Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Retreat — part 1 (Audio Only), Monday, January 29, 2024

Date: Monday, January 29, 2024
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 56m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3430
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 2026-11-02. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] -Second. -I don't think it's actually on the agenda.

[00:00:41] -It's not on the agenda. -I don't think it was. -It's on the public dispatched agenda. -So we will look to see if there's a number.

[00:00:58] -Item 1A. -Item 1A. So we are going to take a vote on item 1A, and that is to remove the evening session for the February 6, 2, 2024 meeting. So I believe I had a motion from Supervisor Bailey, and then a second from Supervisor Vega.

[00:01:20] So, all in favor of removing the evening meeting? Aye. Supervisor Freighton, are you in favor? Aye. All right, so it is unanimous.

[00:01:37] And for full disclosure, as I have, you know, told everyone beforehand, I will have to leave the meeting, and I am going to turn it over. Vice Chair Voting is going to have the gavel. My son, he fractured his hand, his pinky, playing basketball.

[00:01:54] So I will have to leave for an hour to take him to take him to take him to take him to take him. So thank you very much, and I'll see you shortly. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. What wishes to your son? Good luck. So good morning, everyone.

[00:02:11] I wanted to thank everyone for coming and gathering this morning. to thank county staff for being here. I also want to thank our facilitators for agreeing to be part of this. I'm looking forward to a very productive two days and I will stop talking. I'll turn it over to the county executive if he has any opening remarks before we turn it over. All right, without further ado, this is Mark. The floor is yours. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you all very much for being with us today. We will do our best to keep this mission effectively effective for you all and staff for the next few days we've got a little bit of introductions and housekeeping

[00:02:50] i'll just give you a heads up we will take a break at 9 55 i'll ask the vice chair to do that so a couple people can take a step away from a vote from the board so we'll take a break at that point in time just a little bit for that uh welcome everyone uh this is my housekeeping lots and breaks pulled into our schedule today and tomorrow uh obviously lunch snacks uh drinks and things are available coffee and water beer and there's so much and tea and other things are available back on the other side of the walls of the park um obviously we understand you all are very busy folks when you take a phone call do what you need to do please just step outside to take care of

[00:03:27] things we understand uh let's see uh we've got uh our role as facilitators uh to work with you all okay yeah our role um working here all is uh trying to help you get through these next couple We've got a few bits and pieces of best practices we'll share with you regarding a few topics that we discuss with the county executive.

[00:03:52] We hope to keep things informal. We have to use first names that you'd like. Bathrooms, the women's restroom is up here on this floor. The women's restroom is down the stairs. There's also an elevator if you need to get to that.

[00:04:09] I'm going to introduce myself. My name is Charles Hartner. I'm the Managing Director for the Government. We're part of the University of Virginia's Golden Cooper Center for Public Service. We work with localities across the Commonwealth. I'll talk a little bit about what we do here in a moment. Before joining the Cooper Center, about two and a half years ago, everyone's favorite state agency, the Virginia Department of Taxation, has helped leave that agency for a couple of years.

[00:04:35] But my primary career was 20 years working in towns and cities here in Virginia as a manager and a deputy city manager. So that's my background and expertise working with governments across the Commonwealth. And Jane is my partner. I'll introduce herself and give a little bit about her background.

[00:04:51] Thanks, Charles. I know two of you from previous interactions with the BACO Leadership Module Certified Supervisors Program. So I have the pleasure of meeting almost all the rest of you in interviews to turn this retreat just for you.

[00:05:10] I bring to this partnership today experience as an elected official. I chaired the Board of Supervisors in Malibu County, and I have other government experience as well, working in state government before Governor Northam and in the General Assembly as well.

[00:05:29] So those levels of government help us inform and work with local governments who are faced with the Dillon Rule and some of the things that involve. I am a certified mediator with the Supreme Court of Virginia.

[00:05:45] So as we have found the environment becoming less civil for the local government, normally it's in public meetings, but sometimes it's actually on their elected boards or councils. We've been brought in to help them understand where their conflicts are coming from And to find a common ground in Dallas is to go back and do the people's business, which is why we're all here.

[00:06:09] I have a private sector background earlier in my life, so I understand the elements of what makes an economy run. And it's a pleasure to be here to work with all of you today. Thank you, Jane. This is a little bit about the Melvin Cooper Center. This is our vision to work with communities across the Commonwealth and help them serve the residents of the Avenue community.

[00:06:32] We work with local elected bodies like yourself, county, cities and towns in the Commonwealth and beyond. The Virginia State Government, which we are here today representing, is one of the five business units. Some of you might be familiar with Sorenson. I think you've got the graduate of Sorenson, which we've come here.

[00:06:51] Our colleagues there are a great program for you to get involved in our community. Big graphics research group is pretty well known by local governments because they provide informed composite school index funding. So I think all of you are very familiar with that, and we also have some.

[00:07:14] We work very closely with partners, just like you all, obviously Baco, our manager. And some of the things we do are professional technical support for the 323 town, cities, and counties in Commonwealth.

[00:07:32] Whether I do crowdsourcing best practices, you know, those types of things. We provide other assistance to managers, administrators, staffs, and also local elected officials. We provide this type of service, consulting and training. We're working from strategic planning to economic development work and working with leadership teams as well.

[00:07:52] For professional staff in the local government, we run a couple of leadership development programs that are open for Coach Donovan here in Commonwealth, Nationwide, the Senior Executive Institute, and LEED, which is for your professional staff. We also work with treasurers and commissioners for revenue on their certification programs, and we'll talk a little bit about forward.

[00:08:14] We've heard about us, we've poured over lots of information besides the interviews to find out more about you, and so we thought we'd like you to see what you have actually published on the website or on your own websites, the county website.

[00:08:42] At zero you mentioned that you were native to Prince William County, doesn't mean there aren't, but you didn't say so. All eight of you are proud of your education and talked about where you went to school. Six of you mentioned spouses in the right place of yourselves.

[00:08:58] Seven of you mentioned children. Two of you mentioned the church that you go to or that you can attend the church. Seven of you said that you were involved in other things besides public service. You did a lot of community service. Two of you have lived abroad, and I think that is due to military service.

[00:09:18] And then in terms of employment, six of you have quite a sector employer background, two of you public service, one of you has a small business, zero of you mentioned that you're retired. And then we thank people for service, of course, in the military, law enforcement, and firearms.

[00:09:39] So what we want to do is do a little bit of an icebreaker. What's the purpose of an icebreaker? To get to know people. Get to know people. Anybody else? Why do you do icebreakers? Get a little more comfortable and get the juices flowing.

[00:09:57] So we're going to do a quick get-to-know-you-night-trainer. You have the choice of how to do this. We have printed out your names. Put it in an envelope and you can pull and you can have a partner from that or you can turn to your neighbor. And I think because we lost Shonda, we are uneven, right?

[00:10:19] All right, so why don't we... What do you want to do with uneven? Do three in one? Do you want to just do it from your seats, crowd together, or would you like to call names to find out who you are?

[00:10:51] Let's call names. Names? Yeah, it's more interesting. I'm naturally going to be drawn in this direction so let's go over there.

[00:11:16] Kenny and Tom are working together. Interest. Victor and Andrea. Yes. Yesley, Robert, and Margaret. Do you prefer Robert or Bob? Bob. Yesley, Bob.

[00:11:42] I've never heard of any members of all of you. Why would you do that? Well, that's true. You do know yourself.

[00:12:03] But what I'm saying is you're going to be, why would I not want you to stand up and explain who you are and along these categories? You want somebody else to do it. Want somebody else to do it. Want somebody else to do it because what we have found, Charles and I have found, is that someone introducing themselves may go on for.

[00:12:24] So anyway, let's see. We want you to be, when you do your report time, keep it short. We're not so short that we can't get to know who it is, but Andrea, you're just two people. Uh-huh. And then who else? Do we move? I won't. Here's three. Yeah, we can move you over there to Utah. I'll let Vic come over here. There you go.

[00:12:56] Hi, my name is Victor. Who? My daughter is competitive cheerleading, so she had a competition for Baltimore, both days.

[00:13:20] Hopefully it wasn't near the stadium. It was actually near the stadium. The conference center is literally like two blocks away from the stadium. So Saturday, D.Y., yesterday, and we went to get lunch, and of course it's half.

[00:13:37] It's half disgruntled, raven's face, like that. We don't have to worry about that out there, so they can get from the desk, go grab glasses.

[00:13:52] I got it too, it's fun. Your pants are already safe outside. What's my name? Isabel.

[00:14:09] Are you serious right now? Yes. Isabel. Yes. I mean, look, we're going to get out of the house, but I'm not going to get out of the house. But, no, but that's not going to happen, I'm not going to get out of the house, but I mean you don't see the whole thing.

[00:14:27] I've been here for 17 years. I like how you're in Virginia. I live in Virginia for what? That's a student that had family during the time. You said the past year? Yes. You had 26 years? No. Oh, nine years. And where were you born? California. How about you? Oh, LA. Okay. I was born in Louisiana. So you were.

[00:14:59] It's funny, because you think I might not know where that is, but because of my professional job, I underwrote also more Louisiana for a little bit, so I know sort of reach it. How far away is that from Marietta?

[00:15:15] Oh, Baton Rouge? Oh, it's about 40. It's about 40 miles south of Arkansas, 70 miles west. So two items, if your house caught fire, what are two items that you grab?

[00:15:48] Can everyone clean your pets or are already sitting outside? Describe the funniest thing to you. - We have a, we have a safe. You know, it's our safe. If I could pick up here, it's got to pick that up.

[00:16:05] So pick that up. - Um, and then, you know, they didn't think that was my name. They thought that was my name, too. You know, knocking on the door or something. I mean, that was funny, right? - I don't know who that name actually is my name, not my attitude.

[00:16:23] - That's not fun, even in the military. I'm just going through my house and figure out if you can read two more things that I would grab.

[00:16:50] Okay, oh my gosh. So I would say, well, the other safe, it's a small safe, it's the gun safe. I'll just grab those two things. Other than that, everything's...

[00:17:07] So you have four documents, all the records, all the records, everything else that we need that would be months and months after we've recovered.

[00:17:42] Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:18:15] "Oh, of course, she bought it, and he drove her." "Saving weapons." "Who is this?" "Okay, I'm sure there was neighbors where they were from." "The line is..." "Howard doesn't like it."

[00:18:31] "You were born in Memphis, right?" "Oh, you know, it's okay." "Always worse. Safe musical." "You never assumed, never heard of the alcohol." The funnest thing that happened to it, what did work? What was the mistake here?

[00:18:55] Well, I mean, there's been plenty of situations where, even just before, you know, I've assumed that the book was supposed to say something.

[00:19:11] And they didn't know you were all around. Did we do that? Or that I have assumed that someone was going to say something. They told me they were coming too. And then they didn't.

[00:19:26] And then they replied to them. The funniest thing that happened to you? I hope so, it was funny and not just a slug.

[00:19:48] How about you? One of the things that happened to me was I knocked on someone's door, they answered, we had a pretty good conversation, and then literally the next day I ran to them in the store, and I was dressed completely differently, and they sort of looked at me, and we had hysterical for a couple of the same. I feel like I saw you very recently, and then we sort of realized like we were out the door yesterday!

[00:20:24] We're not only knocking my door. How about you? I love the chicken supper. And then sometimes I have a drink. I'm telling you, Hobby.

[00:20:45] We can jump to Hobby. I do two things that I love that help me in kind of. Fishing. - Okay, a little bit of time. - And, uh, a little bit of time. - But I'm not like that. - Well, very nice. Very nice. I fish too, especially when it's healthy.

[00:21:01] - You don't know. - No, I didn't know that. - Well, I don't fish around here. That's the thing. Like, I always go and see some of them. I just never had any luck around here. - It's not the funniest thing happened to me. - Well, we'll have to get it. I'll get you out. - Me, I don't want to go.

[00:21:16] *laughter* Video games Video? Okay *laughter* *laughter* Yeah, it's just been so constant That's a bad joke I've got children who are organized, who takes care of a pool and all that stuff is just, it's summed up so much.

[00:21:53] Okay, and now the funniest thing you guys have, they want to be playing into the room. It's funny because I've got a show for you, so it's the new red light and the date of the first primary.

[00:22:20] Oh my gosh, I guess that was from Broadway, but maybe that's the first thing. It's like, oh, you're here, and she was talking to someone in the pool, and I'm like, wait, that's what she did for a long time, talking to her. I can get like five doors on, she's just on her head trying. Something you wish, or a little bit of a little bit.

[00:22:42] She can't tell you where to go. Couldn't say, you know, we could just, um... Go ahead, go ahead. One more minute.

[00:23:00] Yeah, right. Life has been a struggle. Yeah, right. It can be more than just because of you that, like, whatever your jerks are going to be a step. Yeah. Life has been easy, isn't it? It's one thing you have. That's where I am.

[00:23:15] Okay, let me talk to you. How about you sit down? I don't know. Why does it matter? It's harder not to copy here. There's a moving gun. Oh, yeah.

[00:23:32] That, yeah. That's where I'm with the older siblings. All right, so that we can Do our report need to take for the vote that some of you have to take? Let's wrap it up.

[00:23:55] And all of my sons are actually, none of us have the same two parents. I have two, I have an old brother and a sister. And my dad's girlfriend and I have another old brother. All of us.

[00:24:11] - My parents are actually quite a bit older, and we're like, "Oh, my parents are quite a bit older." - And all my parents are quite a bit older. - We're about to expose this to the funny thing about you. - So, yeah, that's pretty cool.

[00:24:29] - That's it, yeah, my dad is on this exact same thing. - Well, yeah, politics, we shall bring, you know. - I'd like a new group, you ready to do it? - On that note, let's bring it back.

[00:24:47] - Yeah, I think it's called a group picture.

[00:25:02] she goes by. So she's been in the county in the area for 32 years. You said 32? Yes. In 21, kind of around the state of Virginia. But her birth state is Missouri, the show me state. All right, so show me. All right, describe two items that she'd grab out of her house, you know, with all the family and pets being out. Is her ID, and listen to this, a blank.

[00:25:29] I'm afraid y'all like that, yeah. Ask them to share a mistake they made, that they learned from, and they do well to share with the group. Always wear your seatbelt. Can I tell them what? So, I don't think it is what's new to this.

[00:25:44] Andre Bailey was in a head-on collision and jacked it through the wingship. - Ow. - Yeah. - I didn't have a seatbelt. - And didn't have a seatbelt on. And now, anyone who roused her, anywhere she goes, she makes me wear this seatbelt. So she's been on that, which I am too, but wow, that's good to know.

[00:26:03] The funniest thing that happened to her on the trail, now this is kind of funny, she knocked on a door that was a cousin that she didn't even know that lived in her district. She had to see since childhood years. Just have a spot. Wow, now that, I'm pretty sure that was one of those doors that took you, what did they say, 20 seconds of knocking on the door?

[00:26:22] You probably took a couple of hours on that because it's family. Alright, describe a passion or a hobby that she loves that's outside of work, public service and all that good stuff. but she loves going to the spa, so she has many spa days. But she also loves talking to our elderly because of their wisdom and knowledge, but also our youth in the age bracket between 25 and 35 because of the experiences and the knowledge that she gets from that, so that's pretty cool.

[00:26:49] And then something they wish more people knew about them is that she's young at heart and she loves having tons of fun. okay ladies and gentlemen allow me to introduce you to mr victor who prefers to be called fit he's lived in princeford county for 22 years with his family and he's lived in virginia also for 22 years so instead of suddenly in his birth state florida

[00:27:27] they settled here and described the two things that he would grab would be his wallet and because it's easier to have id and credit and they can buy anything and do to preserve their lives and then the thing that he'd be willing to share with his colleagues that he's learned from is don't gossip don't repeat what's been said just get away from it i like that too um and then the one thing that The funniest thing that happened to him that he's on a campaign trail is teaching people that he's really not angry.

[00:28:02] He changed the attitude. He's a really happy guy. And then what's the thing that he enjoys doing more? The public service and community service. He likes bird watching. He's a bird herder. What? Good point of mind. I would have never guessed.

[00:28:19] Have you had a big year yet with bird? Yeah, I have two. More people would know about him is that he's really colorblind.

[00:28:41] I don't believe it, because the guy can dress. I don't believe it. That's the secret. All right. Well, this is Kenny.

[00:29:00] He goes by Kenny. Yes. He's lived in Prince William County for nine years, as well as lived in Virginia for nine years. originally from California LA area two things that he would grab from his house or his wallet and the safe that has all the important you know documents things like that in it a mistake that they may be learned from and be willing to share with their colleagues he said he's he's learned to never assume anything about

[00:29:37] outcomes, particularly as it relates to, you know, business here, because things he thought were going to happen didn't happen, or people said we're going to say we're going to say something didn't say something, so never assume that. Funniest thing that happened while he was campaigning, he knocked on this person's door, they answered, they talked, the next day, of course, he's not dressed in his campaign gear, and he's shopping, and this person walks up, and they see other and kind of really familiar. How do I know you? And they're really, oh, I was at your door yesterday.

[00:30:16] Made a lasting impression. Hobby or passion that occupies his time. He likes to fish. And he also likes to play video games. Well, that is a fish. That's great.

[00:30:33] And then something that he wished more people knew about him is that he's a baby. He has three older siblings. Wow, I thought you were one. Which explains a lot. What is this? No comment.

[00:30:49] This is one Thomas Gordy. It was by Tom. Thank you. He has lived in Prince William County for 17 years. He's lived in Virginia for 26. And he is born in L.A., but not Los Angeles.

[00:31:04] He was born in Louisiana. Two things that he would grab if his house was on fire, But all of the pets, the furry friends, and the family is safe, are the safe with the essentials, but also the gun safe to make sure that, you know, he has everything taken care of. Good luck taking that.

[00:31:22] A mistake that Tom made that he learned from going to war with him, yes, would like to share with all of us is never speak for someone else. And the example he gave is one time, if I can share, he spoke on behalf of the Bush administration, and that did not go very well.

[00:31:40] so never speak for someone else thanks to the press for that one the funny thing that happened to to Tom while he was campaigning he's actually he ran to our now chair chair Jefferson saw each other in a random neighborhood sort of met halfway and sort of ran into each other off chance and two hobbies that Tom shared with me are fishing so we share that but also good working well two very

[00:32:13] calming very sort of insightful hobbies you know you can't change yours and something they would Tom wish more people knew about him is that life is not always it's not always been easy you know folks can sort of assume based on where you are in your life now both geographically and what have you that things have sort of been an easy ride but that's obviously usually not not the case and it usually

[00:32:42] has a much deeper story there on how that person got there was that accurate i'll start with our cuddly bear i did not say that but he's lived in the state of virginia for 15 and he was born in

[00:33:16] germany so instead of state you have to scratch that out of what country yes so if his house was on fire and his pets and family were safe he would take um the safe and weapon seems to be a familiar thing yeah a mistake that he's made that he's learned from and that he's willing to share is marriage more than three decades of mistakes he was described the funny while campaigning Somebody asking if he was Pete Cameron.

[00:34:01] Bob, so now for this one, really tough on the outside.

[00:34:24] Let me introduce Angela Franklin, a native of Tennessee. She's lived in the county for 12 years, excuse me, not enough coffee, and 17 years in the state of Virginia.

[00:34:42] The items she would grab from her house are the photos of her great-grandparents. I kind of wish I'd said that. The state that she's willing to share, not meeting people where they are. The funniest thing that happened to her on a campaign?

[00:34:59] When her opponent showed up at her house and was pervote. Well, I could see that happen. That's a good level of opposition research. Bobby, her passion is social activism through her sorority, and she wishes the people knew she's human.

[00:35:20] They could put that, but okay. She's like a human adult. Seems like we had a lot of little sort of creative writing on these sheets. I was like, both of you are looking at Ashwares Vega over here as you say for that. Okay, I'm going to introduce Miss Yesley Vega.

[00:35:38] She's lived in Prince William County since 2005. She's lived in Virginia since around the age of five. Her birth state is Texas, specifically Houston, Texas, which I did not know. One item that she would grab if the house caught on fire is her wedding album.

[00:35:59] And a mistake that she would share that she learned from, that she'd be willing to share, is putting school on the back burner. She wished she had done it sooner. And the funniest thing that's happened to her while campaigning, someone called her Selena. That's the best question we have for him.

[00:36:25] A hobby and passion that she has outside of work is coaching soccer. And something that she wished, or we all wish people knew more. You know, something Margaret wishes people knew more about is that she's hilarious. She's hilarious.

[00:36:41] And that's the other way. So, if you want to keep your sheets, that's just worksheets for your exercise.

[00:37:12] All right, so before we take our break for the quick second way to vote, I'm going to give you a little bit of background so far, quite a bit of time I was preparing for the next couple of days, reviewing reports of claims, looking at previous boards, policies, looking at comprehensive plan, all those good things.

[00:37:35] Also, as you all know, Jane worked with the auditors, he should be supervisors, and then we worked with the professional staff, obviously quite competing with the county executive and the executive team, but also we met with the leadership team of each quadrant.

[00:37:51] So we met with the deputy county executives and then all the department heads that report to those folks. So we had a chance to hear from them, from their experiences, things you're looking for. We obviously have a lot of observations about that we can talk about as we go through the next two days. You know, there's a lot of .

[00:38:09] We also look at coax amounts of reporting in the newspapers. Okay. That kind of happens, too. Anyway, excuse me. No, no, no. So, you know, obviously we've got some changes.

[00:38:27] The chair, the vice chair, and the staff. staff, you've got a lot of newer department heads, you've got people in interim roles, there's a lot of people who learn the organization and community, so some of the things, the takeaways that we've got as people try to work through best practices and help you guys execute your policy on a day-to-day basis.

[00:38:43] Is there anything else you can add? And so today we've got a few things we're going to do, there's going to be some discussion, we're going to present a few best practices to you today, and then we'll do some more Tomorrow I'm going to push through some group discussions like you just did but on some more county-based topics and some things to hopefully help you build some consensus on.

[00:39:08] A few breakout exercises and a few videos to break up the monotonies so you don't hear our voices the entire time. So please know this is your community, this is your board, this is your organization. We're just here to help navigate you guys for the next couple of days. So please know we respect that and understand that.

[00:39:26] So some of the things we want to work with is help you prepare for strategic plans. Priorities.

[00:39:41] Yeah, apologize for the seminary. That's awesome. And our goal tomorrow afternoon, our journey, staff has some clear expectations that they can take back as they prepare working with you all on strategic initiatives, preparing your budget, capital improvements, all the important work that you all have to do in the coming months as part of your regular schedule.

[00:40:08] And so some of the things we're going to talk about today, all the responsibility of elected officials, policy, norms, and rules of behavior. We've looked at a few other local governments' policies and instant information regarding that.

[00:40:26] Maybe now will be a good time. You're not going to do that? No, I'm going to split now. Okay, and this is just a brief video about all the responsibilities for a local government elected. Do that, and then we'll take a quick break. I think we should maybe wait.

[00:40:45] We'll wait. Yeah, I think I'm going to do that. Okay, we'll take a break now. We'll just come back and do that. Thank you. Of course. Our clothes. So you're going over there? Yeah. I'm going to turn this to the floor. Okay. I'm going to turn this to the floor.

[00:41:02] Oh, wow. Every floor. That's the floor, right? Yeah, it's all the old free floor. Oh, it's the floor. Oh, yeah.

[00:41:22] My dad taught me how to fish and I used to do it here and there when I got married and

[00:42:31] We were going to do it. We even bought a little starter fisher set. It's a good thing for y'all to ride with them. It's 2K operating. No, because I don't care. Do we have everybody? Are we ready to get back to it?

[00:42:48] I think we're ready. We're ready? Yeah. All right. Okay, we will get started again. We'll pick right back up where we left off. A quick video, and then we'll go through some roles and responsibilities and a few things for folks.

[00:43:05] Thank you for your patience. What are the roles and responsibilities of a locally elected official? Once you have taken the oath of office, clarity about your roles and responsibilities at the beginning of your relationship with local government staff can help to create a healthy working relationship during your time in elected office.

[00:43:30] The roles and responsibilities of elected officials and local government staff are separate but interdependent. The role of elected officials is that of governance. They make collective decisions based on the needs and wants of the community. Staff's role is the management and implementation of the Council or Board's policies and direction.

[00:43:52] The Council or Board's work involves developing and setting its strategic direction, allocating resources and adopting the financial plan, representing citizens, engaging the community, and deciding what services are delivered. Staff's work involves working within the council or board's strategies, policies, and direction to implement and manage the local government's resources.

[00:44:17] You have to appreciate and support your staff because they are the foundation. Politicians come and go a lot more than staff does, and they are the history. When you have a vision and you collectively set the strategic plan in place, and then you're able to find the funding, and then to finally get that accomplished, what you're doing is setting legacies for your community for the future.

[00:44:49] What are the roles and responsibilities of a locally elected official? That's the main point of that, to get across. A little bit about local government in general, in this country at least.

[00:45:08] Nine thousand units of local government in the United States, I'm always shocked by that amount when you think of everything from county, cities, towns, villages, boroughs, service districts, all the things. We talked about being from Texas, you know, down there you can be paying taxes to a school board, a fire tax district, a law enforcement tax district, We've got all of our county, cities, and towns here in the Commonwealth.

[00:45:34] Obviously, one of the fascinating things about Virginia folks from here, and all we all learned as we've got here is that cities are independent from counties, which is unlike anywhere else in the country. So having independent cities is an interesting reason for Commonwealth Commonwealth.

[00:45:53] These are the core documents, obviously. Obviously, this is not news to you all, but for a lot of folks that you've watched along or were learning as well, in Virginia, local governments are dependent on the authority of the Commonwealth to do their business. I was in the Constitution of Virginia and the Code of Virginia, while there were several sections that talked about local government 15.2, discussing particularly the forms of government, such as the county executive.

