supply, which is completely in line with what our Water and Service Authority testified during the water working session. [02:03:53] In fact, those experts testified the biggest and only real threat to the Aquafone Reservoir has been, is, and will likely continue to be increased salinity due to single-family residential communities. [02:04:11] Residential discharge and road treatment chemicals are the two primary causes of the increased salinity in the reservoir over the last 20 to 30 years. I respectfully ask for your support for the three Prince William Digital Gateway rezoning applications coming before this board in the coming months. [02:04:30] Thank you, Mr. Nahr. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Stella Rowland. Hi, Stella Rowland from the Gainesville District. [02:04:51] I also support the pedestrian bridge to Battlefield High School. The Prince William Gateway has the land for the data centers as well as the buffering area. This is going to bring $20 million in the first year, and the rural nature of this area that we once lived in is no longer rural. [02:05:10] The traffic congestion is extremely hard to get through, and I respectfully ask that you all support this project. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rowland. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Charles Wilson. [02:05:33] Charles again. [02:05:45] Wilson, we still cannot hear you, unfortunately. Oh, we can hear you now. Can you hear me? Please proceed. Thank you for taking care of the technical aspect. I'm Charles Wilson Gainesville. [02:06:03] I'd like to thank the Planning Commission and Prince William County Board of Supervisors for all the hard work they've put into this project. Prince William Digital Gateway data centers will be state-of-the-art. They will be good neighbors, sensitive to protecting the watershed, sound mitigation, and more. [02:06:21] Residents of the county will benefit from improvements the data centers bring. increased tax revenues, more jobs, better paying for first responders, et cetera. This has been discussed repeatedly over the last two years. It's time to make a decision. Please approve the Prince William Digital Gateway. [02:06:39] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Was that the last speaker, Ms. Mann? No, Cynthia Wilson is your last speaker. Right. Please proceed, Ms. Wilson. Yes. Cynthia Wilson, Gainesville District. There is so much misinformation about the data centers being put out by the opposition. [02:07:01] For example, the opposition has said that the total acreage allowed for the data centers is 2,169 acres, when in fact, it's 1,332 acres. One-third of that land is designated for parks, historical sites, and protected areas, not zero. [02:07:19] The Prince William Digital Gateway is the only opportunity left to significantly increase the commercial tax base. Right now, Prince William County is underserved and the residents overtaxed. please vote for the prince william digital gateway thank you thank you miss wilson and thank you miss mann for your support and back to you madam chair thank you vice chair bode thank you miss van as always that will conclude our public comment time for this afternoon which brings us on to our public hearings we have four public hearings today [02:07:58] There are generally no presentations associated with these. They have been put up online. But I am going to, instead of consolidating them all, I'm going to take 7A, B, and C together for a public hearing, because we have speakers signed up for 7D more so, so I thought I would separate that out. [02:08:20] So this will officially open the public hearing for 7A, 7B, and 7C. And so far, we have two people signed up for 7B. I will note that 7A is the amendment to the county code striking the tapsy cab reviews residency requirements for the review board. [02:08:37] The 7B is the final design of the Minerville Prince William Parkway interchange and C as a conveyance of an easement to Novak across county owned property. Two speakers signed up so far to speak on 7B are Renata Grooms and Gina P-L-E-D-I-A. [02:09:00] Palin, maybe, but I'm sure you know. who you are. So if you want to line up at the back microphone, those two speakers, and feel free to lower that down. Ms. Madden, are we all set to go? Okay, please proceed. Hi, my name is Vinata Grooms. [02:09:38] I am the president of Old Dominion Square, which is right next to the intersection of Prince William Parkway and Minerva Road. I bought my business in 2010 when it was just a normal intersection. Meanwhile, it was enlarged, and we gave up one line of our property to make the road bigger. [02:10:01] And now we are at a point where they do Prince William Parker as a fast lane. Now, the place where we're at have 81 units. We're next to Long and Foster. We're right next to a child care center, and we are part of River Run, which is a senior housing. [02:10:22] If we're at full capacity, we've got 2,000 people that are living in that area, and we have one entry and one exit, which means it's one intersection that we can get in and out of it. We've had people that had accident on that corner, which meant that we were not able to get in and out of that property. [02:10:41] We also have, on a regular basis, the fire department coming either to Old Dominion Square or to River Run because seniors have problems with their health, and they block the intersection, or they have not a way of getting around there. [02:10:57] I am asking that when this project is getting pursued, that we get an extra intersection or entry into our place, which is Old Dominion Square, where we have 81 units. I was told by VDOT we would not be as important because we don't have a Safeway or large shopping center. [02:11:17] But we have business. We have retail, and we have doctor's offices, and we only have one way to get to it, and that's through River Run, which is a senior housing. I pledge that you consider having a second entry in there so that if we have a fire, which we already had two years ago, where the fire department was trying to get to it, and we need to get somehow an entry so that if there's any problems, we can use it as an exit. [02:11:48] So my question is, is there any possibility that they can build an entryway on Old Dominion Square where we could easily have a chance to get in at any time for businesses to get people to exit to us, but use it as an exit in case we have an emergency? [02:12:08] Again, this is for the underpass or overpass Minerville and Prince William Parkway. Thank you. Thank you. And just to clarify, this is for A, B, and C. We were going to do D separately for those people who signed up to speak on D. I will be calling that separately. [02:12:24] Our next speaker for 7B was Gina Plum, maybe? Gina Plum, P-H-A-M. Hi. I didn't plan to speak today, but then... Could you give us your name and generally where you live? [02:12:40] G-I-N-A-P-H-A-M. I'm a pediatric dentist at Prince William since 2009. I have two offices, one in Lake Ridge and the other offices in Dell City, where the project, the interchange project, is going to be taking place. [02:12:59] The only concern is for us, we're going to be losing so many patients. Of course, there's going to be a situation where the location agent is going to help us out, but it's going to be very tough because that location is very safe for the kids and parents to go in. [02:13:19] It has very nice access, and it has a parking lot, and very, very safe for kids. And we have thousands of patients of record. Breaking down, we're going to comply with the state, whatever is helping with the state and the county. [02:13:36] But also, please be very considerate, because this is the medical center, And we're actually, in order to replace this unit, we need a lot of time. First of all, the time for construction, permit, different kind of permit for gas, different kind of permit for this county to approve. [02:14:00] We need at least one year for the construction of our unit. That's talking about leasing. If we have to build from ground up like our office, it's going to take like a year and a half or two years. And so we will comply with the county if this is really necessary, but please be very mindful that this project is actually hurting us really bad. [02:14:27] That's all I can say. Thank you. We request some flexibility for us to get another unit somewhere so that we can move over because to build an office, as any of you have approved a project like that before, takes a long time and thank you very much thank you um is there anyone else in chambers before we go to our remote people at the public hearing who also want to speak on 7a 7b or 7c if so please [02:15:02] approach the microphone seeing no one approached the microphone we will go to our remote speaker for 7b supervisor bode thank you madam chair how many folks do we have just one i heard just one please proceed your speaker is mark scheichler good afternoon mark scheichler coles district actor prince william co-chair i strongly recommend the minneville road prince william parkway interchange design be modified to include a 10-foot shared use path on minneville road [02:15:40] within the project boundaries the current design only calls for a six foot concrete sidewalk the current and previously approved comprehensive plans clearly indicate a shared use path as the recommended bicycle facility on Mainville Road. In addition, the section of Mainville Road is also designated as U.S. Bike Route 1. I please request that you just follow what is in the comprehensive plan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scheichler. Ms. Mann? That will conclude our [02:16:17] public hearings and formally close our public hearings for 7A, 7B, and 7C. I know we don't have any presentations do board members have any questions on 7a b or c madam chair okay i'm just trying to wait till you sign up to speak and then supervisor actually angry yours doesn't work okay super angry and then supervisor body okay supervisor body then supervisor angry thank you madam chair thank you miss supervisor angry um there were some concerns that were expressed [02:16:55] during the public hearing so i can see rick canizales in the back coming up so if you could address some of those would much appreciate it madam chair members of the board rick can is all this your director of transportation uh thank you for the opportunity to respond to some of the concerns that have been put out to here today by the public uh just so you are aware uh we did uh we did discuss or talk to uh people that were uh fully affected by this project as miss fam [02:17:35] we also contacted the applebee's there uh the truest bank uh and miss fam who has a dentistry shop there. These are going to be full takes of this project. We have discussed this with them. They understand that we will be looking to accommodate them in a temporary location while they build. We're hopefully trying to help them find them a place to build or where to build as well and helping them accommodate on that. On your first speaker, it's very hard to accommodate that. We could not accommodate it with just the intersection improvements we did originally because it had a continuous right through movement in the area where that [02:18:15] building would have any secondary access to it. In the instance with this new design, the back of that building will be part of an interchange ramp or an interchange area that cannot be broken at that time. VDOT will not allow us to construct an additional entrance there. [02:18:31] We can see if there's something additional we can do on Miniville, but as for the parkway, that will be a very hard ask to be able to accommodate. Finally, on Mr. Scheffler's comments on the 10-foot trail, we do have a six-foot sidewalk, like he does mention on there now. I've just talked to our engineer. He says that it looks like we can maybe be able to accommodate a 10-foot trail, so we will look at that as part of moving forward to get the final design. [02:18:54] Thank you. - Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. One quick follow-up question. In terms of Ms. Fromm's concern about the timeline of them having to relocate versus when construction starts. Correct me if I'm wrong, but construction begins on this project if it moves forward under the most generous of circumstances in spring of 2025. [02:19:14] It does, but as we have informed Ms. Pham and her husband, we will be needing that property for utility relocation. So that will be done as part of the right-of-way utility relocation. This is why we have reached out to them initially and before even the public hearing, just to make sure that they understand that there is a timeline here that we need to get to the utility relocation part of this project that all three of those properties will be needed for. With that said, we have informed them as well that we could probably give them that year or close to that year in time frame and at the same time hopefully within that time frame find them something. We're awaiting the action from the board that we are taking here today in order to be able to start our right of way process [02:19:53] and start helping the individuals affected. Appreciate that. Thank you. A comment Madam Chair on that. Appreciate that Mr. Canizales. I know that was also mentioned by Ms. Pham the permitting process that they were going to do a new build hoping that county staff can flag that so when we have these kinds of projects where folks are being having total takes of their property that folks don't get sort of clogged up in some of the concerns and issues that folks face frankly right now as per the permitting process and to make sure that as we're looking to relocate these people out they don't get clogged up in some of the usual concerns that people have so you know they want to fully comply as miss fam said but we should we should not be the ones holding up them getting to their new location once we do that. [02:20:32] And I've just been informed by Katab here, our head engineer, by Mr. Schmuth, that if we're going to look at other options for utility relocation as well, that may even give them more time to look into and be able to relocate. So we will be doing our, we will be putting in our due diligence and making sure that we're doing the utilities in the most effective way and in the most convenient way for those being impacted. [02:20:53] Thank you so much. Thank you. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. And no questions. I mean, that was really, y'all the comments there i just want to make a comment because you know this process has been going on for a while and i'm happy that you're going to work uh to make sure we can get you in someplace and then by the time this project kind of gets going on we can uh hopefully the timing all works out perfectly so just to play a real partnership in that transition of that um listening to the interest i know that was that's just one um you know guys i'm i'm also a firefighter i know that system living well i know that one entrance is a horrible entrance i think that design [02:21:32] from years back because that's been like that for forever i don't know what else we can do with that i know if we did anything it would have to be off of minneville because i know the parkway is completely out of the question yes i don't know what you could do off of minneville maybe there's some creative design i i won't take it off the table completely but i do know that parkway is off the table and just understanding that but i want to say this you know this that the spooky concept here that we're talking about really take it takes that intersection I believe it's from a d to a b rating it's been one of the most congested heavily accident prone intersection [02:22:09] we have so this is a really good design that's really even going to help that traffic off of miniville because as you know you can go from 234 all the way over to old bridge road and that's why people fly through that road as fast as they do we started this whole journey with trying to make the parkway a true parkway by taking red lights and, you know, access points off of that road. [02:22:31] But Minneapolis, you know, I've always been looking at how do you slow that down anyway because these are our crossroads. So, you know, I know this is a world, a place where the process is into the next phase of this, and, you know, it's always going to be a point of contention because it's got so much change involved. [02:22:50] And I really appreciate you all for really just working with us to be a part of this change that we're going to go through, which I do believe is going to be a huge, great improvement to that intersection and just the Prince William County area. So I just want to thank you for working with us and just hope that we can continue these conversations and make sure we transition you smoothly with as few bumps in the road, because I'm pretty sure there's going to be some bumps in the road, but as few as we can to make this happen. [02:23:18] Thank you for your comments, Katab Shamud, like I said, our head engineers here, as well as Mark Gunn with RDA, who's our consultant on this project. Just to mention a couple of things, great, and we'll continue to look at this, but just so to remind the board, the development of the courts, Buchanan Partners, is funding this design, and they're the ones who have employed RDA in this process. [02:23:40] We're doing the environmental assessment as part of the federal requirements in case we get federal monies for this project. So as you're saying all this all these players are here. Mr. Mr. Russ Gessel from Buchanan partners is here as well and they're hearing your comments So we will look into that and see if there's any improvements we can do to the access of that building. Thank you, sir Next up Supervisor Lawson. Thank you, madam chair. I actually just wanted to know Rick You've obviously been working with Supervisor angry's office on this sounds like for quite a while and the business owners that were here today It it appears that you've been communicating with them. Who is your? [02:24:19] Project manager, or do we have somebody, for example, from Rinker that also helps you with the relocation of the businesses? Yes, so we are getting... We do our best to make sure that this is as less difficult as possible for businesses and homeowners. [02:24:38] And as you know, ma'am, this project is a design-bid-build project, so we have to go in order. design. We have to go through the design process first, then we can go to the right-of-way process, then we can go to a low bid thing. So there's a time when I can talk to the actual property owners of the business at a point in time. In this instance... Are you saying you haven't? Oh, no, no, I have, ma'am. No, no, I'm sorry. And they're here today because we have talked to them and told them about the property. What I was trying to say is that it's unusual that we're able to talk to them ahead of time this way, because usually the design, bid, build process is a linear process. We're not even [02:25:15] allowed through federal regulations to talk to the business owners until after we get through the design and we see their true impact then we can start discussing them. In this instance even though we are looking for federal funds and federal monies the right-of-way impacts being dealt with by the county as this is a county bond project and CIP money that we have so we're able to talk to the business owners ahead of time so we've done we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves and doing some advanced talking to be able to do some advanced acquisition to get to some of the concerns that Ms. Pham talked about to get to some of the concerns that the other property owners have that in that area today. So that is a reason we're able to talk to them now and we're able to get with them, but this isn't a usual thing [02:25:54] in a regular design bid build project. Right, and I appreciate all that. I'm just still trying to learn, like, do you have somebody that is doing their best to... Oh, I'm sorry, and I didn't get to that part. Yes, ma'am. To help them through this, because this is obviously very disruptive to them and their businesses. Yes, ma'am. In the past, I know we've had mark from rinker and other project managers i i'm especially asking because i want the public to know that perfect behind the scenes we're doing everything we can to alleviate a lot of the the burden and i know we can't alleviate all of it and thank you for repeating the main question i lost my way there as i was talking through it uh but yes uh we once the board takes an action here [02:26:33] today and endorses this project to move forward and we know that we're moving forward that design Again, because Mark Gunn was hired by Buchanan Partners, we are going to use them and task them to do the right-of-way in this project as they are the most knowledgeable in this area at this point. [02:26:50] So they will be, as soon as we get that task on board, as soon as we get through this board meeting and get started on that, we'll be getting in touch with them and we will start looking at an appraisal process. We have gone through the schedule with not only the fams, but also the tenants of the Applebee's as well as the owners of the land of the Applebee's and have informed the Truist Bank who owns and operates the property. [02:27:16] I'm sorry? I'm sorry to interrupt you, Rick. No, no problem. The Applebee's that's now a dental office, right? No, I'm sorry. The dental office used to be at Bob Evans. That's right. Breakfast place in the middle there. The Applebee's still stands in the corner. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm getting my restaurants confused. Is Mark in the chamber? Yes. Mark Gunn's up in the corner there. [02:27:33] There he is. So not to point out Mark, but Mark is very good at what he does, or at least I think he is. And Supervisor Angry, and is part of it Supervisor Bodie's just heard? They're obviously very involved as well. [02:27:48] I just wanted to make sure before we voted that... Yes, ma'am. We are getting them involved in the right-of-way. Thank you for the question. Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rick, just a comment, and it's going to come off as a little bit snarky, but I am going to use this project against you in the future. [02:28:05] It looks like it's a relatively straightforward grade separation, standard sort of intersection design. I'm curious, and this is what we're going to talk about, I suspect, in the coming weeks, is why this particular intersection on the Prince William Parkway is absent all of the no left turns and jug handles that we have out on the west end. [02:28:29] I'm going to point it out to you because we're going to be talking about that design in weeks to come. Yes, sir. Thank you. Again, this is an interchange improvement, and it only goes to a certain point of where we're going at. We will be using a jug stock handle kind of approach to deal with the maintenance of traffic issue out here. [02:28:53] But ultimately, it will not be that because it's just dealing with one intersection in this project and not multiple as in the Bosphorus. Understood, but you're going to see this again. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for the question. So, thank you very much. Seeing no further questions, Supervisor Angry, since this is a big project in your district, would you like to move forward 7A, 7B, and 7C? [02:29:15] Thank you, Madam Chair. I most certainly would like to move this forward for approval. Second. In motion, seconded by Supervisor Bodie. Madam Chair. Any further discussion? I understand that you consolidated all of the public hearings, but would it be okay to vote for these individually? If that's what you would like to do. [02:29:32] Yes. Okay, so 7A, the taxicab ordinance, if I could get a motion to move 7A. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Motion passes 5 to 2. [02:29:55] Supervisors Vega and Weir voting no. Supervisor Franklin absent from vote. We're back to 7B, Supervisor Angry. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Angry, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any further discussion? Madam Chair. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. [02:30:11] I wanted to, again, thank Rick and his team for all their work and their outreach to this. Again, to the fams, thank you for coming to the public hearing to talk to us about your concerns. I know other folks spoke as well, but we wanted to make sure that, especially as we completely take and relocate businesses, again, we're giving you the right window so we can make sure that you're, as much as we can, not disrupting your operations. [02:30:30] But especially, again, I just want to say it so county staff can hear it, as they go through their process of getting repermitted and everything else, we need to make sure that they have a smooth process so they can get up and running as soon as possible, because that's the only way we'll be able to do right by them. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair. [02:30:46] Vice Chair Boddy, Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, this is part one of really a three-phase process, so I really want to thank, you know, the guests, you know, West Government, Buchanan Partners, and all of Trans Station, because this road improvement ties to a huge development, it's a court district that we've been talking about. [02:31:04] And, you know, in the beginning of all our developments, We always talk about infrastructure first, and so this is an infrastructure improvement that helps with that project, which still has a Whole Foods connected to it. So I just want to put that out there. And the fact that, you know, we have to get this done. [02:31:21] So it's been my vision and goal since 2019. Before that development starts, we get this road started, and hopefully by the time that development is complete, the road, not all will be complete, but the road is completed so that we have that true traffic movement. [02:31:37] And so to our businesses, you know, I really thank you both for working with us to really try to make this happen in a vision. And to that relationship, just to continue that and keep it going so we can make sure your transition is this move with this entire project because there's many more moving pieces to come with this. [02:31:57] And so I just thank us for getting this next piece moving. So thanks a lot, everybody. Thank you. Seeing no further discussion, please vote. Vote unanimous. Supervisor Franklin absent from vote. [02:32:15] And that moves us on. If someone could move 7C, that's in the Gainesville Magisterial District. Supervisor Weird. So moved. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Weird, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Vote unanimous. [02:32:37] Thank you. That brings us on to our public hearing for 7D. We are just receiving, we're not, I don't know if we're voting on this. We don't have a vote on this. Now we're just receiving public comment on the proposal from MEB general contractors to develop an indoor sports event center. [02:32:53] We currently have 15 people signed up to speak. I will call you five at a time. And as a reminder, if you're speaking during this public hearing, you are supposed to speak to the subject of the indoor sports complex. Please state your name and generally where you live or your magisterial district in the county. [02:33:12] Everyone will have three minutes. Our first five speakers are Carl Greeton, Richard Jesse, Carol McEvoy, Victor Nassar, and Mona Snead. Please proceed. Mr. Greeton, you're first. [02:33:37] Hello, I'm Carl Greton of the Gainesville District. I'm here to speak to Item 7D. Why would other supervisors outside the immediate district vote for this facility? When the Gainesville and Brentsville and Cole supervisors do not want the digital gateway, other supervisors vote for the gateway. [02:33:57] The needs of the specific district are not being listened to. Citizens of Prince William County hope you evaluate all the typical items for a project. We see the attached information as only a draft and does not have specific information for the facility. The examples given are not necessarily for this specific project. [02:34:14] It appears this project is along the I-95 corridor, primarily for basketball, volleyball, and track. The Board of Supervisors is asking for public comment, yet many pages are listed as proprietary confidential. It is most difficult to comment on this project if details are not available for the public. [02:34:30] Many factors are involved in a project of this type. Need, cost, design parameters, location, what sports, financial considerations, security at the front desk, income generation or free, air conditioning, heat, and air ventilation, noise abatement, control of Prince William County residents, bathrooms, showers, and are they unisex? [02:34:49] Various sport options, soccer, lacrosse, gymnastics, etc. Types of flooring for each specific sport. Volleyball players do not like basketball floors. Or do we add AstroTurf? Expenses such as bills, electricity, water, insurance, and noise abatement. We do see there is an expenditure for a kitchen, athletic equipment, and a hydraulic track. [02:35:10] We also see there are potential features of a cost of about $18 million for a fitness center, retractable turf field, and an indoor pool. Another $40 million is shown for a parking garage. There appears to be a non-banked track under the bleachers. [02:35:27] As usual, we see there is proprietary confidential information and are exempt from public disclosure. The statement included, you spoke to only one person, Jason Grant, a Prince William County resident. Is this enough public input? Will there be an evaluation of other facilities such as St. James and Fairfax Sportsplex in Springfield? [02:35:48] If you look at the programming section, you will see that the facility will mainly be used during after-school activities. Will the usage in the daytime hours be viable to open the facility and at what expense? kids' soccer practice, and pickleball are the two activities scheduled. Perhaps during daytime hours of the facility could be only opened during one day a week. [02:36:07] Have you evaluated weather issues? Remember the skating rink in Prince William County when the roof collapsed. We can see an issue that the retractable track might not function, and the facility could reschedule a large portion of activities. Does the cost outweigh the need? Please evaluate the cost per team because other facilities are charging up to twice the fees that are stated. [02:36:26] Does the community want this project? and the associated vote from other supervisors. I'm speaking from this experience of running an indoor soccer league from over 20 years. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I have down Richard Jesse. [02:36:44] I don't see him. He may have signed up. He spoke earlier, right? He's still listening on this. Carol McAvoy. Hello, I'm Carol McAvoy. I was Cole's district. I live in Meadowbrook Woods. [02:36:59] I am now Occoquan. Someday I'll get to the Occoquan. I've been a resident since 85, 88, actually. My husband is a Prince William County coach. [02:37:15] We also run Prince William Pole Vaulters. We have been trying. We've done this dog and pony show several times, three times, previously begging the board to put this up. [02:37:32] There is nothing in northern Virginia. Indoor track is outdoor track. These kids train outdoors, and then when there is a major meet, they are lucky if they get to go to Prince George's County. [02:37:49] Last season, they had to go to Winchester. That's where your local meet is, Winchester. And then you go down to Virginia Beach. The Virginia Beach facility is beautiful. It is wonderful. It's state-of-the-art. [02:38:04] They have major competitions down there. We would also have such major competitions. There is nothing in Northern Virginia. You have to understand the world champion currently in track, Noel Lyles, his brother, Josephus Lyles, were from Northern Virginia. [02:38:23] There is no place for these guys to train. My son is a collegiate, will be post-collegiate. There's no place to train for these kids. My husband would be here, but he's coaching. He does coach for Osborne Park High School. [02:38:40] Most of the gear is in our garage while it's being renovated. he's now coaching over at unity read at the courtesy of with thank you to unity read for allowing him to do his summer program there um which we rented we i'm asking is it expensive yeah it's mega expensive we have um thousands of kids that come through the the prince william county school system we have three track leagues we and prince brilliant pole vaulters are the only [02:39:16] pole vaulting team. A lot of it comes out of our own pockets. We cannot build a facility. We have been priced out of the market. We can't rent a warehouse space. We are priced out of the market. The whole food tax was supposed to go to help the cost. We're also asking, Helwig was built on bonds, so hopefully we can do a bond referendum to help offset the cost. [02:39:49] If you build it, it will be there. Pickleball is a new upcoming thing. Manassas Mall is going to have a commercial venture. It would be nice to have something on the western end. We would need this because, I'll tell you, Prince William Paul Vaulters would be renting this facility so that we could train our vaulters. [02:40:10] And once again, indoor season is outdoor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before our next speaker, I'm just going to go through and read the next five. Many people have come and gone. Carol McA... [02:40:26] Sorry, that was you. Victor Nassar, Mona Sneed, Michael Wicklock, Neal Kasteritz, Kat Zarski, David Johnson, Barbara Chirell, and Benita Fitzgerald-Mosley. [02:40:42] Please proceed. Feel free to line up in the back. Please proceed. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Board of County Supervisors. county attorney, and county executive, Mr. Shorter. My name is Mona Snead. Some of you may recognize me as a county employee, but today I'm here speaking as a community resident of Prince William County in the Coles District. I am here today to support the development of an indoor sports and events center here in Prince William County. This is long overdue for the county. I have three student athletes here in Prince William County in the public school system that have traveled all over the district, Maryland, and Virginia to other facilities such as Maryland, [02:41:20] Fairfax, Loudon, and Fredericksburg counties to be able to participate in activities and sports related events. Building a centralized facility in Prince William County would help our residents and our citizens from traveling to other jurisdictions and counties for these services. We have many youth sports that are using facilities in other counties as an alternate solution due to the lack of space and cost. The permits here within Prince William County provided are significantly higher than the cost in other counties such as Fairfax County. [02:41:50] I know personally of organizations that are setting up practices and events in Fairfax County due to the cost and availability. On multiple occasions, I have been to events in which local organizations here in Prince William County have had a permit issued, only to be turned away because the organization and or the school that the event is being organized did not receive proper notification or the county and the school did not communicate. [02:42:14] We are losing student athletes to organizations outside of Prince William County due to these type of inequities. examples such as myself. I have students and I have kids that are participating in other leagues outside of Prince William County due to the frustrations of the, due to the growing frustrations of the above. These organizations are longing to have an organized, centralized indoor facility to grow their programs, train their athletes, and to support our student-athletes. This indoor facility would be the primary for some and alternate for others where we have various athletic programs facing these challenges. Prince William County has the ability to house such a [02:42:51] facility and show our youth, our future, that they are here and we are here to support them. The support and dedication from the Board of County Supervisors to move forward with the development will speak volumes within our community and to other local jurisdictions. Lastly, the revenue potential for such a facility here in Prince William County would be large in volume but also large in presence. Prince William County has much to offer so why not show that With the proximity of airports, train stations, and highways, we can host multiple events right here in our backyard. [02:43:24] Our babies, our youth, deserve the much-needed support as they are trying to be great through academics and athletics. We should feel a sense of investment and commitment to support these young youth as they continue to move forward. [02:43:39] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Barbara Terrell, and I'm from the Woodbridge District. And I want to thank all our board members for all you do to help our communities, to build our communities. [02:43:59] I guess I'm here to convince you to build this in the eastern section of Prince William County. To be clear, I support all sports, but it's through the involvement with Pickleball that I realize we have no indoor space. [02:44:16] I will use Pickleball as an example of who we are in the eastern section of Prince William County. We run Open Pickleball at Veterans Park. People love it. There are always 50 to 60 people playing, players showing up. [02:44:32] There's a 30-minute wait. Folks are standing around, talking, getting to know each other. I take videos, and I send it to parks and recs because I want to keep them in the loop. And when I look at these videos, it's a melting pot of people. [02:44:47] The eastern section lies along the Occoquan Bay and the Potomac River, close to 95, 26 miles from Washington, D.C. We are rich in history and diversity. We have many new families that live here. [02:45:05] We have families with deep roots, and we are the place to live, work, and play. We have no indoor space for our sports. So, yes, let's get this conversation going and figure out a way we can afford this or something like it. [02:45:26] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Michael Whitlock. You guys probably see me from the chamber in my suit and tie, but not today. I'm representing the pickleball community, but really all sports. [02:45:43] I have four kids that graduated from Woodbridge High School. They're all in their 30s and 40s now. but there was always a trouble finding indoor spaces to be able to play in the wintertime and in inclement weather. And I know our dream has been to build a facility on east side and build a facility on the west side of the county, but I think I'd like us to push forward on this one to kind of take a look at what it means. [02:46:09] I know the pickleball people tied me up last night and threw me out in front here this morning. And I've been playing for five or six years. I try to run the country and play. I see all the other cities, especially down in Florida, even in places like St. Louis and Minneapolis, just building big facilities for all sports. [02:46:30] I know a lady mentioned something about the indoor pole vaulting and things like that. Every kid can use it. It'll keep the kids off the street. It'll keep us old people off the street, too, right, which I think is important, plus the camaraderie that it brings for everybody, but even for the older crowds. [02:46:49] The camaraderie is just unbelievable, and I don't know what people would be doing, as far as the older people doing, if they weren't playing pickleball. I don't know what they'd be doing. And I think it's good. I think it's good for all ages. I think it's good for all kids. So if we can just push forward so we can investigate it more and kind of take a look at it, I think it would be great. [02:47:08] The tournaments that could be done there will definitely bring in a lot of people into the county, into our hotels, into our restaurants. So there's a lot of opportunity for that if we examine it deeper. So thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Nick Katzarellis. [02:47:26] I'm the president of the Woodbridge Pickleball Club, a longtime resident. We're talking 60-some years. My family was here since the 1890s. My family was a business owner. So we understand the costs and benefits of anything we invest in, the understanding that we've got taxes that will have to support this. [02:47:45] I totally get it. But also as someone who grew up in this area where we did not have anything to help us out, is really, really big, that we had the people here at the time. We need more now. We need the facilities to bring this together. [02:48:01] The things that sports have done for me in my lifetime is just outstanding, and I would love to see the kids of today have that same kind of benefit. As far as our club goes, we've got 330 members paid. They do all kinds of things besides play. [02:48:17] We have some retired teachers who do events at the schools. We've got schools asking us for equipment for teachers to come out and help teach the teachers. We did events at the high school to help teach the teachers, get them involved. And the sport itself is fantastic. [02:48:33] We'd love to see it spread. More importantly, I want to see sports spread, the camaraderie, but also that sense of pride that these children and adults gain from that is very, very important for us. So I'd love to see us at least move forward, see this thing through, hopefully come up to a great program that would be a star in the eyes of all of Northern Virginia, not just Woodbridge and Prince William County, but all of Northern Virginia, that would bring us money and highlight our benefits to this area. Thank you. [02:49:04] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Dave Johnson. I'm fairly new to Prince William County. I thank each of you for allowing us to speak to this important issue. I've lived in Iowa, been in Colorado. Each of those cities that I lived in bonded issues to build facilities like this. [02:49:24] Each of them were opposed by a large number of people, but they built them anyway. And each of those facilities, they've outgrown the needs and the uses of each of those. Pickleball is a huge important part to me. I knew no one moving to Northern Virginia. [02:49:41] And now I have 350 friends that are paid members of our club. I've met hundreds of other people at other pickleball events, and I would really appreciate if this could be built so that not only the youth and the older people can use it, but other sports can also access this type of a facility. [02:50:03] I truly believe in the long run, you will find every dime you spent is a well-spent dime. You'll enjoy it once it's built. Thank you. Thank you. And before our next speaker, I just want to call up the next five to keep things moving. [02:50:19] Carter Warren, Nick Daly, Sidney Nolan, Sandy Gibbs, and Daryl Harris. Please proceed. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Benita Fitzgerald-Moseley. I'm a longtime resident of Prince William County, grew up here, went to Garfield High School, was state champion when I was here in track and field, and ultimately was on two Olympic teams and won a 1984 Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles. [02:50:49] Thank you. I'm currently serving as CEO of an organization called Multiplying Good that promotes public service across the United States, but I'm a past chief operating officer for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, chief of sport for USA Track and Field, CEO of Loria's Sport for Good Foundation. [02:51:09] And through all these roles, but particularly being a mom of two kids who are now college age but who grew up going to school here in Prince William County and playing sports, basketball, volleyball, and, of course, running track, I fully support the building of this indoor facility. [02:51:27] The last time I was here in April of 2022, I brought a group of young track athletes with me from Battlefield High School. My daughter was included among them. Those seven athletes are now running D1 track and field at Yale. [02:51:44] Yeah, right? At Yale, my daughter's at University of Maryland, at Oregon, at William & Mary, VCU, Penn State. and more and so those athletes were among the very lucky ones that had parents and support from you know they had the financial support to be able to travel literally all up and down the eastern seaboard from Lynchburg and Virginia Beach all the way to New York where we went to the national championships and many of them placed in the top three in the nation in their events hence getting [02:52:19] the exposure that they needed, reaching the qualifying times and the times, the top 50 in the country that allowed college coaches to recruit them and see them. And not everybody has that opportunity. Many of these kids, even in Battlefield High School, where you would think of, and I live in Dominion Valley Country Club, I'm in the Gainesville District, many of those people you would think, oh, they've got all the resources in the world. [02:52:45] Even in that school, you know, on the western end of the county, there are plenty of kids who qualified for the same meets that my daughter and those other six young people did, but were unable to go because they didn't have transportation because their parents weren't lucky like my husband and I to work remotely and be able to take our kids everywhere. [02:53:03] This facility is going to not only, we keep on talking about the power and the reach for Northern Virginia, this is going to be a facility that people come to from all across the country. They do that in Virginia Beach already, and when my daughter would run the 60 and the 300, she would be, they would make them take their sweats off and go stand in line, and she'd be usually the top five or ten athletes in the meet. [02:53:31] she'd be in heat 45 or heat 46 of the girls 300-meter dash. There's that much need and that much, sorry, not much of a draw for this facility, and people will be coming all over the country for it, and you'll get all kinds of revenue as a result. [02:53:51] Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Carter Warren, and I'm a senior at Patriot High School. I've been running track and field for the last three years now, and I can truly say that this facility will greatly benefit everybody who lives in and around this county, especially student-athletes like me. [02:54:09] Currently, a lot of student-athletes have to travel three or more hours to compete at a suitable sports complex, like the ones they have at Liberty University or VMI or Prince George's County. We often have to leave for long bus rides at 5 a.m. in the morning to ensure our arrival, which leaves me exhausted and unable to perform at my highest potential. [02:54:26] We leave school early during the day to travel to a faraway complex, and we can spend upwards of 18 hours on the weekends at different facilities, Six or more hours of which is purely travel time. There's already enough stress on my life, but unnecessarily missing classes and opportunities to do work only adds it to its difficulty. [02:54:44] This not only has a detrimental effect on my athletic performance, but my overall academic abilities as well. Having a new facility within 30 minutes of anywhere within this county would greatly improve this. Finally, the immense revenue generated by this facility, both from the revenues from the events held there and the benefits to other businesses in the area from the amount of people coming here would be of great benefit. [02:55:09] This is why I am strongly for the building of the Prince William County Sports and Events Center. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Nick Daly, and I'm a student at Patriot High School. As a junior who's been running track for two years, this facility would greatly benefit everyone in the county, especially student-athletes. [02:55:29] Having to travel so far to run a sports complex not only affects my athletic performance, but my academic capabilities. Long bus rides early in the morning to ensure my arrival leave me exhausted and unable to do my best at meets. Not only this, but the extreme cold weather we have makes for uncomfortable and unbearable conditions to run in. [02:55:51] A sports facility in closer proximity would improve my physical and mental health. Leaving the school earlier than necessary to travel to a faraway complex or spending weekends at said facility for up to 18 hours due to the six-hour commute takes away from my education. [02:56:09] Being a student-athlete is already stressful, but unnecessary time, missing classes, and opportunities to do work only adds to its difficulty. I have missed countless tests and deadlines because of this, making it difficult for me to achieve the academic success that I worked so hard for. This is why I'm strongly for the building of the Prince William County Sports and Events Center. [02:56:28] Thank you. Next speaker please. Hello. My name is Sydney Nolan and I'm a senior at Patriot High School. I live in the Gainesville District. For the past four years I've ran varsity cross country, indoor and outdoor track. Today I stand before you to discuss a pressing issue, the dire need for an indoor track facility in Northern Virginia. I'm going to talk about the hours on the road and the effect on student athletes, limitations on Prince William County buses, and the positive impact that it would bring to our community. [02:57:01] Throughout the years, as being a varsity athlete, I've logged countless hours on the road traveling to meets across the state. Every Saturday during the indoor track season, my teammates and I rise early, embarking on trips that can span from two and a half to five hours, exacerbated by the school bus speed limitations. [02:57:19] As a student athlete, this limits our precious weekend time for focusing on homework. Personally, I take many advanced and AP classes that require many hours over the weekend to study for. I try studying as much as I can during these meets, but there's only so much capacity that I have to focus on this, considering I'm also a leader in helping out other athletes during the meets. [02:57:39] While determination can overcome these obstacles, an indoor track facility would alleviate the strain on many student-athletes who face excessive travel times and give them more time to study each weekend. What currently consumes 5 to 10 hours on the road would be reduced to just an hour and a half in my case. [02:57:55] Beyond students, it would ease the burden of the Department of Transportation and bus drivers. no longer requiring them to coordinate and drive teams to faraway meets. Our team has faced many issues due to long-away meets, often having to leave prematurely to comply with the hours limit on the bus drivers in Prince William County. [02:58:13] This not only disrupts our performance, but also incurs costs for boosters in the school, as registration fees for events are non-refundable. In having closer meets, we would be able to attend the meets for longer due to the shortened travel time to get there. Now let's shift our focus to the positive impact an indoor facility would have on our community. [02:58:31] A state-of-the-art track facility could attract national-level meets from renowned organizations like Nike Indoor Nationals, along with possible club events such as the USATF Indoor Nationals and AAU Indoor National Championships. Building this complex would open up opportunities for these competitions, which could draw participants and spectators from across the nation, boosting our local economy significantly. [02:58:55] In conclusion, the construction of an indoor track facility in our region is not just about enhancing the experience for us student-athletes. It's a strategic investment that can stimulate economic growth and place our community on the map for top-tier athletic events. I urge you to consider the long-lasting benefits it would bring to Prince William County. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Before our next speaker, I want to call our last three, James DeMarco, Janice Daly, Jason Grant. Hello, I'm Sandy Gibbs [02:59:31] from American Volleyball Club. I own a volleyball club in Manassas, and I live in Bristow. Our volleyball club usually carries 10 to 12 teams and we are associated with USA volleyball juniors program and the girls that are are usually in our program are our collegiate minded they would like to play in college and we pursue a path that allows the girls opportunity of exposure to recruiters and obviously to also supplement the high school and middle school programs in our county the [03:00:08] reason I am here today is really two reasons. First, our area doesn't really have a place to host multi-day volleyball tournaments. And so clubs like ours, and there's many up here in Prince William County, northern area, we usually have to travel to like Maryland or Pennsylvania, North Carolina. We have to travel the whole eastern board to really go to a really big tournament where there's many many other clubs just like ours competing at a high level and it [03:00:44] would be really helpful to our local clubs as well as I believe the county because when you're hosting something like a multi-club tournament the families have to get hotels and restaurants and that's a huge revenue for the area I'm always plotting driving around like wow that building would be great look at all that parking and there's a hotel and McDonald's right there and so I this would be a great thing for the county I think and secondly this really doesn't help my club so much but there's really not a place between like boys and girls club [03:01:21] and travel volleyball there's not any space in between and so there's many families who call me and like hey do you guys have something like year-round we can't really afford people like you or what you're doing or we don't have the time and we would like our daughter or son to be involved in good volleyball where there is some good coaching and most clubs like ours don't have that and I think that a facility like that may be able to provide a place for people who want less of a commitment or less expensive volleyball experience because we're all looking for court [03:01:57] space no matter what sport you are we're always competing for court space and paying high dollar to churches and community centers which helps the community in a different way but to have another option would be super super helpful so thank you for considering building this complex and I really hope that we can figure out how to do it thank you oh by the way I have pickle court pickleball court space during the day if the pickleball people are thank you um i'm just going to read our last four speakers again it's daryl harris james [03:02:34] demarco janice daly jason grant please proceed good afternoon madam chairman and other board members my name is daryl harris i'm one of the coaches in this area a retired military guy with 22 years of service retired as a communication officer so i do like to talk but i will keep it short i promise you i will keep it short uh before my time run out um but i want to speak on you know on behalf of what everyone else has spoke all my colleagues we have uh olympians here that have [03:03:08] come through this county uh i applaud you every time i see you full of joy uh we have the loud boy uh brothers uh we just have a multitude of of just super athletes that's right here in prince william county uh that's right here in this in this corridor right here forest park moose king Williams uh Ricky Morgan and the list just goes on not only that right over here at Cogan High School you have the twins you have uh you know such great athletes that's in this area but just like one of the uh one of my other colleagues said earlier it's just nowhere for us to train [03:03:43] outdoors is indoors we we use the end when we indoors we use we run indoors we run outdoors indoors in indoor format you know when the weather changes when this weather is 30 you know 32 32 i won't go below 32 but if it's 32 we're running we have nowhere else to go we have to train it's a little bit different with the distant athletes because they have someone you know they can take they can put on layers but sprinters it's a no-go we can't go run inside the schools that's that's a hazard you know we're running on hallway floors we can't go in the gym because we [03:04:19] are competing with volleyball and we're competing with basketball so we have nowhere sprinter have nowhere to go right but we had to be innovative we have to have all the other training out here pockets it's very tough on someone like myself as as a coach i've had the opportunity to train a lot of athletes in my days uh my last uh i guess who i'll on on a personal note is that i had the opportunity to train um olympian uh his name was trevor stewart uh right over here at south county [03:04:51] um so uh he went on to uh you know you know to the last olympians i guess my thing was i didn't get the opportunity to go because he didn't let coaches go over there because of the conditions and so i you know so that was my fame that i did not get chance to live out that dream but like you said um there will be more chances so with that uh with vhsl uh we don't have the opportunity to have championships here everything goes south everything go down to virginia beach We have over, there has not been a state championship here in the Northern Virginia area since the 2000s. [03:05:29] All the championships, state championships go down to 757 area, AAU Indoor Nationals. It brought over 8,000 youth with over a million dollars in revenue for, you know, restaurants and hotels. So I will pause here. [03:05:44] So I will just say I really appreciate the time. Hopefully you all do not let this fall on deaf ears. and this is our third chance up here so we're hoping that thank you very much will be able to do it we get it done thank you thank you next speaker please members of the board thank you for all you do for our community my name is James DeMarco I coach at Patriot High School I live in Bristow we moved here about three years ago and we love this community so much it is one aspect though anytime we want to do something we have to leave the county to to do that as a coach [03:06:22] I have to take my teams outside this area all the time. For our regional championship, which all is Prince William County Schools and one Loudon County School, we have to go to Landover, Maryland for a meet for our regional championship. And they're all Prince William County Schools pretty much. [03:06:40] So the need is here. When I was helping out at Virginia Tech 24 years ago, we would recruit kids from northern Virginia. And they were talking back then, yeah, we're going to have this indoor track. they're talking about it in Fairfax, they're talking about it here. Everyone's been talking, nobody's ever been able to do it. Can you guys be the ones to pull it off? It is a showcase event. [03:07:01] It is the pride and joy of these communities. You go to Virginia Beach and you ask anyone, where's the indoor track facility or the volleyball court facility? They all know where it's at. And they built it because in the wintertime, they're dead down there. There's absolutely no business. All those beautiful hotels along the ocean are sitting empty. So they built this thing, and guess what they host the ncaa division one championships this year last year they had the division two national championships they've held the division three national championships and i was like wow the track must be bringing in oh they go no it's volleyball we're so packed with volleyball all the time and i'm every time i hear there's track meets going on there so this [03:07:39] beautiful multi-use facility the pride that they do brings all this excess revenue for their hotels their restaurants and helps them through the difficult times of the year but it's a showcase it's a pride of the community you build that here everyone in Prince William County will know where it's at because their nieces their cousins their nephews will be coming to Prince to our county to participate in our event our facility not going to Northern Virginia or Maryland or somewhere else they'll be coming here visiting our fast food restaurants and and so on so that is something [03:08:16] I'm so proud of you guys for looking into you guys thank you so much for the new park at Rollins Ford. I've been there the last three times now and it's only been open four days with my kids. They love it and everyone's over there. When you build things like this and everyone sees it and when it's done they're like wow. You know they love it. All that fighting that went on prior to it starts disappearing. I saw the same thing happen in Anchorage, Alaska. They kept fighting these facilities. Once they're built the whole community comes out and they love it and they admit their their mistakes and going against it originally and now they're saying oh I helped build that so please be a part of the community that helps [03:08:55] build this thing help our community with childhood obesity keep getting bigger and bigger we need facilities like this and it would begin something that in northern Virginia it will be Prince William County that has the premier facility of all of this and with Dulles right by us it is something that It could bring in a lot of revenue. [03:09:15] Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Thank you very much for entertaining this facility again. It's such an important facility. And thank you for allowing all of us to speak on it. My name is Janice Daly. [03:09:31] I'm a resident of the Brinsville District, and I'm a shopaholic. Wait, is this the right meeting? Seriously, shopaholic everywhere we go for track. I've said it. Everyone who knows me knows it, but it's not a joke. [03:09:46] I wish I had had more time and more warning and been able to dig through the credit card statements of all the money my family has spent for the past seven years traveling with sports. Not just the hotels, not just the restaurants, but all the little discretionary money that you may not be thinking about and realizing that families spend. [03:10:04] Families travel together. They have younger kids. Those younger kids go to the movies. They go and they explore other places in the local facilities that we have to visit up and down the state, as you've heard. I have two boys. The youngest was brave enough to just speak to you, Nick Daly, even though this is probably not going to benefit him by the time he graduates high school. [03:10:23] My older son also runs track, and he's one of the lucky ones that was recruited to an Ivy League school, thanks in large part to the amazing dedication of our coaches who travel up and down all around the state and out of state, spending their time, losing time with their own families so that our kids can continue to compete, can get the numbers that you've heard about, can get the exposure that you've heard about. [03:10:47] This facility would not only benefit them locally to not have to do that, but it really would, no joke, benefit the entire community with the hotels, with the mom and pop businesses. We have Occoquan right there on the eastern end of the county. [03:11:02] We have so much to offer, and honestly, if we're gonna build, not to raise a sore subject, but if we're gonna build big, noisy buildings, let's fill them with kids, making their futures a better place and good noise. Thanks for your time. Thank you. And our last speaker, please. [03:11:24] So hello, board. Jason Grant with the Brentsville District. I've spoken with most of you on this topic. Most people know me as Coach Jason, Coach Grant, or just Coach G. I've spent the past 24 years of my life here in Prince William County coaching youth sports. I've been a head coach for the Northern Virginia Soccer Club, the Gainesville Grizzlies, Gainesville Basketball Association, for grade lacrosse, boys and girls. [03:11:46] I spent eight years coaching high school track at Brentsville District High School in the past 11 years as a sprints, hurdles, and jump coach at Patriot High School. I was original co-founder of The Running Store in Gainesville, where I directed a community youth program for five years. I coached multi-athletes for prominent athletes in Gainesville and recently started a community youth program called Cedar Run Track Club at the Gainesville High School with over 240 participants from families primarily residing in the Gainesville District, Brentsville District, and Coles District. [03:12:12] Throughout my life as coach, I've found there are two types of athletes, those who talk about reaching their goals and those who are willing to do what is necessary to achieve those goals. You see, everybody wants to be great. That's never a problem as a coach. Ask any kid, do you want to be great? Do you want to be the best you can at this sport? [03:12:27] And they will say, yes, sir, absolutely. That's what I want to do. But many people fail to understand what it takes to become great. They believe that you're born with talent or you aren't. That it's some innate physical ability that allows us to reach our goals. But that view can't explain why so many exceed their natural talent or fall short of the expectations that their talents say we should reach. [03:12:49] The secret to anyone who has ever achieved greatness is that they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to reach their goals. I'm glad that you all recognize John Schofield today. He was my mentor when I started here in economic development, worked with him for six years. And he was first and foremost a planner. And he would always say a plan is not a roadmap, a plan is a vision. [03:13:07] And that vision allows us to understand what obstacles and opportunities are in the way. He told me that every single time when we looked at economic development. And so one of the things as athletes when we look at is what is that goal, what is that vision, what are the obstacles, what are the opportunities, and what are you willing to do to make it happen? [03:13:24] So many people tell me, coach, I can't do it, it's too hard, I want to be great, but it takes too much out of me. I can't keep running, it hurts, I can't do another lap, I'm just too tired. Those who settle will never reach greatness. Those who make excuse after excuse about why they cannot make the sacrifices necessary to reach their full potential will never realize the limitless possibilities that lie ahead of them. [03:13:44] That mentality in sports transitions to their life outside of sports. They find excuses and reasons to quit. But those who achieve greatness, they recognize the obstacles ahead. They find a way to overcome them. They acknowledge the sacrifice that it will take to reach their goals. And they do whatever it takes to face them down. [03:14:01] They realize the power of finding solutions rather than making excuses. Greatness comes from sacrifice with a purpose and singular focus on achieving the goals that we've set before us. Each one of you today will show your character as you determine how you're going to vote on this facility. Are you the type of individual who says they want to support families, support our youth, and support our local businesses, but offers excuse after excuse for why we just can't make that happen? [03:14:24] Or are you the type of individual who acknowledges the challenges before us, seeks to find solutions, and achieve the goals you all have set for this community and your strategic plan? To settle for mediocrity or strive for greatness is always a choice. I hope you'll choose greatness for Prince William County. Thank you. [03:14:39] And I don't mean, I mean, I always just try, I cut off everybody. It doesn't matter what hearing, what anybody's talking about. I always just try to keep it here three minutes just to make sure I do that across the board, whether I agree with everything you're saying or not. Is there anyone else here before I close the public hearing to receive information on the MEB account who wants to speak on this? [03:15:00] If so, you could just go to the microphone in the back. Okay. If not, this will officially close the public hearing on what I would call a listening session on the MEB project. We don't have a vote today. What we do have is just hearing from the community, hearing if there's an interest, hearing input. [03:15:21] I will say that, you know, I won't be here to vote on whatever this facility is, but I'm hoping that the next board understands that this is a vision, and this is a visionary project. It may not even ever pay for itself, or it may, you know, require support every year, but it's something that I believe the community really, really wants. [03:15:41] know we're almost half a million people in Prince William County and it's time as in terms of sports we I don't know how we turn out great champions without the facilities with the facilities that we do but we we manage to turn out these great champions and um you know and I know that uh you know in the next I'm hoping that the next board has the backbone and the vision to put in place something that will benefit our community so much so and that was sort of a point of privilege of me to be able to speak on this today we're not voting but thank you for everyone who came out in support of it i think we hear you thank you manager supervisor i just want to apologize for [03:16:16] violating your decorum uh rule with it with the applaud i i know we're not supposed to do that i think i started that so i want to go on record and apologize for that but you know we got a gold medalist uh yeah i clap too it's hard there sometimes you know when the rules are okay to break because everybody's in in the pulling in the same direction so so thank you all who came out today. I don't know if, do you have, I know Seth is here. Does anyone have any questions for Seth at this time from the board? Madam Chair. Supervisor Brody. Yeah, just for the public's benefit, just if Seth or the county executive could talk about what the next steps are from here, because as you said, we didn't vote, but I think there's a lot of public interest in this, [03:16:56] so it would be good to have on record what happens next. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board, Seth Hemler-Vos, Director of Parks and Recreation. So next steps, if you all are interested in pursuing this proposal further would be to bring the board back what's called an interim agreement which is basically a contract with the offer mab to conduct a preliminary preliminary engineering which is basically test fitting the project on the sites that we're considering as well as further public engagement much more expansive than what's been done to date [03:17:32] to try to ascertain the actual needs in the community versus what the offer believes the needs to be, as well as fine-tuning the pro forma, updating the economic impact projections, operating revenue and expenditure projections, and then after that point, once we have a lot more flesh on this bone, we would bring it back to the board for further deliberation. [03:17:59] Appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. That will close our public hearing 7A through 7D. We move on to agenda number eight, county executive time. Mr. Shorter, the floor is yours. [03:18:16] All right. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. I'll be quick. Just a few announcements. First, wanted to just disclose that we have sent out the solicitation for bids for construction of the CRC, the Crisis Receiving Center. [03:18:36] Yeah, big, big milestone for us. Wonderful news. We'll have a bidders conference on October 18th and expect the bids to close or the solicitation to close on November 6th. So we are hopeful that we'll be able to come back at the end of November with an actual contract for construction. [03:18:55] Big, big deal and really want to celebrate staff, all the staff that were instrumental in this process and who will be active in the procurement process going forward. I also wanted to make note of the recent U.S. HUD Award of 25 Additional Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Vouchers. [03:19:17] This is really representative of the staff's quick turnaround and their ability to use vouchers for homeless veterans. And so we have received 25 additional vouchers from U.S. HUD. [03:19:32] I really want to acknowledge Joni Duckett, who is Director of Housing and Community Development, for all of her hard work. Obviously, DCXO Elijah Johnson for his leadership, her rental assistance team, as well as the homeless services team with social services. [03:19:52] Just phenomenal work, and Prince William County is certainly fortunate to move as quickly as we do to house our homeless veterans. and this is certainly an indication of that hard work. And then finally, very proud and excited to announce that both of our senior centers here in the county recently received reaccreditation by the National Institute of Senior Centers Building Excellence Program. [03:20:20] The senior centers were last accredited back in 2018. This is also a great accomplishment and recognizes that our senior centers meet the nine national standards of Excellence in Operations, which is an established standard for what senior centers can achieve in community. It is important to note that our senior centers serve 1,100 residents here in Prince William County, 55 and over. 90% of those participants credit our senior centers with them [03:20:56] staying here in Prince William County. So just really want to celebrate and commend all the staff who are involved in serving our seniors and making our senior centers state-of-the-art. Congratulations specifically to the Woodbridge Senior Center, which celebrated their 40th anniversary recently. [03:21:14] So thank you, Madam Chair and board members. Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Let me just say, my, my, my, thank you, County Exec, for that wonderful news and to your staff for moving the CRC forward. [03:21:35] That is great news. And I want to take this opportunity again and again to thank my colleagues for the unanimous vote for the CRC. Again, I will say you heal minds, you heal the land. And so we're grateful for your support and your steadfastness in making sure that this project moves forward. [03:21:54] Thank you. Okay. Seeing no further questions from Mr. Shorter, thank you so much. moves on to County Attorney Time. Ms. Robel, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. For closed session this afternoon, we will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to the discussion or the consideration of the disposition of publicly held real property, parklands, along with the consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding actual litigation of Frank Washington individually and as trustee of the Scott Cemetery versus International Investments, LLC, and Prince [03:22:30] William County, Board of County Supervisors, Circuit Court Case 22-6750, along with the accompanying consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel pertaining to land-use law, where such discussion, consultation, or briefing in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position, negotiating strategy, or litigating posture of the public body. We will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel pertaining to non-disclosure agreement law, where such consultation, discussion, or briefing in an [03:23:08] open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position, negotiating strategy, or litigating posture of the public body. We will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding probable litigation regarding SUP 2022-00026, RMFD Enterprises Home Business, along with the accompanying consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel pertaining to land use law, where such consultation, discussion, or briefing in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position, negotiating strategy, or litigating posture of the public body. And finally, we will have [03:23:45] consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to discussions and considerations of the disposition of publicly held real property, along with consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to discussions concerning an economic development item regarding prospective business or industries where no previous announcement has been made of the business or industry's interest in expanding their facilities in the county along with the related discussion or consideration of the investment of public funds for the economic development matters where competition or bargaining is involved where if made public initially the financial interest of the county would be adversely affected and where a discussion in an open meeting would adversely [03:24:22] affect the litigating posture, bargaining position, or negotiating strategy of the public body. These items are appropriate for closed session pursuant to 2.2-3711A35678 of the Virginia Code. So moved, Madam Chair. Motion made by Supervisor Angers, seconded by Supervisor [03:24:44] Bailey. Any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Okay, thank you. That brings us on to agency time. Just as a time check, it is quarter five. It's all important. And we have three agency presentations and one resolution. We are going to begin with our small business barrier study [03:25:19] with Christina Wynn, our Director of Economic Development and Tourism. Ms. Wynn, the floor is yours. Welcome. It'll go away in just a second. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wheeler, members of the board, Christina Wynn with Economic Development. Thank you for allowing us to present the small business barrier study and recommendations and action plan. Just a little bit of background. Prior to 2019, the Prince William County contracted their small businesses services outside of the [03:25:56] county. Around that time they decided to actually move the small business program inside the county we hired a small business development manager and we started to launch a small business program unfortunately COVID then hit and we had to quickly pivot during COVID we stood up about six different grant programs and implemented those programs to get much needed funds out to the community the business community to really help sustain their operations during that trying time. We learned a lot during that, and one of the biggest pieces [03:26:36] that we learned was we didn't have a healthy database of our small business community, which made it really difficult for us to actually outreach to the small businesses to make them aware of these grants and resources that were available to them. Another point, just as part of your strategic plan, there is a huge emphasis on really providing programs and resources to our small business community and entrepreneurs, especially those in the women, minority, and veteran-owned business sectors. [03:27:10] And then lastly, as you all know, Prince William County is 10th in the nation to being the most diverse county. And, you know, as really having that honor, you know, we really have put a lot of special emphasis in trying to make sure that we're bringing programs and resources and assistance to our small business community so that we can help businesses succeed. [03:27:37] The barriers to success study. So this really did come out of ARPA. We, the study was funded through ARPA Monies. We hired, went through a procurement process, hired Camoin and Entree Works to work with us on that study. [03:27:54] And really, the scope of the work, again, which was really born out of what we learned from COVID, was to look at that qualitative and quantitative information to see what was the health of our small business community and where were areas that we could try to enhance our resources and assistance to help them, you know, grow, start, and scale. [03:28:24] And then as well as that study was to recommend, you know, really specific action items. As a new, relatively new small business program, we wanted to really lay out like a long-term action plan that we could grow a small business program over time. Through that study, we did create a small business advisory committee. [03:28:44] This committee consisted of 14 very diverse small businesses that represented diverse genders, ethnicity, industry, and geography to make sure that we had a really good cross-reference of different perspectives and different experiences as business owners. [03:29:08] That Small Business Advisory Committee, we did had reached out when we were starting this program and asked for recommendations from the board members to help us identify potential committee members. [03:29:24] That committee was an advisory committee to staff, and they've been very instrumental in this whole process. And then the KMOIN, you know, worked very closely with that committee and staff. [03:29:40] And actually, when we went through the report, went and presented that, the draft report back to the committee to make sure that this was on target. This is a picture of our Small Business Advisory Committee. [03:29:55] I do want to point out that our staff person, Clarice Grove, she is our small business development manager and has managed this program and our small business efforts. And I just want to thank her for her leadership. The Small Business Advisory Committee, they wanted to be here today, but we actually kind of double booked them because they're part of a focus group in helping relook at the small business website and providing input in terms of that. [03:30:24] So they may be listening online, so make sure you say hi to them. But with that, I would like to introduce our consultant, Eric Pages. He's with Entree Works, and he is going to be presenting very quickly the small business summary report. [03:30:41] Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and board members. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm going to give you a quick update on the small business barrier study. The study is also available, so if you'd like to get a paper copy, we can arrange that as well. I'm here also representing both my own firm, but also Kamoyan Associates, particularly Krista Franzi, who was my sort of co-principal investigator on this project. [03:31:06] I do want to thank Christine and Clarice and the team. Mr. Hugh, all the folks in the Prince William County government have been extremely supportive and helpful in this project, and also the Business Advisory Committee, which did great work and is going to continue to be a great asset for this project. So this is basically what we did. [03:31:23] This is kind of the research design. We did a lot of demographic and analytical work looking at the data on small businesses in Prince William County and across Virginia and across the United States. And then we did a lot of outreach and interviews with business representatives and folks like the various chambers of commerce and folks that are working in the various government agencies. [03:31:42] So I'm going to quickly summarize some of the key findings there. You'll see a lot of data here. I'm going to just quickly summarize this. Most of the small business environment in Prince William County is quite strong. Most of the small business owners we talk to are very happy with the services once they access them. [03:32:02] There are some issues of awareness and knowing where to go. That's a very common set of challenges, and we'll talk about that, and that's really where we kind of try to focus on the solutions. The basic thing we can say is that we are in the midst of a major revolution transformation in terms of small business starts, not just in Prince William County, but in the United States. [03:32:19] We have the fastest level of new business growth in the United States since we've been keeping the data over the last couple years. Much of the data in this report is either kind of into the early stages of COVID or pre-COVID just because of lags in the data. So what we're showing is a big boom in minority women-owned immigrant veteran-led entrepreneurship in Prince William County. [03:32:40] So we're showing this with this data, and I would say that even though we do not have the newer figures, we know that that upward trend is continuing. So that's a very positive thing to be happening. So again, just some notable demographic trends. This is, as you can see, you know, this is a very diverse county and becoming even more diverse over time. [03:33:03] Again, one of the challenges we face is that minority and other households tend to have less wealth than white households, and that often can translate into fewer dollars to start a business and to invest in a business. So sometimes these outside services and support become especially important for minority and other underserved entrepreneurs. [03:33:24] Again, as you can see, again, this is very common. What we see, particularly in the data nowadays, is that the driver of new business starts and new business growth in the United States is being driven by women, minority, and immigrant entrepreneurs primarily, but their growth rates still lag a little bit, and there's a lot of reasons for that. [03:33:42] They start with less money. There may be discrimination in lending and other factors. They may have more trouble accessing services, all of these things, but that's basically the challenge. We've got a lot of enthusiasm and excitement about new business starts. We need to capture that, support that, and help folks not just start businesses, but to grow businesses and to become very successful as entrepreneurs. [03:34:05] Again, a disproportionate share of the self-employed firms. When we look at businesses, you want to look at businesses with employees, but also the self-employed. Most businesses in the United States are self-employment ventures. In fact, there are about three-quarters of all businesses in the United States that don't have employees. [03:34:20] So we want to look at firms that have employees, but we also want to look at self-employment because that to me is really kind of, that's how people start businesses, is self-employment ventures, and then they grow them. So we want to support them as well. So as you can see here, we're seeing some growth here, but we need to encourage more people to step into self-employment as well. [03:34:42] One of the other things we looked at, again, some of the government data is a little bit late, so we also looked at micro-business activity, particularly online micro-business activity, as a way to capture some of these home-based businesses. And again, the differences here are not, they're not major, but compared to Arlington or Loudon or Fairfax or even the state of Virginia, generally these micro-businesses in Prince William County have not been selling and have not been performing as well as other communities across the state. [03:35:09] So again, I wouldn't put too much into this one data point, but I would just flag this as, you know, again, recognizing and highlighting the need to focus on these kind of businesses and help these kinds of businesses prosper and grow. You've got, again, as the start of activity rates grow, you know, one of the challenges, and again, that's one of the purposes of the Small Business Office at the Department of Economic Development, is to ensure that we can get the needed services and business support and technical assistance to these firms as they need them. [03:35:41] One of the other challenges, again, what we found during COVID, and we certainly saw this at the height of the pandemic, is that minority-owned businesses and businesses with less capitalization, of course, they're less resilient because they've got fewer resources. And when you hit an economic shock, whether that's a natural disaster or a pandemic or even an economic downturn, these firms are more likely to close or to go out of business. [03:36:04] And so, again, another one of the reasons to provide this support is not just to help these firms grow, but to help them be more resilient, because we know there's going to be more economic shocks. We don't want that necessarily, but it could be a downturn. It could be a natural disaster. God forbid, you know, other major crises. [03:36:20] but we know these kinds of economic shocks are going to become more common in the future, and we need to arm firms so that they can sort of shrug this off and stay in business in the event of some sort of economic crisis or some sort of economic downturn. We also know that minority women-owned businesses and underserved businesses are less likely to receive small business loans, and you can see some of the data here. [03:36:46] Also smaller size of loans, so again, indicating perhaps untapped growth potential, that we might want to be focused on. Again, this is pre-COVID data. Hopefully we can get fresher information on this going forward. So now we go from kind of the data, the demographic analysis, to kind of the big picture that what we heard from business owners. What we heard from them is when they actually found the right place to go, when they intervened, when they were able to get connected to a county staff member, they had a very positive experience and generally it was a kind of a successful outcome for their businesses. They got the help they needed. They got the [03:37:24] assistance they needed. They were able to secure that loan, get the zoning appropriately done, help find an employee, whatever that challenge was. But these issues of awareness, access, and tailored support were really the big issues. One is not enough people know that there are services available from the county and from other support organizations. So getting that word out. [03:37:46] Second is making it easy for them to access. Online, obviously, we've all embraced Zoom, so, you know, providing that kind of service, but also the location of services. If someone has to drive an hour to go to a meeting with a business counselor, that's not easily accessible. [03:38:03] So how can we bring services to people where they are, where it's easier for them to access, even, you know, 24-7, not just during business office hours. And then last but not least, tailored support. So business development is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. [03:38:20] A manufacturing firm has different needs from a pizza parlor, from an auto repair shop. And different kinds of business owners have different kinds of needs. Does the owner want to be the world's largest pizza shop, or does he or she just want to run a local pizza parlor? Those are two different kinds of business situations. [03:38:36] And so we need to think about what are the kinds of programming that are effectively targeted to different kinds of businesses in the county. And so I won't go into these. Christine's going to come up and talk a little bit about some of the priority areas. But we've got a series of about maybe 12, 12 or 13 recommendations for each of these areas. [03:38:55] So, again, for enhanced awareness is really large about marketing and communications is very important. An improved website, which, of course, the team is working on right now. But also a business success network. How can we get business service providers, not just the county, but the small business development center that's tied to Mason, the various chambers of commerce, How can we get them to come together and identify common challenges, share services, refer people across various networks? [03:39:23] So this business success network is a very, very important set of objectives as well. Increased access is, you know, can we have local people that are champions for small business in Prince William County? And that's one of the roles that we see the advisory group members playing, to get out there and say, you can do this. [03:39:42] Here's where you can get assistance. Let me connect you to someone who could help you start your business or get the technical assistance you need or get the financing you need. So that is very important. Getting small businesses more involved in the county's business retention and expansion efforts. And then last but not least, probably one of the bigger recommendations that's probably pushed out a little bit into the future is some sort of physical home and innovation hub, if you will, where people can go. [03:40:07] Basically, the place where innovators and entrepreneurs in Prince William County hang out, where they can go meet with peers, where they can access services, where they can do business together, where they can have events, things like that. We find that having a facility of that sort is very important to ecosystem building efforts around the United States and really around the world. [03:40:27] And then the last set of recommendations are tied to tailored support, former small business advisory group that's underway, sector-specific microenterprise programs. What that means is programs focused on retail, perhaps food and beverages, other kinds of service kinds of businesses, a business accelerator program that's focused on helping businesses that really want to grow very quickly and really be available for venture capital and other kinds of outside investment, developing new capital sources and better business data. [03:40:59] We've talked about that. And then one that is really important, again, we're talking about the Department of Economic Development, but the most successful places in terms of entrepreneurship have programs for kids, youth entrepreneurship programs to help young people learn about entrepreneurship, have young people learn about what it takes to be successful in business. [03:41:16] So that's something that's also very important, even though it's not kind of a thing that the Economic Development Department might be directly delivering. But it's very important to building a mindset and a culture around entrepreneurship in the community. So I'm going to stop here and pass it back to my colleagues. [03:41:33] Again, thank you for the opportunity and available to answer any questions or respond to questions after the hearing as well. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. So the Small Business Advisory Committee got together after Eric and his team really pulled together the study. [03:41:49] They looked at those recommendations in depth, and they identified these really five recommendations as the highest priority. Some of these items are we can do with existing staff and resources, and they're already underway. [03:42:05] So as I mentioned, the small business website, actually working with our other partner agencies and taxpayer services and finance and development services is trying to get a comprehensive website that points small businesses to the right direction so they don't kind of get lost in the system. [03:42:25] So that's underway, and I hope in the new year that that would be launched. The Small Business Advisory Committee, I think the committee members really felt heard, listened to, and felt that their committee could be very instrumental in helping us implement this plan over the long term. [03:42:48] And so we're recommending that we formalize that committee and continue on so that it can provide that ongoing assistance. We do, obviously, a lot of marketing already, but specific target marketing geared at entrepreneurs, startups, and resources, and really directing our businesses to these resources, that would take some additional funding and assistance. [03:43:19] And then the Organize a Business Success Work and the BRE program. We already do a BRE program for our existing businesses, but to actually implement that with our small businesses. When you think about all of the businesses that we served during COVID, it's something like almost 2,000 small businesses that we really have touched and made a connection to. [03:43:45] And so with really the county investing in those businesses, it really behooves us to really reach out and continue to help those businesses scale and grow because we managed to stabilize them through COVID. And so now being able to continue to do that work will be really important, but there's just too many businesses for one person to work on that. [03:44:14] And so obviously, I guess I said a lot of this already, so we're going to continue to work on our website. We're going to formalize the advisory committee, work on the marketing. And then, you know, depending on really the continued vision support from the board and the county executive is really continue thinking about what is the long-term vision for the county's small businesses, services, and resources, and how can we really grow that over time to really match so that we can support our business community. [03:44:49] But with that, thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Nguyen, and thank you for coming up. person from that was wonderful are there any questions from Ms. Nguyen at this time I have to get out of my thing here sorry there's anybody signed up okay supervisor buddy you go then I'll fix this thank you miss Nguyen for the presentation thank you for everything you do and I know Clarius you have been an army of one for a long time when it comes to all these efforts I wanted to [03:45:22] lift you up and give you kudos as well there's a lot here and and I appreciate you talking to me in my office ahead of this presentation, and it's everything you said it would be, so I appreciate it as well. My one question is, back on the previous slide when you talked about the specific marketing and targeting of entrepreneurs and these smaller businesses to go alongside what we currently do and what we're going to be able to do with the Success Network, what does that look like exactly when you talk about that? [03:45:53] So I think, obviously, we would develop a strategy, but think about what was about two years ago when we did the Catch the Innovation campaign through WTOP. It was very targeted. We picked what distribution channels all that marketing went to because we had a very specific purpose of who we were trying to reach. [03:46:14] So in this case, obviously small businesses, entrepreneurism are a wide variety of, they get their information from a whole bunch of different sources. So really developing a very specific campaign that's not just a one-time thing. [03:46:33] It has to be ongoing because we've got to constantly be getting the word out. And really, I would say to everyone that may be listening to the board meeting as well here is as a community, we are all ambassadors to our neighbors and our friends that may be starting a business. And there are free resources. So if somebody tells you they want to start a business, the first thing you should be is call the Department of Economic Development. They can help you. And so we have to be able to get that word out and educate people. But it's going to be [03:47:10] targeted and very specific to the audience that we would be going after. I appreciate that. There's a comment, Madam Chair. Really, really appreciate this effort. I know that we as a board and previous boards talked along for a long time in a lot of different ways about helping our small business and helping create an ecosystem where business can thrive, especially our SWAM businesses, minority-owned businesses, immigrant businesses. I appreciate that you brought that up. We are the most diverse county in Virginia. We have one of the largest immigrant populations only continue to grow I think last time I checked one in five people in this county not only come from a different state or or other part of the country but they come from a different [03:47:49] country so how can we make sure that when people come to Prince William County the first sort of interaction with the government and with us as an organization isn't here's a tax bill or here welcome to Prince William here's something you pay us but also thank you for being part of our community here's tools you have to thrive and build a business and pursue that American dream right here and build our local economy so I think a lot of what you're doing now is sort of moving in that direction so I'm really looking forward to hearing not only the next steps from here but also seeing those requests from a budgetary perspective on how we could really move the [03:48:24] ball forward with that wonderful thank you thank you supervisor Bailey thank you madam chair wow it's a lot okay so let me it's a lot it's a lot of great information so I just want to start off by saying congratulations and you're on the, you always are on the precipice of greatness going forward. [03:48:45] And the micro business piece is a part of that. And we've been talking about that a lot lately. So my question to you is how do we increase the level of activities with the grants that you bring? [03:49:00] What's your idea about that as we move forward with that? Because I know you and Clarice have really been honing in on that. - I think, so I think one of the recommendations if we were to go back, is really about developing new capital sources for local businesses. [03:49:17] So if you remember last year sometime we came to the board, you all approved the department working with the Community Business Partnership to apply for an SBA microloan program. We did get accepted, so we are working on kind of the next steps of bringing that item back to you so that we could launch that item. [03:49:40] But I think it's in really that strategy of looking at, you know, the different capital sources and, you know, how do we potentially look at maybe grant programs and so forth. But right now, all the grant programs that we had were all funded by ARPA. [03:49:59] And so part of that would be looking really at a strategy of where we'd be potentially getting those funds to help provide financial support to help launch small businesses or help them scale. [03:50:15] And I think most importantly is help those businesses that are home-based or maybe in food trucks scale to that next level and get to the bricks and mortar piece. But I think it has to be a longer-term strategy of looking at the different sources of capital for businesses. [03:50:36] So I agree with you. And then the other thing is the SWAM businesses. I think that that is becoming, that's resurging, if you will. It's resurging again. And along with that, people, because of the different work schedules in our region, people are starting new businesses. [03:50:53] So my question to that is, how do we, as a seasoned county like Prince William, busting at the seams with $5,500 and $50,000 plus, how do we kind of wrap our arms around that entity? [03:51:08] because that's something that we do want to sustain. That's a stimulant for our economy here. You know what I'm saying, Christina? Yeah, and I think it goes back to the, which one is it? It's the Organizing a Business Success Network, right? [03:51:27] And so as Eric had mentioned, this is all of the partners. It's all the different chambers. It is all of the other resources that really connect with all different groups, the Veterans Associations and, you know, black-owned businesses and the Hispanic Chamber, et cetera. [03:51:47] And so the best way that we can really wrap our arms is really creating that business success network where we're meeting regularly as a community that's supporting all of our small businesses, sharing ideas of what kind of programming, what kind of efforts so we're coordinating And then identifying those challenges and maybe helping to, you know, figure out solutions to reach those small businesses that may not have access to those programs. [03:52:21] So my last question, Madam Chair, this will be my last question, I think. I'm sorry, your name, sir? Eric. Eric. Eric mentioned about programs for kids. And I was thinking about in the last presentation from the public comment time we had about the sports complex. [03:52:39] I see that as an opportunity for us to do that inside of something like that. Do we currently have programs for kids, and what would be your wish list to kind of enhance that? So we do, well, I wouldn't say kids. [03:52:56] We did, through the Ignite startup grant, we worked with George Mason University on a pilot program for student entrepreneurship. We did that last semester. I meant you. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. So we did that. [03:53:13] But when I think about this plan, and we, through Clarice and Eric's work in the Small Business Committee, this plan is the community's plan. And so one of the things that I think Clarice and I want to do is go on a road show and go really present this to all the Rotaries and everybody because, as I said, everybody's an ambassador. [03:53:37] And so I do think there's other groups that are in a better position to be able to offer, you know, start up those programs for the youth. That will be instrumental, but it's not necessarily something that I think our department would take on. Like your not-for-profits. [03:53:53] Exactly. But the more we can spread this word out about this plan and get everybody to try to take pieces of it or enhance or scale it, the better it's going to be. And I just want to thank Larry, like Kenny did, thank you so much for your focus on our small businesses, because they truly stimulate our economy here in Prince William County. [03:54:16] And I was having lunch at one of the small businesses, the yoga place. Remember, we went over there. And her business has increased in numbers because of you offering that opportunity for her. And so that's even more important, you know, that we do become ambassadors completely. [03:54:38] So thank you. I'm done, Chair. I'm done. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Bailey. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. Hello, Christina and company. Thank you for today's presentation. for taking the time to also brief my office and my staff on this initiative. I have a few questions here. [03:54:54] So Eric was talking about certain factors that may hinder certain groups, demographics in terms of being successful in their businesses. You mentioned discrimination and less money to start up the business. Do we have specific data pertaining to Prince William County that supports that? [03:55:13] Yes, but it will be a little bit dated. But the data is very, very clear. Businesses started by women and minorities start with significantly less money. They're less likely to receive bank loans. They're more likely to use a second mortgage or a credit card or something like that. [03:55:33] So you're going in with less money. You're going in with more tenuous sources of money. And then you may not, there may also be limits in accessing various networks that are often closed to these types of businesses. so all of these factors contribute you can't say it's just one thing but it's it's all of these factors starting with less money having fewer connections having less dense networks all of these things make a difference so when you say a dated data how dated what time frame are we talking about pre-covid so 2019 yeah 2019 yeah okay but the national data is is been consistent [03:56:11] for 20 years on that point so you know i i feel very confident that you can extrapolate from the from the national figures to what's happening in Prince William County, because it's happening, this same issue is not unique to Prince William County, it's across the United States. Right, and I appreciate that, but we govern here, and so I'm very laser focused on the data pertaining specifically to Prince William County, and so, you know, I guess in part this is where I may differ with some of my colleagues on the day, as I personally don't like to be put in categories or placed in boxes. I revert back to my years growing up and helping my mother start up her small business. [03:56:47] She has a small cleaning company. And so, you know, I believe that our county and the Department of Economic Development should be really laser focused on ensuring that we help unleash everybody's potential to be successful in their business, regardless of their sex, regardless of, you know, their race, because that is, one, how the free market works, and, two, that should be our main focus. [03:57:08] I'll say that I agree with you on slide 16 if you want to go back to it. one of the challenge areas that you have listed here is awareness as supervisors we often meet with a lot of small business owners which I do believe they are the real job creators creators of our economy and of our communities and one of the things that I always like to ask folks is how aware are they of the various departments that we have in this county I've shared this with you Christina that we have hundreds of businesses small businesses in this county that have started up opened up shop until this day have no idea that we have this department right and so you know I just want to make sure that we're not like focusing our efforts and picking winners and [03:57:46] losers because we want to target certain industries because we want to you know meet a quota of whatever sorts but that we're being mindful of looking at this holistically to ensure that we're empowering everybody regardless of again categories and labels because we have so many out there and me personally I am a Hispanic female I don't like to be labeled I don't like to be put in categories I want to know what are the resources there for me available so that I can go ahead, reach out, and have access to those resources and be just as successful as the next person who's in line. [03:58:18] And so I want to make sure that you all are laser focused on that. I know that you guys talked about the website. You guys talked about other initiatives. And I think that's key because a lot of these small businesses don't know, right, what those resources are. But if they knew, they could then get to the next level and take their business to the next level. [03:58:37] So we just want to make sure that that's where we are focusing our attention and energy. That's exactly the focus. Absolutely. It is not at one specific group or area. I think the data was just highlighting some of the – it was the barriers to success, and so the data highlighted some of those areas. [03:58:57] But in all of those programs, and even with the Small Business Advisory Committee, It is meant to have really just diverse perspectives. Again, industry and, you know, geography, because depending on what area you're in, you're going to have a different experience. [03:59:15] I'm sure if I may. And I bring it up, Christina, because there was an emphasis made, right, during the presentation. And then I have other businesses reaching out to me saying, hey, I heard about this business and this grant or this incentive that they were given. I wasn't given that same treatment or that consideration when I started up. [03:59:33] Is there any way that I can tap into that? So in this pursuit of equality, we're not creating a level playing field. Do you understand what I'm saying? I completely understand. And so that's why I bring it up, because of the concerns that are brought to my attention, and that in part I can agree with and I can sympathize with because I see it. [03:59:49] Exactly. Thank you. I understand. Thank you for those comments. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And to go a little further on Supervisor Vega's comments, because I agree with her. Sir, I take your comments as you're suggesting that lending institutions in Prince William could be discriminatory. [04:00:13] Do you want to clarify that? No, I didn't make that claim at all. I was basically saying that we know that many minority businesses, including in Prince William County, we're receiving loan levels that are lower than national average. [04:00:28] But do we know why? There's a lot of reasons for that. And, again, it's not necessarily discrimination. It could be you're in a different kind of industry. It could be you're asking for different types of things. So there's a number of factors that are in place there. Credit scores? [04:00:45] Credit scores, yes, of course. Okay. Because I think what you said earlier caught my attention. So I think we have to be very careful on how we're presenting. Right. And I would like to see the data on how you derived the graphs that you sent. [04:01:02] Do you have that compiled? Yes, it's all compiled in the report. All of the sources are U.S. government sources. So with the exception of the one. Well, I'm referring to Prince William. Yeah. So it will hone down onto Prince William? Because, you know, I don't want to. [04:01:19] Do you have a specific slide? Which one is that? Well, the one that I'm looking at right now may not be what he's referring to. But. Yeah, in the report, there's a significant number of charts. And if there are other questions, I'm certainly more than happy to assist. Because we have working relationships, or I know several of us do, with a lot of banking representatives. [04:01:42] And I want to be prepared if I'm asked, matter of fact, on Thursday night, I'm going to a ribbon cutting for a new bank. So you need to equip me with, you know. Well, again, you know, one of the other things we know from the COVID experience with the PPP loan program was that many minority and newer businesses did not succeed in receiving PPP loans. [04:02:04] The primary reason for that is that they did not have a previous relationship with banks. So it's not necessarily a question of discrimination. It's just having not done business. Well, the familiarity, right? Correct, yes. The access, the things that Supervisor Vega was touching on. [04:02:19] And that's really one of the core things. Hold on. One of the things that Supervisor Vega was touching on is, you know, a lot of times, and those are the things that we are trying to break through as a county, is to market our small business program. [04:02:35] We've got folks in the back that helped create that. And a lot of it is just simply making sure that the public is aware of the resources and the free resources that Christina spoke of are available. 100%. The one thing that we do not want here is if someone has a dream to be successful in business and there's resources and they're not able to access them for awareness reasons or whatever, we want to make sure that they're able to get that. [04:03:00] We do our best to spoon-feed everything, but we're not going to reach 100% of the people 100% of the time. That's correct. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me just start by saying this. [04:03:16] Perceptions are reality, okay? So I'm going to agree, and then I'm going to clarify some stuff. So I agree wholeheartedly with Supervisor Vega's comments on making this process fair. when you all stopped by my office and we were online talking about this but we had this presentation i brought that up and mentioned that to you and and we all you know you i just want you to know that i i know what this is so i was a black man on this board and the black business forum that i went to to listen to black businesses in this county their comments were we don't have [04:03:52] the same access and they did make it very clear that there were challenges my job though is not to simply look at that black businesses i got to look at this thing holistic for everyone which is the point that we're making here so the the issue is information and getting it out there and since covid when we brought you in christina we were looking at all big businesses it's great how we've shifted the focus on our smaller businesses now each group is going to have an issue bottom line our muslim population is going to have an issue our hispanic population is going to have an issue our African or black population is going to have an issue. [04:04:27] I don't even know if our white population has an issue. They probably do. The fact of the matter is each one can't be categorized as one, to your point, that we have to put this package together to go after everyone all together at once because they're all going to be coming at a different door, beating down the door saying what they're not getting, what they're perceiving to be truth. [04:04:47] And I'll speak specifically to the African American small business community because this was largely said that we don't have the access to capital. We don't have banks. We don't have people giving us this. We don't have the insider group network that can help walk us through, which to a point we discussed mentoring programs and how to get some of these larger businesses to take some of these smaller businesses under the wing. [04:05:11] Now we can focus, again, I can say African-American business, but I can't because sitting on this board, I've got to look out for all the businesses. And so that's the point here we're doing. But the perception out here in each of these groups is that it's not happening that way. [04:05:26] So, you know, I'm glad we're having this open discussion right now for them about it because I know people are watching and listening. And the fact is I want everyone to have what you just said, access to this opportunity. I was just at two fall festivals this weekend with some of these home businesses. [04:05:41] You know, they're licensed certified, but they know nothing about our economic development. So I'm sorry, Clarice, but I sure put your name out there a lot this past weekend. And you're right, Christina, we need a bigger department for you because you do a lot of work. People know your name out there because you've been, you know, hitting these streets, talking to these businesses. [04:05:59] Now, the last group, whoever that may be that doesn't know about this, we're going to have to get them in here. And I'm going to say this last thing. This committee, that word that, you know, I think we've all agreed that should fall under you. I don't think we should make another commission for this. But the fact is we definitely got to make sure we do target those groups, those different groups, to make sure they're a part of that discussion because you could miss a group. [04:06:22] And the fact is, every group is fighting for their issues. So we've got to make sure we capture everybody to be a part of that discussion so that their voices are heard and that we can get this information out in the streets. And like I said, you've got some new folks should be calling you at some point. I did tell them you were kind of busy right now, just a little bit. [04:06:42] But I do agree that we need to grow this department, Christine, I will say that. So we're going to definitely need some more manpower in there. So I just want to put that out there for what this discussion is about. And thank you for all the research you've done. I know, you know, we're never going to get into our data is important, but the fact of the matter is it's really boots on the ground, getting this world out and making sure that we can get all these waves of folks coming at the same time and not one group over the other so that there is no preferential treatment. [04:07:11] And we're looking at this thing for everybody. Madam Chair, Supervisor Bailey signed up. Did you not hit your speaker button? I'm going to be quick. I wanted to bring, when you were talking about expanding it, and I've been throwing your name out there too, Larry. [04:07:31] But the other piece of this that you've been doing, like, phenomenal on, Christina, is the veterans piece. That's another piece, too, when you talk about SWAM. I mean, that's, and we've got Quantico right next door, and you've been having, y'all have been partnering with them and having those great recruiting events and all of that. [04:07:54] And we need more training in that because when they transition out of the military, they're looking to use that skill set, that MOS as they call it, in a broader sense. And that may be them starting their own business and not necessarily going to a subcontractor. [04:08:10] And so I just want to encourage you, you're doing well with that, but if there could be a program where the focus is even deeper than what you've done already, that would be great as well. And then women-owned businesses, minority women-owned businesses is very, very, very key in this region, in this region. [04:08:29] And so as we grow, please help us to focus there as well. So I'm just saying, bouncing off of what Victor is saying, it's very key that our lens is out here, not right here. Thank you. [04:08:45] Thank you. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you. I think it's important that our lens captures everybody. We're the government. We are supposed to be equitable for everybody, and that's what I want to get the point across is that we need to, and it sounds like you already are, doing all that you can to make sure that everybody in the business community knows, regardless of the demographics. [04:09:10] What I wanted to ask you is, Michelle Weatherly, isn't she part of your small business team as well? She is more, works with larger businesses with more employees and then really does a lot of our workforce development services. [04:09:28] Okay. Yes. Okay, because I am very familiar with Clarice and Michelle and didn't see her here and wanted to make sure she was still on the team. I will let her know that you missed her. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, she's an important role and she was with us the week of Small Business Week last spring. [04:09:47] Business appreciation, yes. Yeah, and I just, I guess just in closing, I mean, I think it's the data, the qualitative, everything that we heard, it just helps us, especially with marketing, to be able to reach all the different audiences, to provide services to everybody. [04:10:10] But at the end of the day, depending on what industry and what focus and so forth, People get their information from different places. Right. And so that's where that really helps us, and it helps us refine our messages, you know, to these different kind of groups. [04:10:25] Right. But the services are all the same, no matter what you come in. Sure. But it really helps us reach them and know how to reach them. Right. Well, and the services need to be the same. Yes. Do you rely on us to help market that information? [04:10:42] Because, of course, we have diverse distribution lists. Yes. Because, okay. yes we are always hoping that when we're putting out new programs that you're putting it out not only in your newsletters but also obviously you're very much out there connected to the public and to these opportunities and and being as I said I think everybody in this room is an ambassador to really help our our business community well thank you and thank you you know we uh we always try to be positive about everything happening in Prince William County Chief Cheerleader yay and I'm very [04:11:18] grateful for the the information you know it does it's Prince William County specific it's very useful and you know we do have a lot of small businesses and I'm so glad I mean that was a great thing I said to you that we came out of COVID at least we connected with our small business community and it is a very diverse and we do have to figure out how we reach everyone so thank you for all the work you've done in this and you know good luck with getting people in the budget next year I'm sure we'll be able to do that thank you thanks with that our next presentation is on small business project management program and Mandy Spina the acting director of [04:11:55] development services okay I didn't know if his name had been changed to something longer is here to give this mr. Spina the floor is yours thank you madam chair members of the board Mandy Spina acting director of development services so one of the challenges I think you've heard for small businesses is really that awareness of some of the support resources that are out there so today I'm I'm here to talk about one of those resources that Development Services offers in our Small Business Project Management Program. [04:12:24] And so today what I'm really going to highlight is focusing on the history, the benefits and the qualifications of the program, and then providing some program data as well. So in terms of history, in 2013, Development Services created the Commercial Project Management Program. [04:12:42] And what that program really focuses on is the customer cycle. So you're looking at that life cycle as a project, as you see on the graphic that's up on the screen. We're really focused on that project early assistance, how early we can identify a project, work through the facilitation with the multiple agencies involving a project, and then trying to focus on issue resolution. [04:13:01] Then in 2018, we worked to create the Small Business Project Management Program, which is really an enhancement to the Commercial Project Management Program, focusing on how we can work with small businesses to get through the regulatory process. And then in 2019, the Board of County Supervisors authorized three positions for the Small Business Project Management Program. [04:13:22] And so with me today, I also have Ricky O'Connor, who is not only my acting deputy director, but who manages not only the Commercial Project Management Program, but the Small Business Project Management Program as well. So we look at the benefits. When we're talking about the benefits of not just Commercial Project Management Program, but small business in general, The foundation of what we do is the commercial project management program. [04:13:46] We're really looking at that partnership approach. There are multiple agencies that touch a project through the development life cycle. And so really trying to focus on what are the objectives of each project, like their key milestone dates, the grand opening dates. So we can identify those early and help walk through all of those. [04:14:02] We're looking at speaking with one voice so that all of our agencies are really saying one thing to the customer because there are multiple agencies involved. And then we're really looking at providing that consistent and timely feedback to the customer. And so when we talked about commercial project management and we look at now what is the enhancement with the small business project management customer, if you've ever been in the development services building, we actually have a room where when you come into the lobby, we can usher our small business owners into the project management room, and they meet face-to-face with one of our project managers. [04:14:37] We have snacks and drinks, and it's very much set up to be that one-on-one conversation to really walk through their project. We want to offer that one-on-one support. The regulatory world is really complicated for those people that have been in it for a while. And then you look at the small business owner who is doing a million other things and trying to get their dream business opened, and then they have to navigate that regulatory world. [04:14:59] So we're really trying to focus on the one-on-one support. We are looking at what is their path to approval. We even have customized open for business checklists when those customers come in to meet with us. And then we're looking at really building those relationships. So some of the stories that I love to hear from Ricky and his team are not just what happens on that one-on-one relationship building when we're dealing with the project through occupancy, but after that owner is in their business, they've received occupancy, they're a year down the line, and they need something like a license or they have to pay a fee somewhere, and they don't know who to call. [04:15:35] they remember that they had that project manager. So they remember to call Ricky or Han or Melissa. That's their one stop in the county they know to go to. And then we can point them in that direction. So we are really focused on that one-on-one relationship. I think if you'd ask most of us, the goal would be to get to every small business owner before they sign their lease. [04:15:54] That way we can really identify if what they're trying to do can actually fit in the space they want to go in because those are some of the hurdles that we see as we're working through some issues. So then we look at the qualifications. So how we've defined small business is we're looking at owners who are managing their own projects. The small business owner may not have the financial resources to really have that general contractor to manage everything they're doing. So we're really focused on those owners who are managing those projects. We're focused on businesses that have 35 employees or less. [04:16:26] Our data at the time of the creation of this program, which hits five years this month, was really when you get to like the 50 employee mark is when that business owner may have the resources to really hire the general contractor. So at 35 is where we're seeing most business owners who were really trying to manage their own project. And then we do not have national chains that are involved. Things like your national chains usually also involve the support of a larger network system. And so when we get into the data, and this is usually sent out via monthly emails that you all will receive as well is out to the community in the calendar year we've [04:17:04] engaged oh i'm sorry with since the program's inception we've actually engaged with over 2 000 businesses and so you can see the data as we go year over year but over 2 000 businesses is huge for the small business project management program and then as we look at businesses opened over 1700 and we actually hit a record August this year with 45 businesses opened. [04:17:26] So, you know, part of, as we talk through the challenges with small businesses, how do we get the word out there that we exist? We want to be the forefront so we can help the business owner really work through, understand the project management team is there, instead of coming in at the point where there's an issue that's detected, and then we're coming in to really work through. [04:17:45] So that's the basis of our program, and I'd be happy to take any questions. A nice eight-slide presentation. thank you thank you are there any questions I will once again try to get back to my speaker screen sorry supervisor Brody madam chair thank you thank you miss Spina for the presentation um especially going back to your slot about the foundation speaking with that one voice what are you guys trying to do to really refine that because I still find a lot of business owners that reach out to me say that that's not really what they're getting they get inconsistent folks especially if they have one inspector at one point [04:18:24] of the project, another inspector, another point, permitting, there's not exactly where their experience is, and as Supervisor Angry said earlier, perception is reality. So singing with one voice sounds great, and that's where exactly we should be going, but that doesn't exactly meet up with the reality that a lot of business owners face as they're moving through the process. [04:18:44] Could you talk about that a little bit more? Sure. Thank you for that. So one thing is just identifying it. So once we know that there may be that issue, one, it's bringing the team together. So we have a weekly meeting, it's called our DPM MDT meeting. So we are a department of a lot of acronyms. [04:19:00] It's really bringing all of our multidisciplinary functions together to sit at the table and identify issues. And so when we see things like that is when we can bring them to the table and say, where are the gaps? Where can we work through that and how can we move forward? So we are doing that on a weekly basis once those are identified. [04:19:18] And it may become a training aspect that we have to work through on how we're being more consistent in what we're doing. what you mentioned like an inspection standpoint appreciate that there's a follow-up madam chair then in your the enhancement version part you have customers path to approval and to me another way of saying this how do we create a culture of getting to yes with folks versus no you can't do this so what are you really doing to help enhance that feeling within the department that we should be solutions oriented and getting folks to a path to yes as opposed to no this is why we can't do - Right, thank you for that, and so one of those pieces is really getting that face-to-face interaction early on, [04:19:57] so that we can understand very early on what that project milestone is, and some of the potential hurdles that may be there, but then also it is the piece of, instead of saying no from the get-go, even if no is the end answer, what do we start with and how do we message that to our customer, and what are some of the ways that we can work around, because we all know codes are very black and white sometimes, but there is a gray area that we can work around, and as long as we're consistent in those, I think that's how we can apply some of those workarounds sometimes when they're applicable. [04:20:24] But it is really the early identification of issues so that we can sit down and work together as a team to look at the end result for the project. My last question, Madam Chair, and we talked about this when you increased in a brief my office, is a piece you talked about which is actually super key to all this is that lease, that real estate piece, where you have folks that they may be looking through the real estate market, They may either have a real estate agent or they don't, and they're just looking through Zillow or whatever it is. [04:20:53] They see, oh, that's a great location, and it's affordable for me, and it's zoned for something similar or whatever it is. And they go and they buy it, and then they come to find out, even though it was a similar use, there's a slight difference that makes it so they have to start from scratch in some cases. So how are you really working with the real estate industry, but also the business ecosystem? [04:21:12] So as Christina talked about earlier, this microcosm and community of folks who are talking to each other, they know, hey, your first stop shouldn't be a real estate agent or even a commercial landlord. It should be folks like you so you can tell them, okay, if you're going to buy that or lease that space, here's what you have to go through versus this other area where they may be looking at that bottom line going, well, this is a cheaper property, but then over time I spend a year and a half getting through everything I need to do to renovate this space to make it up to code, I'm actually losing a lot more money than I just bought a shovel ready or move-in ready or a turnkey, whatever you want to call it, space for me. [04:21:51] Right. And I think those are some of the hardest conversations to have is you have a business owner comes in and they're so excited. It's their dream to open the business. And they sit down with our team and the use isn't compatible. And that's a really hard conversation to have and how you move forward with that. So part of where we'll work with Christina's team is how we get that word of mouth out? How do we market the program so that when we're in some of these advisory committees or some of these councils that even my team is attending some of those to say you know if the people there have already existing businesses but they know people who are going to be starting businesses did you hear about the the project management program and development services? [04:22:28] You know reach out to economic development and then they hear word of mouth that way. So we're really hoping to try to work more closely with Christina's team than we already do to really get that program out there. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Well, thank you. I know you guys are working on it. It started before we, you know, before I got here and you're going to keep on working on it. I think we've given you resources to help you work on it. So, you know, getting our businesses up and running is so, so important. I think we, at least we can all agree on that. So that's good. So thank you for all you do and thank you for your presentation. Thank you. [04:22:59] Our last presentation is the Prince William County Department of Transportation Joint Mobility report by Mr. Kanizales from transportation and it was pointed out it is 77 slides but I know that you can guys can 72 slides you guys can just zip right through that yeah yeah all right uh thank you madam chair members of the board thank you okay no it's just we're all scared because it's 72 slides it's always every every quarter it's about 72 slides we try to go through it quickly [04:23:36] The instructions I have given my staff that will come to you today has been two words, go fast. So I'm trying to make them learn how to give a presentation the way I give a presentation. I think it's a little too fast for them, but they'll go as fast as they can for you this afternoon. Just so the first few things, grants updates, recently completed projects, transit updates, and the V.I.66 projects. [04:23:58] Paulo will get up here and talk a little bit to you about that. Then Richard Wyman is going to get up and talk a little bit about some safety improvements and give you an update on the automated enforcement project that we have. And then Katab will get up and talk to you about where we are on the design projects. And I'll finish it off by talking about some of the right-of-way construction and bicycle pedestrian improvements. [04:24:18] We'll get this through the 72-page presentation in the next 5 to 10 minutes. Here we go. And I am just teasing you. I mean, you guys have so many projects going. I'll start my timer now. Madam Chair, members of the board, Paula Belita with the Department of Transportation. I'm going over a couple of sections, the first of which is our grants, grant slides. [04:24:40] Just a couple of quick updates. A lot of these you've already seen. In terms of funded applications, we do want to highlight one program and project. It's the Safe Streets and Roads for All program. It is a countywide study to improve safety and identify projects and initiatives. This will start in the next several months, so we're getting ready to kick that off. [04:24:58] We also have a list of funding programs that were not selected for funding. We're going to continue to find ways to improve our funding applications and be more competitive moving forward. More recently, the board did endorse several funding programs. We have our Transportation Alternatives Set Aside program. [04:25:15] It's a more popular federal program that funds our trails and sidewalks, so we submitted five applications for that. We submitted five regional projects through MVTA, $12,172 million. We hope to hear back early next year on which projects will get selected. We did want to highlight one new federal program called the PROTECT Grant. [04:25:34] It stands for Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Savings Transportation Program. As you know, the feds like their acronyms. We looked at two funding applications to create a county evacuation operations plan, as well as looking at a flooded roadway mitigation study. [04:25:52] Other funding programs in the hopper that we see upcoming is the FY23 Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant. We're looking at projects that we can either create a structure over a railroad or eliminate a crossing all-in-all. Our recently completed projects, we have the Old Carolina Road Sidewalk Project. [04:26:12] This is the project south of Haymarket. This was completed in September. It was funded through our TAP program that I mentioned earlier, our Transportation Returns Program. Total budget was $1.4 million. We did include a local match from the Brentsville District Supervisor's Office trip funds. [04:26:30] Transit update, we do have our transit partners on the call. We have Joe Stainsby with OmniRide. We have Christine Hefner with VRE. We also have Alexandra Tuliska with VDOT. So they did give us some updates, quick updates on some of their initiatives and projects. VRE Broadrun Station projects, this is ongoing and designed. [04:26:49] They're working on a 60% plan review. The project is anticipated to be completed sometime in the 2027 timeframe. Quantico station improvements, construction is ongoing. I will commend VROE staff. They're very good about working with and updating the Marine Corps-based Quantico team there. [04:27:05] This is anticipated to be completed sometime next year. Just some ridership information I did want to highlight. Their monthly average daily ridership in August was about 6,400. Pre-pandemic, VROE is looking at about 18,000 passengers daily. [04:27:22] So it gives you an idea of where they're at about 30% or where they are before COVID. OmniRide, a couple initiatives, exciting items going on. We have the Microtransit Service. This is implemented in Dumfries, Toronto, and Quantico. Very exciting, similar to what was implemented in Manassas Park. [04:27:39] It is an on-demand service. You'll either go on the website, call customer service, or use an app to identify a ride. Just other initiatives, the Eastern Local Restructure Implementation will take place in spring 2024. looking at updating some routes and making routes more accessible. OmniRide does plan to initiate some outreach starting this fall discussing this new restructuring. Recent service updates, OmniRide continues to monitor and streamline their operations. A couple things are changing. They're changing their schedules to be more user-friendly. They're looking at clock times every 15 minutes. They're [04:28:14] also looking at restructuring some of their commuter services to respond to some of the changes. They want to highlight OmniRide's mobile ticketing. This was a pilot study for the Haymarket Route that was implemented last fall. They're looking to establish it and expand it to the entire commuter fleet starting late this year. [04:28:35] And we did want to highlight three councils that OmniRide has. You have the Vanpool Council, Employer Council, as well as the Hispanic Council, and ways to really improve their outreach and their messaging. Staff has been involved in some of these council meetings as well. VDOT, before we go to 66 updates, we did want to highlight the greater regional express lanes We have in the region, you have your 66, 395, 495, and 95 express lanes. [04:29:02] There's several under construction. We have the segment in Fairfax County, the 495 North. There's a small ramp that's being built as part of the Opitz Boulevard that will direct commuters and buses to the future Potomac Neabsco commuter garage. There's also several segments under study. [04:29:18] You have the 495 south side express lanes, and more importantly to the county, the 95 bidirectional study that is ongoing. Just a couple quick updates. You're still seeing final paving and striping on the roadway, so there are still closures. But we do direct everyone to transform66.org to see the latest closures and any traffic impacts. [04:29:39] Just a quick reminder of how it works. You will need an easy pass flex. If you're using HOV, make sure it is visible and make sure you use the right tab. In terms of the segments, you will get a price before you approach each segment. There's three segments eastbound on 66 and four westbound. [04:29:56] Just a couple highlights. We've shown this before. It's $2.3 billion for the entire project. In addition to the 22.5-mile corridor, there were two major commuter lots built in both within Prince William County, the first of which is the Century Park commuter lot. [04:30:13] This has been completed. We also have our adjacent Ballsford Road project where we're looking to install signal and make that operational very shortly. The other lot is the Route 29 at university. This is approximately 1,000 spaces now. We're looking to add, or VDAS is looking to add another 2,000 spaces by the end of the year. [04:30:33] So just a quick update. Madam Chair? Yes. If you could start. Is it a question? Yes. We usually wait until the end, but are you almost done with it? It's a real one. This segment. It's on this particular slide. I understand that. So we've got 1,000 spaces open currently, 1,000 largely unused open spaces. [04:30:52] So we're going to build 2,000 more? That's part of the VDOT project. That's part of their contract for another 2,000 when fully completed. It's essentially a VDOT staging area now. The only thing parking there is VDOT. Correct. We've had issues in the past of some of the equipment, so we'll work with VDOT if there's any issues with some of the visual aspects of their project. [04:31:10] Please proceed. And I will then hand it over to Richard to talk about small safety operational improvements. Thank you. Thank you members of board and County executive. My name is Richard Wyman traffic safety engineering branch Prince William County First slide we have is just a summary of some of the work we've done in the last year We've been very busy second slide is We've finished the Aiden and Fleetwood Report we're ready to go to the community supervisor Wilson whenever you are ready [04:31:47] The Braided Stream Rollings Ford Vehicle Activated Flashing Beacons are out with procurement for BID currently. So that's finally done with design and is getting ready for BID. Dumfries Road Signals, we have the two signals. The Stockbridge one is being finalized and should be going to BID within the next week or two. [04:32:07] The Talon Road one, we still are having some issues with the right-of-way acquisition. So there's a little bit of delay, but we are proceeding with that. And we also, at the same time, are about to send you a request to do some improvements going into that gas station there on Talon Drive. [04:32:24] Route 1 corridor bus shelters are scheduled to arrive within the next two to three weeks at the depot, and we are finalizing the permits, so those will hopefully be in before the end of the year. The Route 1 widening ones are already in process of going to construction. [04:32:45] Broadwood sidewalk, we're going to be going to design with that, with our new on-cores for traffic engineering design. Red Wing, we're still trying to get the right-of-way or access to the private parcel, Supervisor Angry, there, which is on the HOA. [04:33:00] And then the Blue Pool one, we are going to go to design with the new on-call contract that we have just finalized. Street lighting, Route 1 widening, we're still waiting for that final piece of sidewalk to go in there before we can go ahead and release those to be built in front of Muromsko. [04:33:20] And then the VDOT streetlights have been installed, but we've got some questions over who is going to maintain those. We will be resolving that with VDOT shortly. The Orphan Road program, we have finalized industrial court. It has been accepted in the state system. [04:33:36] There were some delays on that. Industry court, we're going through the final process, and hopefully we'll have that accepted by the state before the end of year. Bauer Road, we got a design estimate which was very, very high. So we are re-scoping it and we are looking at additional roads to look at. [04:33:54] We may be looking at Little River Road, Supervisor Ware out in Gainesville to potentially look at that. And we'll be getting back to you shortly on that. VDOT, as part of their HSUP program, they got their systemic improvements that they are proceeding with very well. [04:34:12] As you can see, a lot of completions on that, 100%. as they incrementally do that. We've also worked with VDOT to do some targeted projects at specific locations with H-SIP. Photo enforcement, I'm pleased to announce we have finalized the vendor selection process, and the successful vendor was Conduit. [04:34:33] All the vendors that applied for that are being notified or have been notified, and we're hoping to have that rolled out and have things on site before within sort of in the November timeframe. And then Paula talked about the Comprehensive Traffic Safety Action Plan. [04:34:50] We're finalizing the scoping for that as we proceed. And that is pretty much the 30-second rundown for traffic safety. Are there any questions for Mr. Weinman before he steps away? No? Okay, thank you. [04:35:07] Madam Chair, members of the board, good afternoon. My name is Kitab Shamout. I'm the assistant director of transportation in charge of capital projects. So today we'll be talking about active projects, and I will be focusing on the design phase. First project is Clover Hill Road at Prince William Parkway. [04:35:25] It's a project that we refer to as the Bowtie Project. The project is currently in design. We are about 50% complete. A federal document is being prepared for the environmental work, and we are hoping to move the project forward. [04:35:42] We are doing traffic engineering as well and in coordination with the airport. Route 28, Center for Innovation Intersection. This is a project that is managed by VDOT. And it will focus on concrete median, curb ramps, new crosswalk drainage, and some smaller type improvements within the corridor. [04:36:03] The project is in an early phase of design right now. Pageland Lane, right turn lane, and traffic signal. This project is half in construction, half is still in design. The road itself is in construction by our Public Works crews. [04:36:19] The signal is out in advertisement right now and should be opening bids sometimes next week on the 24th. Minerville Road, Prince William Parkway, Interchange Environmental Study. We've talked about this a little bit today in the public hearing. [04:36:37] The project is moving forward. Once we have this approval, the next phase will be to start to focus on right-of-way acquisition and working with the properties that are directly impacted. I-95 exit 158, that's a project by VDOT. [04:36:55] Again, it's improvement to the parking lot. Still in the early design phase, still working, trying to improve the number of spaces by painting, stripping, and paving. Route 123, Old Bridge Road intersection improvement. [04:37:13] It's a project that's in very early stage of schematic development or very preliminary engineering. We're working with the community, we're working with the businesses to improve access as we move this project forward. Route 294, Old Bridge Road intersection. [04:37:31] Again, it's a project that the main focus is to align the parkway to create the throughput on the parkway and connect Old Bridge to the project. Today we got the authorization for the public hearing that we are anticipating holding sometimes later this year. [04:37:51] 995 exit Dumfries Road park and ride lot enhancement restriping another project by VDOT will be to restripe the parking lot to create more space as best as possible. And it's very early stage of development as well. Then Buren Road environmental study. [04:38:11] The environmental document is complete. It was submitted and we're hoping to hold a location public hearing sometimes in January of next year. And at that time, we will see if we could just go to advance the design to about 30%. [04:38:27] Marina Way Extension, it's a project of Annapolis that ties into 123. The project is in design. I would say we're about 50%. We're coordinating closely with the two developers on that project to set that cross-section and try to accommodate as much as possible. [04:38:51] The Tom McKnight School Mills Commuter Garage, this project, again, is in construction mainly. We do have just one piece of the design that's still out there, which is the access or what we call off-site improvements that should be coming to us for review end of the month. [04:39:11] North Woodbridge Mobility Improvement, that's the Annapolis Way. This project is also in construction by our public works crews. We do have an IFP for design and construction of walls on the project that are needed to fill within the wetland area. [04:39:30] A lot of the fills that come into this project is coming really from Route 1. If you see a Route 1 fill that's been disappearing right now, it's going into this project. I-95 Route 123, this is a VDOT project. It's a progressive. It's a pilot project for VDOT, and it's to improve the interchange at 123. [04:39:50] With that, that wraps up my presentation. I'll turn it over to Rick Petavans. All right. We're doing a pretty good time here, I think. Let me wait until the end. Do you have a question on his section? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Just real quick, Katab. So we can just roll with me real quick. [04:40:09] Van Buren, we're going to come back in January, is what you said, just to decide what's the next steps. Yeah, we'll hold what we call a location public hearing. It's a requirement of getting the environmental document approved. Okay. Yes. Okay. And then 152 parking, 65 extra spaces. [04:40:28] That's what FIDAT is looking for at that location, but they're still in a very early stage of... So it won't be any confusion in terms of people getting in and out right now? There shouldn't be. There should not be. And then? That's all within the lot itself. Yeah. And then just real quick, Rich, just real quick. [04:40:47] I know I'm going back, but Stockbridge, just give me a time frame again. We're still looking for – it's going to be probably about a year out. Stockbridge, not talent. Stockbridge, because of the poll ordering, currently it's about six to eight months delay, I believe, for the polls. [04:41:03] So it will be fall of next year. That's on, as in the slide, for Stockbridge, correct. All right. Supervisor. Just, ma'am, just so you understand, it's a federal project. We usually don't do signals as a federal project, but in this instance, for Stockbridge, Talon, and for the signal on Hoadley, we went, VDOT had found some federal money, so we were able to do those projects with that. [04:41:26] But because they're federal dollars, it does take a little bit longer to get through the process. Each authorization we have to go through, that's why even Talon's taking even longer, because we have to go through an authorization for right-of-way and an authorization after we get out of right-of-way. Those authorizations are usually two to three months per, so that's why you're looking at that delay. [04:41:44] The other thing with signals is that you make a design for the intersection, and then you have to separate the signal design, and once you're done with the signal design, you have to turn it over to the manufacturer or the poles. The poles are individually matched with the weight that goes onto those poles, so they're made specifically for that signal. [04:42:02] There's only like two to three vendors in the East Coast, and they take months to make. That's the COVID. That's a COVID problem. It got better since COVID. They were running a year through COVID. Now they're running about six months. All right. Thank you. Thank you. [04:42:19] Supervisor Weir? Rick, I'll just ask you the question, Rick. Page 39, intersection of the Parkway and Clover Hill. Please tell me that's not another no left turn intersection. That is another no left turn intersection, sir. Again, we're taking a look at that design. [04:42:35] We are reviewing, and I think Katab was trying to be fast about it, but we are reviewing the numbers, the traffic numbers on that, to see if the airport's proposal, it has an impact on that intersection, and if the intersection, the way it's designed now, could handle that impact. [04:42:52] If it cannot, we will take a look at a redesign. But at this point, it is a no left-turn intersection. All right. You can call it a dog bone or a bow tie. So it's an innovative design for it, but yes. I'm weary of innovative designs. I understand, sir. [04:43:08] Thank you. Thank you. So I am your end here. We're going to talk a little bit about projects that are in the right-of-way and utility phase, as well as projects that are in construction. We'll start with Devlin. It's in the right-of-way stage. [04:43:23] We continue to go through the property owners, making sure we're starting the right-of-way process to see. As you know, we brought those first property owners because they were a part of where the utilities were going to go. So we'll start working on that. At the same time, we will continue to work with other property owners to kind of settle the matters for the rest of the road project. [04:43:40] Old Bridge Road, Occoquan Road, again, same place. We're in right-of-way utility relocation. We continue to bring the partial takes to the board to complete this project, and we are going on what we talked about with the church on a two-phase approach on the utilities, correct, still? [04:43:58] Yeah. Yes. And we are working with the schools again as well because we're having some utility conflicts with them and some of the facilities they're trying to put on the school, but I think we're getting that solved with the utility companies. Summit School Road, we discussed this earlier. [04:44:14] We will hopefully bring this back to you for award, but we're taking a look at some of the details within the contract and the monies we have to be able to make sure that we can bring this up forward to you at the next meeting. Route 1, Fraley Boulevard, widening. We continue to be in the right-of-way stage in this, and we're going to be here for a while. [04:44:30] We've sent out all the offers for all the total takes, but we have about 95 other properties that are partial takes that we have to get appraisals out to. So we will be in this approach for the next couple years and then get back to the construction in 2025. [04:44:50] Projects that we're in construction under, we got the intersection improvements at Prince William County Parkway and University Boulevard, another innovative intersection project, a jug handle at university that we will have the traffic shift for the extra lanes on the parkway available here soon and then hopefully have the project completed by this winter where we open up the entire intersection and kill those lefts at University Boulevard. [04:45:16] University Boulevard Extension, this is an exciting project because it hooks up University from Devlin down through Edmonston to Sudley Manor. This is the second to last leg. We've got the last leg that we're starting to get some work done on now. We're trying to get it to design, which is the leg between Devlin out to Wellington. [04:45:35] But we're full construction here. We're moving full steam ahead. The bridge is up there. I know that if you've gone out there, Ms. Lawson, those guys are moving real quick on grading and putting the road together there as well. Bosford Road Interchange, we are almost there. [04:45:51] We have just a couple punch list items left to get through, little ramps, curve cuts, stuff like that. But for the most part, you see what's up there. We're going to work on that intersection that Mr. Weir is concerned about out there. we're seeing how we can make the radiuses smaller to have people understand that there's no left movement at that intersection. If we see that that is not working, we will get back with VDOT and take a relook at the intersection to see what can be done or if it can be redesigned. [04:46:21] Rick, while you're looking at that, you need some better signage eastbound across the bridge deck on the left side. I believe that Richard and his group are already working on that, but I'll let Richard talk to it a little bit. Thank you, Supervisor. We are working on signage plan and uh we have your meeting with uh your office tomorrow we'll bring that up and discuss it in more detail thank you our boss for road widening we're getting towards the end of this project the lanes will be open here soon we still have a uh sewer uh issue that we're working out through but uh we're looking to open up this road here this month meapsco mills road uh we are full [04:47:00] on construction on both sides of the road on that over there and uh we're hoping to be done uh before that may date of next year uh the 95 express lane opitz boulevard it's tracking again with our garage project over there, Potomac Neabsco Garage. We're hoping these lanes get in again in the fall of 2024. We will be opening our garage in the summer of 2024. Fuller Heights Road, Fuller improvements. They've started doing the hook into the base entrance there, so they're starting to grade all that out. The con span is up, and they're just finalizing the improvements. We're hoping to be done with this project in early spring. If we get a good winter, we may be done even before then. [04:47:39] I-95 over Palace Creek. This is the rehabilitation of the bridge over Palace Creek and this will continue on for basically the next year. Route 1, Featherstone to Mary's Way. All welcome to come to the October 26, 10 a.m. ribbon cutting. My favorite part of being transportation director is going out there and cutting some ribbon on a new road that everybody's happy to use. [04:48:03] So you're more than welcome, but on October 26th, over there at the corner of Mary's Way and Route 1, we will be having a little celebration and cutting a ribbon to open this road up long-awaited. I know Ms. Franklin isn't here, but long-awaited by her constituents. I know that between the VDOT project and this project, they've been in a construction zone for about five to six years. [04:48:22] So I'm excited that we're going to open this section, which will open up a six-lane section from the bridge all the way down to Neabsco Road, Cardinal Road. Our bicycle and pedestrian improvements are the last thing I'll talk about. [04:48:38] Besides the old Bridge Road sidewalk, which is in a utility stage, all the other sidewalks you see on this list are in some sort of phase, in the design phase. So you'll be looking at some of these being completed within FY24 and FY25, but right now most of them continue to do field work. [04:48:55] They're in the design phase. We're in task order and those kinds of movements. The most exciting one, I think, is the one we're doing between the Horner Road parking lot across 95 all the way to the other side of 95 or the east side of 95 to hook in the Route 1 area. [04:49:14] Very exciting project and again that's the one listed up top there. We're doing a project kickoff meeting that was held back in July and we're hoping to get all that fuel work done and get a design into Virat this winter. With that, I timed us at 24 minutes for 73 slides. I think that's pretty good. [04:49:32] We'll try to beat it next time. Wonderful is always a billion dollars covered in 24 minutes. Nothing like 70 projects, but yes. So are there any further questions for Mr. Kanazalas? Hold on. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. [04:49:48] Now, I just held my questions all the way to the end for a whole lot of stuff. God bless you, sir. And a couple of curious questions. One is, yes, who does the traffic lights? [04:50:04] You know, Queensdale light. I got an email that said they put in a concrete thing, and they're curious, are they starting construction on that light now? This is the Queen Chapel, not Queen's there. Queen Chapel, yeah. Queen Chapel has actually started construction. There was some work out there last week. I skimmed over that for speed. [04:50:22] But, yes, Queen Chapel construction has started. That is a VDOT project, and that was the Supervisor Vega. I know your office was asking what was happening there last week, and I believe that was the VDOT construction. Perfect. All right. And then the last one, on the streetlights, I know I saw this a lot about all the streetlights and then like 15 got switched to LED. [04:50:41] Will eventually all streetlights get switched to LED? Correct. We are working with the sustainability office to try to switch them over to LED. There's cost savings in that. There's obviously environmental savings in that, et cetera. But, yeah, basically what we're doing is when we have a little bit of leftover streetlight budget, we switch that to LED streetlights. [04:51:00] And, of course, now with the ban on incandescent bulbs, whenever a light is not working, it automatically gets switched over to LED. But we will be pushing that moving forward as one of our initiatives. All right. And then last thing for you, Rick. Let me tell you, that Neosco Mills Road, it's looking really good. [04:51:17] Thank you. You can see the picture now of the road, and they're moving well, man. So they're putting all the dirt in the road and the asphalt, and it's pretty much coming in. So I think that's going to be ahead of schedule. I hope so, too. have said that but i think so all right thank you supervisor angry supervisor lawson uh probably more of a question for richard richard um my staff ran the aiden road fleetwood meeting by you or by me i mean and i think we're ready to have that meeting at the end of october so i will get [04:51:53] with marybeth and your office to schedule that meeting because we're ready to go as soon as you So we'll make sure that happens. My memory may be flawed, so check with her. And then please, please, please, please, please tell me that that activating flashing warning sign will be put in by the end of the year. [04:52:13] We are hoping for that, but it's with procurement and bidding now. Say that again? It's with procurement and the bid is being prepared now. So, I don't know. I'll follow up with you as soon as we hear that. [04:52:29] I know it's been a- Tell everybody. It's not just me. Go ahead. This has been one of those ones where we chose to use federal money, and retrospectively, we probably shouldn't have. So, yeah. And y'all didn't ask me either, because I could have said, let's just stick with trip funds. [04:52:49] I'm sorry, man. Okay. The good thing is hopefully that that will come in, and we'll start working on the roundabouts. We'll start working on the other stuff, and people will start seeing that come in gradually as improvements are coming to Rollins-Ford Road. Yeah. Leave it up to the feds to slow things down. [04:53:04] As always, ma'am. Richard, thank you very much. That's certainly not criticism toward you. Matter of fact, you do a great job at what you do. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. [04:53:20] Quick question. Did we use trip funds on the Stockbridge, Mike? We did, ma'am, for the design aspect for us, so we could get ahead of the design. That way we didn't have to wait for the federal authorization, the federal contracting, and all the stuff that went along with that. [04:53:38] So we were able to use the local funds to start that design process quickly. After that design process, so it's purely a federal process, we had to wait for the authorization to go to right-of-way, the authorization to get it out of right-of-way, and then get into the construction. On the Stockbridge one, outside of the right-of-way, we did the design, then finished up the design, got the design approved by VDOT. [04:53:57] Again, now going with that signal design that goes through the poles and waiting for those to come out. But yes, on both of those, you used trip funds. Yes, ma'am. The other thing is, just in terms of the street lights, I know we got one set of street lights installed in Potomac Shores. [04:54:15] Yes, ma'am. What about that? Because it's still dark over there. Those have been released to the utility, I believe it's Dominion. And, unfortunately, we can just keep requesting for them to go ahead. [04:54:30] But notice to install has been issued. So we're still waiting for Dominion? I believe so. And then did you say, just quickly, Fraley Route 1, that's two years? [04:54:48] Two years and right away, ma'am. We'll be stuck in right away for the next couple years, putting out appraisals for the additional 95 properties that are not total takes, the partial takes. We'll go into negotiations with them after we get the properties necessary for utility relocation. [04:55:03] We'll move the utilities. All that work will take about two, two and a half years. You will start seeing, once we start moving utilities out there, you'll start seeing some construction activities. So the people out there will start seeing that the project is moving along. We see that probably come along in about a two-year time frame. And we've had communications with the mayor and Dumfries and the council, and they're aware of where we are status-wise. [04:55:27] Status wise, we inform their staff. Their staff is involved. Their town manager now, I believe it is now, and their engineering and their planning are in meetings with us. They're in right-of-way meetings with us with our consultants, so they are aware on a consistent basis. That's what I need to hear. And then lastly, the 992K that we got for signals and traffic, one of the requirements, one of the items that we were going to focus on was 234 in Country Club with the 992 grant that we got. [04:56:03] This is a safe street for money. So that is going to be a countywide one looking at all intersections and part of that will be looking at crash history and patterns and of course the fatal and severe accidents will be a focus area. So where are we with that? And I'm specifically asking about that because I know 234 and Country Club and Montclair, that was an area that we were kind of, I recommended. [04:56:25] So I just need to know where we are because we've had two fatalities there. So that's why I'm concerned. Certainly. So both of those fatalities were not based on the intersection. There were other factors involved with them. But that is a study, so it will not be coming up with any necessary design attorneys immediately. [04:56:43] But the project for that is expected to run next calendar year. So that's when we will have some results for that. So what we'll do is we'll identify the problem, identify the intersections, identify the areas. One of them, if we see something that is happening out in that area, that intersection will be identified. [04:57:02] If it's not identified, ma'am, we'll take a look at it with a different study to make sure that we have done everything possible there to make that intersection safe. Well, no, it was on your presentation. Right, right. So again, yeah, because we have accident data for that intersection, so we'll be able to look at that as part of the entire county, though, and looking at the areas that need those kinds of improvements. [04:57:21] Okay, and that should come up when? The next quarter? No, that's probably not going to be until next year. Again, it's a federal study. We're going through the procurement process of it and getting the monies on it. Once we get that, we'll be able to get a consultant on board and have them come and do the study for us. Okay, thank you. Before you go, just two things on lighting. [04:57:38] our office has gotten a bunch of calls on lighting near the falazzo building for some reason off cardinal at about it being dark now they might be talking about inside but i don't know whether it's along the road but we'll take a look at the street lights in that area and the second one you can't really do anything about but vdot has i don't know if you know but like vdot has changed their lighting in their commuter lot and so when i drive by the one at 29 they're bright blue they're blue like that and but it's fine except some of them aren't blue and they're sort of a mix which is just makes it look kind of funny are they changing over their lighting correct so the old [04:58:14] high pressure sodium and condescent bulbs were that bright bright white and the new led ones are actually more of a blue color and you'll see this all over the place as the lights get changed out they will have a bluer hue which is actually supposed to be easier for drivers to see and create less light pollution it's different which is fine it's just that some of them are still the high pressure sodium and it looks really kind of interesting. We'll discuss with you, let's find out how quickly that transition will happen. [04:58:41] Maybe I was the only one who noticed it, but okay. Okay, well, thank you. I think I see no other further questions. You guys went through a lot of things and answered a lot of questions in a short amount of time. Thank you. Thank you. And now I know you have one more presentation. [04:59:02] All right. Madam Chair and members of the board, Rick Kennizales again, your Director of Transportation, talked to you about the Route 28 bypass project, give you a little update of where we're at on it and ask for your support on on a way moving forward with another alternative that we've heard about today at public comment time. First you know obviously we'll give you a little project status we'll talk about the southern alignment and the northern alignment options and then we'll right now all we have is a high-level comparison because we haven't done much on this on this yet it's just kind of a line on a map that we asked our consultants to put together so we can talk it through with the board and [04:59:41] make sure that we're doing the right thing and we're on board here. First, you know, this is our Route 28 project that's presented at the public meetings that we had back in April, I believe it was, and this is starting at Godwin Drive. We're moving towards Lowman Drive, where again, we're not doing an intersection anymore. The traffic numbers showed that that intersection in Lowman Drive could not handle the capacity of hooking in, so we are bridging over Lowman Drive now and not connecting to it. Then we come into the point where we start turning from the right-of-way that [05:00:17] was anticipated for this project many years ago and building another bridge across Flat Branch into the Allegheny Road and that neighborhood out there where we will be impacting some property owners. We hit down at the bottom at the right to the page. You see that we're going through the the mobile home park that's been identified in many places you see that we're affecting right now it's looking like seven to ten homes at the time or seven to ten mobile park homes at that point the Fairfax County alignment that [05:00:53] we've been continuing to following as we envisioned with the board was looked at and and what what was going on here is that we had to step away from using the existing bridge and we had to because of environmental concerns as well as some utility impacts had to create a larger bridge that would cross not only bull run, but some utilities that are coming up from EOSA. Then coming into Fairfax County, looking through the EOSA property, the park property, as well as some private property through veterinary clinics and some homes. Coming back down and hitting 28, where you see [05:01:27] through the Ordway Road, home development that Fairfax County has through there, as well as affecting the homes that you see on the turn lane section of this. So what we were told about this alignment was that, number one, it was a much longer bridge than anticipated, and we're not using the existing bridge. [05:01:51] Environmental concerns, we got some, you know, obviously some utility concerns here. We also have, as well as some home impact concerns. And with the new additional, five additional homes along 28 or six additional homes along 28, that increases the additional impact to homes within the Fairfax County area. [05:02:13] So we see that, you know, obviously we've been talking through and collaborating with Fairfax on this, trying to get them to figure out a way to move forward on this project. Everything seems to