[00:46:18] And obviously, county, city, and the town charters are approved and granted on the General Assembly, so I'm going to have to go ask for permission to do things. our lovely Commonwealth, thanks to Judge Dillon from the 1800s, who still haunts us to this day. He's my hero. Excuse me? He's my hero.

[00:46:38] It's worked so far in Virginia. I've been on to see municipal or county codes help us work through our day-to-day ordinances. So policy development. We talk about projects as they talk about in video.

[00:46:58] Your all's job is creating policy, creating vision for the county, and then having the expectation for staff to implement that vision, those strategic initiatives, and getting things done on your behalf. Setting that overall policy, looking at long-term future.

[00:47:14] One of the things we're going to talk about over the next couple of days is future planning and what that looks like for you all. What you think that should be for the community. What that process might look like, at least in the early conversations about that. Obviously, you've got a strategic plan ended up, a comprehensive plan, and recently updated.

[00:47:34] There's some other things I'm sure you're looking at. And one thing that we always like to share, both Jane as a former elected official and myself as a former manager, is the ask them to ask or tell them to spell and work. When I work for elected officials, that is always my goal.

[00:47:50] I want them to have access to all the subject matter experts that we have on our staff. We want them to utilize their expertise or knowledge to help you all make decisions. But I always say, please come to me so I can appropriately delegate this, get it back to you as efficiently and effectively as possible.

[00:48:06] And so that's something that we find works well with our boards and other communities and, of course, in our personal experience. Obviously, you're all very familiar with these. We've got a budget season coming up as everyone is working quickly to get information together.

[00:48:26] I know staff has been working diligently. The school boards have been working already, obviously, to get numbers put together so they can get to you all for your consideration. We're all anxiously awaiting. For example, we talked about the school system and demographics and composite index.

[00:48:41] There's all sorts of things going on in the General Assembly to research. I think the quote in the article I saw on the paper was the Byzantine process of how we come up with school pupil funding here in Commonwealth. We're one of the level of states that does it in the way that we use sort of black box index.

[00:48:58] Obviously, setting tax rates is part of your budget every year. The limit of that is setting the salaries for the government body. I know that's not a popular topic. Most elected officials do not want to discuss that, and that's why a lot of our salaries for elected officials are what they are in Commonwealth.

[00:49:16] Obviously, adopting local ordinance. Appointed and hiring, typically, most localities not the case here. You have an appointed by the clerk, and then by the way, the county executive attorney. Obviously, some localities appoint a chair, and obviously, I'm still in vacancies on the government body and through a future election that comes up quite frequently for a lot of localities sometimes so I want us to take a leave of office in the middle of our term.

[00:49:48] Not for us. And then appointed members to various courts, police commissions and we'll talk a little bit about that later today. I remember some interest in you all in discussing that, we've discussed that to county executive and so we'll make sure we spend some time getting some feedback from you and some guidance on that topic.

[00:50:05] And as I think, as Jane and I were talking, you know, she was telling me about her experience as an elected official on the county board, once she realized that 70% of her work was going to be the land use plan, she was like, oh, wow.

[00:50:22] Obviously this thing is getting recommendations from the funding commission, obviously the occasional and rare use of a Florida zoning bill and all those things, and then we've got just a mishmash of how every locality does this, like warrants, districts, some places it's all at large, depends on the locality and the culture of our community.

[00:50:52] For example, we worked last year with the city of Virginia Beach. They moved from a purple girl where they had a 7-4 system, and now they have a 10-1. So the governor mayor is elected, and then they have 10 people districts throughout the city that people are elected to rather than having a large.

[00:51:08] And again, I mentioned land use cases. Anything you would have that would need that means. Roll expansion of Mission Creek. I think we've definitely seen this in our lives as boards change, as the councils change, executives, administrators, managers change, when elected body potentially overreaches outside of policy and vision and governance into dated operations, and when sometimes professional staff turns policymaker or politician.

[00:51:37] I know there's a locality I worked with a long time ago when I was a manager, and we always complained because they had the county attorney for the government. You listening over there? And so this is, you know, one of the things we do want to talk about a little bit today communication between staff and board members, the elected staff, and also the staff, communicating with you all. As we get into these conversations about committees and other things, we want to talk about that communication structure, norms and behavior, expectations for you all,

[00:52:13] what you see, and if you decide to go down that path. And just a little bit of overlap. So, elected body, promoted staff, recognition, appreciation, the member has expertise, staff a lot of us bring a lot of things that they probably have experiences as a professional and otherwise in our life, but sometimes are very helpful to that.

[00:52:37] And then same thing for professional staff and policymaking, politician, and, you know, I think the same thing needs to happen there is to sort of check on making sure they're not always sticking their bounds and going into your territory as the policy makers in the governing body of the world. This is just my COVID agenda.

[00:52:58] These are the responsibilities, basically. Most CIOs, the county executive, obviously, and in this case for you all, there's a specific code section for the county executive form. And so, Paula, do you want to review this portion of this?

[00:53:19] Yes. So, move, as you see on your agenda, into norms, but before we do that, we want to center you on a couple of concepts. You can think about where you fall on the spectrum of leaders, not the bad leaders, but what type of leader you are.

[00:53:41] So the first question is, which are you? And this may be a trick question. Are you a representative or are you a statesman? And I don't want to have a discussion. I want you to think about that in your heads. Do I feel like I'm more of a representative or more of a statesman?

[00:53:58] the definitions there. Representative is a person who stands in or acts for a constituency as a member of a state body. So you are representing the people in the district or the county as a whole. Management is defined as a wise and respected political leader, Christian principles for art of government, and actively engaged in conducting the business of government and shaping its policies. That's at Webster, but what we're talking about here has to do specifically

[00:54:31] do you find that you feel a strong commitment to reflect and vote in the interests of the people in your district or the majority of the people that sent you there, or, and there's really not a note, and at what point or when do you turn around and say, hey constituency, I really drilled down on this issue and I need to let you know that I think what's best for our district and the county is this.

[00:55:02] Even though your perspective may be, at first, bad. So you're turning around and educating to explain why you're voting maybe a different way than that. So let's talk a little bit about when are you a representative, when are you a skatesman?

[00:55:19] Which style is more likely to cause conduct? Any thoughts on that? I think you can be both and probably should. I think which style is more likely to cause conflict, I would say being a representative, because it's impossible to make everyone happy.

[00:55:48] There will always be someone on an opposing side. So as you are a representative, you are attempting to represent most people's interests, but it is also impossible, which is why looking at it from a statesman perspective should help you get as close as possible in how effective you can be as a representative.

[00:56:16] That was fantastic. How about other people? What's your experience in your own political life? I think an important clarity there, or part of the reason why you ask this so openly and generally, is cause conflict with who?

[00:56:31] So are we talking about conflict with, as Supervisor Franklin said, certain parts of your own constituency, other constituencies, special interest groups that may not be representative of just one person's district, but of a trade group or a thought or a philosophy?

[00:56:49] I think that there's a different situation in which being one or the other could cause conflict with any of those groups. Your representative, like Supervisor Franklin said, will likely cause more conflict with certain segments of your own constituency if you're not representing their views.

[00:57:07] But there are also times in which being a state who could cause conflict with more of your constituency because you're a lot more read in on certain aspects of a policy position or the outcomes of something. And the folks that are in your district or any district may only get the shallow view of what's going on and they may not see that bigger picture.

[00:57:28] But again, we, and I know that our county isn't unique in this, we have a lot of different groups, a lot of different perspectives. And sometimes those perspectives are in conflict with each other, they're in conflict with the long-term view of the county, or they're frankly in conflict with even segments of their own groups.

[00:57:45] So, you know, there's a lot of interplay there, and I think that we're, based on the jobs that we have, like Surajah Franklin said, we won't ever be able to make 100% of all people happy with every decision we make. But the higher the stakes and the more implications of each decision we make, and the broader context it has, the more likely I think it is to cause conflicts among certain groups, depending on what's going on.

[00:58:12] And maybe adding to what you're saying, besides the very complete list of where the conflict is among you yourselves, if you're not in agreement, you have to either represent one part of those that are going one way or one part of the other.

[00:58:29] A specific example of where you would be representative is if a trash distribution center, if it was decided, the best place to have that is in your district. And your district says, you know, we do not want that in our district.

[00:58:48] And you're looking at it and you're saying, well, we need it somewhere in the county. Whose district is it going to be in? So, whosever district it ends up in, unless you decide that you've got a solution other than that distribution center, has to explain to their member, has to explain to their constituents why it's good for the whole county to be there.

[00:59:09] So, you balance these things. The word conflict is what we're going to focus in on in a minute. I bet each of you, when you heard the word convo, thought that that's negative. Let me reframe that a little bit, and then Charles and I'll take you through some more discussion.

[00:59:30] It's been described as a volcano that's about to erupt. A hurricane. Like slow dancing. Barefoot, unbroken shards of glass.

[00:59:47] Like trying to hold back the ocean with a broom. War. The plague. Like being drawn and quartered. These are just a few examples of thousands of metaphors I've collected about conflict. What's conflict like for you?

[01:00:04] Your metaphor matters because it often reflects how you think and feel about conflict. So it makes sense that if you think conflict is the plague, you'd probably want to avoid that and avoid everybody else that has it too. If it's like trying to hold back the ocean with a broom, I would imagine that feels frustrating and futile.

[01:00:26] So what do you do when the waves just keep coming? Because conflict washes ashore in all of our relationships, at home, at work, in our neighborhoods. You've probably already been given advice on how you should deal with it. Communicate.

[01:00:42] But sometimes talking about it seems to make it worse. Don't go to bed angry. So you stay awake and now you're angry and tired. Or you just have to learn to compromise. But if your compromise has ever felt like you don't get what you want, I don't get what I want, but at least together we're mutually miserable.

[01:01:05] Now, I'm sure all this advice is well-intentioned, but it treats conflict as if it's a problem. What if conflict isn't a problem? What if it's a solution? What if it's not negative, but full of beauty?

[01:01:24] After 15 years of studying, researching, teaching, and training in conflict, I've learned to see it differently. I've been able to see the power it has to transform, to transform us, our relationships, and the world around us.

[01:01:45] is not specifically for the public sector, but you are in the conflict resolution business. There are challenges that you are seeking to find solutions for through policy and execution.

[01:02:01] And when you're out there trying to decide on solutions, there are conflicting solutions that you're going with, right? Our founding fathers wrote a constitution based on conflict. We have three areas of government that are supposed to be in conflict so that they're balanced.

[01:02:20] We have deliberative bodies that are supposed to negotiate and debate until you come up with solutions. So you are in the conflict business, and if you refocus on the fact that conflict is good, it's what you're supposed to be involved with, then I think that we can move forward on some conflict resolution skills when you're dealing with certain behaviors that cause that conflict to be negative for you.

[01:02:45] So, sometimes it's the behaviors surrounding the debate or the explaining to your institution and community. So, it represents an opportunity to bring people together, it can be creative, and it can create balance.

[01:03:03] So, we're going to go through two conflict resolution skills today that are very valuable, particularly to people in your position. I remember my first VACO meeting, all of you may have been to a VACO meeting.

[01:03:19] The head of VACO stood up, it wasn't Dean Lynch, it was the gentleman who said, you have the second, you said the second worst job in America, but you said this, we've changed it to say the second hardest job in America. First hardest being Homeowners Association President.

[01:03:38] Second being locally elected official. Why is that? That's because you have immense, in your grocery stores, knocking on your door, at church, coming to your public meetings, they can talk to you better than any other level of government, and they can tell you what's going on in your lives.

[01:03:58] So we're going to talk about two, the fact of listening and recovery today. It won't take too much time, but it's good to center in on those two for what you are going through as a board and also as individuals, as elected individuals.

[01:04:16] So we had, and Beth and Andrea were part of this, panels that actually were moderated by Charles of locally elected officials and why they were long-serving. Remember them? They've been in elected office and the whole level of government for several times.

[01:04:36] We had two General Assembly people talk to you, right? And Terry Austin and Barbara Fibola, And they had come from local government to serve in state government. And then we had a state government, Tim Kaine, who started in local government, went to state government, and now is federal.

[01:04:55] In common, all of them, non-scripted, right, Charles? They did not know what we were going to ask them. What was the number one skill they said helped them be successful as an elected official? I'm going to talk to you once.

[01:05:11] Sure. I took this. Listening. In fact, I think Senator Kaine stressed it the most. Of course, he's had to go navigate three levels of government. So what do we mean by active listening? A question for you all.

[01:05:28] How have you made your active listening skills? Pretty good? Pretty good? Your elective listening skills pretty good? I'm listening. Raise your hand if you think it's usually pretty good. I'm a much more. Yeah? Yeah. So most people actually, if you ask your friends at Thanksgiving, your family, whatever, are you a good listener?

[01:05:50] Mm-hmm. Most everyone's listening skills. We actually are wired not to be good listeners. Our brains are wired to pay attention to all kinds of information coming in.

[01:06:08] I think prehistoric days, there's a tiger over there, there's a bear over there, there's an awesome human over there. We are poised to be distracted. So active listening is actually a skill that you have to work on. And just like you're working out in the gym, you've got to work those muscles, you have to practice it.

[01:06:28] So, there are three phases to active listening. We say proactive is actually pre-active. The active part of it, and then you're reactive. So let's go into that. The active phase is when you're getting ready.

[01:06:45] So you've got a constituent, or you've got someone coming to the public hearing, or the dance, or you're talking to a colleague. That's where you say, okay, I have to listen. We don't normally talk to ourselves that way. I have to listen.

[01:07:01] And then you have an open stance. So you don't want to be doing this while someone's trying to talk to you. You want to be facing them. You want to face the speaker. That allows your brain to pay more attention if your eyes are facing the target. And make eye contact, again, to focus yourself.

[01:07:21] And then finally you're listening for content and emotion. And that's because, and we'll see this in the next slide, a lot of communication is non-verbal. So we've told ourselves, be ready and focus on this person so I can hear what they have to say.

[01:07:43] Then your active phase is where you're communicating to them non-verbal, but you're listening. So you're giving them a lot of respect in this. And you do that by putting down your phone, put it down, put it down, face down. That is a "I'm all yours" kind of non-little communication.

[01:08:02] Watch your stance. You'll see a lot of people listening this way, right? What does this mean? I'm blocking you. Or I'm defensive. Control your eye area and avoid eye rolling. Avoid side eyes.

[01:08:21] Frowns. Now, I had a problem with frowns when I was teaching myself this skill. When I'm concentrating, I have a little frown here. And I've come to find out, as I'm moving through my adulthood, people thought I was angry or disapproving.

[01:08:37] So you may not realize that I like a face, but be careful about the frowns. They'll raise eyebrows. Like, really? So if you're telling them through these things, it was really not prepared to be open to what they're saying.

[01:08:54] And then finally... The number one is that people don't hear what they're saying. people are saying, even if they've prepared themselves this way, I'm focusing, I'm communicating on those things because you're preparing your answer.

[01:09:13] I'm going to say this as soon as they shut up. Well, if you can suspend that, then you're really in the active listening mode. And so therefore, you're not going to launch right into your answers. This doesn't work if you have exactly 60 seconds.

[01:09:31] But, if you can take a pause and ask a person, if you were to thank them for their thoughts, even if they said something that was just ridiculous, like that vote you took last night was the worst vote ever, and you have ruined the county, and I can't wait to vote against you, you can still say, alright, we will at least thank you for taking the time to talk to me directly.

[01:09:53] A lot of times when people are talking to you, all they want you to do is listen. If you start out by thanking them, that may be the end of it. They may not need answers. That could be that all they were looking for was the respect from you to listen.

[01:10:09] But you can just say this to them, too. That was really interesting. Is there anything else you would like to share about that? You know, they talk a little longer. Or, you know, I followed you here. One part I'd like you to expand on or unwrap for me further.

[01:10:23] And you can practice your language around that is this, and they talk a little longer, or you can summarize what you heard to show them you weren't preparing your answer. You were listening to them. So let me understand this. We're talking about this vote, and it was the fact that this happened. And okay, I understand that part, and also I appreciate that perspective that you shared with me because I haven't heard that before.

[01:10:49] So that's a summary rather than a response. So the three phases of active listening are prepare yourself to listen, show them that you are listening, and then think about what you can say to them instead of a response right away unless you have no time at all.

[01:11:09] Unbelievably important skills for the people that are serving the public like you are. Anybody want to reflect on that, ask any questions? I don't want to move too fast. I'll just add to that, Jay, because usually it's a lot that people are saying to take in, so I may sometimes say, do you mind if I just jot down a few notes?

[01:11:32] Because it's so much, and I can't catch the whole conversation, so I'll have to jot down a few things to remind me of something they say in the beginning that I really want to address, which is why I'm known to kind of cut in, because I want to address that piece, and then I miss everything you just said.

[01:11:50] So I find myself having a jot down, but I ask to make sure that people don't think I'm not getting to them. I'm just kind of jotting because I'm trying to keep up so I can respond accordingly to the things that people are saying. So what's beautiful about what you said is besides the fact that you're asking permission so they don't think you're writing your grocery list, you have shown them that they are so important that you need to capture them.

[01:12:17] So that's, these are ways to disarm that negative behavior around conflict, especially if they're trying to have a hard conversation. But I mean, when I was an elected official, sometimes I got emails, I mean, sometimes I was reading emails late into the night. At that time, just a few years ago, we didn't have the ability to write a response and then let it send in the morning.

[01:12:43] So I was sending, like, emails at one hand, but people would just drag on me in these emails, and I would just always start out with, first, foremost, thank you for taking the time to express yourself about this issue. Now, I generally had, if it was a hot topic, I already knew what I was going to say, so it was a little bit of a case of my position as this, and this is the reason why I did this, but your thoughts aren't important to me at all of you, are better than mine.

[01:13:10] But thank you for taking the time, no matter what they were saying, unless they were threatening you, which is a very different time. Anybody else besides Vic want to say anything about active listening? Thank you for your thoughts.

[01:13:35] Okay, I have a huge, quick video for you. We have an organizational video on active listening. He's pretty good, but it's not interesting. And this particular one, when we've shown it, has been very popular, so I'm going to show it now for you.

[01:13:56] I will tell you that I presented at the Virginia Bar Association their section on dispute resolution, and I wanted emails that said, hey, John, Jane, anything again? No. Can I give you a link to this video?

[01:14:13] All right, so here it is. I'm your host, Walker Walter. And I'm your host, Walker Walter. And I'm your host, John Melissa Maras. First, I don't want to quickly screw that, so I'll try to get that cleaned up when I come back.

[01:14:34] All right, recovery strategies. If you had a conflict at home, and you bring that to the dais at night, that's not really fair to your colleagues or to the people appearing at home.

[01:14:50] If you have a conflict at the meetings of the county and you can take that home, that's not really caring for your family. And guess what? Forget about everybody else. It's not caring for your body and your spirit. So we wanted to talk about a few things here that always come up with a survey, groups like yours, about how do you recover.

[01:15:11] And these are all physiological. They're not just tricks. So, fresh air sends oxygen into your bloodstream and relaxes your body, and makes you feel more optimistic. Exercise the same thing, heart rate goes up, more oxygen.

[01:15:30] Music, endorphins, when you listen to music. Really, either inspirational or humorous. I was sharing with Charles a story about a customer back in my private sector days that was very hand-taperous and disrespectful.

[01:15:49] After I got off the phone, I used to have the far side pulse in my office. I just opened it up and I'm pretty soon and I'm feeling good again. So for me it was humorous, for other people it was inspirational. The laughter, again, is part of the pharmacy in your brain.

[01:16:07] And so it was inspirational. Food, if you have low blood sugar, your cliché is angry. Not angry. If you're angry, so look at your blood sugar and then water to hydrate again. physiological, water absolutely can calm you down.

[01:16:26] There are lots of others. What techniques do you use that you'd like to share? Prayer. We don't think that way we're coming to. When you pray, is it your own thoughts on prayer, or is it a set prayer?

[01:16:49] I would just say God is very direct. God, I need your help. I need your help. I need your spirit to come into me. He calmed me down and just helped me with this. That was such a good one. It's very slow. Prairie is great. What else? You already know me.

[01:17:06] I'm the bird. I just go sit on my deck and watch a bird. I know the sound. I know the bird. I know the pattern. It's pretty interesting, pretty cool. I got all that back since COVID, like, when I was lost for a year, trying to figure out how I became a bird.

[01:17:22] And it's really been cool. It sounds like it. So it needs nature and something other than a human being and putting the whole world into perspective. And I'm learning these birds without even singing them. I know what they are. And is it more visual for you or do you like also to hear their...

[01:17:40] I like to hear. So the app is called Merlin. There's a app called Merlin, which is the coolest app ever. It helps you identify the bird voices and the sounds and even the pattern of when they come through this season. So write it down. What else?

[01:17:59] Smiling. Smiling. Yeah. If you make yourself smile even at a mirror, you're going to feel it. Again, it's because it allows you. So that's good. Smiling. Even if you're forcing it at first. Even if you're forcing it. Smiling. So for recovery strategies, there's a lot of recovery that needed to be done this past four years.

[01:18:22] And I feel like, in addition to what Mr. Gordy said, but also time heals in a sense of, you know, for me, it takes a couple of days to get over a board meeting, especially a controversial one where people are not necessarily at their best.

[01:18:46] And I mean us and sometimes the public. So I feel like time is also an important recovery strategy. You know, I like that. It's the first time I think in recent meetings where we're discussing this is what that's come up.

[01:19:03] So these are more immediate recovery strategies. When you need to get over that board meeting when you're heading home, when you need to get over what you're heading home, you'll be effective in the board meeting. But time heals, and that is a longer-term recovery.

[01:19:19] In fact, one of the ways we'll put that into our mind is to be careful where you end the story. You know, it doesn't have to end with that experience. We can go on, and it can be a different story when we have some perspective. So time. First time I've heard that.

[01:19:36] That's great. What else? Anybody else? Yes. Thank you for saying that, Mom, because that is very key, very key. And I think just thinking about what she's saying, we had time after our first term during the holidays, you know, to heal, whatever.

[01:19:56] But the thing that I wanted to say is that you have to, one, to develop a recovery strategy. You have to be intentional about a recovery strategy.

[01:20:12] If the intent is not there, then the healing and the recovery won't. So, like I did, listening has to be intentional. Recovery is best, is most effective when intentional.

[01:20:31] So we can move on unless somebody else wants to share anything. I'm thinking some of that, you know, the timing, the healing. But at the end of it, there's got to be forgiveness. Because if we can't let go of the past, we will just continue that forward.

[01:20:47] And it can still eat away at us like cancer. And so, you know, unforgiveness can turn to bitterness, and that bitterness will eat away at us. And so that time is essential to that, because sometimes it does take time to let the emotions subside.

[01:21:02] but it gets to the intentionality it's like okay what is it what is it that time is supposed to lead me to and if it doesn't lead to back to that forgiveness and relational healing you know it can continue to fester so it certainly and then the other thing you know i know for me personally usually after a very stressful challenging meeting you need recovery but you can't get to sleep oh really you can't shut the brain off over everything that just happened

[01:21:37] and so the next the first couple of days why you do need more of that time is because you need to get to that second night just to be able to get a good night's sleep so that you can physically recover from it um which then does have have implications mentally emotionally and spiritually So, yeah, that time is essential, but getting to that end state, desired end state is so important.

[01:22:02] So the combination of the three of you, some time, some intention, and happiness, the others are theirs. All right, so now we come to teach. Should I move on? Yeah. I think we're okay with not taking a break, or are we comfortable?

[01:22:20] How's everyone doing? Okay, yeah. You need to take a break? Okay, I'm sorry. No, no, it's okay. In the meantime, do we want to try to maybe fix the technical issues we have in our video?

[01:31:20] Are you sure? Because, I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there.

[01:31:37] Stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail isn't causing- You always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen. See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail- See, you're not even listening now. Okay, fine.

[01:31:53] I will listen. Fine. Sometimes it's like there's this achy. I don't know what it is. I'm not sleeping very well at all. All my sweaters are snagged.

[01:32:09] I mean, all of them. Sound really hard. Come on, if you would just...

[01:32:26] I'm your host, I'm your host, I'm your host. And I'm your host, first week of John Rigby, last week of John Rigby, last week of John Rigby, last week of John Rigby, took out this show, took out Frank.

[01:32:57] Navy SEALs are one of the highest performing organizations on the planet, and a former Navy SEAL was asked, who makes it through BUDS, who makes it through the selection process to become a SEAL? He said, I can't tell you who gets through, who makes it, but I can tell you the kind of people who don't make it.

[01:33:19] He said, the star college athletes that never have been really tested to the core of their being, none of them make it through. He said, the preening leaders who like to delegate everything, none of them make it through. He said, the big tough guys that come in with huge muscles covered in tattoos who want to prove to everyone how tough they are, none of them make it through.

[01:33:37] He said, some of the guys that make it through are skinny and scrawny. He said, some of the guys who make it through, you will see them shivering out of fear. He said, but every single one of them who makes it through, when they're emotionally exhausted, when they're physically exhausted, some way, somehow, they're able to dig down deep inside themselves to find the energy to help the person next to them.

[01:34:05] Service. Service. Giving to another, having their back, is what makes the highest performing teams in the world. Not their strength and not their intelligence. It's their willingness to be there for each other. We show you that.

[01:34:29] Just one minute. Why did we show you that? Yes. Could it be, possibly, that we have to be there for each other at different times?

[01:34:45] Well, all the time, but really at different times when things are critical, when there is conflict resolution. We have to look at it a different way. because we have to be there for each other, because we have to be there to serve the people. Yeah, that is one of the reasons why that's up there, is that what he says towards the end, first he comes in to tell you how Navy SEALs become Navy SEALs, right?

[01:35:11] What they're looking for in the recruits for Navy SEALs. Then he talks about the highest performing teams are there for each other. Does that mean you're supposed to agree with each other? Nope. Can you have divided votes every night that you get together and still be there for each other?

[01:35:31] I mean, you're the only people that knows what it's like to be you out there as an electorate. So that's something to talk about. But the other reason why we showed you this is because we want to talk about how teams are formed and then talk about your formation as a team, not necessarily Prince, Queen and County elected officials, but locally elected officials.

[01:35:55] There you see, in the military, you have some thinking behind how these teams are put together, right? Those of you that have military background, very specific in looking for these qualities or will train these qualities in, and then that's what's going to happen.

[01:36:10] And if I am a coach of a football team, I am looking for this and these positions, and I put my team together, I recruit, I train them well, I train them, and that's my team, right? Lots of teams have a mastermind behind putting together the composition of the team.

[01:36:30] And they work pretty well as a result, unless the person deciding that's not good at putting together. If I'm a CEO or the head of a department, I put together a team that can execute where I want them. That's another mastermind. But who put together your team?

[01:36:47] Voters. Did they all get together and say, "We need somebody with some military background, public safety, somebody who knows about water, somebody who wants to make sure they all communicate well?" Did they get together and think that way in their selection process?

[01:37:05] Can I ask, when you say who put together your team, do you mean me or us? You being there. Yes, they being there. So we're speaking for the board, like not your team team, but the board. well i think that's just a roll over the dice like we end here and we have to develop that as we got here each of us came in you know how i ended up on this board was mr jenkins passed away and there was a special election and people asked me to do this and i was a firefighter and i was minding my business and then i came in but i came in thinking differently like leadership and i want

[01:37:43] to be a part of this team but i realized you know what i know about team and coming from the military doesn't necessarily actually doesn't apply in politics and what I mean by that is we all got here a different way and then when we got here we have to learn each other that's why I think things like this is so important because they have been clever in Virginia that we can't get together as a group outside of a board meeting thus it creates so we could never have an opportunity for all of us to be together to have that time but I can have a moment where Yes, a moment with, you know, Andrea, a moment with, you know, Margaret, Angela, Andrea.

[01:38:22] Yes, I can have a moment with individual them, but never us collectively. That's been a challenge for me. So not only was there not a mastermind, thinking about the great qualities to put together so that it would be easier for you to gel as a team, we have in place in Virginia, because of abuses of the past, a requirement that only two or fewer of you ever get together probably.

[01:38:49] And that makes it even harder to judge, right? That's one reason why you decided you wanted to spend extra hours not on the fire hose stuff that comes at you at the beginning is a little opportunity to think that through.

[01:39:04] But keep that in mind. You heard the word intentional earlier for active listening and recovery. You have to intentionally work harder, be a team that serves the people more than any other tiny team.

[01:39:21] And that's why design, that's democracy, but it means that you have to think about ways to do that. And that's the point of this right here, because we're going to get into another subject right now that will help you sort that out. Do you want me to kick off the next session?

[01:39:39] So, let's see a short clip from an international side of the government's work. We did these individual interviews and the two things we wanted to know other than anything you wanted to talk about was what kind of format would work best for you today or tomorrow and also what did you hope to achieve at this meeting here at the Center of Work Session?

[01:40:13] Tomorrow afternoon when you leave, I spent two days of our lives with UVA. Was it worth it? Oh yeah, because I got this out of it. We had to have that answer in advance for Taylor, your extended birth session. And so what we heard in the other comments and also in the objectives was, we need to have some agreement about how we behave towards each other.

[01:40:36] Or we would hear something like, oh, so-and-so got elected and I've never heard from them, and then somebody got elected from them means that you had 100 rules that you were operating with that weren't jarring and weren't matching them so we're going to look at those before we go to lunch first let's look at the characteristics of a successful local official what are the characteristics of an effective locally elected official attending meetings sitting on committees and making decisions on the community's behalf are just some of an elected official's responsibilities

[01:41:16] Effective elected officials are those who have a wide range of knowledge, life experiences, and skills to bring to the council or board table. They have an understanding of their community's issues, so they are informed and open to differing perspectives. They understand the goal of an elected official and the procedures and legislative rules that apply to local governments.

[01:41:37] They're pretty and are honest and demonstrate strong ethical principles. And they understand that a healthy democratic global government needs committed, ethical, and informed elected officials. Being a politician, you have to represent everyone, from a student to an older person, rich and poor, and businesses, small and large.

[01:42:00] But you have to be open to listening and having that dialogue. I think I've become more patient over time, and that helps when you're working around a council table with people working through tough issues and trying to understand where each other are coming from. Developing those active listening skills are really important.

[01:42:18] Often seen as very intimidating at the very beginning to take on roles in leadership. But if you've been elected or even if you haven't been elected and you're appointed to a position in a committee, your job is to help create a foundation and the environment for a good decision. People who are the most effective in elected office are those who are accountable to the council or board and to the community.

[01:42:41] are also accountable for their own conduct and addressing community and council and board issues by finding collective solutions and making informed decisions being prepared for meetings asking questions and participating respectfully in discussions there's a lot of talk about when you run for elected office that you need to have a thick skin you can hear a lot of criticisms and things that are tossed your way but instead what i found is you really need a permeable skin so you You let the right information in and you keep the unnecessary information out.

[01:43:17] So I come to this from communications and it's the part of the role that I enjoy the most. And certainly there are some skills that I've learned over time about how to bring people into the conversation, but also how to handle people when they come at you with really strong emotions and really strong opinions.

[01:43:33] How to metabolize that without taking it on necessarily. And in fact, I would say to be curious about what people think and why they might think differently than you take a moment to assess how you demonstrate these characteristics are they traits that come naturally to you or will you need to work to build and maintain what are your strengths and how they help shape the way your local government is forward since this rules and

[01:44:09] warms behavior uh i'm going to just do a very brief uh summary of some things to sort of get your minds working on this topic obviously uh i think it's your place we'll pull them out here a a little bit we've got copies for you of the previous rules of procedure i think it was last amended in 2021 if i'm not mistaken and we can sort of help guide you all through the conversation so uh talked a little bit about this uh earlier with code virginia and the county charter and those things what we want to focus on now or what we see around the commonwealth with board rules of procedure which you all have something there from previous boards

[01:44:50] some places follow the code of ethics it's some of those it's sort of transition more to the code of conduct and now we're starting to see local government like the bodies look at the civility as part of their how they work together as they've had issues to navigate and then as james there's a lot of unwritten norms that we all bring uh to the table that's how we do business but how do we have those conversations together so we can better understand why a person's thinking that way or why they're doing those things right going back to the fact that this is a team

[01:45:20] assembled in an unusual way. We've all been through a few things. This last few years, the pandemic still affects how we do business in local government, right? That's something we're still learning from, we're still recovering from, not just through all the financial things that came with that department care, but just the dynamics of how local government has changed and how we serve communities now, how elected bodies have to serve communities, virtually and otherwise, and all the things that people have done and navigated, and then that crisis and still provide services, provide access to democracy.

[01:46:01] You've got a fairly new county executive. There's a change there. Obviously, you can have someone come in at the top of the day-to-day organization. That's a big change for a community and organization. As I mentioned earlier, we've got a lot of change in the leadership team. People are new to the county or new to that role.

[01:46:21] They've worked their way up to a role. We've got some people who are in interim roles as well on our leadership team, as we found out, as we interviewed each of the quadrants. We've been talking to folks, whether it be law enforcement, human services, all the folks that work to carry out the ball's vision and the policies of the board.

[01:46:37] And then we've got elections and new members of the county board. And we've got people who are from previous boards, so those dynamics play to us as well. And we're seeing that on a statewide basis and nationally, quite frankly, a huge amount of turnover in elected officials. For a long time, in Virginia in particular, you've seen people stay on board of Supervisory City Councils for a very long period of time.

[01:46:56] That's changing. People are serving less, one term, two terms, rather than that person who's been on the board of a council for 30 years. We're also seeing a lot of different types of people run for public office now. We've transitioned from the Chamber of Commerce type folks back in the day to the former president of the Homeowners Association decides to run for a council or a board.

[01:47:17] Now we're seeing people from all spectrums of the community, which is great. But those are different dynamics and different shared experiences that people are bringing to the local government-like officials, or local government-like bodies around Toronto. So, another change that we didn't have on our slide is your county's change.

[01:47:42] With all this change is going on, do you know that change creates stress? And even good change, bringing in a new executive is a good change, but it's still stressful. If you remember Likula Ross and that whole cycle of recovery after loss, well, they've done a lot of studying about organizations and how that works with organizations when you're going through change.

[01:48:08] You go to the next slide. So this is the psychology of organizational change. Oh my gosh, Chris Marino is leaving. Is this really happening? Was there stability there? Oh my gosh, somebody lost their election or their primary.

[01:48:24] Oh my gosh, this used to be a place where I waved at cows. And now we've got stores everywhere and lots and lots of clothes. And what happens when you're going through this stage of change, when you're accepting whether it's good or bad, is you have a lot of undirected energy.

[01:48:44] That turns into conflict. And this is the most dangerous place right here because it can be bad behavior. But in most organizations, you pull that together and then you say, well, you know, we can do a search and find a new county executive.

[01:49:01] Well, there's good news and bad news about growth in the county. Let's capitalize on this growth. Well, and then there's relief. Okay, they're going to see the clouds. And then you can direct for energy. And this is where it starts to get really good for elected bodies is, again, you don't have to agree on your release energy as you're going to do that through your voting.

[01:49:24] But all of a sudden, you have a path forward. You begin to trust each other more because even though those might be split votes, you say, well, you have the best intentions of your people. And I was on the winning side this time, but I could just say, well, I'll be on the losing side next time.

[01:49:40] And then the job gets more fun. And that's where we want, as public service to serve you, we want to get you through that cycle, if you're anywhere in there, up until where you're enjoying the job. You work so hard, even with people and people, which is a beautiful thing.

[01:50:00] We also want you, as human beings, to enjoy what you're doing. We want to show what happens when there are norm violations. And we used to, Charles and I were laughing at this yesterday when we were going through the run of the show, We used to use clips from Virginia.

[01:50:21] Obviously, we would never show anything from Virginia. But, like, for instance, let's say today we showed you a clip in Charlottesville. Well, somebody would come to us at the state. My mother lives in Charlottesville.

[01:50:38] I really don't think you should ever show that yet. So we've cited. There's plenty of examples outside of the commonwealth. Let's find one of those. Good job. Good job. So here we go. Here's what happens when you don't have an understanding of what your norms are in agreement.

[01:50:57] I want to get back to the civility thing. You can kind of go off what Tim said. It's kind of interesting, one of these code of conducts that I found. And it talks about, at times, the impacts of the entire community must be weighed against the impact of only a few.

[01:51:14] Despite these pressures, elected officials are called upon to exhibit appropriate behavior at all times, Demonstrating respect for each individual through words and actions is the touchstone that can help guide council members to do the right thing, even in the most difficult situation. So I find it a little bit ironic, Mr. Kelly, talking about people coming up from other cities when I recall a woman coming up from Houston after everyone was talking about how great National Night Out was.

[01:51:42] And I made a comment saying, thank you for coming to our city, but we'll take it from here. And he went straight home on social media and disparaged me about that statement. How did I disparage you? People on our own council saying GTFO, which is not what I said.

[01:52:01] Is that, I'm sorry, are you putting words into, are you typing words into a post that I made? No, I'm not. Okay, so the post is still there, Council Member Duffy. And I would suggest you go back and read it before you change it to say it's something that it did not say.

[01:52:18] Fine, but the point is the respect piece, the civility piece. What about the civility piece when you sit up here and you say exactly, you actually twist what I said when it's in writing right there and it wasn't a slam on you. So where's the civility there? Where's the civility when you attack a citizen who's up?

[01:52:38] You did. And the mayor wouldn't even stop it. We have slandered me in coverage. Hey, we're up here, we're up here, we take it, right? No, we're up here, we take it, right? A 10-minute recess, it's all 10 o'clock. It's a devil's city.

[01:53:00] It's like a job.

[01:53:12] You didn't use us, but you used us anyway, okay? First is, she's objecting to something that her colleague put on his social media, a big social media.

[01:53:36] But she is bringing this to a full board meeting to bring it up. Yes. Right? Okay, so we'll talk later about if there are, you know, breaches, what's the best way to handle it? Maybe not. Think about the guy that's up to a full board session.

[01:53:59] We are in. Completely over the top. Tony Boyce in plenty of language. So, I mean, there's just a lot to break down with, isn't there?

[01:54:17] All right. If I'm there, is this an appropriate time? Yes. Are we? Yeah, please. Plain devil's advocate. Oh, shit. You know, there is, or there could be a belief that if you put something out publicly, why not discuss it publicly?

[01:54:32] No, there's not a right or wrong about it, this is. Just if you're, it depends on what your goal is. So if he put something outrageous currently on his social media about her.

[01:54:48] So if her goal was to. In her view. That's a good point. So he put something that she considers outrageous on her social media, right? If her goal is to ask him not to do that anymore, to seek clarification, to get along better with him in the future, has she found the best form?

[01:55:13] No, no, no. Right? But your point is, well, he said it for new social media, so why shouldn't I talk about it in public? Especially if she believes that there is some form of misinformation that is being spread or insinuated via what he put on social media.

[01:55:31] I happen to think, and there's a way to do it, of course, I happen to think that it's important to publicly clarify or clear up things that have been put out there in the public. Now, how would I have handled it?

[01:55:47] This person would have known beforehand that perhaps I was going to make some comments about it, but certainly I would make some comments about it. So that's really good. So what you're saying, Margaret, is my objective would not be to – we're not talking about Bob, right? My objective is not to find a way, a better path with this particular color.

[01:56:13] My objective is to set the record straight, and I have the mic in the public hearing, which will be a forever record, and I'm going to set it straight there. So that, it's still your objective, excuse me, I think they will follow.

[01:56:30] You have to decide your objective. In this case, we're talking about board relations. So this example was to talk about how that board is having, that council is having some. The question is, is it irreparable at that point, Tom?

[01:56:47] And the answer is probably yes. It may be. I'll share a personal experience. I had, when I was chair, there was a member of our board that often was voting with the minority vote. He was really supreme. I wanted to make sure that he always had voice.

[01:57:06] I found an excellent relationship as a result of my bending over backwards to make sure that he was always heard, acknowledged, and respected. And one day he went on the Rock Showman Show, which is an afternoon show in the Charlottesville region that all the politicians listen to because he really does like to talk about local government in particular. So he takes after the General Assembly as well.

[01:57:35] Long story short, this supervisor said some terrible things about it, and I didn't hear at that time, but people immediately started going to me and listening to it. I'm like, oh my gosh. So I called his wife, and I said, hey, Ken, have breakfast with me for your next board meeting.

[01:58:11] And we hashed it out, and I completely understood it afterwards. Afterwards, he said, Jane, I'll watch what I say about you, but I am going to have to take you on. He said, it's nothing personal. I really like you as a person. But you represent a majority thinking that I have to disagree with and I have to show people that I'm holding my own.

[01:58:32] And I was like, okay. Now we understand each other. He understood my sensitivities. I understand where I'm coming from. It's not personal. It went a long way for me not feeling vulnerable to his criticism. So I share that personal story with you to show you that there are ways in which we can completely disagree with each other, but also have a good working relationship.

[01:58:57] So, we heard a lot about the norms in these interviews, so we're going to work on some norms. Those are the unwritten norms. And then do you want to do more rules after that? Let's just go ahead and do the norms conversation and you guys.

[01:59:17] Okay. All right. What are T norms? Anyone want to guess? I can also ask someone to tell us. What are norms? What are norms? Not norms, not guns of conduct. What are norms? I don't know what's normal here.

[01:59:37] What are norms? Norms of behavior. What are they? Yeah. Could be voting, how we vote. - How you vote?

[01:59:53] So by that, it's not covered in your word rules how you vote? - It is. - Okay, all right. So this would be strictly something not written, yeah. - Oh, okay. - I respect. - Somebody said no surprises.

[02:00:10] That would be annoying. Try not to surprise each other, right? This is just a quick to center us on the medium and more. form of implicit rules for team members. Breaking those norms often incurs displeasure from team members or even social sanctions. Given that nobody likes rules, what then is the value of

[02:00:47] having norms within your team? Well, firstly, there's efficiency. If team members know how to react to certain situations, how to work with their colleagues, how to collaborate, how to get on, what sort of things to say and when to say them, then they can focus more on the work they need to do and the creativity and problem solving of the task at hand. If the group hasn't yet formed into a team, then there are no norms of behaviour and therefore every time we need to interact, we potentially have to think through the best way to do it.

[02:01:26] And that can be distracting, it can sap our energy, and it can remove focus from the task at hand. So that's so central, a little bit on norms. Here's an example from another jurisdiction. I was in a retreat with a jurisdiction, and one of the elected took out a lot to another elected by saying, you always come to meetings up.

[02:01:52] And they are complaining that they don't have the information to make a vote. Well, I want you to know that I do everything I'm supposed to do. I read my planning commission meeting with minutes. I read my packets. I talk to staff.

[02:02:09] I talk to constituents. I do everything I'm supposed to do. So what we said to her was that you're a very diligent, responsible elected official. but where is it written down for everybody to know that that's what you're supposed to do?

[02:02:28] Well, her impression was you're supposed to do that. His impression was I'm pretty busy, I run a business and everything else, and he's showing up to both what I am committed to do. That's what I'm supposed to do. So we had a difference of opinion there on what the norm is.

[02:02:44] So when we're talking about what's the minimum of preparation that you would expect from your fellow colleagues? That's not how we're going to get written down, but there was a healthy discussion so that they could decide what's the minimum we expect to reach us so that we can do the people's business.

[02:03:00] So that's a norm. So these are the questions we ask. How do we develop and find consensus on our norms? If they're not written down, if you're not debating them at the beginning of your organizing meetings, how does this go? And how do we agree?

[02:03:20] How do we involve them? Maybe a norm 20 years ago shouldn't exist today. How do we communicate our norms to new members? Your new members are onboarded. They get all kinds of briefings, right?

[02:03:36] Michelle, FOIA, FOIA, these are our departments. This is what each function does. Here are your department heads. But does anyone sit them down and say, look, this is kind of the way we do it. And to Greg's point, you know, only one other person could do that with that new member, right?

[02:03:56] And are they the best person to communicate? What do we do if a norm is violated and violated nationally? My first board meeting, I was elected in a special election. My first board meeting, there was a land use issue in a different district.

[02:04:17] And it was time to vote, and I voted against it. And everyone looked at me, like, what are we doing? knew I had done something, I just didn't know what. So on the break, I was like, why did everybody look at me when I took my vote and thinking, I have a right to vote, yeah, I want to. And I do, right? Well, as it turned out, I'm warned that everybody forgot to tell me was, one, the order for a vote in someone's district was with that district supervisor going first. I didn't know that, but I kind of noticed it was changed up, I didn't know

[02:04:52] And then you always tell them beforehand if you aren't going to vote for it because it's their district. Nobody told me this stuff. So you can see that somebody should have before I embarrassed everybody and myself and got everyone riled up.

[02:05:09] Alright, and what should we do if a member needs to violate them? Sometimes you have to. That rule that you're supposed to try to vote with a person in the district unless you call in advance, The call in advance is to say, I have to violate this norm.

[02:05:28] I can't support it. It goes against my no-growth philosophy. So I can't approve that one because then people in my district are going to say, I can't go through it here. So there are reasons to violate norms, but what do we do when we have to violate it?

[02:05:48] We're going to do an exercise. And it's just in time for them to do it and then have some lunch. All right, here's the exercise. These, and you're going to get this list, I think. Yes. These came out in the individual interviews.

[02:06:09] Wait a minute. Once the board votes, don't we have to speak with one voice? I mean, isn't it our responsibility once the action is taken to speak with one voice? What does that mean? Surprises and notches. Like, don't surprise me.

[02:06:25] That was a surprise. that upset me, or that felt like a gotcha. General decorum. What do we expect of each other in terms of general? Criticizing a fellow member to others, to the press, in the case of our video on social media, that person always votes for their district and never keeps in mind the entire county.

[02:06:51] Where that person doesn't represent their county well, because, I mean, our district voters, they're always looking for that next office and voting larger. And then today you can come up with others. So what we're going to do is we again have Chair Jefferson on.

[02:07:10] So why don't we do three groups again? All right. Let's see. Let's go over to Tom. Hold two for me. So Margaret and Kenny are going to work together.

[02:07:28] Oh, my God. No, we can't do that. Yeah, I think we can't do that. We have a good point.

[02:07:45] I'm sorry. Well, I know. That's us. Tom and Andrea. No, wait. We need to break this up a little bit. But I thought I would.

[02:08:02] No. Oh, that's why, oh. I don't think it would be serious. We called in the game yesterday. You pulled the flag. We should stay. But that's okay. for you and Tom.

[02:08:19] Thank you. We're too groupy. Oh, okay.

[02:08:39] Reflect on these. You may not agree with them, you may want to express them a certain way, and then think about all the other things you'd like to talk about when you're using the norms. And if someone wants to go off and do their own sheet, please just see.

[02:08:58] Do you want to tell them? Yes, we kept taking the order last time. I want to tell them. All right, so I found these, and then add as many other things that you'd like to talk about.

[02:09:17] You can say, "I don't like these accounts." Or you can say, "No, these are just extra."

[02:09:34] Because we are going to do an after action report. We will write them in terms of what we heard. of what we have heard, so do we know that? - Okay, okay, okay, you started two weeks ago, let's do it.

[02:09:54] - Okay, can we get direction one more time? - Two weeks? - Yeah, but for the whole group, so what exactly are we doing? - So reflect on the ones that we already heard from you about, and then, anything else that comes up? No, like to discuss as far as what it was.

[02:10:13] That's what we're doing, there's a killing. Oh, gotcha. Okay, okay, alright. So I guess the first one, one of those, is the majority vote. That's why I'm telling you to the press. My disagree. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Or that's what we call it actually.

[02:10:29] That's where somebody is. Or at least we're reading this right now. Or someone's representing. Oh, okay. What do you mean by disagreeing? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, because you can't norm her, but you're not in a voice. We should learn inside.

[02:11:16] Do you want to add to the list? No, I think we're just to build over each one. It's in what we agree and dispute, and we can say that the norm has that, and we agree that the norm should be. This is what happens when you get a telephone. Well, in the other part, if you guys do think there are other ones that shouldn't be operating at this, yeah.

[02:11:36] Yeah. As you said, you know, it's okay to have disagreements and revocations and stuff. Right. So we're going to go for your disagreement.

[02:12:00] Right. Disagreeable. Yeah. I agree. I agree. So it's surprising. And then, what else is a surprise for any gotcha?

[02:12:15] So I think those are two different things. The surprise is a surprise. We didn't talk about something like that. I think gotchas are... Intentionally. Intentionally. I always say, is this the thing that we should be talking about?

[02:12:32] I don't think it should be a good friend. That's shit. Okay. That's fair to me. How is the gotcha? There. I think it's interesting to me as much as you can talk to me, especially when I always think about that, you should sometimes do it okay.

[02:12:54] It's not always about her, like one day and then I don't know if you decide it doesn't mean that. You don't always know exactly how someone's going to move down or how someone's going to happen. Yeah, 100% of the time, that's where I'm going to be on this.

[02:13:11] It's the media that you ask me, oh, yeah. What you perceive is not, like, I'll talk that. I think it's your job for me. I don't think it's me.

[02:13:27] I don't think it's me, I don't think it's me. I got it out of the way this day. Yeah, where we are. Where are you? We don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, we don't know. What does that take place for society? Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[02:13:43] Do you understand the process? Right. Yeah, that's why it's related to practice. We can be racist. We're not going to be racist.

[02:14:06] So, first of all, it's been a few industry. Is that familiar? Yes.

[02:14:23] I think we passed that. our products.

[02:14:59] I'm not everybody. I'm talking deep fashion. Yeah, dirty. So I remember both TV and Carl and I think it's a mess. And I think it's a ball sign. Like you said, it's a bias thing. I feel it's absurd. I think it's a weirdo.

[02:15:16] I'm doing the best for that. I want to let you know what you're doing. I agree with that. I don't know. I really go for all three. I agree with that.

[02:15:37] If you don't speak to me, I would also say that, I would also say that, I would say that, yeah. But I would say that, I would say that, I would make a reaction to that person's intentions are going to be here.

[02:15:58] Sure. I don't think we need practice. I don't think we're running because we're talking about some of the viewers, not because of the party. I don't know. It's a burden of the family time.

[02:16:12] We're talking about some of the people that we're talking about.

[02:16:56] - What is expected? - Is it disrespected? - Basically, the next year.

[02:17:28] Okay, so your district would definitely be your priority. I'm going to get more work. I don't like this. Just a priority now.

[02:17:38] I don't like this.

[02:18:28] So, yeah. I don't like this. I don't like this. I feel like this. I don't like this. I don't like this. Yes, it does. I feel like there's always a confusion. I feel like with me, I had so many problems. I feel like I'm a realist of buyers and sellers. They do not take your shoes. Why not?

[02:18:55] But you see what I'm saying is that how better you start an office, and I'm so excited to be a little bit more. I do stop talking about things. Also, there were things I couldn't think of, but I didn't.

[02:19:12] I just perceived something with the world of college. I think we're always asking a certain time to sort of talk about them. There's some of them that, for example, they gave us a trigger, like Donna Facilite or something else.

[02:19:32] That's going to be some of the best place to have the same or a whole lot of the answers for some of the surprise lines.

[02:19:45] You know, his belief is that there should be no surprises or gotchas.