be moving. We had a public meeting out in Fairfax. The supervisor of the area is for the project. The chairman of the board is for the project and have shown up to our public hearings before. [05:02:31] but we seem to get into an impasse when we're looking to have legislation done in order to do the right-of-way in Fairfax County that was proposed by Fairfax County staff so it was proposed by Fairfax County staff we've been working on it for two years it has not gone through I think Fairfax has gone back to the plan that they would do their own right-of-way and deal with the impacts from their citizens [05:02:58] But we're still awaiting Fairfax action with elections happening, with the additional environmental issues, with the additional utility issues, and with the uncertainty of having to work with another jurisdiction where they may or may not cooperate at the end of the day. I mean, everything may be fine and I have nothing to worry about, but I worry that we don't have our fate in our own hands. [05:03:19] We're not carrying the water on this project completely. We have to depend on someone else to help us out with it. With that said, we had our consultants take a look at what would happen if we did an alignment all within Prince William County and did not have to come into Fairfax. [05:03:35] Again, only a line on a map with some geometry, nothing here. So I can only give you high level thoughts on this and what we're doing out here. But again, you see that instead of going into Fairfax, we cross over Old Centerville Road, follow the bull run. [05:03:50] We do, and we'll talk about this a little bit, affect additional homes in Prince William County. Those townhouses you see in the Quail Hollow neighborhood may be affected, as well as three additional business, which you see at the corner of 28 and where we'll be coming in with this new facility. [05:04:09] That would be a car dealership and a repair shop and I believe another car attire shop. With that said, it's obvious that we're not hooking into the Fairfax project at this time. Fairfax has agreed that if we decide to move forward this way, that they would join and partner with us in putting a project together that would create the additional widening on Centerville Road and their Route 28 between their project line and where this project comes together here. [05:04:37] This has been talked at a staff level only, but it seems to have some motion if this is the way the board decides to go on this project. High-level comparison, again, as I mentioned, this does affect more residential homes. It also affects three businesses. [05:04:54] We deal with a little less structure, obviously, and we deal with a little less overall length of the project, less impacts to the parks, as well as less historic impact. But we do have, again, retaining walls that are higher because we're trying to avoid some of those environmental impacts with the new alignment that will be necessary. [05:05:15] Again, this is very high level. We're not there yet, and that's why I've come to you today. The question before you today is if you would allow our department to be able to move forward looking at the alignment that was just shown to do the full engineering of it like we have done for the Fairfax alignment. [05:05:33] And before we go to public hearing, before we take this to design completion, before we take it for permits to the Army Corps of Engineers, we would come back to you with both designs. the design for both the Fairfax portion and the Prince William portion, as well as the choice of not moving forward. And the board can make that choice at that time, and we can move forward either to public hearing for either one of the facilities or, again, you know, stop the project at that point in time, depending on what the board would like. With that said, again, the only ask today is to be [05:06:07] able to look and examine this facility to give the board the full scope of choice. Thank you. So I just want to be clear. I know that, and obviously there was some, I was reading Supervisor Vega's email that went out. [05:06:26] It said the original proposed alignment is dead after Fairfax County officials pulled it out of the deal. That's not correct. That is not correct, ma'am. Okay. Madam Chair, if I can ask Rick to clarify, Rick, you came into my office and we had a conversation. What did you share with me? Was there a reason why Fairfax officials pulled out? [05:06:45] Well, ma'am, I did not come into your office. With my staff. We had a meeting about this. We did. It was on an unrelated item, but then you wanted to use that opportunity to brief me on these changes. Yes, and what I said to you at that time was that Fairfax County had a lot of issues at their PIM. [05:07:01] They had a lot of opposition. PIM. I'm sorry, at a public information meeting. My apologies for using the acronym. at a public information meeting, and that I felt, since we hadn't gotten the right-of-way straightened, that I was having some concern that we were not going to be able to do what we wanted to do on the Fairfax side of the house. And again, I'm personally, I know the director or the acting director of Fairfax County DOT, and I've had deep conversations with him about this. And we have [05:07:36] discuss, you know, the potential that Fairfax could not cooperate at a point in time. And that potential is there. Is it a done deal right now? No. Like I mentioned earlier, the supervisor, the current supervisor of the area is for this project. They have asked us to continue to look at the Fairfax side of this project. And today we're not asking you to remove this part of the project. We're just asking you to add to it so the board has a bigger scope of choices at decision-making time, or if Fairfax doesn't cooperate, or if the board decides not to move forward with the project. It can be. Madam Turn, just to add a little bit more to that, because I am [05:08:14] transparent and whatever information is relayed to me, I share to my constituents as it's relayed to me. In that meeting that we had, it was also mentioned the taking of these properties and the concern of what it would look like during an election year. And so I want to be very clear that that's also a main driver in regards to why Fairfax County doesn't want to move forward with this i my understanding is that you know takings are never good no one's taking houses this year the elections in 30 days it's not um it's the optics madam chair and again i'm just sharing with you what you're referencing in my email it just says that it's dead and it the truth is that [05:08:51] it is not dead it is still on the table that's what was conveyed to me they said it's that's what it was that's the information that i received and so i'm sure you understood because it doesn't feel like it's dead okay well that's that's that's the information that you have that's your opinion I'm sharing with my constituents information that has been relayed to me in my office in meetings. [05:09:10] And I'm asking publicly whether it's dead, and they're saying it's not. And I'm asking for clarification, hold on, Rick, to state what was stated to me and my staff in my office. The word dead has never been used in a conversation about this facility, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. [05:09:26] The word dead has never been used. Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rick, I'll be honest with you. The impression I got from our conversation about this, in fact, our last couple of conversations, was identical to supervisor vegas did you use the word dead i don't recall but my impression was that that's what it was was dead and perhaps dead is what we should be talking about um you're talking about a new alignment you're adding 15 residential takes you're adding [05:10:03] three commercial takes you're dumping it into 28 below the actual bottleneck on the bridge quite frankly you're accomplishing nothing from a transit standpoint as far as i can tell by doing it with this alignment. We're already improving Route 28, which was one of the other options, so now we're doing this bifurcated thing. I don't see any mention of the plan that you broached in my office with respect to the park, where you were talking about building affordable housing [05:10:35] on the park property to house the displaced people, both trailer parks. I mean, this isn't anything nearly as complete as what you brought me in my office, which means probably the expenditure will increase. I think at this point in time, for our purposes, the question is, do we continue to throw good money after bad? Is it likely that Fairfax is going to allow us to do this? Probably not. I think it's more UOSA than it's Fairfax, given the utility relocations and that sort of thing. But I mean, why don't we just call it a day and be done with this once and for [05:11:15] all. I mean, I'm not willing to support spending new money on this new alignment, not spending another million dollars on this project to give us another option that's probably not viable anyway. It certainly won't accomplish anything from a transportation standpoint, in my view. But perhaps it's just time to kill the whole bloody thing and save us some time and money and some aggravation. It's pretty clear nobody wants it except certain vested interests, and most of the residents that I've spoken to don't want it. I can't speak to supervisor supervisor vegas constituents but i suspect the the opinion is the same but i [05:11:50] wouldn't if you're going to if you wouldn't mind would you take some time to explain the additional takings the impact of the additional takings impact on the trailers and what you plan to do with all these displaced people uh before you go i i just want to say supervisor where you're you're welcome to voice your opinion about this project. This is a regional road transportation project that people have been working on for years. It was in our bond referendum that was overwhelmingly approved. I don't know if you remember that or paid attention to it back in those years. So you can say that the project is not important and that's fine, but this is something that's been [05:12:29] going on for years. That's a regional road project that affects hundreds of thousands of people. And so you can say, hey, everybody you've talked to who doesn't want it, that's great. But do realize that I know you're coming in a little bit after the fact and stuff like that. This is a regional road project that we're working on for a long time that is still going to go forward because everyone understands how important it is. [05:12:50] And that's why the bond referendum was one of the things that people really were excited about was getting a Route 28 bypass because Route 28 underneath where that road comes in is one of the most congested roads in all of Northern Virginia. and it goes through two cities, the city of Manassas Park and the city of Manassas, which is one of the reasons why we're doing this to even affect their quality of life, which is why it's considered a regional thing that you really have to take into consideration. [05:13:16] Thank you, Madam Chair, for both your opinion and your history lesson. I've been following this a lot longer than you have. Yes, it's my opinion, and I began with that statement that this is my opinion, as is yours. Is it truly a regional road thing? [05:13:33] I mean, this goes all the way back to Wally. It is. Yes. I would appreciate it. I'm not going to engage in a debate with her on this. No, no, sir. This is a regional road, but the answer to your question is I don't know. I don't know the impacts. I don't know if I even have to impact the townhouses. [05:13:49] Like I said, this is a line on a map. I'm asking the board to let me look at this and see if it becomes feasible, if I don't have to take the homes, if I can create walls, if I can do things that will mitigate this, if we can get another project together with Fairfax to do it. You came to my office with some pretty significant impacts and some pretty significant additional plans which aren't sown on this. [05:14:12] So the question is, do those plans still exist? I'm sorry, I didn't get that question. You showed me a plan where you were going to take what is essentially the cricket field and propose housing. Sir, again, we are looking as a department and as a county, we are looking at the best way to try to mitigate 55 to 70 homes being taken. [05:14:37] We're trying to think outside the box. We're trying to think new things because, as everybody has mentioned here before, and as we mentioned, it'll be difficult to get homes for a lot of these people. So we are looking at and thinking of creative solutions, and we'll come forward to the board if any of those solutions are. [05:14:54] then why were those solutions brought to me as part of this package, and now they're not here? I think we need to look at this comprehensively. And I think, sir, I was just trying to express that we are very concerned, like the rest of the board is, about the human impact we are creating here and the family impact we are creating here. [05:15:15] So I wanted you to know some of the ideas we were thinking about. They were a little outside the box, so you understood that we weren't just doing the normal thing. We were going above and beyond or trying to think holistically or comprehensively about how to achieve this. [05:15:31] We have not gone through that idea quite just yet and it has not come to fruition quite at this point yet. But we continue to look at it and we continue to look at other ideas to see how we can mitigate the impact that we are creating. What was expressed to me in my office was that you already had conversations with parks and recs and parks, and I quote, didn't need the park. [05:15:50] That's not what I said, sir. I said that parks and rec only needed a certain portion of the land. for the park and that the rest of the land may be able to be used for something else. That's not how I recall the conversation, but I'll let it stand at that. Yes, sir. Supervisor Vega. [05:16:06] Thank you, Madam Chair. Since we're going down memory lane, I think it's important to remind folks because, Madam Chair, you just stated that there was so much excitement about this project. Folks, it's literally been four years. This was the first controversial item that I, as Coles District Supervisor, had to tackle and take on. [05:16:23] it was july 14th of 2020 and here we are so much excitement madam chair that i in the first round had unanimous support to vote this down is that the excitement that you're referencing so i'll actually go back and that was when we had you told them that everybody in the trailer park was going to have their trailer taken do not put words in my mouth because that is not what i said and it was that is not what i said and you had all that is not what i said that is not what i said okay that is the interpretation that you took when you went to the mobile park community trying to do damage control and that's on you but don't interrupt me because i'm not done you talked about excitement [05:17:00] okay and in a cowardly move folks that unanimous vote all right at the next board meeting was undue undone through what through intimidation and through fear tactics we had people from other areas coming into this county threatening us that if we didn't reverse course they were going to pull $89 million from Prince William County transportation projects and allocate them to Loudoun County. That is exactly what happened. We have archives of our meetings. You can go back, rewind the tape, and replay it. That is what happened. Now let's not forget, Madam Chair, that you and the majority preach this big game about equity and inclusion, about advocating for [05:17:39] black and brown communities. You can't have it both ways. The bulk of the people that you're displacing our members of minorities communities are they not but now all of a sudden that doesn't matter you cannot speak out of both sides of your mouth either you defend people at all times or you don't do it at all and don't take credit for doing it at all i'm still engaged with those folks they're still very much concerned about their future and what's going to happen to them why are we help bent on moving this project forward is beyond me is beyond me we had conversations with you rick where you talked about being creative and thinking outside of the box as to how to move this project forward. [05:18:16] Last time I checked, and the county attorney may give her opinion, you are not a developer, nor should you be interested in proposing certain things to accommodate affordable housing for a transportation project. I asked what the legality of that was, and it's still in the air, and I still haven't heard back. [05:18:32] We haven't even mentioned the homes that are going to be built, the new homes that are going to be taken if this passes. To allocate another million to figure it out, how we can get it to pass, is absolutely unacceptable. And not only am I not going to support it, I'm going to continue to advocate for my community, for the least of these, for those that don't have a voice, and I'm going to be their representative and I'm going to do everything that I can so that they know what is happening and who today is going to stand up for them and who today is going to advocate for them. [05:19:04] This is not a good project. Do we have a problem on 28? Absolutely. Have we had problems on 28 when it comes to traffic concerns? Yes. Do we need a solution? Yes. But this proposal is not it. Instead of dropping $1 million to try to figure it out again, let's go back to the drawing board. [05:19:21] Let's try to find something else. But the 28 bypass is not it. Rick, have we had word from the Army Corps of Engineers? No. On the original proposal, the environmental concerns from four years ago still remain. The Army Corps of Engineers is still out. [05:19:38] The human impact has increased. How we can move this forward and support it is beyond me if it does move forward. Supervisor Vig, I just want to say part of the reason that I would actually call, we can go back and look at the emails that were sent out by certain offices that talked about the takings and the impact on the communities because they're all electronic. [05:20:04] We can see what was told to people about the number of trailers that were going to be taken and the impact on the community when it was actually only seven trailers as opposed to decimating it. We can go back and rehash all that. I would love to do that. I'll go put a paper together for it because I can tell you that during that time, there was a lot of misinformation, and a lot of people were made very, very upset, and it was a shame. [05:20:29] And I think that's sort of, you know, if you want to go into cowardly, cowardly was, oh, my gosh, everybody came, they screamed, they had misinformation, and we immediately pulled a project that had been on the books that we didn't understand the significance of because we were a newer board. We went back and corrected that the next month, and I was grateful for that to understand that we understand that there are going to be impacts from this road. [05:20:50] There are impacts to a lot of our projects. If you widened Route 28, where existing now, you would take 100 and some, 150 businesses, which are all minority-owned and immigrant businesses. And so this isn't about equity. And I can tell you that when we do take homes from people over the years, we always make sure that they have the amount of money to go into a comparable or better home. [05:21:13] So it's not like we're displacing people and not giving them a choice. We actually take care of them. And I know they can talk at length about this. We've gone over that. I know you can. And what I find incredible is that you can bring it as an equity issue when we just had a presentation where you didn't really care about equity and you want it you it's not something that is one of your major focuses and so yes we all care about people i care about the people along the route i also care about the hundreds of thousands of people who are using the road every day or every week madam chair if you want to pull out receipts bring it i have mine [05:21:49] so let's go um you talk about that not being something that i champion i don't and i use it highlight the hypocrisy your hypocrisy okay and so and so it is what it is it is what it is and to represent my constituents who came and spoke here four years ago as screaming that's unacceptable you had people here in tears do you remember the young woman that was wheelchair bound that talked about how that was her home and how safe she felt do you even know what a mobile park goes these days yeah we're gonna give people money for their mobile park where are the mobile home where are they going to go and purchase something new for that value where are they going to go i do remember [05:22:26] the people coming and they weren't screaming madam chair because of all they weren't screaming that's a misrepresentation because of their entire community being taken which was a complete misrepresentation and i don't know where they got their idea well we have emails you said we can look them up we'll go on and hear from other people supervisor lawson thank you madam chair A couple of things. I recall a flyer was circulated that was not created by Supervisor Vega or myself, but you accused us of spreading misinformation on a flyer. [05:23:01] There were a lot of things, and my memory is definitely in line with Supervisor Vega on it. And I remember spending a day out at the mobile home, and I definitely remember a lot of folks here that were speaking even in Spanish, which I wasn't able to understand. but certainly i recall uh the emotion from from them and whether it's seven homes 17 27 or 70 it matters every every home matters because we're disrupting a life a business it all matters [05:23:34] a couple other things i want to point out before i ask rick some questions uh the 28 the 28 bypass was part of the mobility bond referendum yes ma'am but i from what i just pulled up and from what i recall it wasn't that specific alignment it was a study area it was a 28 bypass ma'am correct but there were from what i have here it was marked as a study area was it the split did the did the did the voters approve that specific alignment that was approved by five [05:24:10] members of this board in september of 2020 i don't think so ma'am i think when we approved the the board we were working on a location study for the facility and had identified uh two-way as our preferred in that study but it had not been determined by the board at that time so to set the record straight when the voters approved the mobility bond referendum in november of 2019 it wasn't for the specific alignment that that the chair is no it's just for 28 bypass ma'am yes correct a couple other points Rick you mentioned well and for the record and Rick you recall being [05:24:49] in my office I think in early September yes ma'am related to the alternative route yes ma'am I'm not going to put words in your mouth but my takeaway was is that we better figure out another route because Fairfax County was was not excited about the connection that is correct I'm not done and I recall you telling me that there was a public information meeting in Fairfax County and a whole lot of angry Fairfax County residents and and I think anyone with a couple brain cells could have connected that there there was certainly an expectation that Fairfax County whether it was the board the [05:25:28] Department of Transportation or or the residents themselves they were rejecting the connection that that was what we were proposing and designing again yes i was concerned of uh the actions at fairfax okay so so you you know if supervisor vega wants to call it dead i think that's a fair description of what was conveyed to us life support whatever you want to call it there was there was certainly a reason why you came up with an alternative yes ma'am and and for anyone to sit up here and give the present give the perception because perception is reality [05:26:08] oftentimes um it's fair that if this alternative is approved today and you continue to study it right um or will are you telling us that the original alignment will remain on the books yes ma'am okay and what are you expecting from the acting director of fairfax county whether it's the alternative or the original alignment in the next year or two because i'm guessing this is [05:26:42] going to take a lot more time and a lot more money because again army corps has to weigh in yes ma'am as i mentioned uh to you and and has been brought up it's going to take an additional 9 to 12 months and about 9 to 12 months and about an additional million dollars and that has been said that that's true okay so 9 to 12 months to work with Fairfax County and the Army Corps no it's not to 12 months to finish up the work on this to show it to both the board here Fairfax County and the Army Corps but again I would not show two alternatives to the Army Corps I would [05:27:20] show two alternatives to the board and to the Fairfax County Board okay so when you go to the Army Corps, and I'm just trying to understand your process, when you, because you haven't even taken the design to the Army Corps yet, or you have to get to a certain percentage, is it 60%? [05:27:36] Correct, about. Okay, where are you right now in the percentage? I would say on the Fairfax alignment, we're at about 40, and on the one I just showed you, we're at about 2, 5%. Okay. Okay. [05:27:52] The diverted section, I mean, a good portion of alignment. Yes, I'm sorry, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have a laser? Yeah, hold on. Do you have a laser or something? I don't, but I have a pointer with it. So everything from here to here remains the same. [05:28:08] The only thing we're asking to look at is instead of going through here like this, we're going to swing it down this way. So the study area that we will be looking at is just from here to there. Okay. Okay. And then the other thing I just recalled, Have you been briefing the development community or members of the public? [05:28:38] Have you been briefing the public on this new alignment and you're outside the box? No, ma'am. Okay. No one outside the board. Again, the outside the box. Because the developers have learned from somebody, and I'm going to presume it's a board member or two, that you have some outside of the box ideas on the housing piece of it. [05:29:00] so just so you know those conversations are are out there so the cat's out of the bag so I don't know how much you know public information is out there you haven't had a public information meeting regarding this alternative no ma'am we have had nothing except for what we've shared with you at our individual meetings and what we're sharing with you here today okay this alignment has not been seen by anybody else outside of the people involved Yeah. It's certainly been discussed, though, in the development community, for sure. [05:29:38] Understood. Like I said, I've shared it with you and people involved. Well, I haven't shared it with them, but they've brought it to my attention. Sorry to hear that. Supervise. Are you done? So, no, actually, I'm not. Thank you. [05:29:56] Did you mention a car dealership? Yes, ma'am. It's a used car dealership. There's three businesses that would be a total take? No, they would be affected. I'm not sure if they would be a total take at this point. These two may be right here, but the car dealership that's on this side, the used car dealership, it looks like we may be able to salvage most of it. [05:30:14] Again, I don't know a lot of information on this alignment besides this line on the map telling you what the impacts are would take what I'm asking to do here today, which is just be able to take a closer look. So you're in the infancy stage, is what you're saying? Like I said, 2%, like I mentioned earlier. Right. Okay, my last question is, assuming that the board approves this alternative, what would be the next step or two? [05:30:37] We would do a change order with our, well, first, actually, we'd talk to the NVTA, make sure that we make the changes to the appendix that need to be made in order to make this happen, then get a task order change with a consultant, with a consultant that we have on the project to add this to the project. [05:30:58] Who is the consultant? It's WSP. Okay. It's a consortium. It's a bunch of groups. Kim Lee Horn is in there. It's a consortium, but the head is WSP. We would talk to them, and we would kind of work through a task order change for them to take a look at this alignment. [05:31:16] At that point, we've already kind of had some of those discussions just to make sure we could tell you today about how much it would be and how long it would take. But we would get that scope ready and start moving on it to get it done within the time frame we've told you. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Supervisor Angry. [05:31:32] Thank you, Madam Chair. So there's a lot of mess said here today that I'm not even going to chime in on because it's really got me a little pissed off here, but I'm going to just move on from that and stick to the script here. So, Rick, who is the elected, who is the supervisor in Fairfax in that area? [05:31:49] Supervisor Smith. Smith, okay, thanks. And so you presented, you know, two options. What is the lever or the pull switch of if you draw this second option here, the first option you have is still on a table with Fairfax? [05:32:06] Correct, yes, sir. when will you know if that's a go or no-go? Like if we go this to design this option as a backup option to that, when will we know that Fairfax is good to go with this or not good to go with this? [05:32:24] I don't want to speak for Fairfax staff or the Fairfax board, but I would suggest to you that it would be at some point next year. Okay, so because you talked about 12 months to get this whole second line. So as soon as we have enough information to show them the impacts, we would probably get with them to make sure. All right. Yeah, and listen, thank you for the work you've put in on this. [05:32:43] I think what we should be doing is asking the questions pertaining to where we are with this. The rest of this nonsense, I'm going to call it, I'm not going to entertain because I'm going to stick to giving you the questions that I need from you or the answers I need from you to make sure this makes sense. [05:33:00] And I will say this here, too, as far as it's a slippery slope. The road I don't like going down that we're headed down is actually taking more homes. Okay, so my first order of business is really the first option. I'm really hoping that can be a thing. So, you know, if that's going to take me reaching out to Supervisor Smith or, you know, the chair of the board and having a discussion and see where that is, I think that's what this board should be doing. [05:33:24] I don't want to hear, no, you know, what else this could be. I need you to do your work because you're great at this. I need you to get me something that works. You've brought me this. I know it's not to scale, so we've got to give you the opportunity to get that to scale so we can really see what that looks like. [05:33:41] No one's getting anything taken yet, and I use the word yet if that was going to be the option. But I want to see where this goes because I know this is an issue, okay? Route 28 has been an issue, and we need to do our part and print some kind. We are no longer the donut hole. We've got to solve this problem and bring me another option that I can look at, and hopefully we can get this Fairfax piece to work because that's the original piece. [05:34:02] Yes, sir. So thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Weir? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Angry. because I'm pissed too. In fact, I'm really pissed. The first card that anybody up here plays, and one in particular is, it's misinformation. Misinformation was spread on the number of trailer homes. Misinformation on acreage of land. Misinformation on proffers. It's a wonderful card to go to. With respect to the trailer homes, yeah, it might be three, it might be five, it might be [05:34:39] seven, but it could be the whole damn thing. And the reason is the owner of the lot. You start condemning three seven of his parcels impacts the view on the others impacts access he may sell the whole bloody thing and then yeah then the entire parcel is gone and all of the homes are gone and yes you may be taking three full takings you may be taking some partials you'll be impacting the quality of life of everybody in there because they're going to be right next to the road right next to the right next to the barrier and then commenting that we have a very good history of [05:35:15] recompensing people for takings? I dare you to call Tammy Spinks right now. Ask her what her three takings were like. And she's not the only one. All I'm saying is, at this point in time, this particular rendition, there's not enough information given the fact that the information here tonight is less than what was given to me in my office to even consider a decision. [05:35:52] But above and beyond that, this is just good money after bad. And why we're continuing to provide artificial respiration to this project is absolutely beyond me. It's just another million dollars. It's just another million dollars of the taxpayer's money, and I'm just not going to vote in favor of it. Thank you. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Supervisor Weir does bring up a really good point because the trailer park is owned by one individual, correct? [05:36:32] Yes, ma'am. Yeah. So, what if, to his point, the trailer park owner decides to sell the entire parcel then all 70 trailers or how many ever are there would be uh obviously relocated or the owners would be um without homes at that location i don't know exactly what how what the um arrangements are if they lease the mobile home or if they're leasing the grand ground that the mobile home is on i don't know how those work but how are how are we considering [05:37:09] that possibility. I believe the way it works is the gentleman owns the parcel the property owners own the mobile home and they lease the ground. So they lease the ground. Yes ma'am. Okay and if I recall correctly the ground is already zoned for commercial like B1 or what's the current zoning on that? I don't know ma'am I'm sorry. I'm sorry? I don't know the answer to that question ma'am. [05:37:34] We can find out for you. Paula will look it up as we continue to discuss here. Do you guys know what The zoning is on the ground, the mobile home? Paul, he's looking it up right now as we speak. And who are they selling it to? I didn't say they are. I said, what if there's a possibility, as Supervisor Weir said, if the alignment has to take, you know, a certain percentage, they may decide that, he may decide that it's a great location for a Sheets or, we don't know. [05:38:03] We can't, nobody has a crystal ball. But I want to make sure that, excuse me? Well, I think they could do that today. if they want to change their mobile home park to something else? They absolutely could, but what he chooses to do is different than a public right-of-way, than us condemning land. [05:38:24] You understand the difference? Okay. To be clear, that would be a private market matter. We wouldn't have any influence on this. This is completely different. [05:38:41] We would be condemning land for the road. So I think that Supervisor Weir brings up a very legitimate what-if, and is that a piece of the conversation and the calculations that your department is studying? [05:39:04] No, ma'am. A road project only pays for the land and impacts it creates directly. Okay. And then the other thing that I'm up here trying to brief myself on, and this is probably more of a county attorney question, But I do recall when the federal infrastructure bill was passed in November of 2021, I recall learning that there were components to the bill that would make protective measures for minority communities. [05:39:43] Is that something that you work very closely with related to your project? And at what point do you, if you need to, make sure that we are not getting in trouble with the federal law? Will this have federal funds? [05:40:01] None. Okay. I'm sorry, Rick. Go ahead. I interrupted you. I'm sorry. I hadn't turned it on. Our partners at the Federal Highway Administration and Army Corps of Engineers, when this design is turned in, would make sure that we are following all requirements. [05:40:23] Okay. And just for your prior question, it is B1 zoning on that site. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Seeing no further questions, I'll entertain a motion to move 10-D. [05:40:42] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Supervisor Anger, any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. [05:41:08] Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Canizales. Thank you to your team for all the other information they imparted to us tonight. With that, we go on to Supervisor's time. We do have 11-A, cancel and discontinue the James Madison Highway Pedestrian Bridge Project before we go around the horn. [05:41:26] Supervisor Weir. Madam Chair, upon review of some purged email files and some lengthy consultation with the Transportation Department, I want to defer this matter until February and instead direct Transportation to conduct a study, pedestrian safety analysis of both this intersection and like intersections throughout the county and come back to us at some point in time before January without objection. [05:42:05] So we're going to pull this item, and he's issued a directive. Does anybody have any objection? Mr. Shorter, are you okay with that? I'm getting indications from transportation that they are. Obviously, for me, hearing the scope of like intersections, I do want to make sure that we are setting the right expectation that we can deliver. [05:42:31] If transportation believes we can, then... Mr. Shorter, if it helps, we've already discussed like intersections. We have a county-wide problem. I think we can agree. Mr. CXO, Mr. Chauder, just so you are aware, we did talk to Supervisor Weir about taking a look at an intersection such as Woodbridge High School at Old Bridge Road, which is also a cross street where people cross the street on a four-lane divided roadway to get some comparison. [05:43:02] Very good. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to add, the reason we're looking at this intersection is because of the deaths, and that's what precipitated it. Yes, ma'am. What we're looking at here is we're going to look at a pedestrian study just to make sure we see what the crossings are looking like compared to accidents, compared to just being able to justify, you know, the improvements. [05:43:21] Thank you. Okay, we're going to go around the horn. I was going to start today with Supervisor Vega. I don't have anything, Madam Chair. Okay. Can I go left? So that we don't make, went first last week. I'm just trying to change it up. Supervisor Bailey. [05:43:36] Oh, is that all right? Oh, sure, sure, sure. No problem. Well, good afternoon. I mean, good evening, everyone. On September 27th, I enjoyed attending the VAGO training. My last VAGO training with Senator Kane, he came and presented to us, and it was an excellent presentation. [05:43:58] On the 27th, also, I had my Possum Point virtual community meeting, and I want to thank Tom and Don and Jennifer for their support and their community attendance, just in making sure that Possum Point is explained as we go forward in resolving this environmental opportunity. [05:44:18] On the 28th, I attended the MVBIA Osterose and had an opportunity to really just enjoy and relax for a minute and I wanna thank MVBIA for always extending the invitation. On the 29th, Dr. Zerlene Chambers hosted a maternal health fair and it was absolutely great I had the honor of attending the health fair, and it brought in the community on the Eastern Corridor just to talk about maternal health fair and for vendors to talk about health fair. [05:44:50] So we appreciate her participation in initiating this health fair. I had the honor of attending the Permission to Heal conference where I was reminded, where We were reminded of the effects of mental health, but also domestic violence, and this is Domestic Violence Month. [05:45:10] And then October 3rd, I have the pleasure of having Marcus Crew. He's the executive director of Habitat for Humanity. Ms. Joyce Gaines to join me in my podcast and talking about how it's very important that we build community, reminding us the importance of continuing to help families in our community as we bond and we partner with Habitat for Humanity. [05:45:35] And I thank Mr. Crewe for his work in supporting us. I'd like to extend a big thanks to the police department for your continued support with our opportunity that we have on Old Stagecoach Road, where we had a portion of our police department come in and talk to our hotel owners about what they are doing in that corridor of 234 in Van Buren, and they're doing a great work. [05:46:04] So, Chief Newsham, thank you for your support. October 4th, congratulations to the Basic Law Enforcement Session No. 54 on their graduation ceremony. On October 5th, my staff and I had the honor of attending the commander's annual brief to the community along with the county staff at Quantico, and it was absolutely wonderful. [05:46:28] We are doing yeoman's work and partnering with Quantico. The ICSA Intergovernmental Service Agreement is really standing us up in the community as we bond with the military. October 6th, I had the opportunity of completing my VACO leadership training with my colleague, and Victor will talk about that later, but it's been absolutely wonderful training, and I would encourage my colleagues who have not participated in the leadership training to participate in it as we go forth. [05:46:58] On October 7th, I want to thank Carrie to full term for allowing me to participate as a guest speaker on their bike ride, Heroes for Housing, supporting our pregnant mothers in crisis here in the community. [05:47:15] And thanks to my staff for attending the Joe Gibbs Youth for Tomorrow Country Fair, and my staff member, Karen, literally held a snake. I couldn't do it, so Karen, I love you. I participated on the seventh annual Gospel of Worship Scholarship Program on Saturday. [05:47:32] It was wonderful where Dr. Kenneth Lee and his wife presented to one of our students here an annual scholarship as they go forth in their senior year. I ended my day by participating in the Purple Runway Gala, celebrating champions who have tackled domestic abuse. [05:47:55] October 12th, Prince William County Soil Water Conservation Farm-Filled Days event. I'll be participating in that. looking forward is the first time and then on October 15th we will be having our annual third annual 5k mental health awareness walk scheduled for Sunday from 10 a.m to 2 p.m in Prince William Forest Park you can still register please do so we always have a great time and our guest speakers will be the commander oh I can't think of his name but anyway Benita Fitzgerald will be one of [05:48:32] our guest speakers and she was here tonight. We must be proud of her. She is our Olympiad in Prince William County. And then lastly, today is World Homeless Day. It's World Mental Health Day and the National Face Your Fears Day. So face your fears, heal the land by healing your mind and taking care of your mental health. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Bentley. Vice thank you madam chair um before i get into my supervisor's time um i've looked at clock and see it's 7 10 so would we be going to close session after the 7 30 board meeting since there's [05:49:11] obviously not enough time for us to close that actually is a really good suggestion because we only have consolidated at our 7 30 meeting but we would have to do it before public comment time i guess i mean it just depends on how many people are but yeah we could do that later um any thoughts on that i know we also haven't eaten dinner though and so we it's in there but you know i don't it depends on you know whether we think the consolidated cases would go rather quickly um they probably would but we i guess we could run out and get it why don't we see why we finish this up and then we can get her grabbed and then hear from uh the applicant sure thank you um first uh i would like [05:49:50] to put in my notice of intent to appoint dawn horizons to the arts council um if we haven't gotten her resume to you yet, we will do so from my office. A lot been going on. So a couple weeks ago, I was able to attend the celebration of Meskel and Damera alongside Supervisor Angry at the Ethiopian church over on Minerville Road. It's my second time attending. Massive event that brings Ethiopian churches from all across the region. I would say there's hundreds and hundreds of people. [05:50:21] There's not 1,000 people there to celebrate the truth of finding the true cross from St. Helena. And it's always a great sort of celebration of life and truth and meaning that comes from that church. And I'm always honored to attend it and celebrate with them. [05:50:39] Just this past week on Friday, I joined Madam Chair at the Westminster 30th anniversary. Although Westminster's history goes far beyond just 30 years, I wanted to, again, give them kudos and appreciate all the service they do, not only within their own community, but to the greater Prince William area. [05:50:58] We read a laundry list of those things during the board meeting earlier today, so really congratulations to them as well. This past Sunday, I was able to attend Harvest Life Church's first-ever Harvest Fest, and they had to do an audible because of the rain, but it was a really great time to visit with them. [05:51:16] really appreciate their next step in sort of doing more outreach to community by having more community-centric events. And I hope that next year they have better weather because I saw a bounce obstacle course that I know my two-year-old would do for hours. So I would really love to be able to do that next year. Next is on, again, the 21st of this month. I'm going to say until it comes by 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of the chin park fall festival is barktoberfest our second annual barktober event please come by there's me a lot of of dog friendly kiosks and [05:51:55] food trucks and the our animal services center will be by if you're looking for a new pet whether that's a dog cat bunny reptile whatever it is there's something for you there we again had great success last year uh with getting uh new homes for for new pets so please come out again october 21st 11 a.m to 2 p.m at chin park library um the two final things i have is uh wanted to uh again hold up my my colleague and seatmate supervisor bailey on her tireless work with the crc the great announcement that our county executive gave earlier that we're moving forward [05:52:30] with that that build of that building that we purchased earlier on this year um that will be a game-changer to so many lives when it's up and running mental health behavioral health community services it'll all be in one building and it's a great achievement that will improve and improve the trajectories of so many lives of community so I wanted to highlight that and finally the earlier discussion that was had about the indoor sports complex really appreciate the the folks that came out this afternoon maybe I have I have some folks that'll come in and just half an hour from now or so to talk about it but that's another transformative project that I know can touch a lot [05:53:07] of lives in positive ways you know we heard from countless parents about the the the frustration the challenges of having to travel outside of the community to attend tournaments to go to practices what have you as the father of competitive cheerleader myself who has to drive as far as Pennsylvania sometimes for these competitions to Richmond and all the places in between the fact that we don't have a destination here for that kind of activity to me is a must opportunity not only from the investing in our families and securing their future but also the business community as well because there's a lot of economic activity that spurs around facilities [05:53:43] that type so I'm looking forward to us continuing that conversation and appreciate all the work that staff will continue to do on that really looking for that interim agreement and and everything else that'll come out of that that's all else I have madam chair and looking forward to our session tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vice Chair Bodie. Supervisor Lawson. Thanks. I'll make it short. I just want to announce, if you have not already heard, the passing of Jonathan Way. He was a Manassas City Councilman, and I don't know how many years he served on the council. Do you know, [05:54:17] Ms. Madden? Okay, so eight years, and I served with him on a couple transportation commissions, boards and he died on september 28th he resided he moved from monasah city to the heritage hunt community and i just want to extend my sympathy to shirley his wife and thank her for allowing her husband to be a public servant somebody that i enjoyed working with thank you i'm sorry oh yeah [05:54:56] thank you for reminding me of that and i do have a notice of intent thank you thank you to appoint Catherine O'Connor to the Trails and Blue Ways Committee. And I believe you have the resume, and thank you for keeping me on my toes. Supervisor Weir. [05:55:12] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank Sarah Henry and Rosemary Walker with the Area Agency on Aging for providing the Navigating Medicare Seminar in my office in September. We had quite a number of constituents that attended. I'm sure they got a lot of information, but more importantly, they now know how to access this particular county service at any time. [05:55:32] as they move forward into their Medicare coverage. And the only other thing I've got is to remind everybody of Haymarket Day, Saturday, October 21st. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's been a busy couple weeks since our last meeting, so thank you to all the conversations and all the people and all the invites that I attended since we last met here. [05:55:55] Too many to name here. I will bring out three. I want to highlight three because they all tie very well together. So L.E. Mental Health did a ribbon-cutting there right off of Prince William Parkway over Hill and Del Road. So just Google E-L-L-I-E, L.E. Mental Health, a great facility, great team, great organization, going to do great things in Prince William County. [05:56:18] And then the next would be – I'm going to get the name wrong. Okay, so Enough Cries event. So this is a domestic violence gala that – I'm going to forget her name. Let me try to do this. Yeah, that's probably the best. [05:56:36] Maritza, Maritza Gabriel. So she stood this up and stand it up. It was a great evening. I highlight that because after that we had the Purple Runway event, which is another domestic violence. [05:56:53] Ms. Gigi, she owns that event. And I got to tell you, just the experience of that day or that week with these organizations really hits at home when we talk about domestic violence or just mental health issues in general. [05:57:10] So I highlight those. But then I want to point out now also that this week from 8 October to 14 October is Fire Prevention Week. So swing by a fire department, go in there, thank a firefighter, first responder, EMT, medic, and then look at all the cool equipment they have and understand what it is they do. [05:57:28] And then also understand how you can keep a fire truck from showing up in front of your home. So pay attention to a lot of those safety features that help you protect yourself so that we don't have to come and do that. Not that we wouldn't do it because that's what we get paid to do. [05:57:44] And so just a reminder of that. 28 October, Neapso District is going to have a dumpster shred day. And so this is going to be at Neapso Baptist Church. That address is 15545 Cardinal Drive, Woodbridge, Virginia, and the time is from 10 to 2 p.m., so please stop by. [05:58:03] And then lastly, I'll just say Halloween's coming up. I think we'll probably have enough time to talk about it at the next board meeting, but just be safe. And we've got a lot of trunk of treats and all these events coming up, so, again, safety is paramount. It's all about having a good time and just being safe. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Angry. [05:58:21] I'll make it quick, and then we can take a break to eat some dinner before 730. I, on the 27th since our last meeting, I was able to speak at the BizNow event that was held in Prince William County, a great showcase for Prince William County. Thank you to the staff who gave a great way to perceive Prince William County in a positive light, and it was a great, a lot of business people there, and I was excited that they were doing that in Prince William County. [05:58:47] They hadn't been in Prince William County for a long time. Last Wednesday, I was grateful to speak at the Police Department Academy graduation. I believe we had 23 people graduating into our police force. Wonderful, very exciting time, very positive, excited. [05:59:04] They're getting close to almost getting full again. Then we can start adding more policemen after they finally catch up with their vacancies. And then we had a promotion ceremony last week. 18 sworn members were promoted. That was another wonderful police event. I got to participate in a research study conducted by George Macy University to assess important community members and their beliefs and what they say about climate change. [05:59:28] So that was interesting. I'm doing that with a student. Got to speak at Westminster with Supervisor Vice Chair Bodie, 30th anniversary, big celebration at Westminster, really wonderful. I was able to go to the Raise the Region gala put on by the Community Foundation of Northern Virginia last Friday night. [05:59:46] Excellent what they're really doing in our area as well as across Northern Virginia. and hear about some of the people they were honoring um i was excited on saturday even though it was raining to go to the opening of rollins ford park a wonderful new addition to our county park system um that's kindly come to fruition um you know during this week i've had a privilege of being able to meet with many constituents over the past few weeks in the office including mr fred hoffman who had some traffic safety concerns regarding route one and I enjoyed meeting with him. [06:00:18] And finally, October is a month where we observe many things, including the many months we've proclaimed earlier at the meeting. But I wanted to point out that this month is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And I'm wearing my pink pin, as you may see others are wearing them out in the community or my seatmates. [06:00:35] You know, this affliction affects one in eight women in the United States. And I myself am a breast cancer survivor. And as such, I try to remind people to be on the lookout, get screened, and talk to your doctor about the risk of breast cancer. So thank you. And with that, we are on to a 10-minute, 12-minute recess. [06:00:55] We'll come back at 7.30 and start our evening session after we get something to eat. [06:01:56] Good evening. [06:02:34] It's now 7.30 p.m. Welcome back to the board chambers after our short recess. And I believe Supervisor Franklin is going to join us. Why don't we wait until we make sure she can hear? [06:02:51] I can hear. I'll be on camera shortly. Okay. Very good, Supervisor Franklin. Welcome. We've voted you in to participate remotely. We're going to begin our evening session with our consolidated agenda with four public hearings. [06:03:07] There are four items under our consolidated agenda. There are no presentations associated with the items, so I'm going to open the public hearing on items 13A through D, which is a specially used permit for Neabsco Baptist Church, a proffer amendment for Riverside Station Land Bay A, proffer amendment for Riverside Station Land Bay B, and 13D Development Policy Amendment to Declaration for Property of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. [06:03:34] Are you planning on giving a presentation? You're standing there. No, I just wanted to clarify that item 13B, Proffer Amendment, REZ 2023-00029, Riverside Station, Land Bay A. We do have a minor correction that the property owner is not Ford Property, LLC North. [06:03:55] We have the correct property owner is Riverside Crossing, Phase 1, LLC, and they did sign the proffers. We just need to correct that line, and I apologize that I'm accountable for that. No worries, and we all have it at our seat that they've passed out. [06:04:13] So let's see if that gins up public comment time on that. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Madden, do we have anyone signed up for 13A through 13D? Well, this will officially open the public hearing for 13A through 13D. Is anyone in chambers who wishes to speak to 13A through 13D? [06:04:34] If so, please approach the microphone in the back. Seeing no one approach the microphone in the back. Do we have anyone online, Ms. Madden? Not for these four items. This will officially close the public hearings on 13A through 13D. [06:04:56] Okay. With that, are there any questions? Any board members have any questions on the public hearing items? Madam Chair. Supervisor Franklin. Sure. Again, I want to apologize for not being on camera. [06:05:12] I will be on camera shortly. but i did want to point out that i think at the planning commission for the riverside station project there was some i think some misunderstanding about the parking waivers and wanted to clarify and maybe alex maybe even the applicants can talk a little bit about this that they're not asking for a reduction in parking and so i just wanted to clarify that that's not what this amendment is. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Venegas, do you want to address that really quickly? I know it's pretty straightforward. Yes. So when they developed [06:05:51] the proffers, they had requested a up to 7% reduction in the parking. And based on their reevaluation of the parking needs, they can waive up to 30%. But they corrected it based on their updated calculations, and they requested a 12% decrease in parking. [06:06:20] Very good. Any further questions on that? Seeing no further questions, I will entertain a motion for 13A through 13D. So move, Madam Chair. Second. Second. Supervisor Bodie beat you to the second, and I'm not sure about the fact that she's remote, letting her. [06:06:43] I know. I just. Well, okay. Well, I will say it was made by Supervisor Bailey and then seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Ms. Franklin, are you okay if Supervisor Bodie seconds that? [06:07:04] That's fine. Okay. Thank you. Any discussion? Somebody has a question. Supervisor Bodie. Not a question. Just wanted to reaffirm to Mr. Buzalis and the folks that are behind Riverside Station to be a very, very, very game-changing project for North Woodbridge and for basically that whole eastern part of the county including my district which is up the street from there so really again appreciate your work on it looking forward to you guys beginning to work on it as well thank you madam chair thank you uh seeing no further discussion [06:07:35] please vote supervisor franklin i don't know if you heard ms badden can you give us a voice vote on this vote aye very good thank you aye okay that was easy thank you thank you very much thank you all the cases that came out tonight thank you for doing business in prince william county [06:08:11] that yes that brings us on to public comment time this evening that brings us [06:09:02] to public comment time the board will hear in person and remote public comment time we'll begin with in person currently we have 12 people signed up to speak I will call the speakers five at a time each speaker will have three minutes to share your views and opinions regarding matters before the board we ask that all speakers state their name and magisterial district or generally where you live in the county. It will close after the first 15 minutes of in-person public comment. Our first five speakers are Tara Frazier, Ruth Ann Pizzeretz, Randy Freed, Melanie [06:09:37] Weist, and Wendy Ratting. And the microphone is in the back. And feel free to bend it down. It's very flexible. That's great. That way we can hear you. Awesome. Thank you. Hello. First, I want to get honor and glory to my heavenly father and i'm here tonight to speak on individuals with mental [06:10:15] illness and the challenges that mental illness um and the family faces can you give us your name and generally where you live tara frazier and i live at 1864 i had the glenn court with bridge virginia um i'm going to refer to before the pandemic and after so before the pandemic to get an ECO, it had to either be, you had to harm yourself, harm others, or refuse a treatment. [06:10:49] And refusing treatment is not go to their appointments. But of course, medication don't get you an ECO. After the pandemic, self-harm is taken out of there. Refusing treatment is taken out of there. So what's there is if they harm others, and then I added a therapist go out with the police officer for an ECO. My son was born with a mental illness, which is intellect disability, which is another name with mental retardation and impulse control. On September [06:11:27] the 28th, I went down to the magistrate to see if I can get an ECO on him. So the magistrate stated to me that even if he issued an ECO, he couldn't because my son was in Fairfax County over my daughter's house. So he told me what you can do when he come back to Prince William County, you can call the police officer, and they will have a therapist come out with them. [06:11:52] So the 28th, he denied the ECO due to he wasn't in jurisdiction. On October the 3rd, which was Tuesday, I went and picked up my son from Fairfax County to take him home. In process and going home, I stopped at the 7-Eleven on Prince William and Route 1, the Mavosco Plaza 7-Eleven. [06:12:16] It was an officer there. So I explained to the officer what the magistrate told me that I can do. So he stated that we do have a therapist on tonight who's there until midnight. And at the time when I went, I didn't know which officer it was, but I was glad it was the community officer that kudos go out to him. [06:12:38] He's an excellent officer. So he tried to talk to my son, but my son would not wind down the window. So when I proceeded on and went to where my son is, he's in a group home. And in order for me to get him in a group home, I had to press charges to get him in the group home. [06:12:56] So I proceeded to take him home. He told me he still wasn't getting out the car. So I called the police officer. So they came out. So before the officer came up to the car, he stated to me, well, you know we can't physically put our hands on him to get him out the car. [06:13:14] So I said, I understand that. In the past, by the time they finish talking to the person, you know, we get the result that we wanted. Ms. Fraser, your time is up, but I suggest you perhaps that the clerk can give us either your information or give you e-mails to write or call the offices regarding this situation going forward. [06:13:38] Okay. Okay, thank you very much. And Ms. Madden, maybe you could help her with that and find out who her supervisor might be and give her my office information also. Thank you. Please proceed. [06:13:54] This is Ruthie Antizera. It's Gainesville District. And I must say that I know that there have been many strides forward in mental health in the county thanks to this board. I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about the advantages of the Prince William Digital Gateway. [06:14:10] I just spent a week or so with friends who've lived in Loudoun County for decades, and they happen to be friends with Roger Zern, treasurer of Loudoun County, who will retire this year after 30 years in office. And he told them Loudoun County has morphed over these years into the richest county in America. [06:14:29] He told them that he couldn't imagine how they would have progressed without the data center industry, and he is proud of the decisions that have been made to secure their county's financial infrastructure. It's my understanding that the completion of the Prince William Digital Gateway, mind you this will be at least a decade, will bring Prince William County on par with Loudoun in terms of fiscal health. [06:14:52] The clarity and vision of this board in the majority has been unparalleled to date, and we look forward to seeing Prince William County, after the next decade, move into a remarkable leadership role in the data center business. For those of you who have attempted to block this movement with not only lies and histrionics, but short-sightedness, I just have to say stop. [06:15:14] There will be no visual of the data centers unless you use Page-Lund-Lean as a cut-through. You won't hear them because they are elaborate buffers to any noise you may have imagined. They won't pollute the water and may actually clean up some of the manure and pesticides as well as the septics that have ravaged this property for years. [06:15:34] Not to mention, there isn't any more property in this parcel than there is in the remainder of the parcels that have been designated for data centers. But those are generally near schools or neighborhoods, and they're too small to be of interest to serious data center business. [06:15:52] So any water impact is just smoke and mirrors. These will simply be buildings that will provide service to the data networks, not take up public service, not require new roads, police, or schools, and will provide substantive income for the foreseeable future what's not to love thank you thank you next speaker please good evening i'm randy freed and i live in the occoquan district in 2021 the board authorized the creation of the community energy and sustainability master plan [06:16:29] which serves as a road map for the county to reach its climate mitigation and resilience goals you also created the sustainability commission to advise you on matters related to the plan I have the honor of serving as the chair of this commission. I understand that you're planning to vote on whether to accept the CESMP's recommendations in your October 24th meeting. [06:16:53] I'll be away then, so I wanted to join you tonight to give you a quick overview of our recommendations. We've been hard at work since May of last year, and that work culminated a couple of weeks ago in our September 28th meeting when we passed two resolutions by unanimous 8 to 0 votes. [06:17:11] The first resolution fulfills our primary mandate from you of making recommendations on the CESMP. The second addresses a time-sensitive issue of critical importance to meeting the climate mitigation goals. That is, information we think that you need in order to make a well-informed decision in your upcoming vote on the rezoning applications for the Prince William Digital Gateway, which could have profound implications on our ability to meet the climate goals. [06:17:40] The CESMP contains a lot of good analysis. It isn't perfect, but there's an urgent need to act, and the Commission is strongly endorsing a subset of the actions in the CESMP that we recommend you consider as high priority for immediate authorization and budgeting. [06:17:58] These are the ones that we think are the most cost-effective and low-hanging fruit. The high-priority actions include 14 of the 25 that were analyzed in the plan, plus three program-wide measures to assure that the CESMP is well-managed and cost-effective, is fully integrated in major planning and infrastructure decisions, and that it taps federal grant funding and communicates well to citizens in the business community. [06:18:25] These actions and measures are all listed in the resolution that I emailed to you on October 4th. To be clear, we're not saying that the other actions in the plan aren't good. They may be worthwhile, pending better analysis of costs and benefits. [06:18:41] What we are saying is that the actions we endorsed deserve immediate funding and authorization. To conclude, we have three asks for you. First, please use our targeted recommendations to approve and budget for selected actions in the CESMP. [06:18:58] Second, please fill the gaps in critical information in your decisions on data centers and energy-intensive commercial buildings. And third, please extend the lifetime of the commission beyond this December when it would otherwise expire. and please consider expanding our scope. [06:19:17] Thanks for your consideration. You'll hear from some of my colleagues in your meeting of October 24th, thank you. - Thank you, next speaker please. - Good evening, my name is Melanie Wiest and I live in the Potomac District. [06:19:36] I'm also a volunteer with Moms Demand Action. I'm here to urge the county council to propose and implement an ordinance on firearms in sensitive places. As it stands now, firearms are permitted playgrounds, water parks, and at youth sporting events. I'm here tonight to request that the board look at the bigger picture. According to Everytown USA Research, there have been at least 10 shootings during K-12 related sports events in Virginia since 2018. One of the events included [06:20:09] in the research occurred at Benton Middle School during a youth flag football game. We do not want to appear on this list twice. We don't get a second chance with the lives of our children. My very first job as a nursing assistant in Richmond around, must have been around 19 years old, was taking care of a teenager whose spinal cord had been severed by a bullet. I helped feed him and change him, and he was a young man in the prime of his life. There was no redo for him. [06:20:49] Nothing would give him back the use of his body. My point is we cannot wait