[02:45:27] Everyone should be on the same page or at the very least transparent about where people are. In terms of general decorum, he talked about full civility, hard stop, making sure that everyone is respectful of one another, criticizing a fellow member.

[02:45:48] So from the days to others and to the press, he was saying that you should attack the action and not the actor, and that can go for all three of those. And then for my district versus our county, he was saying that there should always be a need to have interplay between the two.

[02:46:14] And so, Margaret, when we were talking about the importance of once the vote is taken, that we can disagree on the policy issues and what have you. Once the vote is taken, once the action is done, the board needs to move on.

[02:46:29] Not rehash things, not sort of go back and re-legate what's already happened. And in terms of surprising gotchas, that folks to the best of their ability should be as transparent as possible. We're seeing that sometimes things can change during a board meeting that we don't always know in the moment because circumstances or more information could come in.

[02:46:50] We may not always be able to say ahead of time, you know, uniformly, 100% of the time, this is where I am, but being as transparent as possible that we can. She also said in terms of being general deformed possibility that, you know, regardless of what is said to us from the public, no matter what the press is saying about us, no matter what other people are saying about our body, that we should have the ability to be similar with each other, with the public, and with everyone that we interact with on county staff.

[02:47:20] In terms of criticizing fellow board members to press to others and to each other, that, again, like we talked about, you can talk about the policy and not the person. You can talk about the fact that how you believe that this policy or this vote may have harmful effects, but not that the person is going out of their way to be harmful to a community, that the person isn't despicable or repugnant or whatever the fact that it is.

[02:47:47] It's the policy that you have concerns with and not the person personally. And at the end, we talked about my district versus the county. She talked about the fact that she felt in her first term that she really needed to prioritize the Woodbridge district a lot more because she felt like there were sentiments among her constituents that in the past that her district was really sort of left out of getting projects prioritized for it and that she really needed to rebuild that sort of relationship with her constituents, knowing that their supervisor had their back and that she was prioritizing Woodbridge.

[02:48:19] And now that we're in the second term that she has, wins are under her belt for her district, that she can sort of broaden her view out. Not to say that she was completely ignoring it, but she has more opportunities now to broaden her view out and that she's gotten some wins for her district too. I said, Margaret, back to him earlier, I mean, Margaret, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like there was a very strong commitment on your part to be representative during your first term because you wanted to build trust with your constituency that that's what you were going to do, not on board.

[02:48:53] As you became more comfortable with that, they became more comfortable with you, moved into a statesman, more statesman, from time to time, because the trust was there. All right. So that's a good rundown.

[02:49:08] Did you all have any other? Did you raise her on the other? Yes. So those are the things, whether they end up in a code of conduct or later, that you would say you would like to see as your operating norms that everyone is in consensus.

[02:49:26] We'll get back to that. Next group would be John and Andrea. Yeah, we kind of collaborated on our response.

[02:49:46] So I'll do the first three. So on the one voice, we said, you know, Clearly, it's situational depending on the issue and the context in relation to whether or not you can demonstrate your disagreement.

[02:50:08] I guess if you're more in the representative mode and something pertaining to your district, clearly if you disagree with it, you need the opportunity to be able to share that with your constituents. But as we're forward-facing out to businesses and the state issues or regional issues, we're both on the VRTC that we speak on behalf of our county.

[02:50:42] Completely, in terms of surprises and gotcha, both of us completely agree with that. you know to just treat each other with respect be very intentional um and uh avoid the surprises uh and then in general quorum we did we believe it's just essential um for good governance and for um and it also helps set an example you know for others to follow so because there are the boards

[02:51:14] and commissions within our county and if we as a board are not providing general record then that that will tend to flow down with him. Okay, and so I'll just tag on the tail end of that.

[02:51:31] We said that a standard of having general decorum that needs to be a staple because, as Tom said, it does build trust. And then the criticizing a fellow member, the thing with that, you know, it seems like all our professional lives we've said to use constructive criticism.

[02:51:54] Well, what does that mean? because everybody has blind spots, and so, but we need to be able to accept criticism and accept input without being angry about it, or happy, be happy about it.

[02:52:11] And then, a lot of times, not using criticism as intentional harm to embarrass someone or to make someone feel like they're not up on what the issues are.

[02:52:28] and then my district versus our county there needs to be a balance with that and the balance is in the collaboration and Tom and I talked about and I used my district as an example I didn't have a lot going on in my district when we first started and so I was very territory I really was because I was trying to get my arms wrapped around what was going on what the people needed, and so there was a balance to that. And even, and not to keep people out of the district, but there needs to, when we're doing that, there needs to be a visionary purpose

[02:53:05] as to why, and then just communicate. I remember Kenny, I was at church in his district a couple weeks ago, and I just texted and said, hey, I'm at one of your major churches, you know, just the communication, you know, with the respect that we are here to serve, not just the individual districts but also the entire county as well.

[02:53:24] And so there's a broader vision in that. And then lastly, we talked about having regard for why we're at the table. Why did the people choose us to serve? And so that was important and the appropriateness of that as we're serving as an entire team.

[02:53:46] One thing that I heard there, which I'd like to just expand on a little bit, is the word "set an example." You set an example. The way in which you behave sets an example to those that come to your public needs.

[02:54:05] You bring your temperature into the room, and you also are the antidote to people thinking that government doesn't function well. Government functions well when there's a debate, government functions very well when there's a way in which you reconcile those differences of the things that you wrote.

[02:54:28] Government loses credibility and trust among the people when they think it's a great deal. So sending an example is really powerful. So thank you for adding that to the session. And our last panel. So we also did the same thing. We just completed the one sheet and we collaborated.

[02:54:46] So I'll kind of summarize and then you guys can jump in. add um we all didn't agree with the one voice disagreement with the majority vote especially because we've kind of are trying to get away from the last four years where the majority voted a certain way and um in particular the chair wanted everybody to fall in line and be like well the majority spoke so that's the voice of the board and if i'm in the minority i don't agree with that right because that's not my position but you kind of did a really not kind of you did a good job at saying you know you don't have to agree but you can still go back to your

[02:55:21] constituency and let them know why it was that you didn't agree and so um i i think that to tom's point it depends on the situation sometimes um we will sometimes we won't um the surprises and gotchas we typically um i guess tend to see this during supervisor's time other than that i don't see really where we have surprises and gotchas because we know what's going to be on the agenda what we're going to be voting on.

[02:55:45] And so, you know, it does happen. It has happened. But it's typically during supervisor's time. I do think that all of us have gotten better in that regard because we kind of tend to give each other a heads up if we're going to bring something because we're also asking for support, especially if it's coming in the form of a directive.

[02:56:01] The general decorum, it really does start with us. But I don't want to lose focus on why we're in the position that we're in. We're public servants because people elected us to be public servants. And so I think that the temperature drastically gets turned up when people feel that we, as their public servants, are not listening.

[02:56:20] And so then they come into board chambers and they come at us in a way and then that way puts us in a way. And then it's kind of like they're giving it to us and we're giving it to them. So I do think that, you know, being aware of our body language, being aware of our tone is important.

[02:56:37] that yeah general decorum doesn't just you know fall on us as individuals but us collectively especially when things are getting out of hand I do think that there is a responsibility not just for the chair but we've all been I think at the receiving end of very heated what's the word I'm looking for a task and at some point I think it's okay for somebody to maybe say hey Kenny let's kind of like try to bring it in let's try to remind people you know that we're here to try do the people's business but that there's a better way of handling things um especially when one of

[02:57:12] us is in particular um you know just getting verbally beaten and i know that many will say well you signed up for it uh yeah but to an extent right civility decorum and all of that i think that if we kind of look out for each other and at the same time we show the public that we're looking out for them it's going to make things better and our meetings run more smoothly um criticizing a a fellow member. I guess it comes down to interpretation. Some might say criticizing.

[02:57:42] I might say it's accountability. If you're proud of your vote, then you shouldn't be worried about another fellow board member saying, hey, can you vote it this way or whatever? But I do think that there has to be a clear distinction between a personal attack versus talking about an actual vote that took place. And then if you want to go ahead and give your position on the issue, I think it can all be said from the dais to others, to the press.

[02:58:06] Supervisor Weir said, if you initiate, don't complain about the consequences or getting your feelings hurt. I'm going to let him elaborate on that. So I think he meant like if you did. You pissed the fight, you bring a look down. There you go, yes.

[02:58:21] Because you brought up that video, right? And so, but to your point, when Margaret brought it up, what is the objective? If you want to bring it up publicly, what is your objective, right? So if you're trying to fix things or clarify things, is that going to be the objective or is it going to create another situation where I brought it up and now Victor feels attacked and he's going to give it right back to me because he's not going to let that be out there in the public without him addressing it.

[02:58:45] So we're going to have this back and forth type thing. So they can elaborate on that. My district versus our county, you know, we had, especially for us, supervisors on the west end, the last four years was brutal because a lot of the more controversial land use cases were in the west, western part of the district.

[02:59:01] the county um and we were not hurt i'm glad you know that margaret you know used that time you know to prioritize her district and whatnot but many of us on the west end did not feel that way because either our you know opinions didn't matter our voices weren't heard or when the vote became came to the board you would even hear some supervisors trying to you know recommend another plan that you as a sitting district supervisor had never even heard of and then you know again it passing without any regard for your constituents or for your vision for the district.

[02:59:32] And so I do believe that in this term I've already seen so much more collaboration than I have in the past four years, which is really great. And so I hope that we continue to go down that road where we're showing respect and deference to the corresponding supervisor because we were talking about it, the three of us, and I was saying, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I know the Neabsco district or like i know you know the gainesville district because i'm not holding town halls there i'm not dealing with the constituency as you know both my colleagues are and so i think that you know there should be a level of respect given to that district supervisor other things that were

[03:00:10] brought up not using the authority of the chair to interrupt or take over other members who are speaking when they're on the floor and this i guess falls under the decorum and then um something about, Bob, if you want to elaborate, having staff refer other problems in your district to other district supervisors. So I'll let you take that.

[03:00:30] Yeah, don't have your staff refer their problems to me. Are we talking about board staff right here? Board staff. Yes. Thank you. Victor? Just two, I'll take two out of this whole thing. All of these points are great, but two that I really hold true to is the criticizing the fellow member, which I'll roll into the general decorum.

[03:00:58] And, you know, I'm a man who uses quotes. I've always said, praise the public, punish the private. So if I have a disagreement with anybody on the board, and we've had many conversations offline, I, I'm just going to speak for myself, will never bring that before the board. Because I think the appearance, as I've said in many of the last two term opening statements, is that this board sets the decorum and the attitude of what citizens in the chamber will feel.

[03:01:26] And we can fire them up, or we can calm them down, and we can make them laugh, or we can even make them cry sometimes, or some of the, you know, sad stories. But I think that's the piece of decorum and professionalism on the board that I really just harp on.

[03:01:42] Because I get everything that, you know, Yessi just said. Truly, we have a lot of personalities, I'll call us. And so when we have all these personalities, we have to discuss it. I can give you a real example, but I won't. It's kind of long, but I'll just simply say that.

[03:01:58] Yes, he called me one day about something that I didn't even realize I had said during an interview, but then we worked it out, and guess what? That has never happened again because I have to be conscious about the things that I'm saying. Even if the group wants me to say it and rile it up, you've got to be careful because these are the relationships that if I'm saying I want to build them with you, then I got to be true about it.

[03:02:18] But that's how we clean it up. So that's a big one for me. The other one that's really big for me is my district versus our county. Like, and we were talking about this. I represent Neasville District, but it's y'all's district too. I don't care if you vote for Neasville District for whatever reason you're there for.

[03:02:36] You don't have to tell me nothing because it's your district too. And then my district reminds me of seven counties and not one. And I think when we talk about Prince William County, it's the county we should be focusing on. And I get it. You were elected into your district because people have their interests and they want to see certain things or they don't want to see certain things.

[03:02:56] But the big picture is truly Prince William County. I don't know how to get there. If right now we agree that if the district supervisor makes a motion for whatever they want and we're going to follow that motion, I'll follow it because I'm a rule follower. I don't think that's right if we're not looking at the best interest of the county and we're only represented from a stance of what the people of that area want.

[03:03:15] And I would even get smaller than a district. You've got communities that simply want what they want in their community. That can't happen that way. You know, if we've got a park that the county could be a county park, and they'll say, no, because we don't want the county crew there. I think that happened in Doves Park.

[03:03:30] But I heard those citizens because they were concerned about everyday people. That's a bad road down there, the kids walk on the bad road. So there's a lot of work we've got to do to make that right before it's ready for the county to protect those communities that live back there. But we can do them both and not simply just say no.

[03:03:48] And I think that's the conversation I want to have with the board on how do we do that. Even if there's certain things that we know we have to do in the district that hasn't happened at the county level, but then everything else, you know, you can kind of control it. I think there's a real conversation we've got to have there. Because whatever we agree to here is what I'm going to follow.

[03:04:04] So if we're not going to override a district supervisor, then I think that's just going to put Prince William County, as I call her or him, the county, that's going to put the county in a bad position. Got anything else from that group?

[03:04:20] Oh, Bob, you're good. I'll just add this. It all comes down to one thing, and that's personal responsibility. Own your actions. More importantly, own the consequences. If you don't do that, we're respecting the rules.

[03:04:39] All right. Yeah, I do want to point out about the discussion around, like if it's in your district, if you, I guess, deferring to the district supervisor.

[03:04:55] I guess the way I look at it is there are certain principles that certain groups of people are going to align with versus the other. That's the beauty of our democracy. That's why you have a system with multiple forms of thought.

[03:05:16] So I don't know that I think it's always fair, and I'm happy to have a discussion about this, to say that, well, if the district supervisor wants it, that should be the end-all, be-all discussion. I think it's a little bit more complicated than that because I think some people have different views and principles, for instance, around land use than others.

[03:05:38] And so I know over the past several years, we've had a lot of discussion about the five to three vote. And the way I've always looked at it is, and I'm sure some of my colleagues would disagree, but the way I look at it is there are five people that think very differently in principle about certain issues.

[03:06:01] And there are three people that think very differently in principle about certain issues. So it's no surprise that you're going to have, you know, party-long votes sometimes based on issues.

[03:06:18] So I do, I guess I said that to say, I do think it's worth a conversation in a more deeply thought-out conversation about what does it look like to respect the district supervisor. if you, on principle, have a different view, especially about a policy that does impact the rest of the county that may just happen to be specific to your district at the moment.

[03:06:44] I don't think it's as simple as, well, if the district supervisor agrees or disagrees with it, then that should be the end-all, be-all. I just think on some of these issues, it's a lot more complicated than that. No doubt. In the example I gave where I messed up in Norm at my first word-making ever, If I had known that was the norm, I would have contacted for the meeting that supervisor and said, I ran on a growth in the growth area, a rural area, beautiful, and I think this is too far for me to go.

[03:07:20] I respect what you would want to do in the district. At least to let the person know exactly what Margaret's saying. It can be very much more complicated than just, oh, it says a scripture's district. can i add to what she's saying yeah um which is why i think communication is so important among us obviously we know that three of us can't be doing at the same time but if there's a project um you know in kenny's district that i make it a priority call kenny and kind of say hey kenny

[03:07:53] where are you at on this because when i look back it's not so much that um we uh disagreed on a lot It's just that we couldn't find the way to arrive at a common place that, of course, we're not going to make everybody happy, but I'll give you a quick example.

[03:08:13] You know, Kenny, I want to support your project, but if they don't do a TIA just because they don't have to, I'm not going to support it. Something as simple as that. Something as simple as we ask for a water study. Where's the water study? Because I want to make sure that I think the point that Vic was trying to make is look at the county holistically, right?

[03:08:35] So if we're looking at it holistically, let's make sure that we're thorough and that we are checking every box to ensure that the public feels comfortable in knowing that we did our job and that we don't have so many questions lingering. And I think that that's going to be crucial for us in the next four years is, yeah, you know, or vice versa.

[03:08:55] Like Margaret said, just because the district supervisor is for it doesn't mean we're for it. Because I also may not agree with that way of thinking. But at least know that, you know, we've really been thorough, that we've done our homework and that there are no, you know, doubts as to moving the project forward. And I think that we're going to find more unanimous votes than 5-3 votes when it comes to land use if we just do small little changes.

[03:09:23] Yeah, I agree with you, Gesslie. I think, and the key for me as a part of the 1-8 is just something as simple as returning phone calls. If I want your opinion or I have a vote, let's talk about it.

[03:09:39] Let's return phone calls or return a text or just, you know, if we want to be that transparent about it, return a phone call. Just talk. Just talk. And I think that's key. That's one thing we did do in our first term a lot.

[03:09:56] You know, and I really did feel outside of all of this because we didn't talk. And I know we got these and I'm happy with that and all that. But, you know, it's critical when we're about to take a vote, if it's for the county or something that's going to affect the county, that we talk or we make sure that we make the effort to communicate.

[03:10:21] That's important. Then the other thing is everybody, all of us are professionals, and I think when we talk about, when I remember the slide that you had about the change that we're going through, it's incumbent with us, and what Bob is just saying, and our accountability, is to bring the county and our citizens along when we are making decisions.

[03:10:55] That's very important. And we receive information differently. We give information differently. And so the respect of educating our constituency, be it district or county, is very, very key to that and bringing them along.

[03:11:15] And so, as Yesli was saying, when the attacks come, that's because we haven't brought the community along with us. Oh, that's true. You know, we, huh? I don't know. But we need to make a better effort in communicating with the community, you know.

[03:11:32] And now the community may not agree with us, you know, but we have to make the effort. Communication. Communication is key, you know. But here's the other thing, too, I think, as we're educating our community. We are citizens, too, of the community.

[03:11:50] And so as we educate our community, when we're being attacked, you know, we've got to, as Bob said, we've got to take the hit. We have to take the hit. But for me, I think there's a way that, it's a quote unquote, the way we respect each other, community and electives.

[03:12:13] There's a way to respect each other. And we build that respect by communicating, but also we have to, it's because we're changing. You've got to teach the community also how to respect us, because you voted for us. And how do we build the trust?

[03:12:28] So I don't feel good about, you know, it was, you know, during public comment time, I get it. You know, people coming and saying, you know, whatever they want to say. It's their right. It's, Michelle would tell me, First Amendment right. It's their right. But I'm a citizen, too.

[03:12:45] And I'm human, too. And I want the best for you, too, since you voted for me. So I think we, in this change, we need to help citizens understand that. Because I think that's a hard part, too. That's a very hard part. So that goes under the one voice and also the district and county.

[03:13:06] I think supervisor, we're, and then I'll go on. Good, because I'm going to have to put the heat on you. Oh, go ahead. Don't mean to put the pressure on the chair, but, you know. The tone is actually set by the chair, particularly with respect to the interactions from the dais, if there are interactions with the public.

[03:13:27] Because the chair controls that, the chair controls the dialogue. Let me give you an example. I think one of the words that all of us are tired of hearing is misrepresentation. There's a difference between misrepresentation and differing analysis of the data.

[03:13:51] What might be a misrepresentation to me might be a different opinion on a set of facts to somebody else. But one of the problems that we've had recently is that where we have differing data sets or differing figures, wildly disparate numbers coming in over a period of time on a particular issue, particularly monetary figures,

[03:14:21] when we get a variety of numbers thrown at us and then act on it without really engaging in any real substantive public deliberation or questioning of the figures then we all lose the faith of the public whether they're whether they're on one side or the other because then there's the question of what is the real number is never settled you bring up a good point and we are going to get to information flow and where you're getting your information and how you're counting on it to be

[03:14:57] factual so i'm glad as far as a norm i heard something about not using a label like misrepresentation not overusing not overusing okay yeah so thank you guys i'm kind of jumping in this i just want to address a couple of things on the slide you know yeah i'm gonna um not gonna address everything but a couple things that got me when we're talking about general decorum and it's great hearing all the answers but there's one thing to say it and another thing to actually do it we don't this board does not have good relationships with one another there are some people who have good

[03:15:37] relationships individually but not as a whole um i'm dying to say this you know like sorry to go back in the campaign but you know i'm the one person everybody wanted to take out you know but But at the same time, I'm sitting here, and I have done my best to reach out to every individual in every office because Bob was right, and I've said this, and you have to hold me to it.

[03:15:58] It's the job of the chair to build a certain rapport, to instill decorum, and also to make sure that communication is strong. Before today, I did call everyone just to let them know, hey, I'm going to be out for a couple hours because my son thought he was Steph Curry or some other famous basketball person who I don't know sports.

[03:16:21] and was trying to be something fancy and gem and broke his pinky. You know, but maybe some people didn't need that information from me, but I wanted to share it because I didn't want anyone to be surprised. I didn't want anyone to be caught off guard. You know, and similarly, I think it is an arousal procedure.

[03:16:37] I do appreciate it when people are late. You know, let me know so that I know who's running late. Should we get started? You know, are they 15 minutes late? Are they 20 minutes late? Are they an hour late? It's little things like that that make a difference for each one of us.

[03:16:53] but i also want to go to the you know there is a lot of hurt there is a lot of division there is east versus west there is republican versus democrat and i think i'm more one of the more partisan based on my background partisan people on the board but yet i'm going to reach out to supervisor here i'm going to reach out to supervisor bory i'm going to reach out to supervisor vega like we have to do a better job you know and i know i've been criticizing for Or, you know, there's rumor going around DeShondra's trying to placate all of the Republicans, placate the people in the West.

[03:17:30] Well, no, I need to build a rapport with them. Because I've said this, my goal for Prince William County is I want to compete with Loudoun. I want to compete with Fairfax. You know, I don't want to be just an afterthought. And we don't have the best reputation in the region. And we've got to own that. We've got to name that.

[03:17:46] But in order for us to actually compete and to be better within the region, we've got to work together. And, you know, it sounds kind of Pollyannish, but I'm trying to do the work. And I appreciate if other people reach out and try to do the work. Because, you know, at the end of the day, we're going to have contentious land use issues.

[03:18:06] There are going to be 5-3 votes. There are going to be 4-4 votes. There might be a weird coalition of 5-3. You know, whatever it is. You know, I would like to see people stop taking things personally. I would like to see people, if you have a problem or an issue, address it. But that's on, again, each individual, to not just name it in this extended work session, but to actually live it.

[03:18:30] It's one thing to say it, and it's another thing to do it. Right, putting your norms into action. Putting it into action is hard. Before we move away from norms and look at the modified concepts of how you're interacting, code of conduct, and your work rules, I'd like to reflect on two of the things that I've heard.

[03:18:50] It first stems from a little bit of what Andrea said about this, "We should engender respect also for what we're doing in public." Part of that stems from how you teach your public before every public comment period and every public hearing that the rules are engaged in different boards, express it different ways.

[03:19:15] I will share with you, in Albemarle, I am here it is. I put them a little bit into my own language as chair, but Ann Malick, who we will meet already at the VACO meeting, was the chair before me in Albemarle County.

[03:19:33] She delivered it very strongly, and I changed it only in tone as a mediator. She would say to them things like, and I'm trying to remember now, When you come up, we're so glad you're here.

[03:19:48] When you come up, here are the things we would like you to follow. Number one, address the chair. Do not address any of the individuals. Because we didn't want someone coming up and saying, Supervisor, I'll pick on you, Supervisor Amy, you didn't come to my doorway to do a campaign.

[03:20:09] If you had, you'd know we didn't want that. So occasionally someone would lose their minds and do that. And we would say, thank you, would you please address the chair. Because it's hard for them, unless it's actually your constituent and your district, it's hard to be angry at the chair, the three-rated supervisor.

[03:20:26] We would always say, please address in a respectful tone. And please, you know, pay attention to the time. Because other people, A, want to feel comfortable in this space. So she took it away from, we don't feel comfortable.

[03:20:43] It was, we have a lot of people in our home tonight. We want everyone to get comfortable, so please use the proper term, and also stay within your time limit. So the rules were firm. I would say she delivered them more firmly than I, but we never really had trouble.

[03:21:02] It was pre-incivility going through the roof. It was also pre-Drago v. Charlesville. No, actually, he always appeared at a... But part of the case. Oh, I'm sure you're right about that. All right, so that's one thing.

[03:21:18] So think about how you want to put out the rules of the road. And don't ever skip it. Do it every single time. Your frequent flyer attendees will be able to memorize them and say, you always are going to have some new people.

[03:21:34] And it's very valuable to that. The other thing is this one voice. That is a strange thing, but you need to tease that apart. If you have a 5-3 vote, you have a majority.

[03:21:50] Does that then become law or not? Does that become law of the land? It does. So it's the big thing. That's the decision. Does it mean if you were one of those three votes that you should go out there and go, rah, rah, we decided this is the law of the land?

[03:22:09] You don't have to do that. What you don't want to do is confuse people you're talking about. You have to say, the word actually was this. I was on the minority vote side and I was inside. This is why I felt that, but you don't have to bash the process, because that's the democratic process, but one voice saying, we have spoken now, this is now the law, the ordinance, the ruling, whatever. I felt differently, you know, this particular vote I did when.

[03:22:40] Sandra Day O'Connor, when she was interviewed about who is white in the Supreme Court, she said, you only need to know one thing, and that is five. Meaning, that is what determines the law of the United States Constitution.

[03:22:58] But she also said that if you want to hear the different opinions, it's the minority report. We all get to say, we don't get to write a minority opinion if we want to express ourselves. So one thing you might consider doing before you close your public hearing is before we go. During the discussion period, so that will be after we stop the publicists to say, you know, I consider this matter.

[03:23:20] I've seen the situation meetings, I went to many spending town halls, I listened to several hours of you talking, it was my decision to go this way, and this is why I keep it short if you want to go on a 20-hour speech after you listen to, well, but give your reason there so that you can then repeat that in a positive way in the future.

[03:23:41] So one vote, one voice means this is the law of the land. It doesn't mean you have to say that you didn't vote a different way. So I want to move on and encourage us to conduct and, yeah.

[03:24:01] Thank you for that. I think that's very helpful. We'll show you a couple of things to talk about when we have some more discussions here this afternoon. So to the point, breaches happen.

[03:24:20] Things happen. The question is, we talked about this earlier, this language is used, unintended or unintentional. How do we reconcile that? How do you all reconcile that? Moving forward, I think that's an important part of this. These things aren't going to happen.

[03:24:36] We're all humans, right? But to your point of how do we keep this consistency and build the trust and all those things, how do you think you should handle those breaches when they do happen? Someone forgets. Maybe they intentionally don't call you and say, hey, I'm voting against you.

[03:24:52] you know you found out there today is how are you going to reconcile that as a board so you can move forward rather than say to get back to that organizational chart that jane had the red arrows going down and the green arrows going up and just sitting in that churn at the bottom how do we get you back on the positive side to get going as a group oh that's a question it is a question it's not rhetorical yes so right here one thing that i've been trying to do more of is what versus why

[03:25:25] So, you know, if something happens and someone does something intentionally or unintentionally, we like to immediately ask either ourselves or that person, why did you do this? And while it's knowing someone's thought process is helpful and we should still do that, to me, a better question is, what can we do to make sure we can move forward together?

[03:25:42] And so if someone's like, you know, if it became, hey, what should we do? Well, you know, let me know next. Or if you think it's unintentional, hey, how can I make sure that I'm soundboarding this issue with you first before I do it?

[03:25:57] So I'm not unintentionally doing something that you feel one way and I feel another. So it's less of why did this happen or why was it unintentional versus unintentional versus, hey, this happened. We found out that was unintentional or intentional. but what can we do to move forward together so it doesn't happen quite this way again for us and for our folks that we're working with.

[03:26:18] Any other thoughts? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm a lawyer. Can you explain what a breach is? So you just talked about your unwritten norms.

[03:26:39] What you hold in your heart is the behavior you would like to see from one another. There's a breach. How do you handle it when someone violates that? And then there's two types. They didn't need to. They just stumbled into a breach where they intended it.

[03:26:59] So I was going to say that, you know, this is a very good question that I think this board would do a lot better in handling than the previous board. And what I will say about that is in the previous board, there was toxic behaviors.

[03:27:19] Probably on both sides, but I would say that the intention has to be pure. So you talk about unintended, that's easy to spot out, I think, and it's easy for us to have a conversation about those things.

[03:27:36] The intended ones are also pretty easy to spot out. And so I think everyone has to make a conscious decision to come to the table in a genuine manner. And by the way, also be able to evaluate each situation individually, while perhaps also keeping in mind past behaviors.

[03:28:00] Perhaps. I'm not sure how important that is, because it may make you less subjective with regards to the current situation. But I feel like everyone has to come to the table in a genuine manner, and you have to legitimately be willing to either work on an issue with the understanding that you may not eventually agree on it, but still be willing to move forward in a respectful manner.

[03:28:26] I think what we saw from some people on the last board is that it was all political. It didn't matter if you talked to them or not. They were going to go out, gin up their base, give them the talking points to come in and say all these things, regardless of the personal conversation that you have with them.

[03:28:43] We have to make a genuine effort to either try to work on an issue together. and if we find that we can't do that and we can't agree come with the understanding that okay well we're just going to be on opposite sides of this and that's okay but we're not going to be disrespectful oh and by the way we're not going to gin up other people to be disrespectful because we don't want to be seen as being disrespectful directly because ginning up your supporters to be disrespectful is just as disrespectful as you doing it directly that's my tip i um i think

[03:29:22] handle breaches by having conversations you know but honestly some people aren't going to be honest let's some people aren't going to own up to their who they are and what they get i do appreciate what um supervisor reer said about you know your actions but be able to accept the consequences i think that's very important um there are consequences to reaction you know if i say one thing to kenny then i go say something else you know to yesley and i get caught in a lie there are consequences you know my trust my credibility goes down with people and so i think

[03:29:58] that's something we have to be aware of you know and i want to go back to what margaret said about you know i definitely think both sides from where i sit you know there are some people yet who did things that did up their base and there are also people who you know shut down at any suggestion of disagreement there needs to be a certain amount of self-awareness to be good in this world There needs to be a certain amount of self-awareness.

[03:30:29] If it's always someone else's problem, that's the problem right there. You know, that's one thing that I ask about. We've got to be self-aware. We've got to think about our actions and how they might impact other people. And also our own credibility.

[03:30:44] I mean, I started my career as a reporter. Credibility is everything. If you go to the next slide, where's our, this may be further down, But what you said, walk-and-talks are great ways to clear the mirror.

[03:31:07] Because you can walk by a project that's being considered down a sidewalk that a supervisor wants in their district, in your district, and talk. And remember those recovery strategies of fresh air, sunshine, maybe there'll be a bird out there somewhere.

[03:31:26] So walk-and-talks also went up and had a cup of coffee with them for the lunch. can i just add that for me personally it really comes down to actions right because it gets to a certain point where i'm done talking right and then i'll build that wall back up again because i can only talk for so much but then your actions they really show me if you're serious if you're

[03:32:02] genuine or if you're just wasting my time. And I personally don't have time and very little tolerance for that. Um, because again, you know, if, if you really mean it, then show me with your actions, not just with your words. And so, you know, in hindsight, all of these are great recommend recommendations, but if it happens over and over and over again, the last thing I'm going to want is to go have coffee with somebody that's literally lying to me to my face. And I'll go back to the the the the you know situation that victor brought up um we didn't just talk about it but

[03:32:36] victor showed me through his actions that he meant it right and and that's why we're i think where we're at today because for me it's not so much what you say but more so what you do right and i keep hearing this watch out for patterns you know once there's a pattern there that's what you're And I think that's what you're dealing with, is the legacy of a four-year pattern, or at least in my case, a one-year pattern.

[03:33:02] I think, yes, it could speak to this, too. You know, and a lot of it comes back to, you know, it's a matter of scale and it's a matter of escalation in history. You know, it wasn't going to do me any good to have talks or walks with a particular individual.

[03:33:20] Six of us have seen me blow up in closed session at that person. Where it just isn't going to make a difference what I say, what I do, what I present, what evidence I give, you know, and yes, it's correct at some point in time, it's just not worth the investment of any more time or effort. Sad, sad circumstance, but you know.

[03:33:46] You know, one of these workshops on norms, I'll get right to you, we had a great conversation and actually talked about some tough stuff, made some agreements on moving forward, and then somebody later met in the day, and he said to us, you're just wasting an hour of our lives, why don't you just start with and treat people the way they're not.

[03:34:11] It could be, I mean, that's an umbrella norm. Think about how you would want to be treated. Treat the person, you're full of calling that way. I think they've had to think of the one thing here. Yeah, I didn't. Can I get it in? Well, between unintentional and intentional.

[03:34:29] Unintentional, classic example. Really happened, she called me, we had a talk, fix it. I don't think we have room for intentional, because we're talking about breaches. no one should be intentionally breaching if you got a problem we just talked about it dignity respect and have a conversation communicate no one should be intentionally doing a breach and i'm speaking for this board because unintentional we should be cleaning up real quick because those are going to happen for human but clean it up real quick and move on but intentional should even be i love that it's up there because we should talk talk about how we shouldn't have

[03:35:04] intentional breaches. Intentional is like premeditated, like you're sitting there and you're, let me get, let me, let me bring my law enforcement background.

[03:35:22] If we, if you want, if we're going to wrap this up pretty soon, Margaret, I'm going to handle it. Please, please. A comment? The thing that I was going to say also was, yes, you got me stuck on intentional, but the thing I was going to say also was, We have to not assume either or make assumptions.

[03:35:48] That's why the communication is so important. Silence is not consent. Silence could be listening. Silence could be making sure that the vote is intentional for the good of the whole.

[03:36:07] You know, and, you know, silence is not always looking back at the previous boards and what that looked like in the decision-making. And so we have to not assume when we're making decisions or when there is a breach.

[03:36:27] That, again, is why communication is important. Okay. If I just, last thing forever. last thing i'll say is also we we have to come into the situation with the best of intentions and not assume things about people right like i feel like that's 80 of the problem of what i've seen people are going into a conversation with an assumption and we kind of have to break down those barriers tom you talk a lot about forgiveness and i'm with you on that and i also feel like

[03:37:04] even before you get to forgiveness come with the the best intention of that conversation to where we don't even have to get to forgiveness right like come not assuming the worst of people when you have that conversation because that's when you get the here and i will just say i love having tense back and forth with some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle because i know that that's a real conversation that we're having and at the end of the day i think it builds up a level of respect quite frankly i'm not talking about anybody here if you take a look at those three

[03:37:44] things that were on the next slide notice that one thing that they all have in common it's relationship yeah we're people right and this is all about building trust in relationship with one another and as long as we if we have the respect for one another going into it on the front end You know, we will mostly be unintentionally doing this.

[03:38:09] We'll never do it intentionally. But, you know, the other pieces, you know, the fixing it side, again, gets back to relationship and restoration of that relationship. And that requires communication and collaboration. So, just get back to basics.

[03:38:28] The good thing is, I'm hearing two consensus, quite frankly, from you all. It's a new dawn, it's a new day, right? Yep. And we're feeling good. If y'all know the song. Let's talk about something that is not a new gone on a new day. Something from the end of antiquity, even.

[03:38:49] 1996, if you remember that. No, I do. It's a different time. Alright. The last time you admitted your rules of procedure was 2021. The last time this document was approved by a board was in 1996. And we took the time to take it from its height.

[03:39:08] electronic version that staff so kindly sent it to us. Some of Hansons are actually seeing this. Yeah, Bob, we all read. Yeah, we read. Not everyone has seen it. Don't assume. Margaret? Could Bob be assuming?

[03:39:25] Let's take a minute and through it, shall we? That's an assumption. This is bullet points just as it's written. Okay? So it's two pages of bullet points. I'm going to get the chance just to read through this and then we'll go to the next page, all right? I'm sorry, I didn't get to that. Here we go.

[03:39:50] The 90s were a better time. Anything sound familiar? It's starting to look familiar now, yeah. It's kind of wild as I looked at this. Looks like what we just said.

[03:40:07] Yeah. I mean, it's still good. You guys are getting to go to the Seconds Library, folks. Yeah. See, it's bullet point three that I've got the issue with.

[03:40:26] Immediate thoughts, takeaways, reactions.

[03:40:47] Why, Bob? Because I don't agree on tax policy sometimes. Right. So number three, is that the third one? Yeah. Number three, I don't think you're ever going to get unity on some positions or even have any reasonable or rational expectation for unity on some votes.

[03:41:15] So to include it as a broad-based sort of blanket approach to every policy position. That's that one voice that you need to parse out the way that works.

[03:41:31] So we're going to increase the real estate tax by 15 cents on the mill rate. No, I'm never going to agree on that. I don't care if it's 7 to 1. If I may, here's another example. Unity vote with the CRC.

[03:41:47] That was a unity vote. And so it's a matter of us getting you there. And in the middle of the unity vote, Victor's like, hey, wait a minute. I haven't seen this. Hold up. And we all went, but we stopped.

[03:42:05] so that Victor could get what he needed, and we started all over. So that's why I said, why? Because this presumes after the vote, when you've taken and initiated the policy, and there are just some policy positions, I don't think any of us, if we're on the losing end of an issue, are going to ever agree with publicly, privately, or otherwise.

[03:42:27] Let me let you have a comment, and then I want to bring a question to all of you. I think what this is saying is that you don't, I don't think it's saying you have to agree, What the policy position is, I think it's just saying that once the board has taken a vote, whatever that majority vote is, is the policy that goes forward.

[03:42:47] And so it doesn't mean you agree with it. It just means that there is an understanding that this is the policy that is moving forward. And therefore, it is not necessarily helpful to then go out into the public.

[03:43:07] Of course, you can, and I think we mentioned this before, explain why you disagree with the vote or why you disagree with the policy. But I think this is just saying that there is an acknowledgment that this board or the majority took a vote and this is the policy moving forward.

[03:43:24] I mean, look at, you can look at on a federal level just as an example of pick a, you know, when the Senate and the House were both run by Republicans, right? Like, pick whatever law that was passed, then it doesn't mean that I have to agree with it.

[03:43:43] But I do have to acknowledge that that was the policy that was put forward. It doesn't mean I have to defend it. It just means that I have to acknowledge that that was what was moving forward, and vice versa, of course. But the other side didn't agree with it and stated their opinions to attack it.

[03:43:59] And so this is a gray area, because to sit here and to say that I'm not gonna would mean that I'm being untruthful. Because, you know, the following sentence says, we agree or state our reasons for points of disagreement and not to, quote, unquote, play to the press for the sake of politics at the expense of other board members.

[03:44:18] That's clear, that part there. You know, but to Bob's point, I'm not going to go ahead and publicly, you know, I can say the board majority voted and I did not because of X, Y, Z. That's cool. But to just assume that because the majority voted a certain way that I'm kind of going to have to get on board with the farm majority.

[03:44:38] Those two statements are obviously mutually exclusive to it. If I may, if I may, if I may. How would you like to set up a norm for the minority to have the opportunity to do this? What's a norm to get there?

[03:44:53] That seems to be the issue, right? What is a way you all can agree to allow the minority on whatever vote it is to have that view, but also have that, hey, this is now the law of the county or policy of the county, it is what it is. But having found that balance, everyone feels heard, but also there's an understanding of this is the way it is going forward with this firm or what else it is now.

[03:45:14] You take similar language to the second sentence of bullet point four, and you append it to bullet point three, replacing to stand united, because you just, I mean, those two things alone seem mutually exclusive.

[03:45:29] On this level, we're going to stand united. On this level, we're allowed to agree, to disagree. But at the county level, the county policy position, as far as voters, the residents, the taxpayers, the businesses are concerned. They're more concerned with bullet point three than bullet point four.

[03:45:47] So just to make sure I'm clear, if I can, what's your budget? So to remove the language to stand united and replace it with essentially the last two sentences. Some form of that second. We agree not to condemn, et cetera, et cetera.

[03:46:04] Yeah. That's a great, great idea. It's a compromise position. Say it again. It's good. Hold on. You heard me the first time. It's good. Yeah, that last bullet, it's kind of weird because it talks about federal state legislative. And it seems like that last sentence there, last two sentences, are like only in relation to federal or state legislative issues.

[03:46:27] Well, it shouldn't be. I think it needs to be broken out, taken out of there. And I agree, just kind of reattached to the one above it, I think that gives us a better, yeah. You have the right to stand up, I feel so much better. But it also applies to our legislative agenda.

[03:46:43] Yeah, it does. But it seems that that was only in context to this federal or state legislative issues, and so, yeah. Just clarity, the majority vote is? The five who voted, whatever it is.

[03:47:00] Whatever the vote is. Or the four or the three depending on the four or the four or the four. Yeah, it could be a combination. A combination. Whatever majority passed it. Right, it's not, it's new. Is that, is that it for the slide? In a bipartisan majority vote, that's what we have a lot of.

[03:47:19] That's what we could do here at the time, bipartisan majority vote. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Or in a Republican majority vote, that's what we do. All right, is there, is there anything else with this? Is there any other language issues or context with this original language that you'd like to give us some input on before we move on?

[03:47:39] I'll go back to the second page in just a second. Great.

[03:47:59] All right, we'll give it a second slide one more time. Now we're done with that one. Keep going. You good? We've already fixed that one. All right. The first one, you know, we talked a little bit about this. The double-edged sword, the other edge of the Sunshine Law, is the ability to just, the only time we can meet is when we're on the dais.

[03:48:23] And at that time, you know, typically it's like we're there to make a decision. And so, you know, we're allowed to make committees as a board, but we don't. I want to get to that. Some of these things that we could try to work some of these issues out in a different venue rather than have to wait until we get on to the dais.

[03:48:47] Yes, we talked about that before. And if I could to that, you know, committees are a good way of attaching that stuff out. But frankly, I think that there are some larger scale things, whether they be land use cases or policies or what have you, where to that point, we only get a chance to make a decision on it.

[03:49:06] when it's 99% done and finally the board gets to take a direction based on a public hearing. Well, if we had more work sessions on certain things along the way, I know the Planning Commission, they may take a certain policy issue or Landry's case and work through it two or three different times before they make a vote.

[03:49:23] Us, it's not really like that. Usually it's like, hey, we have a very informational work session maybe on something high level and then it's actually voting time to vote. We just have a public hearing and we act. So it doesn't give us that opportunity to be more deliberative and cohesive and collaborative. There's the expectation that we, at the very end of our discussion or whatever the hearing is, we're going to vote.

[03:49:43] Instead of that, it could be, hey, we heard it. Let's work through this issue a little bit. Let's bring it back later. One, so we've had some time to digest. Two, so staff has the benefit of hearing a discussion around it. And it isn't just, hey, now we have to vote on the meeting.

[03:49:58] Remember that when I bring those changes over time. I was just going to add, and we'll get to it with the committees, but committees are still public bodies, and so if you create a committee of three, two of you cannot talk, because two is a quorum of a body of three, so you're still under the FOIA public laws.

[03:50:21] I wouldn't know anything about getting around that by using finance committees in two. Then you talk to yourself. You still have to do the public notice three days in advance, take the minutes over to the public, et cetera.

[03:50:38] But we can still do it. The point is to try to deal with, someone once said there are problems, there are situations. FOIA is a situation. We've got to figure out a better way to work around it or work within it. To allow additional opportunities.

[03:50:53] to allow us to become a better team rather than just show up on the dais and vote on a case or on a policy. Because there is very little teamwork ahead of the time we get to the dais.

[03:51:08] I have a solution. You know, we're all just up there with this. I want to run into just a couple of best practices from some other localities. highlights we're going to spend a lot of time on this and we'll share this information that we've gleaned from the localities to your staff so they can have that from you all as you have discussions moving forward on these topics whether it be your rules of procedure or a potential update to your sort of uh code conduct civility whatever you choose to call it um some of the places we've pulled from but have some pretty good examples that are quite frankly training for the conversation guests just had often we're all handover gushman loudon that's a very good example on both of our

[03:51:48] The board over there has come. The board of procedures have gone about policy and all these things. Applying to the laws, avoiding adherence to conflicts and benefits, transparency, no favors and privileges. Treating fellow board members, staff and the fellow, professionalism and courtesy of their staff.

[03:52:03] So things that you guys have already particularly seen in your board, you know, that's good. This is something, and going back to the interview process, just want to touch a couple highlights here from the board and staff. Communicating the agenda development process, making sure those expectations are clear, staff understands, chair, board, everyone's on the same page.

[03:52:26] That way, if you're talking about no surprises, it's a great way to do it, right? Agenda is your all's way to do business, so I want to make sure that process is very open and understood by everyone involved. Also, the relationship with your county executive, that's a huge one, right?

[03:52:44] Making sure that the communication lines, right from there, we've talked a lot about the communication lines between the board members, which is crucial, but this is crucial as well to make sure that your CXO has an excellent understanding of where the board is, understands where he can take his staff and where he can not, when he's looking at policy and guidelines and those things.

[03:53:03] And also the communication with the county executive. I think it's important, not only just in the sense of keeping it open, but also staff expectations. The county executive has the ability to know that, okay, I've got a board member talking about this topic, this language topic, and they may want to reach out to the planning director.

[03:53:21] But the county executive may know something that you may not on that issue. He may know something that staff is working in a work group. He may know that there's another issue that you and Reston College are not aware of it because it's not risen to your level. But use him as the ability to filter those things down so it can be as efficient and as effective in giving you either the answer you need or some background on context and information.

[03:53:43] As a former manager, it's extraordinarily important. And I think it will also boost the relationship for you all and build that trust up. And also helps with staff, quite frankly. They know that there's respect between you and CX and that helps with morale, helps with moving things forward in business.

[03:54:02] And board directives, I'm going to take this time now to turn that over for the county attorney to talk about that, just a little bit about some context, because Jane and I do know I'm going to play attorneys on television right now, so I get cute. They asked about the authority and the history of the use of directives here in Prince William County. And we all know the board can only take action as a whole in a public meeting.

[03:54:29] code of Virginia says if there's a quorum present the majority may act many years ago the board added to your rules of procedure in the section that deals with quorum and action under the subsection three on actions it says the board can act in the following ways ordinances resolution motion and then it gets to directives where it says unanimous consent slash board directives to staff. If action by ordinance or resolution is not required by law, and there's a lot of what you do that's not required to be done by resolution or ordinance, and no objection is heard, a request

[03:55:07] of a member shall be deemed a request to the board without further action, provided the chair states that such request shall be deemed to be a request to the board. Such request may be a board directive to staff directing that certain actions be taken by staff. So that's why often the directives are Without objection, I'd like to issue a directive to county staff to come back, research, and bring back for the board for consideration.

[03:55:31] If there is an objection, it then gets converted to a resolution, a motion, a second, discussion, and vote. The evolution of it came from a couple different sources because we as staff, we serve the board as a whole. Oftentimes, individual board members will reach out to staff and ask us for assistance.

[03:55:50] And it kind of gets to be a gray area, and it's not always easily defined as what you've asked us to do is going to take a considerable amount of time. We need the board as a whole to understand and know that staff is spending the time on this.

[03:56:07] It's not a easily definable, you know, black and white. So oftentimes if a board member reaches out to staff, and I know the county exec routinely explains it to the board, i routinely explain it to the board if it gets to that point we say we want to help you but we need to make sure the full board knows and understands that we're doing this so can you please issue a directive to staff to work on it and we will work with the board on the language for it etc oftentimes we as staff will ask the board to initiate a directive if it's something of timing

[03:56:48] a perfect example is to authorize the public hearing that's not a legally required action it's a practice of the board because the board just didn't want a public hearing on their agenda for the first time and not knowing why chambers is full of all of these people so the board implemented a practice of authorizing a public hearing well to authorize a public hearing staff does a an agenda item a memo a resolution we comply with the clerk's agenda routing timeline that's several weeks in advance something may pop up we may not have enough time to staff to put

[03:57:21] together that consent agenda item so we'll work with county exec the chair board member and we will ask the board to say without objection we'd like to direct staff to schedule a public hearing for x date so that's the purpose and the history behind the directives directives are not to be used as a policy it isn't by directive i i'd like to implement x it's by directive ask staff to research this come back with information and recommendations for the board's consideration

[03:58:00] because sometimes some of the directives that we've gotten from past boards um it was much more than a director's and and then understandably so some on the board would object to it because it's now implementing a policy instead of directing staff to provide that information back for the board to make that policy decision and I think that that's would now be the appropriate time to address that rule if we have a question on it board's discretion the only issue I take with that is sorry to

[03:58:38] shudder is the sentence in section D and further provided that the chair states such a request shall be deemed to be a request of the board but that's already covered in the previous in the previous sentence where if action by ordinance of resolution is not required by law or these rules and no objection is heard the chair has the opportunity to reject so my issue with this is the chair could unilaterally kill something before the directives even made and not get it to the resolution stage where the board would have the opportunity to vote on it so I would simply suggest striking that since it's somewhat redundant given the

[03:59:16] language in the first sentence it is duplicative and I will say in practice I don't think it's always done it is just normally a board member says I don't think it's ever been done of course right and if it's redundant why have that sentence in there I don't know and if there's no objection I would move that resolution to amend the rules of procedure we have it in writing I think all of you have it so you would just be wanting the board to strike the and And further, provided that the chair states that such requests shall be deemed to be a request to the board.

[03:59:49] The last applause of the first sentence. Want me to show you the motion you prepared me? I just want to make sure that the board knows what they may if you're going to vote on it. What's happening? Yeah, me, you understand what you're voting on. Just taking care of you.

[04:00:07] Do you want to do it comprehensively with all of these? It doesn't matter to me. I'd rather do it comprehensively and read everything beforehand. Stick it back in there. And she'll help me with this question. I'm not sure that we were prepared today to take actual votes.

[04:00:24] I don't know that we are properly noticed. Legally, you can. You have a forum of the board present. It's been properly noticed. And a majority can act. The policy decision, and I think what you're getting to and what the chair is getting to, is you.

[04:00:43] We are happy to take it all in and maybe come back with an organized approach to redlining where there needs to be redlines and bringing it back to the boards that you ought to consider.

[04:00:59] Because we've not gotten this document yet. That's the document we're talking about. I'm more than willing to wait for the next meeting, but I don't want to. And to dispatch your proposed resolution right into the county for his consideration. Legally, you can. It's up to the policy decision of the board.

[04:01:18] I still think we should have a discussion about these, but I am more than willing to wait until the next meeting to enact or not enact them. It just seems to me that some of them are pretty simple. I was just going to say, I see what you're trying to do, Bob, and it's a lot of redundancy that we do need to take care of, but it's easier for us to digest if we can just resend it to us, please.

[04:01:41] Because I see what you're trying to do. Want me to resend it? I also think we'll talk it out at once, go through everything in the board at once. So we recorded this. This is part of what we're going to give back to staff and come back to you guys as part of this process. Yes, a lot of you guys. That's okay with the board. While we're on, you know, talking about directives, before I move on to the rest of this manual, is there anything else about directives or any questions for the county attorney while you're on this topic?

[04:02:05] No, I just restate it because I think it needs to be said that my understanding is that, Generally speaking, directives should be requests for information, research, and things brought back to the forefront of consideration, not legislation by directives, right?