for a tragedy to strike in our home, in our county, to our citizens. We will not be able to take it back once it has already happened. [06:21:06] Our youth sports coaches are scared. The grotesque beating of a soccer coach in our county highlights the potential for violence at our youth sporting events. Violence will only escalate if guns are involved. We know strong gun laws can save lives. [06:21:25] It is common sense that guns don't belong on our public parks where our children play and families gather. Our children are haunted by gun violence daily. They deserve a space free of gun violence. I encourage the board to talk to their parks and rec commissioners about the concerns that they have regarding the safety on our public park property. [06:21:45] Thank you. Thank you. And before our next speaker, I'm going to call the next five, Ken Bloxton, Allie Stoger, Alicia Gloss, Alan Gloss, and Bill Billard. Please proceed. Good evening. My name is Wendy Ratting, and I'm here as a Prince William County resident in the Occoquan District, a psychotherapist of children, families, and adults, and the mom of a 2022 graduate of the Prince William County school system. [06:22:25] I'm also here to address the gun safety in our public areas. As a society, we endured a global health crisis that began in 2020. During the shutdown, some children were too young to understand why they couldn't go to school, play with their friends, see other family members, and had to wear masks and use hand sanitizer. [06:22:50] They have also been subjected to school shooter drills from a very young age. I know a lot of attention has been paid to the academic holes our students are displaying but kids fell behind not just academically but also socially and emotionally and I'm still seeing this in my child and teen clients in my practice today. Now that we are able to go out and enjoy public spaces more freely it is even more important to make use of those public spaces [06:23:25] we're so proud of. I see no benefit to allowing firearms in these spaces. It would only take one shooting in a public park or recreational area to traumatize the community, whether it is intentional or otherwise. We cannot regulate whether or not mentally ill people receive treatment, but we can regulate what they have access to and where. The unfortunate truth is that guns are the leading cause of death among children in this country. We have experienced enough consequence of shooting [06:24:02] death here if you allow this and a tragedy occurs you will have blood on your hands thank you thank you next speaker please ken bloxton gainesville district last meeting i talked about how data center revenues would help prince william county by adding a new 230 million dollars to our school budget right now the school budget is 1.5 billion dollars and the digital gateway deal alone will [06:24:38] increase the school budget by 15%. That's huge. Recently, I saw an article about the top 25 public high schools in Virginia. Now, as I read this list, please keep in mind that in 2001, our very own in Manassas, Stonewall Jackson High School at the time, was Time Magazine's High School of the Year for the entire United States. The first high school on this year's list is Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax, and I'll skip the rest of the names and just read the counties. Fairfax, [06:25:13] Loudon, Loudon, Loudon, Arlington, Henrico, Virginia Beach, Loudon, again, Richmond, Fairfax, Fairfax, Fairfax, Arlington, Fairfax, Richmond, Fairfax, Loudon, Falls Church, Loudon, Blacksburg, Loudoun, Virginia Beach, Loudoun, York County, and Chesapeake. [06:25:45] So putting that into perspective, there are 134 counties or municipalities, equivalent municipalities in the state of Virginia. Northern Virginia counties made up 16 of the top 25. Prince William County did not make the list. [06:26:02] 20 years ago, we had the number one high school in the country. And it's not that our schools got worse in the last 20 years. It's just that our education industry got more competitive. Our neighboring counties built commercial tax bases. And they used that money, much of which came from data centers, to resource their public education sector, injecting technology and increasing salaries. [06:26:29] So, supervisors, please, we are standing at a fork in the road. And down one path, we have the biggest commercial investment project in Prince William County history that we can use to fund a multitude of projects and down the other path without this investment of infrastructure and technology we can expect to see more of the same where Prince William County is falling behind our peers so please vote yes on the digital gateway and let's get to work [06:27:01] thank you thank you next speaker please is that uh thank you um Ali Stoger Gainesville district [06:27:51] I'm so glad that the previous speakers mentioned Loudoun County because what my map shows is that we have already zoned twice as many data centers for Prince William County as Loudoun County has already built. [06:28:07] Loudoun County has built about 27 million square feet of data center space. We have already zoned 50 million square feet of data center space. And if we approve the Prince William Digital Gateway and Devlin, Then we'll be somewhere around $80 million, maybe more if you approve Gardner and others. [06:28:28] So we've already, you know, we've been playing this keep up with the Joneses game with Loudoun County because it makes good marketing for the Prince William Digital Gateway and other data centers. All they have to say is we need to be like Loudoun. That's a great marketing term. [06:28:44] The problem is we've already zoned double what Loudoun has in terms of data center space. So I'd like you to look at this map, and I'm going to address these comments to Supervisors Bailey, Bodie, Angry, and Franklin. [06:29:01] And if this was your district, and this board had already zoned 50 to 60 data centers among your residential areas and schools, and all your roads were being clogged with trucks building these massive campuses, How would you feel if on November 28th and on December 12th, your fellow board members would be zoning another 44 data centers? [06:29:32] You heard the gentleman from the Sustainability Commission say that there's some environmental problems. How do we even know the environmental problems when only 4% of what you're seeing on that map has been built in Gainesville and Brentsville? [06:29:48] How do we know what the impact is when 96% has still not been built, and yet this board, or at least certain members of this board, want to zone 44 data centers within 12 days? [06:30:06] I think that that's unconscionable. There's no rush. If these data centers are a good idea today, they're going to be a good idea a week from now. I'm not, I'm sorry, a year from now, five years from now. [06:30:22] That money that will come from the Prince William Digital Gateway, current first graders will be starting their first jobs before the so-called $240 million a year is available. And that number may not even be realistic, given that this project first started out saying it was going to be $700 million a year. [06:30:45] It's all marketing. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Alicia Gloss-Coles. This board has passed numerous FFL special use permits, but recently denied one at the last board meeting, even though your own planning commission and planning office recommended approval since the applicant complied with all the requirements. So why did some of you vote no? [06:31:09] Could it be because you have a personal bias against the premise of this man's business? Personal bias should not get in the way of good governance, and I hope this man sues you. He has a great case, and you aren't doing too good in the winning department either. Since the Virginia Supreme Court recently denied your appeal regarding the violation by this board, when you participated in your illegal meeting in 2020, decided by the court when they ruled against you. [06:31:31] It's an election year, folks. So this board wants us to have selective amnesia when it comes to their voting record. So let me remind you. Democrats on this board voted for a 4% mills tax, devastating businesses. Our taxes have increased every year they have been in office, voted themselves a 70% pay raise, and are planning to continue to shove data centers down our throats near residential neighborhoods and our schools, and voted this year for the largest budget in Prince William County history. [06:31:59] Also, this board created at the direction of Mr. Shorter a brand new government office of community safety and a position for the director of that office, Mr. Wesley Dawson. What I find troubling is there seems to be a pre-existing relationship between Mr. Dawson and Mr. Shorter, as they are from the same college fraternity. [06:32:18] So is this a hookup by Mr. Shorter for his frat buddy, Mr. Wesley? And why are we continuing to hire outside of Prince William County? I hope we will get an answer. The Office of Community Safety has goals and discussions, topics that are listed on their website. [06:32:33] There's community violence intervention, traffic safety, panhandling, substance abuse, human trafficking. This is exactly what our police department deals with every day, the premier community safety organization of Prince William County. But this board doesn't fully fund or support our police, the experts in their field that do their job in our community and clearly don't want them to engage with the community either. [06:32:56] This board instead creates more government bloat by creating this new government office of community safety off the backs of taxpayers. You now want us to fund $1 million for a new study for the Route 28 bypass when we already have data that says a bypass will not solve the problem, only displace more residents from their homes. [06:33:15] Ridiculous. Speaking of studies, whatever happened to the data center studies that we paid for? Where is that information at? No wonder our taxes are rising and will continue with this Democrat board majority's appetite for more studies and increased spending. The gas X to their government bloat is to vote the five Democrats out of office this November. [06:33:36] And to the lobbying group that's anti-gun, that is obviously lobbying you on the board that have taken their money, let me remind them of the stats. Our Prince William County Police Department said over the last four years there was one incident where there was a weapon involved. We don't know what was used either, if it was a gun or nunchucks. [06:33:55] And criminals don't go by your safety ordinance. Common sense people, vote no. Next speaker, please. [06:34:12] Ellen Gloss-Coles. I read about this board voting to spend another million bucks on a study regarding the Route 28 bypass. This board has a track record of ordering the costly studies just to do whatever your political puppet masters want you to do despite the survey results. [06:34:28] You know what's worse, though? Ordering the expensive survey, then voting for how the campaign donors want even before the surveys are completed. We're all watching now how the study results aren't in, but you are all still ramming through data center development without even getting any study info back. [06:34:45] How much have we spent on that? The Route 28 bypass has always been a bad deal to begin with. To be clear, this bypass has zero benefit to eastern Prince William County, and it has a negative benefit to those in the central Prince William County. This bypass helps Manassas City residents and neighboring county residents to bypass and therefore allowing them to jump the line for commuters trying to get up Route 28. [06:35:10] While central county residents have to deal with 28 traffic, we are paying for city residents to push us further back. We've got to fix 28, there's no doubt, it's garbage, but this isn't the way. This $1 million study was put in place because Fairfax didn't want to uproot five of their residents. [06:35:28] Yet this county, in this county, you guys were totally okay with taking 11 times as many homes here. And now this new study will allow you to displace more than 70. Let's be clear. These people you have targeted to bulldoze their homes, they are not in Ann Wheeler's gated subdivision. [06:35:47] No, these are hardworking poor people with two or more jobs just trying to survive. The majority of these families live in a trailer park. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen this board in the last four years approve a zoning application for a new trailer park. [06:36:04] So where do these people go? Ann Wheeler will say they can just eat cake. She thinks everyone has as much disposable cash as she does, so they can just move. Hate to take you out of the clouds, Ms. Wheeler, but even if they had the money to move, there is absolutely no place folks in that trailer park can move and pay what they are currently paying for their home now. [06:36:25] None. This board has targeted poor people from day one, Your meals tax has cut tips and jobs from the restaurant industry. You've allowed property taxes to rise on average more than $4,000 for every property owner. And just this year, you voted to go from 80% to 100% valuation on the car tax. [06:36:43] Of course, you played dumb as people blew up your phones about it. You had no idea, even though many of us sat right here as Michelle Attrey told you about the ramifications of raising that. You guys just won't quit, but we can quit you in this election, and I encourage people to do just that. [06:37:01] Get out there and vote. Get rid of these grifters that think what's in our wallets belongs to them. Thank you. Before our next speaker, I'm going to call our last four, Ryan Bartoff, Mrs. Iene Johnson, Teresa Minns, and Herb Williams. [06:37:20] Please proceed. Bill Billard, Manassas Coles, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board. I want to walk in the footsteps of progress and say I support local gun control ordinances, banning guns in public parks, because we've got to think about the heinous criminals. [06:37:42] They should feel safe when they commit heinous crimes against their potential victims. They are the new social justice role models now, so let's have more gun-free zones and ban guns from upstanding citizens. That makes a lot of sense. Oh, pardon the mental, temporarily mental derangement, sarcasm aside. [06:38:02] I've been in law enforcement for probably about 10 years now, and I can tell you right now, these calls for local gun control ordinances banning guns in public parks will not stop crime or gun violence in particular. First off, if you have to put gun in front of violence, you are being selective on a certain type of violence to achieve a political agenda. [06:38:24] That's just evil. Violence is violence, and trying to deprive lawful, upstanding citizens of their means and their right to defend themselves against evil is an insane solution to this fluffed-up problem. [06:38:44] As we said, statistics show that violent crime rarely occurs in these public parks, as Alicia Gloss said. And we don't know if it was involving a gun, nunchucks, knife, bare hands. I mean, anything can be a weapon, anything. [06:39:02] So why are we targeting guns and law-abiding gun owners? I think the problem here is that people who support this stuff watch too much Hollywood, too much TV, and there are three different kinds. It's the uneducated, people who are uneducated regarding firearms. [06:39:17] They need to be educated. So instead of data centers, we need more gun ranges to educate people regarding firearms and proper marksmanship. I mean, that's American culture, and everyone should have the ability to own a firearm to defend themselves. Another person that supports banning guns in certain areas and gun-free zones are heinous criminals. [06:39:41] They don't want their potential targets to be able to defend themselves. They want an easy target. That's common sense. You talk about common sense gun regulation, well, guess what? It doesn't make sense to ban guns from upstanding citizens. And lastly, the people who support gun control are persons in government who do not want their political opposition or their citizens to have firearms. [06:40:05] They want to abuse their power. And I want to remind everybody here, you're not elected officials, you're elected public servants. Therefore, you serve the will of the people. And the people will not comply whatever ordinance you pass. We will still carry our firearms in public places. [06:40:22] We did it last week in here, and as you know, we are not the problem. Thank you. Let's put an end to the gunnophobic bigotry. Next speaker, please. [06:40:41] Please proceed. Good evening. My name is Ryan Bartra, and I'm a resident of the Gainesville District. I understand the positions of both supporters and opponents of the Digital Gateway. [06:41:00] A project of this magnitude is bound to generate a wide variety of opinions and guarantees that those opinions will be passionately expressed. There are many talking points we've heard repeatedly throughout the almost two years of public discourse about this project, and we have some brief comments tonight. [06:41:15] The Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District, which has been pointed at to show that the Digital Gateway is not necessary, was based on existing infrastructure. The county wanted to encourage data center development where it could already be supported, which makes sense. [06:41:33] One of the unintended outcomes of this approach has led to data centers being shoehorned into locations next to schools and in tight proximity to residences. The recent outcry about the Village Place Technology Park and Haymarket is an example of the reactions that residents have when data centers are dropped into the middle of established communities. [06:41:52] The digital gateway provides an opportunity for the county to invest in data center industry by developing a dedicated campus set apart from denser residential areas. The creation of the digital gateway may even mean that the need to scatter data centers across the county is no longer necessary. [06:42:11] One frequent point of conversation is centered around the economic benefit to the county and when those funds would have an impact. I don't think anyone is trying to make the case that the digital gateway will begin generating income the second that ground is broken. But just because the economic benefit to the county will not be immediately felt does not invalidate the reasons to consider the project or negate the benefit that that income would have. [06:42:35] I imagine that most of the responsibility of the Board of Supervisors is to think about the future of the county in both the immediate and long-term sense and make the best decisions that you can that will have the greatest outcomes for its residents. The Digital Gateway represents an economic influx that will have an immense and long-lasting impact on our schools and public services, and will fund projects like parks, trails, pedestrian bridges, and roadway enhancements to improve the quality of life for our residents. [06:43:04] There are a lot of facts that have been provided by the various impact studies and reports attached to this project. There has also been an active exchange between the Planning Commission staff and the applicants, as evidenced by the comments and responses to the applications that are shared online. We have the answers to the questions that have been raised throughout this process. [06:43:22] Whether you like them or not is more a matter of your position, but it does not change the facts and recommendations coming from the experts. And just as I trust those experts' reports and conclusions, I trust that this distinguished board will ground their decisions on the Digital Gateway in the facts and consider the greatest benefit to the county. [06:43:41] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Madam Chair, county attorney, county executive, and ladies and gentlemen, here virtually and here in the chambers. My name is Aene Johnson, and I am a member of the Woodbridge District. [06:44:06] I stand today as a wife, mother, and advocate to foster parents and foster children. I continue to speak to you, Mr. Shorter, about our family's mission. Number one, to fight, and what we define as fight is faith in God's holy timing for the legal right to adopt our foster son. Number two, to empower parents with knowledge on the foster to adopt journey. And number three, to advocate for legislation for foster parents caring for foster children. As we continue the second part of our journey, Mr. Shorter, we will empower parents with knowledge on the foster to adopt journey. These are not my words, but I definitely take it to heart, so I can hope I make it through [06:44:45] it. There are nearly 5,400 children in Virginia's foster care system. Of those children and youth, more than 700 are ready for adoption. That is too many. I will continue to think of these children. [06:45:03] I will continue. I will continue. I will continue to fight for these children. It's not just about Bumpy. Every child. That is too many, Mr. Shorter. Think about the ones in Prince William County, as long as you are in office. The Virginia Department of Social Services provides services, I apologize, provides policy and guidance to the local Department of Social Services with manuals. When our family began the adoption process, Mr. Shorter, we were not notified of the [06:45:40] manuals online to give foster families knowledge. Foster families need to know where to locate these manuals. The website for the manuals is www.dss.virginia.gov slash family slash fc slash index dot cgi hashtag manuals. Foster families also have our family as a resource. We are not attorneys, but we are advocates. We will share our journey and support them however possible. We will direct [06:46:12] them to resources. We are an open book. Mr. Shorty, we pray that no family, emphasis on no, no family in Prince William County endures what our family has gone through. If we had to go through it so that other families don't, then by God's grace, it was worth it. It was worth it. It still is worth it. And I will continue to speak. Our family's contact information is www.bakingforbumpy.com 571-991-2827. I don't know your spiritual status, Mr. Shorter, and that's not my position. I can't [06:46:48] put you in heaven or hell, but I'll read a scripture to you. Philippians 4.9, those things which ye have both learned, Mr. Shorter, and received, Mr. Shorter, and heard, Mr. Shorter, and seen in me to my dear foster parents, do, and the God of peace shall be with you. [06:47:04] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Three Cements, Potomac District. I want to let every, oh, I want to thank the law enforcement and first responders for all that they do for us because they are in harm's way. You people are not. You people create harm. Now, I want to tell you, I don't have all [06:47:39] the facts because there's so much information I have, but when Congressman Scalise was playing baseball, if he hadn't had a special assignment that afforded him security guards, all of those Republican politicians would have been wiped out by somebody who was on the left, okay? But thank God those people were there with guns, okay? You never know when you're going to need it. And there [06:48:18] was a church, and this one gentleman, he trained all the people there how to use a gun. He happened to be in the right spot at the right time to take that shooter out in church in church and i want you people who are against guns stop laughing at the people that stand up here for our second amendment and this is what you should be doing you should be teaching people about our constitution bill of rights declaration of independence and like the other gentlemen you should be teaching us how to [06:48:52] use guns. Yes, safely. Because I'm going to tell you what, it's the criminals, and you guys support criminals. And this is another thing. You talk about mental health. I don't know what's going on with you, Mr. Shorter, and this family, Ms. Johnson. But if you're doing something that's not right, fix it. Because that child and them are being put through mental abuse. Mental abuse. [06:49:18] OK, I have no faith in the Democrats because I'll tell you what, I voted for Obama the first time. And I swear within three months, I knew I made a mistake and I saw after that all the hate and it has not changed. [06:49:36] I thought we were all equal. I thought we all mattered. Now, I want to tell everybody, you get out there and you vote. We have 45 days of early voting. Know who the Democrats are. Know who the Republicans are. And there's no such thing as they're not affiliated with a party. [06:49:54] They are all affiliated with a party. So get to know it. You want to throw our future away? Then vote for a Democrat. Because after Obama and after what I've seen this board do, I will never vote for a Democrat. Never. [06:50:11] Okay? I know I'm pretty rough. But how about the way you let Supervisor Vega be treated by Black Lives Matter? And you, Bodie, giving the fist hand to Black Lives Matter, they're a Marxist group, had nothing to do with black lives. [06:50:26] Your time is up. Freedom. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. [06:50:43] Threw me off the rails. She applauding. You can tilt that up, and please give your name and generally where you live in the county. Yes. You know, she applauding a man who's facing 94 indictments. I don't understand that. I don't understand. If you could start by giving us your name and generally where you live in the county. [06:51:00] Yeah. My issue is that... Sir, can you give us your name and generally where you live in the county? I'm Herb Williams. I live in the Woodbridge District. Thank you. Yes. Just got me, my blood boiling a little bit there because I'm trying to understand the logic on why people are defending a leader almost 100 times have been indicted. [06:51:26] That can't be by coincidence. You've got to have at least one of those charges. But anyway, I'm going to go on with my subject here. But I do, I think there's some state of insanity when people are still behind a leader. who had demonstrated a lack of morality. And I want to stand up today because changes are coming, and we can't stay the same. [06:51:51] And I'm just hoping that we can come up with an idea to help people move out of these mobile homes. Maybe we can subsidize them or something. But change has always evolved. Nothing's going to stay the same. And I don't want the burden to be put upon those who sit in the chambers and wants to move forward. [06:52:16] I'm here to support moving forward. And if we could find a way to help people get out of trailers and put them into a home or subsidize them or something of that nature, but we can't continue the same. Change is going to happen. [06:52:33] Change is going to keep coming. And look at this great nation. It was a rural place with nothing but woods and everything. And you look at the beautiful nation today because we have evolved. I don't want to sound inhumane, but it's nothing that we can do but continue to move toward changing and to help people make adjustment to the change. [06:52:56] Maybe help them find housing or some special arrangement we can make. I just had to come in to say that tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. That will conclude our in-person public comment time. We will move to remote public comment time. [06:53:12] I believe we have four people online. Vice Chair Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Like with in-person public comment time, those online have three minutes to speak. First, identify where you are in the county, your name. And Ms. Mann, let's proceed. Your first speaker is Ken Nahr. Ken Nahr, Gainesville District. [06:53:31] Just a quick reminder, the BAE study clearly states 25 direct data center jobs are created for every 250,000 square feet of new data center development. Independent labor statistics clearly show 3.4 jobs, indirect and induced, are created for every direct data center position. [06:53:53] Therefore, there are 440 total jobs created for every 1 million square feet of data center development. The county's Prince William Digital Gateway analysis estimates over 20 million square feet of data center development. Therefore, the Prince William Digital Gateway will create approximately 8,800 new jobs in Prince William County. [06:54:14] However, this does not include the thousands of jobs generated each year during the construction phase. The average Prince William County resident pays roughly $5,000 in total taxes. This means the Prince William Digital Gateway will generate $40 million of new residential tax revenue to fund county employee raises and improve public services. [06:54:39] This amount is completely above and beyond the forecast $400 million per year of new commercial tax revenue. Independent statistics clearly show data center industry provides the highest and absolute return on investment. [06:55:00] For every dollar the county invests in the data center industry, it receives $13.50 in revenue. This staggering amount is roughly three times higher than the next higher commercial return on investment. I respectfully ask for your support for the three Prince William Digital Gateway rezoning applications coming before this board in the coming months. [06:55:24] Thank you, Mr. Nair. Next speaker, please. Ali Imam, Gainesville District. Thank you, respected board members, for your hard work for Prince William County. I agree with what the previous speaker, Ken Nair, have said. Additionally, I want to say my support for the PW Digital Gateway for these reasons. [06:55:45] Over the past two decades, we have lost over 15,000 acres to 10-acre-plus-home development without preservation of a single acre for public benefit. The PW Digital Gateway will permanently protect more than 800 acres of open space by establishing parks, reforested buffers, undisturbed natural areas, and an extension of the Cat Harpoon Greenway Trail and Wildlife Corridor. [06:56:16] So please vote yes on December 12th for the three rezoning applications for this project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Imam. Next speaker, please. The next speaker is Zafir Imam. Zafir Imam, Gainesville District. [06:56:36] I support the Prince William Digital Gateway. The patron corridor has large, undeveloped parcels with great potential redevelopment to clustered data center campuses. building upon the other nearby data center campuses within the adjacent I-66 Route 29 activity center. Please support the Prince William Digital Gateway. Thank you. [06:56:59] Thank you, Mr. Imam. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Kristen Stanton. Hello, my name is Kristen Stanton, and I live in the Gainesville District. Everything costs money. Filling my gas tank costs money. Packing my kids' lunch boxes costs money. [06:57:20] Filling my refrigerator costs money, more money than it ever has. But I'm not naive enough to think that it just affects me or the average citizen. It affects small businesses, the self-employed, and our county, too. Everything costs more money. [06:57:38] I've gotten the emails from members of the Board of County Supervisors sharing their frustrations with the tax rates and tax increases. I would love to see my taxes go down or even stay stagnant. But it takes money to run the second most populated county in Virginia. [06:57:54] So where is that money going to come from? If not the data centers, then where? Where will we get the money to pay for more schools or to make the necessary improvements and updates to keep our existing schools safe and to work to provide a first-class education for the next generation, whenever that is? [06:58:15] Where will the money come from to fix the roads and increase public transportation? Where will the money come from to increase our health and human services to keep our residents physically and mentally healthy, therefore keeping our community safe? Where does the money come from so that we can recruit and keep the best of the best for our EMT, firefighters, and police officers? [06:58:39] The Digital Gateway provides a clear opportunity to significantly increase our commercial tax base to help pay for these necessities. These are not luxuries. They are vital to our county's health, safety, and prosperity. Prince William County cannot continue to remain in a reactive mode. [06:58:59] We cannot afford to say no to the capital investments that would come with the data centers and the increased commercial tax base. I ask you to continue to push Prince William County forward and support the Digital Gateway. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Ms. Stanton. [06:59:15] Is there anyone else, Ms. Van? There are no more speakers tonight. Thank you so much. As for your assistance, have a good night. Back to you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair Brody. Thank you, Ms. Mann. As always, that will conclude our public comment time for the evening. [06:59:31] We still have a closed session that we are going to go into and then report out after closed session, and then we will adjourn. We're going to go back to the Potomac Room. Supervisor Franklin, we're going to get you on the phone back in the Potomac Room. [06:59:50] Okay. All right. Good evening. We're back from closed session. Could I get a motion to certify, please? So moved. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. [07:00:08] Any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. [07:00:30] Madam Chair, could I have the clerk enter that my abstain is a yes to all items except the first legal consultation re-public property parks in the cemetery? And I believe we overstepped on that one, and I don't believe in character assassination by our board members. [07:00:58] Okay. We will now have one thing to, but directive to report out. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. On September 26, 2023, the Board held a public hearing on SCP-2022-00026 RMFD Enterprises Home Business. [07:01:17] After the public hearing was closed, there was a tie vote on the motion to approve. Therefore, no action was taken by the Board. The Board appreciates hearing from the applicant, the community, and staff on this matter. It is our understanding that the applicant is requesting action on this application. [07:01:34] The board should hold another public hearing before it can take action on the application. Therefore, without objection, I would like to direct staff to advertise a new public hearing on December 5, 2023 at 7.30 p.m. for board consideration and action. [07:01:49] The board appreciates everyone's patience as it proceeds with this matter. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Angry. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Motion made by Vice Chair Bodie, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Any further discussion? [07:02:06] Seeing none, please vote. We are adjourned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com