[04:02:22] Yeah. Correct. And I think, and Michelle, I really appreciate when you help us in writing verbalize what we need to say. I think it's important, not just for us, but it's important for the community also to get their arms wrapped around, their minds wrapped around what we're changing, because that's building trust as well. And just as a request, I won't speak for Mr. Shorter, but at any time the board wants to issue a directive, I am here and available to provide assistance, legal assistance in advance to make sure that the wording is, and I'm sure the county exec would

[04:02:59] offer these for the policy consideration for it. Because you've seen it all the time during the board meetings, someone will say, well, has the county exec seen this or has the county attorney seeing this and we'll assist to make sure it's legally defensible anything else on directives okay is there anything else in the rules of procedure so again the last time this was fully amended by the board was june 22nd 2021 any burning topics with this board after your experiences last from terms like i said new dawn new day is there anything uh you know high level

[04:03:38] you want to chat about today with this uh you want to talk about with your colleagues discuss to make sure we're not missing an opportunity. And this may be a satisfactory document for the board, but we just want to make sure you have the chance to do so. You can turn to the red line and blue line versions of your email now. I sent these out to you guys, I think, two weeks ago.

[04:03:59] Just a couple of them. Most of these will be non-controversial. I'll kind of just clean up some moving some things around. Others of them may not be. I've got a couple of suggested ones. One in Section A, we do not have a provision specifically whereby the chair can declare that due to whether or other conditions a meeting is canceled, postponed, or otherwise. I believe the county attorney has an issue with adding that.

[04:04:27] You have on your language, and does everybody have a copy of what you've passed out? I did not bring extra copies. I meant to, and then I had to stop on my office. I can, if we need to, I can have someone in my office print them out and bring both. We're going to talk about it further. I just kind of want to lay out the premise of the lines.

[04:04:58] We don't have that provision currently in all rules. I don't think he has it. Chris? But you don't have to print it. I'm happy to take a look at it. I was going to say, people -- I mean, again, my office -- And I'll just keep it in mind.

[04:05:14] Yeah. And I'll support it to you, Chris. Thank you, Jessica. I hope I've got that. We would humbly ask that we could maybe see that at some point. This is part of our formative information that would be helpful for us. And that's one I don't think anybody here is going to be terribly having any work heard about.

[04:05:31] Yeah, I just have a question in terms of implications. If there is a weather event that we cancel, I know we just had the issue with VRE. I personally thought we should have canceled that meeting, but apparently there were some challenges with doing that. So are there any implications with canceling a meeting due to weather conditions?

[04:05:49] The implications are unless you adopt something, and I would make a recommendation to amend the code section that Mr. Weir is referencing, the 15.2.14.16 is to be done at your organizational meeting.

[04:06:06] That is passed. There is another code section, 15.2-111. If you don't adopt a provision, basically, and you have to cancel a board meeting, that you have public hearings that were properly advertised, you're going to have to re-advertise.

[04:06:23] What this says in the Virginia Code is if it's been properly advertised and you have to cancel a meeting due to weather, you can put it on the next agenda and you don't have to re-advertise again. At considerable expense in some cases.

[04:06:39] And that was the purpose of this. That's the first one, and the second one, E, is something different from D. E will probably run into a little bit of opposition. It's adding a section E, and I'm not beholden to the time.

[04:06:56] At board regular meetings after 12 a.m. midnight, the board shall promptly conclude the item in front of it and adjourn the meeting unless the board votes to suspend the rules and continue the meeting. I've got quite a bit of experience with this in continuing meetings. Recently, there has been some question as to what the implication is for doing that, given the current version of the state code with a three-letter phrase in it, or three-word phrase in it, which it is my understanding, with great bipartisan supporters getting wiped out this week so that it won't impact us.

[04:07:35] And this will allow us to stop going to 4 o'clock in the morning, 5 o'clock in the morning, or later, and worrying about things like republicizing or setting new agendas, and that will simply allow us to continue a meeting to a date certain without all the legal potential maybe sort of, we think, kind of might happen issues.

[04:08:01] And if I may, as is similar to other areas in the rules of procedure, I would recommend that you add the clause in there, accordance with all federal applicable laws um but if the board's intention is to end a meeting at midnight that is not what this says no i'm just yeah this says promptly conclude the item in front of it and what does promptly conclude mean because the times that the board has gone into the morning hours it is still on the same item and if you promptly conclude something before

[04:08:41] the general assembly. This presumes the language. Exactly. If it's a public hearing, then you promptly conclude that public hearing, which means you're playing through until that public hearing is over. Until the public hearing is correct. So it's not going to stop you from going to late mornings. No, no. It's just intended to minimize it. And if you've got, for instance, you unexpectedly end up talking about land use case A on an agenda with five, and you find yourself at midnight just finishing up the public hearing section, you know, you don't hold up the other three people. But if you don't get to B, C, and D, you will then have to re-advertise.

[04:09:21] Under current law, which is being changed, I'm told. Well, it hasn't been changed yet. We'll know in a week or two. If I may, so I actually have an opposition to this both for policy and political reasons. On the policy side, I think, as Ms. Robles suggested, you run into issues where you still have to re-publicize if we do decide to end for those additional items.

[04:09:55] I believe that we have a job to do and that we should continue to do that job until it's done. We've been here very early in the morning.

[04:10:12] It's not ideal. I also don't see that happening very much more in the future because we've done all of the controversial or a lot of the controversial land use votes. I can't imagine going to 10 a.m. for any other land use votes that we have coming up.

[04:10:30] And quite frankly, a lot of the cases where we did have those late night votes were cases that weren't even from our board. There were votes that really the passports could have taken up themselves. So I don't see a lot of that happening in the future.

[04:10:47] Now, on the political side, I have a problem with it also because, of course, this can be used as a tactic to run out the time. And so I do have a concern with that because I do know that those were part of the plans before when this was proposed before now.

[04:11:06] This is not the first time this has been proposed. Not by you, of course, but by others. And, you know, it was done to be used as a political tactic. So I have strong challenges with this, both on the policy and the political side.

[04:11:23] And I just think that, you know, if we have items on the agenda, we need to get those items done because we need to keep moving forward with our government. With respect to the policy side, I actually agree with you. However, as Ms. Robel noted, if you put the language in there about being in accordance with the rest of that, if the law changes, then suddenly the policy issue goes away.

[04:11:45] And I am relatively confident that the General Assembly is going to change the language because they're under enormous pressure to eliminate that three-word phrase. And if that happens, then we're back to where we were pre-2023.

[04:12:05] Check that after crossover day, you'll know. Yeah, by crossover day, you'll know. because there's identical bills in both chambers. Shall we go through these others? Is there any other issues?

[04:12:20] Wait, wait, wait. So I think also, too, we should go through in each of these to see if, you know, how people feel each-- rather than going through, like, you know, we have 1D and 1E. How are people feeling about 1D? 1D.

[04:12:37] Which one is that? That's Section A meetings about the weather conditions. All right, I'm... I don't have... Is that on Bob's hand? Bob. Okay. We're going through. That's suggesting adding a section fee for weather.

[04:12:53] And then I just want to be clear. No one else has sent it around anything else, right? No. Other than Bob? Not yet. No. Not yet. I didn't, but I have two small proposals. Small. So small. Can I... The one that you proposed with, you've sent yours in.

[04:13:10] No, mine was... I was hoping to have a conversation to hear about it. Okay. i didn't send anything to you guys when y'all read that thing yeah i was like wait i didn't get anything this is this is the time for y'all yeah this is the time so for on so for we're going to go with the tape bah has made significant changes and i think it's easy to start there because they are in writing and we've had a chance to digest them so we'll go through those and then whoever else has suggestions and i believe the public comment time again that's more of a discussion um so does anyone have any problems concerns or do people like lindy which is having a policy in

[04:13:50] terms of weather i think so would be a good idea is this something michelle do i need to take do we need to have a vote on this or is it okay if you want to vote on it you can but i thought that the board just talked about this okay what you would do is maybe at a future board meeting add it to an agenda item and then have it all right you can vote today we know we'll have a conversation today so that way we can get it out because again this is part of transparency you know so people can look at this is what was discussed these are changes that were made we can properly advertise it and you know i don't think there's time i don't know if there is time for it to go

[04:14:26] into the february 6th agenda but so that people know what we're doing um so looks like 1d is is something that people are comfortable with. That is something we can, you know, move forward with. - It's D as a dog, right?

[04:14:41] - Yes. - D as a dog, yes. - I'm having trouble hearing. - I'm right here, Bama. - You're not gonna talk like my wife. - I think I'm funny, but okay, let's move on. One E, and then one E, though, that was one where there was dissension.

[04:14:58] - What's one E? - One E is the one about at midnight, the porch shall promptly conclude an item in front of the board and adjourn the meeting unless the board votes and suspend the rules My biggest concern with that now is just the fact that this kind of sounds like it's pivoting on whether or not Richmond does something.

[04:15:16] And I think, so from my perspective, I don't think we really should take it up until we know that because it's all... Madam Chair, members of the board, I'm recommending a clause be added to it to say and or unless the continuation of the matter is consistent with the applicable provisions of Virginia Code.

[04:15:33] Yeah, okay. How do you feel? Yeah, I'm opposed to it regardless, yeah. Why? For all the reasons. The land use and policy don't have the engagement? Yeah, I think it's something.

[04:15:50] I thought that was for Bob. No, well, yeah. But your audience, I thought that was a different part. No, it's the same. Oh, okay. So the reasons I mentioned was because I think it's on the agenda. We need to complete whatever the agenda items are. And then B, for political reasons, I don't want people to be able to use that as a reason to run off the clock.

[04:16:10] So on the policy side, she has a suggestion for kind of how to make that in accordance with the current policy, even if the General Assembly changes it. I'm still opposed to it because I just think that we need to complete our tasks on the agenda, even if that's at 3 a.m.

[04:16:26] Then again, on the political side, I don't want people to use this as a strategic resource to be able to run the clock out on an item that they don't like. Michelle, to refresh my memory, were there also concerns about whether or not that would require to re-advertise because then the public would be under the assumption that the meeting has ended and have to?

[04:16:49] Prior to the change that was enacted effective July 1 of 2023, the board could take a matter and continue it to a date certain without having to re-advertise. If you're in the middle of a public hearing, though, and you choose to, this would have you play out and finish that public hearing.

[04:17:10] But if you stopped in the middle of a public hearing and recessed to another day, and it needs to be prior to your next scheduled board meeting, you are then basically continuing to keep the doors open, to continue to have people coming for the public hearing.

[04:17:31] You will get, and it's more policy, but you will get complaints by saying, I took off today to come in and talk today. I can't come here in two days when you're now continuing this meeting. There will be concerns about that. The General Assembly changed it July 1, 2023.

[04:17:49] It says the intended action. And if the board continued it, they would have to re-advertise again. We understand that there are bills. I think everybody is in agreement that that's not what they meant, but that's what they said. So you may not have to legally re-advertise it.

[04:18:09] Again, you could defer it to a date certain without having to re-advertise it, but then you get into those policy issues of, I took off today, I can't be here then. Or if the person is now the very next speaker at 12.01, and you're saying, no we're not going to hear from you now we're going to come back in two days and then they're going to say well i can't be here in two days and i think the prior discussion when this was brought up before the board it was more the um filibustering was the the concern just to get to that magic

[04:18:45] power of midnight i would suggest that the unintended consequence of that addition of those three words until in the state code last year has created a remarkably diverse and interesting cast of political bedfellows who are like well i said that person wasn't going to get a single bill passed this year but he's getting that one right i mean it's i think they will it's that cut dry but then that'll then get into the policy issues that you all are discussing now but if i understand we would continue whatever we're issue we're whatever case or whatever we're dealing with

[04:19:23] we would finish that out take a vote right there's any other let's say we were on item b and we still have had C and D to go, and there was a potential that those things could go another three or four hours. And hypothetically, you have, so you've got four land use items, 11 A, B, C, and D.

[04:19:41] It's now midnight, you're in the middle of 11 B. This would have you play out and complete it. If you get to 11 C and D, if the General Assembly changes the language, you can continue it to a date prior to your next advertised board meeting.

[04:19:58] You don't have to re-advertise. However, you may have the applicants, those in support, those in opposition, that cannot be here on two days that you continue to think, the C and D, too, because they're going to say, I took off from work today to be here today for this.

[04:20:18] I have other issues. I have appointments, calendars, et cetera, and I can't come be here in two days. and then that also presupposes the organization getting ready kicking anybody out of chambers if they've reserved it getting all the staff etc to be there to do it but i know in some of the cases that we've had recently there were people who showed up to speak but had to leave because they had to work because it was now another day correct so um so you know i don't think no matter what we do it's not a perfect scenario for everybody and you know so i think

[04:20:55] what we have to do is look at this as the good of the whole for the broadest number of people and you know keeping people there till four or five o'clock in the morning um you know and i've seen you know a case that would have taken it basically took 30 45 minutes but they were last on the agenda correct and now they were stuck there until yes awful hours of the night um so i you know it's not no matter what you do it's not a perfect situation carrying any meeting to that late in the morning of course a lot of that can be addressed in the scheduling right

[04:21:30] whatever we put on the agenda but if the the intent is to to address those things i think in the light of day when most people when it provides the greatest level of transparency for the public as you said a lot is on scheduling how many are there but you all have seen when it's consolidated and the consolidated takes longer than a standard you you can't make a a rule that will apply to all situations well and it's also our well being also like we've talked a lot about

[04:22:05] how productive are we after a certain you know time um that 27-hour meeting had us all hurting and we're walking and we're trying to do all kinds of things to stay awake but are we really there so going back to the previous discussions how do we arrive at that happy yeah i'm not beholden to a midnight deadline I just threw that in there as a starting point for the discussion I think it's too complicated yeah it's got too many but there are good points raised on both sides yeah all right my inclination is to and you know a lot of this is based off obviously what happened last year with

[04:22:42] digital gateway and some of the other I am nervous about making changes based on those landing it's happened in years prior it's okay and boards prior true I mean I also know under I mean, they're going through Terry Cinegi, and there are a lot of other contingents, you know, the mosque, Cainville.

[04:23:01] Too late discussions. Yeah, well, so too late. I'm just like, okay. I am hesitant to make that kind of change based off of a handful of overnight votes, because I think maybe that's something we can discuss as a scheduling issue again.

[04:23:21] How are we setting up these? We are going to know which ones are contingent. I'm glad you said that. Because we're going to address the agenda. Maybe this issue will go away in a couple of minutes. I will say, I sat down, kind of started moving over our planning cases.

[04:23:41] How many, I think we have four dates. I can't remember how many dates set for land use cases. We're going to have some home meetings. I don't think we're going to have 2 a.m. meetings. We may have some 2 a.m. meetings, but that's another thing. There's just going to be a lot of cases.

[04:23:57] Yeah, but it's also part of the job. Should we move to the next one? If I could, just last point is, I agree with the chair on that because I think that, again, to the point, I think there may be times where we're halfway through an agenda and an item that we didn't foresee took several hours, did.

[04:24:17] And so that doesn't mean that we're going to say, oh, yeah, we're going to go through all the agenda items tonight regardless of what time it is. Because I think there have been situations where we've looked at it and said, hey, you know, it's now 2, 3 a.m. We have a couple cases left. Yeah, they could go fast.

[04:24:32] They could not. But at this point, most of the people who are even here to speak on that item are gone. And so I think that we need the flexibility to address that case by case by. The nice thing about this language is it's permissive, not mandatory.

[04:24:48] It would take a board action to, if you wanted to continue, you just simply suspend the rules and continue. If I may also, if we're really being honest, public comment time was one thing that took up a lot of time, which we expect and promote and appreciate.

[04:25:07] The other thing were board comments that took up a lot of time. And some of that was probably by design, too, by some that are not here. So I also feel that we can also maybe continue to monitor ourselves and how we have discussions so that it doesn't add additional hours to the meeting.

[04:25:38] Because I don't mind hearing from the public for five hours. That's never been a problem. But when we're going back and forth for the sake of also killing time and running up the clock, I also think that is a bit problematic. Well, I've got another suggested edit, which may make this move to many people's minds.

[04:25:57] So, I mean, and this is what, give you time to give this all, quickly move to the next one. I don't think anybody's going to have issue with this. Section C, item 2, required absence. And I don't remember your take on this, Ms. Robles.

[04:26:14] As it stands right now, the chair, clerk, or the county executive self-suggest the absence of a quorum prior to the taking of any action by the board. I would simply suggest that we need to add county attorney after clerk and before or the county executive. Just so the board knows, I did not ask for this.

[04:26:35] I'm sorry, what is it again, Bob? It is section C, number two. Right, but what does it do? It simply has the county attorney as one of those that can suggest the absence of a quorum at any point in time so that we don't engage in a vote that's not valid.

[04:26:52] Yeah. Has that happened? I have gotten up when there hasn't been a forum and I've gone back to try to get you or I've turned to the chair. I guess my question is, is this necessary? I think it just clears up an authority that's not there.

[04:27:15] I think it should be the responsibility of the county attorney if she notices that there's no forum to be able to suggest it immediately. And all this does is memorialize that. I think from a belt and suspenders standpoint, we have had situations like Michelle just mentioned where people are up and around and Chris may be out trying to find someone and Andrea Madden may be trying to take time on someone talking.

[04:27:41] So she may not realize and look up that there's people missing. So Michelle can be that last backstop to also say, hey, I know. The additional backstop. Yeah, so this is more an administrative. Yeah, administrative change. That's what she's been doing. Sure, Bob.

[04:27:59] Next one is 3D. We already talked about this, the redundant sentence. And for the provider that the chair seats as such, requests shall be deemed to be the request of the board, just striking that entire sentence.

[04:28:16] Just striking that sentence. Next one. Now, these are more substantial ones. The next one, well, so on, so on. I have someone from my office who's going to bring some copies. They're going to bring a couple copies over and then they'll print more later.

[04:28:32] So that way, because I feel like everyone should have a hard, I don't know, it's a mold, but having the hard copy and reading it, I think it might make it easier. I'm certainly following it now that I have it, but to be clear, before we move on from 3D, make sure that I hear right and everyone's okay.

[04:28:55] Yeah, because I think we're just deleting that. Yeah, just deleting that redundant sentence. Right, it's not actually changing anything. The next one's a little more substantive. And I think Madam Chair was sort of pressing for this in an unintended way.

[04:29:13] There has been a significant question. We are in Section 5, Proposal of Policy and Appointment Resolution by an Individual Supervisor, Section B, Subsection 3. Currently reads, unless the membership of a board, committee, or commission is comprised of one at-large member and one member from each magisterial district appointed by the Board of County Supervisors, Supervisors will consult with the chair first before proposing an at-large nomination of an appointment to the board, committee, or commission.

[04:29:46] And what I have done is strike that, and I will freely admit that I have plagiarized the ever-living hell out of this from other jurisdictions. The press is here. The press is here. And essentially allows, when a vacancy exists on one of those advisory boards or any such similar board, The staff will notify the chair, the chair will notify the board, and then an item shall be prepared listing all of those vacant appointments that are essentially at-large appointments.

[04:30:21] And the chair will then entertain nominations for appointments at any regular meeting at which they're listed so that we all have a voice of who gets to fill. I've heard complaints from everybody in this room about how some of the at-large appointments were filled. And this just generates a process where everybody in here gets a hand in it or at least the opportunity to put a hand in it.

[04:30:44] I'll afford you guys to sit down and read it at length. It's a rather lengthy section. I will tell you it principally comes from Loudoun County's rules. We had to tweak it a little bit for Prince William County.

[04:31:00] But I'm there for your digestion unless everybody's happy with the current system. Yes. Yeah, I didn't want anything from me because, I mean, the previous year gave us opportunity to make recommendations.

[04:31:21] But I think, I just personally think that's your, you should have first dibs on who you want to have at large position. And then if you need support from us, then you need to come and ask us. That's what I experienced. Maybe others experience other things.

[04:31:38] I think that's your. I don't want there to be a confusion between at large positions. I think it's her, Bob, I think it's her prerogative to make the recommendation of who you might want. And if you want our support or our recommendation, that's what I experienced.

[04:31:58] Madam Chair, I would agree with that. And I'll also just say, quite frankly, I just think we're complicating the process. I mean, you're requiring notification, then you're requiring a vote if more than one person is brought forward. i think it's making it a little bit more messy than it needs to be i think if the chair wants suggestions from the supervisors we can bring those suggestions to her and maybe work in consultation with her or if we have suggestions on our own for an at-large position

[04:32:33] you know we we should feel free to take it to her and then you know consult with her also and she will make that final decision. I've never really submitted for at-large appointments just because I tried to focus on just the Woodbridge ones. But I understand the intent, I think. But I think it's complicating it a little bit more than I think even maybe you intend for it to be.

[04:32:57] I don't think so because it only applies to a couple of different boards. And maybe at-large is the wrong the wrong term um it's things like um the chesty bay board which sat vacant for a decade yeah and nobody knew it you know nobody knew that the positions were vacant this was making it incumbent not only on the chair but on the cxo to make the board aware of we have this subset of vacancies available and this gives everybody the opportunity to provide their input to the chair who ultimately is still going to make the nomination

[04:33:33] unless she chooses to have a nomination process by the board, and that's one of the options that's in here. But that way we don't end up with underpopulated or in some cases vacant boards or the insinuation that some things aren't being handled openly or transparently.

[04:33:54] I'm open to any amendment of this. I take no pride in our ownership in this. I literally lifted it mostly from Loudoun counties. Right. I think you're right about some of these boards being vacant for years. You're absolutely right. That's another question. Do we keep them? That's a separate discussion, but I think the easiest way to handle that is just making sure that our county exec is directing to staff that we need to make sure that we're up to scale on these open appointments.

[04:34:25] I can force some alternate language to that effect, too. I just don't know that it needs to be ingrained in policy. I think Chris can handle that with staff and making sure that we're being kept abreast. And to be honest, they've kind of started doing that.

[04:34:41] They've notified me, you've got two appointments that you need to make for this or that, and then we make those appointments. I don't know that we need to standardize it. We have Victor then, Kenny. Yeah, and it sounds like you're being very specific. So there's some at-large, I'm hearing jail board and I heard something about the airport, But I will say this, some of those were very political, people were trying to do things.

[04:35:03] I'm not even going to get into that discussion. The point here, though, I mean, the chair in that large position, they're yours. I've always thought that way. Now, very specific, even on the animal advisory board, we have Laura, who's the pet groom or whatever, only one kind of certified accountant, but it's in that large.

[04:35:25] And when Trey Willow was on, I was asked, because Kelly was on that board and they wanted her back on, I kind of ran it through, you know, the chair's office. And of course, she's like, well, this lady's certified, been doing this forever.

[04:35:41] And, you know, I just made that recommendation. But so to your point of just if you needed help with recommending for at-large position, to me, I thought, honestly, that's just what it was. But otherwise, I don't know if I want to change language and make it so specific that it's not necessarily yours, that we have to do a process in this.

[04:35:58] If you need the assistance and you ask us and we give it, great. But if there's specific boards and commissions that you all are concerned about, like you said, Chesapeake Bay, and I don't know if the airport, like I don't know if I'm going to give you an at-large when the airport is, I think maybe it's Manassas or you guys should be trying to deal with that.

[04:36:17] So if you want to be specific to some of these boards and commissions, I think that's what we should spell out if these things are actually in your area. I mean, the opening language remains unchanged, which is unless the membership of a board, committee, or commission is comprised of one at-large member or one member from each magisterial district, well, that covers DORAC, Planning Commission, probably about three quarters of boards at the point.

[04:36:48] So, I mean, those are immediately eliminated. you end up with are things like a chest bay board or something like that so i suspect it's a very limited number of boards um and you know actually i can play with this and tighten it up we can beat this to death in a later day so we'll have kenny and then we can table this for yeah because i will say i i like the more proactive communication part of this where it's it's staff is more directly said hey has these vacancies for these at-large seats come up because again these are

[04:37:23] at-large seats that the entire board confirms not just uh uh seats that are not are done by the chair specifically i like the proactive stance of hey we have these vacancies some of these are verging on even inactivity we're not having forum at all because they don't have active membership i like the proactive part of this which basically goes all the way up to shall notify the board so So I'll just read it.

[04:37:47] Whenever a vacancy exists on an advisory board, commission committee or any such body for which the board makes appointments, the staff in consultation with the chair shall notify the board. I think there is, frankly, where I like it. And I think simplifies it where it's like, okay, staff will notify the board and the chair that these vacancies exist.

[04:38:08] And I think from there, I think that's when it gets super complicated. And I think that part of... I take no pride in ownership. Get it the hell out of me. I mean, yeah, I think we almost, so, I think for simplicity's sake, we can revisit this one and, like, make some changes if needed.

[04:38:26] I'm sorry, I know, did you have a comment too, Leslie, or no? No, I just want to make sure we got. If I could just, because I think ultimately, to the point of all this discussion, is we're trying to build trust with one another, right? And to me, having a proactive way in which staff notifies us that there's a vacancy here, then opens the table for us and all discuss collaboratively, okay, what are the folks that we then want to appoint to this?

[04:38:50] And we've done so in the past, you know, successfully. We did it, you know, a couple weeks ago on PRTC. We, you know, installed a couple citizen at large positions. So I think that having that proactive part of notification to us is good.

[04:39:05] And then from there, I think it should build more trust with us if we're able to then collaboratively decide what we want on those commissions. I'll just add that 98% of the time, folks are paying attention and they're the ones that let us know when there's a vacancy and they send us their resumes and then i shared it with you madam chair and you said i'll consider it because for this one i've been lobbying for it and so ultimately the decision falls on you that's that's that's that's the way to keep it i think easiest but i still feel comfortable in knowing that i can forward a resume if somebody's interested for your consideration and you know i would like to say

[04:39:43] i know i've worked with kenny on an appointment you know and i will definitely work and i need go through all the bccs i'm still making my way through them um so many other things are popping up but that is something that you know i'm discussing with relevant people when they have suggestions as a couple of you guys have you know um and what does concern me though is that there have been spots that have been vacant forever you know that's something we've got to make sure that but we fill center a little later.

[04:40:12] Yes, if I may, please, not too late on the point. Bob, thank you for what you offered and what you said about you're not taking prior ownership. But I remember that's something that kind of the executive asked Andrea to really kind of reframe, if possible, to make the process a lot simpler.

[04:40:32] And that's what she's doing in communication with us. So as it applies to that, I just wanted to offer you that. All right, and so we're going to, this one is, we're going to take this off as something that we will, people can review this if they have changes or if this is needed.

[04:40:49] Let's move on to section F, order of business, item 2D. Additional items to the DNA, they're both suggested additions to it. And then F, but I want to go start with, and I do have someone from my office bringing a couple copies because I need paper, which is hard for me to read.

[04:41:07] I can read over your shoulder. All right. We don't currently have anything in the rules procedure that actually identify when we get the agenda or when the agenda comes out. It's a matter of practice that comes out on Thursday, essentially giving you four days.

[04:41:28] And as you were discussing earlier, with complicated things where you want to address it with your colleagues or with other people, four days doesn't cut it. I'm not aware of any other jurisdiction that has this short a time between publication of the agenda and the actual meeting happening in most jurisdictions.

[04:41:49] And I, again, no pride in ownership. I've lifted this from a couple of different jurisdictions. What this essentially provides is that a tentative agenda shall be set 11 days before a board meeting. And this will also allow the board, individual board members to address the removal of consent agenda items that may or may not have any consent.

[04:42:20] I know we've heard this over and over again. Have you worked out your issues with the consent agenda before the meeting and had all your questions asked? Well, that's not really the question that should be asked. The question that should have been asked was why was this on the consent agenda in the first place if there's no chance that there was going to be any consent?

[04:42:38] What this would allow you to do is remove items from the consent agenda well before it's published as a consent agenda, and if it is going to require a policy discussion, as they honestly should, and occasionally do, where you've got staff during the consent agenda spending considerable amounts of time explaining things or elaborating on things, This allows you to place it as an agenda item later in the meeting rather than at the consent agenda so that you know you're going to have a discussion on these particular topics.

[04:43:18] So that would be Section 2D. Section 2E, that qualifies it. May I just interject just briefly just to remind the board, the next conversation or the next presentation you guys are going to see is from your staff about your agenda process.

[04:43:34] Just keep that in mind. So Section 2E then sets the exemptions to this because you can't just set a tentative agenda and assume that it's going to hold. And just briefly, things that can be added to the agenda by the board chair after that 11-day period or in between 11 days in the meeting.

[04:44:01] Old items which the board members are aware of and staff work has been completed on. routine, housekeeping, things like implementing state law or budget items, emergency items, standing committee items, not that we have any, except for perhaps you might be able to consider the planning commission that over, and I don't think that was the intent of this.

[04:44:23] After the receipt of the tenant agenda, any board member may recommend adding items to the agenda by informing the board chair by closing business a week before the meeting, So that gives you three days from receipt to having to take an action with still a week's time.

[04:44:39] If you think something was left out or something that needs to be addressed, it allows you to add that. You'll frequently be reading an agenda and go, well, why isn't this there? Or why aren't we addressing this issue at the same time? Provided, of course, that such items can be placed in the board packet.

[04:44:58] And all of these additions will be subject to approval by the board chair, so ultimately it's still back in our hands. And then the last change would be the addition of QF, which is simply an administrative thing whereby staff shall be responsible for notifying board members of new agenda items, both action and information items, when items are added after the distribution of the tentative agenda.

[04:45:22] So if there is a change made, you will get a notice. It's a long way of saying going from four days to 11. all right go first so yeah so 11 days I think is a lot for staff and I'd be curious or maybe it's not I mean I think that's a question for Miss Madden that I'm curious to hear her thoughts on you know even if four days is too

[04:45:59] short and you know perhaps that's a discussion 11 days we have to take into to account all of the work that it takes to put an agenda together and quite frankly particularly on some of the land use stuff which is mostly in the evening session you know we're incredibly backed up and so that's the first concern I have just the amount of pressure we put on staff secondly going to the discussion about the consent agenda I do understand your concern about you know

[04:46:36] If it's on consent, then, and if people disagree with it, then why would it be on consent? And we should have a discussion about that. I will say the consent items are more or less standardized administrative policy tools that we need to vote on, including grants given from the state by the federal government, you know, where the state is acting as a pass-through.

[04:47:07] Making sure that we're authorizing spending on certain programs that are more or less benign. That's what the consent agenda usually is. Some transportation items here and there, making sure that we get the grant funding for Powell's Creek, whatever, whatever, that we can actually authorize the use and spending of it, things of that nature.

[04:47:27] It is true that one may have a disagreement or maybe an opposition to authorizing this grant for such purpose, But I also think that we already have a simple process by which you can just ask the chair to remove it from the consent agenda right there on the dais and vote upon it separately.

[04:47:48] That is the current tool you have to oppose it. I don't know that we need to put an entirely new process for that. And then I think also, look, you know, my past experience has been if I wanted to know what was going on the agenda, I could talk to the county exec, whether it was Shorter or Martino, about the agenda.

[04:48:14] And, of course, I could always talk to the chair about what's going on the agenda. I will also say I thought Chair Wheeler was very good at going around. Well, I can't speak to the Republicans. I have no idea. But for letting those who are interested know what was going on in the agenda, are you okay with it, whatever, whatever, Chair Jefferson has been good so far in at least informing people of kind of overall what to expect at the board meetings.

[04:48:43] So I don't even expect that to change in terms of what's going on in the agenda. I think if we had questions about the agenda, I think she would be open to sharing those things and even working with you if you need something on the agenda. I think the last thing I will say about adding things to the agenda, I actually understand, and I could actually probably agree with you with the need for having a standardized process for putting something on the agenda, because it is quite difficult to get something on the agenda, especially when you have four days notification before the meeting.

[04:49:12] But I will say it's not impossible to get things on the agenda last minute. I had to do that with a really big project, which was Jefferson Plaza. We almost had, like, an emergency by which if we didn't get that thing on the agenda, I don't know that the financing board would have worked out.

[04:49:28] And we may not have been able to even get that project done. So we had to work with the clerk's office, county attorney's office, and a number of offices. Literally, I think the day of or maybe the day before the agenda was supposed to go out to get it on. So it's not impossible to already get things on the agenda last minute.

[04:49:48] So I – those are kind of all of my concerns. I just think that some of these changes proposed just makes the process a little bit more complicated than the process that we already have. And then, again, I think it takes away some of the autonomy from the chair to really be able to make these decisions.

[04:50:07] And I can understand, and I'll shut up, I can understand the intent of maybe if you have an authoritarian chair who would want to keep everything to themselves. And, again, you may disagree, and I imagine you would, but I haven't seen that both previously and with the current chair.

[04:50:27] Madam Chair, ma'am. Yeah. Andrea. We don't put you on. I said you, but Andrea. I wouldn't get too, I would suggest this. I wouldn't get too hung up on the 11 days. That's a function of it being a Friday so that everybody has an additional weekend.

[04:50:44] It's really five working days, give or take, prior. And it's just to give everybody a lot more time. I, with respect to the prior chair asking you guys or informing you of the agenda, I can't speak to Yesley, but Yesley, did you ever get a call from the former chair about the agenda contents?

[04:51:09] Yeah, I didn't either. But I think Chair Jefferson would. And that's my next point. I have much more faith in Chair Jefferson. The problem with the consent agenda is that, and I've seen this over time, and it's not just the past board before that, it sort of increasingly became a garbage can of everything.

[04:51:32] It just kind of got chucked out there, appropriations, allocations, a lot of things that were controversial not only to certain members of the board but to members of the public and that people wanted to speak on. However, with citizens' time, after the consent agenda, there was no sense on them speaking to it because the vote had already been taken.

[04:51:54] I don't personally believe that the allocation of public funds, apart from accepting grants, that sort of thing, in many cases should be on the consent agenda. I think sometimes it requires a little bit more deliberation, and I think having all the staff there necessary to address any questions probably isn't a bad idea.

[04:52:14] is actually probably a good idea, just my personal view. I would just like to restrict, you know, consent agenda down to things that are inherently non-political, non-confrontational, anything like that, you know, grant applications, you know, grant acceptances, all that kind of, you're sort of typical administrative, you know, we've got to check the boxes on these things, But when you start talking about instituting programs, adopting or allocating millions of dollars in monies,

[04:52:53] I think that's the more appropriate place for that on the agenda is a discussion by department so that everybody is fully informed of it, the public is fully informed of it, and they have the opportunity prior to the vote to actually opine on it if they have a position.

[04:53:12] And I'm just saying that from experience. Wait, hold on. I want to go to Andrea. Okay. All right. Hold your point. Andrea. Thank you. Thank you. So I agree with Supervisor Franklin. There needs to be standardization as to how things are going to be put on the agenda and more communications.

[04:53:33] Because I did not have the opportunity to give my input on when my items were being put on the agenda. So I appreciate how you started with that process. I think that's very important. I also, in terms of what Bob is suggesting, I think we need a little more time.

[04:53:53] 11 days is a little bit too long, but I think we need a little more time in respect of that. And we also need to give consideration that we're about to have a new planning director come on board in terms of her level of input and what that looks like in terms of our projects as well.

[04:54:12] And then in addition to that, I would like to see maybe more communication, and this is for the county exec, however we craft this or frame this, a little more collaboration and communication from staff when it comes to closure and things being on the consent agenda.

[04:54:35] I think that's important because oftentimes, I don't know about anybody else, I'm rushed or my staff is rushed to put our arms around what's going to be on the agenda without really knowing. And so that's not all the time, but it's happened more than none.

[04:54:52] And so the way that you're starting with us is very important because the communication is there, but the standardization of how it's done, I would like to see that for a few more days. Thank you. And then Victor? So I love it. You've got a lot of stuff. But I wonder if it is really tied to, you know, like I hear from staff and I just, you know, I can't hear it as Madden thinks about adding more to all more that we have.

[04:55:24] Well, I will say this, and it kind of almost sounds like what Tom was saying, like committees and us having an opportunity to kind of spearhead some of these areas ahead of time, which could help us and how we get to agendas as we work through that stuff.

[04:55:40] I think I'm trying to wrap my head around all of what you got and is it in the right compartment or is there another way to achieve what you want? I think when it comes to that consent agenda, you know, everybody comes around. I've had fleet management in my office. I've had Christina Wayne in my office.

[04:55:56] If I have an issue with something on consent, I have an opportunity at that point to take it off consent agenda through a process. Maybe we need to be talking about that process. Yeah, versus thinking, like, honestly, I just don't, I ain't have any problems with the way this board's been laying.

[04:56:13] If we're trying to tighten up screws now with this new board, then we can tighten them up. I don't think we were rolling around blind, just doing stuff and out of control. I think it was good. If you want to make it better, we can do so. I don't know if this is the process for particularly this to make it better, or we should be talking about maybe committees and looking at ways for the board to be more involved, to get our hands around things.

[04:56:36] So I don't know if this is it, but I wonder if we're going to have a discussion about those things. Can I answer? We are going to talk about committees in our next session. Okay. All right. Yeah, so if I could, so I actually agree with both Supervisors Bailey and angry about this, but I wanted to expand them on a little bit because I agree that I think committees will help with some of this, but to serve Bailey's point, there's a lot of daylight between four days and 11 days, to be honest, and not only from our perspective as board members, we don't get to see the staff reports for the agendas until it's dispatched on a Thursday

[04:57:15] before a Tuesday meeting, the public doesn't get to see them until a Thursday before a Tuesday meeting, you know, we have, yes, paid staff that is literally their job, that Thursday was dispatched to that Tuesday when we take the days to look through that, that's still Thursday, Friday, Monday, right, unless for some reason we have staff that are working over the weekend, which we shouldn't necessarily have to do, but especially for the layperson who has a busy life, kids, what have you, to expect someone who's a layperson to look at an agenda that's posted on Thursday, be able to digest it, have the time, look at it, and then be informed to come to a board meeting, to me, is an issue.

[04:57:50] So, like I said, 11 sounds like a lot, but I think four, which is where we're currently at, kind of actually three, is too short of a time, especially from a transparency standpoint for the public. Now, to that point, I don't think your suggestion here, Bob, actually has when the agenda is dispatched versus when a tentative agenda goes out too.

[04:58:11] So I think that there's two different things that are to talk about, but they play into each other. The actual agenda publication would be after receipt. So what you're saying is we're going to dispatch a tentative agenda two weeks prior, but that's not the final agenda. There are changes that can be made to the tentative agenda.

[04:58:35] But would that have the staff reports attached? For our session, right? You would presume. We still have to set the date at which the final agenda is.

[04:58:54] And that's my point, because, like I said, I have no prize ownership, but I won't die on an 11-day hill, or I can live with seven. I think, wait, Chris, hold on, hold on, because we have too many people talking at once, and it's hard. I think that I know that we're going to be talking about agenda setting. i feel comfortable personally enabling this and coming back to it after we talk with the staff on agenda setting because for me honestly the three-day turnaround is short um you know 11 days i know that would be a headache for staff you know i don't want to drive off staff and i've only been here for a month but we do need to have a discussion perhaps after that about can we get

[04:59:34] the agenda and board packet out a little bit earlier like what tweaks is it going to take um you know i'm new and i'm feeling like it's a crunch people like kenny like it's a crunch it's a crunch so did you yeah i just you know it's clear that i don't think there's consensus um that there's consensus that we're happy with the way things are um and you know the benedictine monks when they go build a monastery they wouldn't put the sidewalks in until two years after they finished construction and wherever there was no grass that's where they would put the sidewalks

[05:00:11] and so you know maybe we need to walk a little bit and refine this process and then become prescriptive in our in this as we figure out what that right what life looks like yeah and i i guess one thing i want to say real quick i'm sorry i'll let you go so we can move forward is that um i understand the need for a process because it shouldn't be based on the chair's personality and i think that that might be a concern because for some people there was great communication for other people there was no communication and that's what i feel like i think it's more level

[05:00:44] of expectation you know what's coming you know that's just what i'm saying but like no but it is i think it's great to know what's coming and maybe again the look at what the process should be you know we've gotten in here seeing things a little bit more uh but i do get again a feeling Like some of this is, you know, not everyone maybe was on the same accord or same page.

[05:01:08] It was nice to have a standard process, but. Just quickly, this goes back to the one voice piece also. Just making sure as we're communicating with the community also, because it's a level of trust and transparency. So that one voice that when we agree on this is very important in terms of transparency to the community and make sure that they don't think that we're trying to hide something in how we're trying to do it.

[05:01:33] Well, that's one of the reasons we're talking about this now. We're not making, taking votes and making this, you know, bird of God, lay of the land, you know, just yet. It's because we have to talk about these things. Again, there's so many limited times that we can't actually talk about it. That's why this extended work session is good, so that we can spend a little bit more time here.

[05:01:52] And then, you know, take back the changes, and then at our next board meeting, perhaps, or it might be a little later, maybe the second one in February. You can do it in phases. You can do it in phases. You know, so with that, I guess we will go on because we have more.

[05:02:07] One more is all I have, and it's real simple, and I hope nobody's going to contend. You have two more. No, I don't. It's not. It just proves it from one person. Okay. It just takes the sentence, further no application will be placed on the consolidated land use public hearing agenda without the consent of the supervisor in whose district the land, which is the subject of the application is situated.

[05:02:28] It moves it from Section C, where it doesn't belong, to Section A, where it does. Does the county attorney or county exec or county clerk, does anybody have any?

[05:02:48] Everybody do with this? I don't have any legal issues with it. Okay. I'm done. No, I mean, to me, if it doesn't have the support of the district supervisor's position, that's not a consolidated consent agenda. Well, the problem is where it's at now in regards to the comp plan about the consent agenda.

[05:03:05] So somebody put it in the wrong place. We'll just keep all the wood bridge so we'll consolidate it. All right, and with that, we have what we can... I'm sorry. We do, that last one, yes.

[05:03:23] I'm sorry, we have agreement. Yeah, I couldn't hear him. Like, you speak so loud. So, just to be sure that I have taken appropriate notes here. Okay. For the proposed, for the supervisor, we maybe have others.

[05:03:40] For section A, B, we have agreement. Yes. For section A, E, we do not have agreement. For section C, 2, we have agreement. Yes. For section C, 3, D, we have agreement.

[05:03:56] For section C, 5, we do not have agreement. And for section F, 2, D, do not have agreement, E, no agreement, and 9, A, we have agreement. Okay? Wait, and we've had other people, I believe, Yesli and Audrey, did you guys have?

[05:04:17] Yes, Victor. I think the four of us, yeah. No, Victor had. I have one. Same. All right, so then, let's start with Supervisor Franklin, and we'll just go around. Like, what did you have? So I don't have anything written, because it was more so of a discussion with regards to, and I think maybe the audit committee may have put something, but around removal of appointees from commissions, and what authority we have and what grounds we would have.

[05:04:50] And I think that goes to the discussion of conduct of commissioners. This became a concern of mine. Some people know that I had a challenge with one of the appointees that we did move forward with.

[05:05:07] I supported it as well. But then it also got me thinking about what if individuals get on some of these commissions and do not live up to the expectations of what is expected of the board as a whole, what recourse do we have?

[05:05:24] Now, we can already ask people to step down. In best case scenario, they step down. And, you know, but what does it look like if they refuse? I guess you can just appoint someone anyway. But that's something that I'm just curious as to what people's thoughts are.

[05:05:42] Some type of code. Madam Chair, members of the board, the vast majority of your BCC's appointments are, you know, serving the will of the board contemporaneously with the board, but there are several BCC's that statutorily can only be removed for X reason.

[05:06:02] So, and that's what was done years ago with the internal audit that looked at all of the various BCC's that started at the end of the 2019. for it. They looked at all of them. So there are certain BCCs that once they're on it has to be maybe malfeasance or etc. So I think we should probably have a list of which ones those are so that we can know what we're working with. We've gone through that list of all of those with that internal audit that RSM worked on years ago. We went through to try to work on it. It was basically

[05:06:42] BCC by BCC, looking at state, federal, local law to see what are the requirements, whether we could remove them, et cetera. Can we send that around? Yeah. Yeah, so we can have a specific commission. I know we had a discussion, but I hadn't said that.

[05:06:58] Because I think the other question is, and it sounds like there's a statutory requirement for a lot of these, but I guess my question is, let's say there is someone, this hasn't happen, but there is someone who has gone out of their way to be belligerent, actually maybe this has happened, to be belligerent on the commission, and maybe the person who appointed that individual refuses to take them off or asking to step down, you know, I'm just wondering if there's something that a majority could do to remove an individual based on conduct.

[05:07:32] There is not a statutory requirement for how to remove, and it is a BCC that has just been created by the board. They serve at the pleasure of the board. So therefore, if you have a quorum of the board present, a majority can act to remove that person. Okay, so we don't necessarily need to enact any type of...

[05:07:49] It's already okay. That's good to know. I've had different board members ask me about different appointees to be CCs. We ask what specific one you're looking at. We look to see what the legal authority is or is not for removing them. A lot of them, it's POB, pleasure of the board, and then it is the prerogative of the board.

[05:08:10] Would we then be legally allowed to go into closed session to discuss the behavior that's being alleged so that we can make an informed decision? Be it personnel decision with regards to the appointees, so yes, that could be discussed in closed session. Does that need to be writing? Does that need to be, that was going to bring up that process, like when we want to discuss, I'm sorry, but when we want to discuss a personnel action such as an appointee to a board, that we don't do that in open forum.

[05:08:40] do that in closed session is that i was going to bring that part up because i know we've had situations where we want to talk about appointees but i don't think it's right for us to do that in open forum so that was my kind of suggestion that was going to throw out it sounds like we can already do that if you can discuss performance of appointees you can discuss the appointments in closed session if it's on the agenda but you want to discuss it contact me ahead of time i'll add it to the closed session if you have questions as to whether to discuss something contact me and i'll look to see whether it fits into the legal parameters but you you can discuss appointees

[05:09:19] in closed session my point to that was just that we are we all do that like we own that and we don't sit on the desk and throw out someone's name we know we know our own process whether that's a norm i think we should write it down personally that we are going to live by that that we won't bring up someone's name in open form if we have a problem with them being on an appointment to any one of our boards of commission that we do that in closed session similar how we do when we talk about personnel actions of the county employee and i'm sorry did you have something about a reaction or did you have one because i was going to go around and have an appointment

[05:09:55] okay all right and that was kind of my second so i want to get on my public comment time uh comment that i made and there were some uh words that jane had used earlier i wrote down feel comfortable in this space other people want to speak uh hostile environments and there's a difference here between public comment time and public hearings now i get it on public hearings they can come in there and they can fill the bus for us all night with that i got that part but public comment time i have constituents and i'm pretty sure you've had them too that won't come to that chamber to even address

[05:10:28] the issue of one was a sidewalk one was a traffic light one was a street light because they say the board chamber have become very hostile in the approach that it's been used the difference that I want us to separate out and that I'm talking about is if you have a land use issue case that shouldn't be in public comment time that should be a public hearing because if I gotta come in there I want to say something simple like I really want the board to look at investing in a sidewalk nobody wants to sit in there to say that now they come to the office I get it because we all have that they send emails they can even get on zoom

[05:11:05] But if you're not going to be hurt to 4-in-1 or 5-in-1 or 6-in-1 because of the bulk of the crowd, and you've seen folks come in the chamber and say, well, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about something completely different. Folks should be allowed to, our public time and time should be set up for that.

[05:11:20] And if there's issues of land use and these tough decisions, public hand is exactly where that falls. But when you take a year or two years and you continually have folks come in and it just turns into, I mean, you all saw what went through in the last four years. I think we need to really work on trying to separate those out.

[05:11:37] I don't mind folks' voice, that's what we signed up for, but people want to come in and talk about things that are important to them that aren't what 50 people or 100 people or whatever amount of people come in to consistently every week say the same narrative. So I've heard it as an issue.

[05:11:53] I feel it's something that we should talk about. At the end of the day, it's on this board. But understand this, I am not talking about public hearings. I'm talking about public comment time, which is very different. Is there a court case on that that restricts us the limitations on the spirit?

[05:12:10] Madam Chair, your rules of procedure already state that public comment time is for comment on anything that is not on the public hearing. So if they're there to talk about an item on the public hearing, they should not be discussing it during the public comment time.

[05:12:27] And that's where the chair or vice chair has to be, you know, right, which was done almost all the time. And a lot of chairs and mayors throughout the Commonwealth, they make that clarification. When they get to the public hearing, excuse me, the public comment portion, they will stay now every meeting.

[05:12:46] This is for items that are not on the agenda later on as public hearings or whatever it is. So if I could, I think that, I don't mean to speak for you, sir, but I think the case becomes, when people are talking about a land use case that's not on the current agenda, it's months from now or years from now.

[05:13:02] We have, you know, whether it's one issue or another, folks know that eventually sometime the board is going to take up a land use case on name or whatever it is, a data center here, a housing apartment there, whatever it is. But you have a subset of people that every public comment time, they talk about that one specific case that isn't on our agenda yet, and it dominates other folks that are coming in and talking about other things.

[05:13:24] Right? Right. But to be fair, it doesn't happen regularly, and you need both, because if you limit public comment time, then you're going to silence somebody that's using a public hearing to try to say what they wanted to say, but because you took public comment time away, they no longer can say it.

[05:13:42] And so both are needed. And if we just rejected one of the changes that was proposed because of a handful of controversial land use cases, I don't think that it's fair and the same logic should be applied to the fact that this is a clean slate and that we're not going to have those controversial issues that are going to drive people out, which have been not dominating most of public comment.

[05:14:01] Madam Chair, I'll state this as has been done before. The General Assembly requires you to hear from the public before you take certain actions, amending the code, land use, etc. Those items that are required to have a public hearing, that is when you are required to hear from the public.

[05:14:22] Prior to, I think it was 2020, 2021, there was no legal requirement for public comment time. The General Assembly amended it and said you shall have, basically, public comment time at least once a quarter.

[05:14:39] You are able to put time, place, and manner restrictions on your public comment time. You cannot regulate the content of public comment time. Basically, any and everything flies except for threatening words and obscenity.

[05:14:56] Time, place, and manner is how often you do it, how long they have to speak, whether they, you know, whether those that live in the county speak first, et cetera. So that's the legal parameters.

[05:15:12] It's a policy decision as to how long you want to, how often you want to have it. Do you want to have it in the afternoon and the evening? You've seen what the school board has done and other governing bodies have done with regards to it.

[05:15:30] Some governing bodies say X amount of time only, 30 minutes, you know, at the end, at the beginning, et cetera. If you spoke at this meeting, you have to wait two more meetings before you can speak again. I believe that's what the school board recently passed.

[05:15:49] Could I write, oh, moderate? We'll check. Yeah, something. Something. Yeah, I, you know, I've thought about this a lot because it's good to mention it to us at our last meeting. And I think that it is an opportunity.

[05:16:05] This might even give the community an opportunity to have more public comment time, you know, than they've had before, to have more people come in. And I don't see this as a way of squelching voices or minimizing voices, but I see this as a way of us having some kind of parameters and standardization of how we're doing it and that it makes sense with the agenda and how we're conducting business.

[05:16:35] And I also see this as it's nothing different than all the rest of the counties around us have done previously. So it's not a bad thing, you know, and I feel bad that it's been out in the community as a bad thing already. It's not a bad thing, but I see this as a way of us just establishing parameters and standards so that we can conduct the business of the day in a more expeditious way and get more voices.

[05:17:00] If I could just close with why this is important to me. It's all about efficiency, you know, and trying to be efficient on this board, and literally, we were talking about stopping the board meeting by midnight, and we have some of this stuff that comes up, and, you know, sometimes supervisor's time goes on, and we use all our five minutes, and, you know, all of this efficiency that we're trying to get to to run an efficient meeting, you know, when you could, I am not for silencing anyone, of course, but each of us has an office in our district, and I invite everybody to come to my office.

[05:17:33] I also answer emails when they're specifically written to me. They send it to the board. It's just a, you know, canned speech that they're just jumping on us. That's a lot. But what I'm saying is that I'm interested in every voice because I'm always trying to find the medication. What can I do? Speaking for me. When I sit in that chamber and I know to what Kenny was saying, there's a contentious something coming down the pipe.

[05:17:55] and we literally have an organized group that ekes up that time and carries us into hours later because we've allowed this to kind of happen that way. I just want us to think about efficiencies. How can we be efficient with setting the parameter of folks out of the voice and make the people responsible?

[05:18:13] So if you don't need all three minutes to speak and you know that we only have three hours to speak, then you should probably say what you need to say and give many people an opportunity to say what they need to say for whatever their concerns are, sidewalk, street light, pedestrian safety, you know, panhandling, all that stuff they can come in and just tell us without it being a design of the same, you know, kind of what I've seen in the past.

[05:18:35] So I'm just about efficiency, and do we have it, can we do better, and is that something that we should be addressing and making a change to our procedures? Bob's over there. That's it. Angela. I'll show you first.

[05:18:54] I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back and start with the appointees. I share your frustration. My concern is this. It's the slippery slope between, let's say you don't like one of my appointees, and having the board pursue removal of that as a board member in those cases where you can do it.

[05:19:16] Bearing in mind you can't do it with BZA or Planning Commission and people like that. They're statutorily protected. I worry about a slippery slope on that. And the question is, how do you take care of your own appointees that you've suddenly lost faith in?

[05:19:35] You know, is it a personal thing? Is it a political thing? Does their agenda no longer match yours? And you want the board to remove them for that purpose. Is that necessarily a good idea from a district perspective, perhaps?

[05:19:56] Does it open up a can of worms? Does it open up a precedent whereby everybody becomes fair game? I wish there were a way to address them effectively, I don't think there is without endangering the entire process.

[05:20:15] If somebody can come up with a solution, I'm more than happy to work with them. I just, on the face of it, I just don't see one. But I do share your frustration. With respect to Citizens Todd, I think we all need to take a step back and realize that we're all suffering from PTSD brought out by recency bias.

[05:20:37] I would suggest that the circumstances that led to those extended citizens' time have, by and large, at least for the moment, dissipated. I would suggest that the last two meetings sort of suggest that. I would suggest that we're not going to see it for another meeting or two.

[05:20:57] Bear in mind, budget season's coming. So you're going to get both the Tin Cup Brigade and the people who don't want you to spend any money strolling in. It wasn't that bad last year, maybe because they were scared off by the land use discussions and didn't want to come in, but it's interesting.

[05:21:19] I think I was one of the first people that provided, not that she needed a copy of it, when I was on another body, a copy of Draco v. Charlottesville several years ago when it first came out. We are very limited in what we can do with respect to tone and content, and I would even argue obscenity.

[05:21:41] Apart from public threats or personal threats, I don't think the judge left much out that we could take action on. You know, when you start talking about land use issues that aren't on the agenda, I would argue that I would hope we don't have a recurrence of the last two years.

[05:22:07] But I would suggest that that came as a result of two opposing parties loading up, and in some cases due to contractual obligations, being obligated to speak week after week after week, literally one guy reading the same speech week after week after week because he was contractually obligated to be there.

[05:22:35] Do we, as a result of that, do we further restrict it? I don't know. I mean... Again, you start getting on a slippery slope because it's not just the land use issues. I can think of a specific social services case where we hear from the same person once, maybe twice, sometimes three times on the same issue at the same meeting.

[05:22:57] So, I mean, I guess the way I've always looked at it is when you assume the mantle of this office, you assume the slings and arrows of public discontent. And if we're going to be here until three or four in the morning, he's got to take it.

[05:23:16] And I'll just leave it at that. all right does anyone else because i have a few anyone else want to i want to address specifically the public comment time because that has gotten attention in the press and i'm sure we've all received emails anyone have anything else before i my concern um and obviously i'm due to the board i haven't sat through the 27-hour meeting is i am nervous about being reactionary to what has happened in the past i mean we're going to have long needs you know um i am a little nervous about being reactionary i'm also concerned about public trust you know whether or not we want to admit it

[05:23:55] or feel it there is a deficit of public trust right now county-wide and that's something that concerns me i mean you're always going to have people who are cynical about government at any form but i feel like local government we touch people most intimately you know we are we're the rubber meets to her so that that's a concern of mine my other concerns on public comment time and i've mentioned this to a few of you i feel very uncomfortable with having people speak at the back of the room hey man that's something that has bothered me from the dais i feel very

[05:24:35] uncomfortable i just feel like we're keeping people at a distance and you know what i was one of those people i you know have had not nice things to say to previous boards you know um but But I did feel that there was a level of respect for the public when people were able to come to the podium versus being all the way out in the room.

[05:25:00] I do sometimes lean in because I have trouble hearing people when they're speaking to the back, but it just feels like it creates additional distance between ourselves and the public. So that's one thing I actually would like to discuss since we're talking about public comment time, is how do people feel about bringing them back to the podium?

[05:25:21] If I can go and blast Chair Stewart, he should be able to come blast me from the podium. And I know, yes, you guys changed during COVID. However, you know, we don't have the same concerns about COVID. And if we're going to mention other jurisdictions, I don't believe Laudan or Fairfax changed during COVID.

[05:25:41] So that's one thing I want to see how people feel about that. I think it's a combination of things that we can sit here and say it's some will probably say for security reasons or some will say because of COVID or whatever the case may be, but I think that there's a lot of truth to what you're saying.

[05:26:00] And little changes like that, I think, can restore, you know, trust back into the community. But for me personally, I wouldn't be opposed to it. If you're asking our feelings about bringing it back, I would support you.

[05:26:19] Imagine me. Either way, I'm trying to think why we move it, but I'm hearing it. I thought it was COVID. I don't know. It's not happening to Dr. Matt Bragg on planning commission. Michelle, you had a... It was told that it was also a recommendation by the police department.

[05:26:35] So maybe you'd like to hear from the county executive after he talks with the police department and then makes a recommendation. Sure. So, I mean, we heard it during training. I think while this didn't specifically come up during training, there was some conversation around the need for us to have for our officers who are in the chamber to have some ability to react.

[05:27:01] And so having the public that close to the dais at the podium gives officers a little less time to react. That's as much as we got during that training from PD. And so we don't have to sort of...

[05:27:18] I think it also, if they're shooting back, then they're shooting at us. Well... Because they're behind the perpetrator, right? So if they're shooting, they're shooting. So I understand where they're coming from.

[05:27:33] I would find them coming back. I'm not afraid of this. But I kind of understand where the police are coming from because they don't want to draw their weapon. And, you know, Michelle and I are sitting, you know, in the line of fire on that end.

[05:27:49] I might want a sweet test. but even in the case where we're not going to have to necessarily talking about respect. Wait, hold on, guys. I'm sorry. So even in the case where I appreciate supervisor Gordy's scenario, but again, even in the case where we're not talking about a weapon, where a resident or speaker is just frustrated and attempts to get to the dice, And that has happened before, that there is a little less time for our officer on the right and the officer on the left to get to the podium, I mean, I'm sorry, to get to the dais.

[05:28:26] So, that said, again, I'm not, the board will move how the board decides to move today, but if asked, that is my response because that's what I've heard. Can I say that I would love for the whole board to be in on this discussion because if I'm looking at it from a law enforcement perspective, Oftentimes, we've also raised the issue that officers are always having to look back when the door opens.

[05:28:52] When you have somebody speaking at the podium, you have full view of the individual that's addressing the board. What better opportunity to react, if need be, God forbid, but if need be, than to have a full view of somebody where you can see all of their movements and they can't even see ours.

[05:29:09] And so I would love to have that conversation. And we also have to consider the fact that we implemented a permanent barrier that we didn't have before. And so those are all things that we need to consider. Wait, hold on, because I have Bob, then back to you.

[05:29:25] A couple of things. I would suggest making the change to some degree will actually de-escalate the confrontational nature of some people, just because they'll see it as more or less some sort of decession, or better yet, a win by them.

[05:29:43] In all the years I've watched the board, perhaps Ms. Robel can respond to this better than I can. The only guy I ever remember being physically removed from board chambers was the 80-year-old fat guy with a beard that Cory had removed that one time. I don't remember him. But I think that's the only instance with respect to law enforcement's ability to respond.

[05:30:16] Not being a Leo, I would just suggest that by flip-flopping the arrangement, whereby, yeah, the person on the front go to the front on the other side, the person on the back go to the back on the other side, then you're putting them within arm's length of what would be an essential perk.

[05:30:35] So they'd be actually much closer and much more probably. It would afford them an easier avenue towards those people. Is it going to address the issue that you're still going to have at the back door?

[05:30:52] No, but you're still going to have somebody in the back to address that. And besides, the county attorney sits that under the bench. Yeah, we should. Gunfire, you know, what's another attorney we can buy a new one? Workers' call. Well, next year I will move Bob closer to that area, and I will move Margaret away.

[05:31:09] Bob shoots back. If the board would like, Madam Chair, we could, because it deals with security of those, and we could work with county exec, the police department, Mr. Alexander, could discuss this further in closed session at an upcoming meeting i would appreciate i do recall that there were specific um advice given by the police department years ago after seeing escalation in various governing bodies i would recommend to you that discussing this in public is not the best discussion in public so we can have that during a closed session hopefully the next session you

[05:31:47] You know, because, again, I just think when we're talking about public trust and about restoring that with county residents, that is something that I feel would go along. And I do agree with Bob. It would de-escalate, you know, in regards to what you're saying, you know, streamline the process of public common time.

[05:32:06] Again, I'm very hesitant, very hesitant, because, you know, there were some very controversial manuse cases, and it's organized people in a different way. I think, I personally feel, that it's caused a breakdown of trust in some people.

[05:32:22] And so, I'm nervous about being reactionary. You know, we, you know, I'm just, I'm very nervous about the area. So. And I'll. Okay, I'm sorry. I was going to say what Connelly Turner said at this moment, I don't have to call over.

[05:32:38] Okay. Yeah, I don't know. And I'll just say, for me, that's in the open. So, I put that statement out there. And I think six months into this board, we can reassess and see, basically how these work. I'm trying to close up any gap that might be in there. So I'm not being reactionary, but I'm learning through, you know, learning behavior over the last five years.

[05:33:01] I got to work one year with the previous board. - You're the most senior now. You're the most senior board member. - Well, you know, and just to see it. So again, I'm just about efficiencies and how we can actually close up the loopholes and make sure that we have, the product is perfect. It will not be perfect, but it's more efficient to really address board meeting and what does that really look like all right all right guys all right so we're going to go over wait hold on because i want to keep this moving and i know other people have things you know um yes you had some things for board where are we on the public comment we're going to talk about moving back to the podium that's going to be closed

[05:33:40] so no changes are being made no changes are being made other than we'll have a conversation but in terms of the actual, whether we do it twice during board meetings, how long, how much time, none of that is going to change until further notice.

[05:34:01] My changes are simple. Page 17, section A, where it talks about public hearings and maybe, didn't Bob, didn't you have some public hearings?

[05:34:28] Yeah. I just, well, yeah, so basically it's the first paragraph right under, so it says the board shall not conduct public hearings on residential land use matters and are matters of mixed use with residential component, including applications for special use permits during the intervening period between the general election of the board seats and the seating of the new board. And I would like to just insert unless agreed to in writing by the supervisor for who's the district the application's in. And where would that go?

[05:35:04] Right after board, unless agreed to in writing by the supervisors whose district the application's in. And I can email it, too, or... Or can you, like, to add, is this a specific something that happened?

[05:35:24] Is that it, or is there, like, why do you want to add it? Is there a... It gives it, it's an exception. I'm sorry. All right. I'm just, so, hang on. So, not to make it political, because many will agree that the efforts of implementing, you know, the lame duck policy was political.

[05:35:47] We're not there anymore. But I just think that it's good for business that you have it in writing and you're in agreement with the district supervisor. Wait, hold on, hold on.

[05:36:03] Because Victor, are you done? Because then I'm going to go to Mark. Yeah, because I'm just going to listen now. I'm just going to listen. So my only challenge with that goes back to the discussion I had around the midnight cutoff. I think that if we have agenda items or, let me not say agenda items, cases that is before the current board, I actually think we have a responsibility to get that done, whether it's an up or down vote, whether it passes or fail.

[05:36:42] I believe in principle that we have a responsibility to do our work. If you remember, when we first got on this board, the first several cases that we did were cases that the previous board, for whatever reason, had taken action on.

[05:37:02] And those were controversial. The Preserve at Long Branch, Devlin when it was housing, Klein, right? And give or take three or so more. The public, there was agenda of opposition to those.

[05:37:18] There were some in support for some of those. and they came at us why are you guys doing a b and c and really what i'm thinking the entire time is i wouldn't have to make a decision one way or another on a lot of these items if the previous board did its job so and a lot of people had issues with us doing digital gateway but quite frankly i'm like if i were a new board member coming into this board i wouldn't want to vote on anything controversial left over from the previous board. I just think we should do our work

[05:37:51] and not leave it for anyone else. Now I understand the intent in that well the next board you know may want to go in a different direction. The supervisor of that district may want to go in a different direction. Totally acknowledge and get that. I just believe really in principle whether it's the day of and not ending at midnight or whether it's the entire term that the board should complete its work that's just how I feel in principle and I agree to an extent but also I mean we have um Tom you just came into your seat it puts the incoming supervisor and in a tough

[05:38:29] position I get what you're saying in terms of we wouldn't have to be dealing with this if the previous board would have just handled it um you know but for the people that are coming in as new supervisors you're literally drinking out of a fire hose and you're trying to figure out and It's not fair because now you have to make an incredibly difficult decision, whether good or bad, on something you haven't had enough time or an opportunity to fully vet as a sitting supervisor.

[05:38:55] Right, and I would say to that, the incoming supervisor is not making a decision at all because we've already handled it. Well, no, I'm saying if you want to schedule anything, but also it's not just for that. It could be for something even after the fact. I don't know.

[05:39:10] Sure, I guess the way I look at it is... If the decision is made and then there's a new board, there's a new supervisor, really their role is mostly mitigation, which I would say is much easier than making the decision itself.

[05:39:26] The hard part of this job is making the decision and putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together. On the back end, mitigating, I mean, there are several projects in my district, well, not actually, actually there are not several projects. There's one project in particular, that's a land use case that was voted on right before my, before my term. And, you know, my job on that is pretty much mitigation.

[05:39:52] There's another situation, Belmont Bay, which became my mess because, again, you know, it wasn't handled before I got there. I just think that it's actually a lot easier on the incoming supervisor to mitigate on whatever the project is than to actually have to make the decision itself.

[05:40:15] But isn't it, Michelle, is it covered? Because the next line says, unless such action on the matters is consistent with the applicable provisions of the Virginia Code. So you wouldn't necessarily, if we were to agree to include this, you wouldn't be stalling, for example, or you wouldn't be preventing a case from moving forward so long as...

[05:40:33] Madam Chair, members of the board, that clause is what we recommended putting in because, and what I would ask the board to do is allow us to do some legal analysis on this proposal and then we'll get back to you because there's a lot of variables in play. The applicant obviously has a right to be heard within one year.

[05:40:52] If the district supervisor wants it on the agenda, but the applicant does not, I have concerns with forcing the applicant to come before the board. And I think that may have been some of the cases that you're talking about that got carried over into the 2020 term.

[05:41:08] The applicant did not want to go forward in 2019. They wanted to go forward in 2020. So there are issues. I do have some concerns if you're forcing something on the agenda. So maybe it's such as if the applicant is requesting and the district supervisor is in concurrence, so long as it's in applicable provisions of law.

[05:41:29] Then you get into the issues, though, that Mr. Shorter and the planning department would have. You've got a million cases that are out there on backlog, which ones are now the ones that are coming forward. So if we could have an opportunity to provide some legal advice and get back to them. All right, then Tom, what about?

[05:41:47] Something Michelle just said gets to the point of my concern. The developers are gaming the system, and that's exactly what they did in 2019, and that's what they did this past year. Our hands are tied, theirs aren't.

[05:42:04] We need to have the ability as a board, as the elected representatives of our communities, to be able to say, wait a minute, tap the brakes, let's get through this election, Let's get through the lame duck, and let's let there be some accountability on this case going forward.

[05:42:23] Right now, the developers are in the driver's seat, and our hands are tied. And so I think there needs to be equity in all of this, that the citizens have a voice through us to these cases that are coming through.

[05:42:42] And clearly, the developers and the applicants have their opportunity to work through this. I appreciate Ms. Lobel wanting to, you know, get the legal pieces of that. Certainly we want to do this in writing that, but I think we need a proper playing field here. And right now, we just don't have it.

[05:42:59] I just don't feel that we do. Part of that is because of the general assemblies, because they put in place that the applicant has a right to have their decision written within one year. Within one year. I get that. And if all of those applicants that have current applications pressed to exercise their right, there's no way we could have hurt all of them.

[05:43:21] No. All right, and Bob? Let me give you a timeline. We had land use cases October 24th. We then waited five weeks for our next land use case, and we had three on the 28th of November, four a week later on the 5th of December, The three digital gateway a week after that, and then five cases on the 19th.

[05:43:50] And I think I can vividly remember the chair sitting there and explaining the rationale was we have to get these through to address our backlog. We have to move the backlog along. And here we are, almost February, and we haven't had a land use case yet.

[05:44:08] We just canceled the first evening session for February, so we're not going to hear a land use case until two months after the last one we heard, where is the backlog? Now, with respect to the developer's gaming assistant, yes, they absolutely have.

[05:44:24] And I'll be, Mr. Shorter knows, Ms. Robo knows, I lay a lot of that on staff. Yes, there is a one-year window that we have to comply with. However, you make a major change in your application or you wait six months to resubmit a significantly different or essentially complete application, your clock resets.

[05:44:50] And it's us, we as a board, who sets the policy that needs to ensure that that policy of resetting the clock actually happens so we don't have these guys artificially reducing the review time from 12 months to two weeks or something on that order.

[05:45:08] What you should also be aware of is the development community was not happy enough with that 12-month window. And just this legislative session tried to reduce it down to four months. So that from the point of application to the point of us voting on it, we'd have four months.

[05:45:25] Those bills died today. And they died a hard and horrible death. And yes, I lobbied for their hard and horrible deaths. But they died. But that's going to continue to be an issue. They're going to try and push the envelope. So we just need to be aware of the games that are being played behind the scenes.

[05:45:45] We need to be more proactive, especially with cases in our own districts where, you know, if an applicant gets a first comments letter and it says X, Y, and Z are missing or you didn't provide me with a master zoning plan and then they wait eight months and then they submit what is a significantly different plan or significantly changed plan, sorry your clock stopped holding and you're reset i i have talked to planning directors

[05:46:19] planning chiefs um you know directors of planning and other jurisdictions i've dealt with zoning people elsewhere and i'm as recently as last week asked this question over and over again and i always get the same response that's the way it's supposed to happen so that the board doesn't end up in a bind, by two cents.

[05:46:40] All right, Eric, hold on. I won't let you guys go, but I also know Michelle's already said that, you know, she's going to review this, so I don't know if this is built on app off of that, or that you can go. Yeah, just briefly say, I actually agree in principle with a lot of what you said. I'll just kind of remind everyone what Michelle said. Look, they have a year to have their cases heard before they decide they want to sue us, so it's not like

[05:47:06] Everyone's going out of their way a lot of times to make sure that they get what they want, but I will say, look, I don't know why the February 6th meeting was canceled, all right, but I imagine we need a fully stocked planning commission.

[05:47:22] they need to be able to have some meetings and staff and that was my next point we do have a backlog of cases some of which i know some of you know are happening in the woodbridge district and and some of my constituents have been asking when are we going to do a b and c and i have to tell them the same thing that we have to tell those on other controversial cases like we have to get there so i just want to be clear in that it's not necessarily um us that's going out of our way to help these developers is like you're right you know we have to kind of operate in this parameter

[05:48:00] that the general assembly has set because i don't want to get out there that the board is going out of their way to do a b and c when by the virtue of the general assembly they have up to a year to have their cases heard so we have to just remember that hold on i would just say that that year is kind of sort of not really at their discretion to some degree it's not that ball's on court i would also suggest that the number of backlog is going to be amounting backlog is going to significantly be reduced mr shorter when the dapps rescissions come forward i think next meeting

[05:48:40] you're going to see a huge list of old stuff finally disappear All right, just to clarify a question, so it says the hearings on residential land use matters and/or land use matters are mixed use with residential.

[05:48:59] So as I read this, this only applies to cases that have a residential component. So it would not have applied to digital gaming. So I don't know. I would like to see even if we're able to a broader, beyond just residential on that.

[05:49:19] Well, I'm going to get to Andrea. I hear you, but let me get to Andrea, then I'll respond to that. For comments or for life? No, for comments, because you had your hand. We're going to go, for everyone who has changes, we're going in order. So we're still on something that Yesli had brought up.

[05:49:36] We haven't gotten to you if you have comments. No, no, no, I don't want to prolong it. I just want to do my job. So, Chair, I did have another, it's another recommendation in the same clause. Okay, and I'll get back to that. Okay, so then, let me go. Right now, there is, because Michelle has to look at this, you know, we cannot expand it or take it out because this is going to be a longer discussion.

[05:49:57] Right. You know, this is definitely going to, I just want to turn it. Yeah, it's going to be a longer discussion. Back to you. Thank you. So, it's right after, same thing, only that for the second, well, it's not really a paragraph, but where it says, in addition, county staff shall not schedule, the same thing, instead of the district supervisor, I'd like for it to say, to include agreed in writing by the commissioner representing the district in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Code.

[05:50:30] I'm sorry, give me that to me again. I'm writing this. You're talking about lines. Yeah. Right, Kenny, thank you for that. so well it's line 11 after the unless and then agreed to and ready by the commissioner representing the district the planning commissioner so the previous one talked about supervisors so it talks about planning information okay all right and that will michelle or spinning will review anything else that's it all right mr booty i don't have anything all right and then we're going to go over to bob we've had all your we've had all mine i'm done all right now we're moving

[05:51:07] come let's go all right andrea i got something michelle i need your help please and item number four on page 17. it says repetitive testimony it says testimony that is repetitive shall not be permitted on any matter persons of the same position as a previous speaker shall simply state that their state their names and the positions with which they agree so could you in layman's terms what does that mean if this is applicable to a public hearing where the board

[05:51:41] is required to hear from the public yes i'm going to advise you not to enforce this yeah because that gets into exactly yeah i'm going to advise you to hear from any and everyone even if the full board does not think that that member of the public is talking about the same item i'm gonna because I would rather he offend the board by saying too much public comment was allowed than too little.

[05:52:12] Is this something that the board's considering striking? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's why I asked for that. That's why I asked for that explanation. Uh-oh, where are we at? I'm going to actually say it's probably a bad idea to strike it. Excuse me, can I say anything?

[05:52:28] All right, all right, let Andrea go. I brought him into the sun. You did, you did. You know, you're spoiling me, okay, you know, we love them. Yeah, because I think it's redundant and I don't think it's necessary because I think we're covered.

[05:52:47] It may, we may recommend, say, repetitive testimony is encouraged to basically be the everybody in favor, stand up type change. And we can look at whether we would recommend striking the shall to, you know.

[05:53:07] Because remember, I'm sorry to cut you off, Supervisor Bailey. But the board will remember when we had the discussion with regards to when people were making profane comments. And Supervisor Bode suggested, and the board agreed, the bottom of every board agenda item that says, basically, while we cannot tell you, you legally can't use cuss words or profanity, Just know that this is being videotaped and preserved and young people may be watching it, so we request that you refrain from that.

[05:53:41] So we can work with you, ma'am, just as with Supervisor Vegas. We'll provide some legal advice as to whether number four should stay and or be amended and then it'll be up for the board's consideration. Or be strict. Those three things. And let me just say, the reason why I say that is because they do do that.

[05:53:59] They come in and they give their comments, and then they'll have, like, 50 people in the audience will have them stand as they're giving their comments. And so that's recognizing the same voice, and I would like to have that conversation with you, Misha.

[05:54:14] Absolutely. Okay, and then the next page, page 18, stand. Okay, for item number seven, discussion of debate on the board.

[05:54:33] Boy, have we had a robust... I apologize, ma'am. Where are you? I'm on page 18. Item seven. Item seven. Thank you, ma'am. Thanks, ma'am. So we need, I believe we need a standardization from you, Madam Chair, in terms of what we are debating, not to replicate what the previous chair has done, but I think to expedite timing for us to have business taken care of and lack of arguing and going back and forth and being repetitive, there needs to be a standardized in terms of timing.

[05:55:11] I'm looking to know for myself I need a review, and that's some of that I think might be on me getting used to sharing the meeting and stuff like that, But I believe we have for discussions, like, I'm sorry, I don't have my notes. That's okay. We have like five minutes or something. Yeah, five minutes.

[05:55:26] Yeah, and that's what we're accustomed to. And I don't want to speak for anybody, but I'm just saying to keep order and to keep us going. There's five minutes in there. It is. Is it in there? It's in there. Okay. See, I don't have to put another section. It's on line seven. Some of us should only get three, though.

[05:55:44] Did I say that out loud? No, I was about to say that. Sorry, that was blurry. Well, I was going to say, I guess in all seriousness, I really was actually going to say that I wouldn't mind reducing the five to like three because, let's be honest, sometimes we take our liberties, even when we don't have to.

[05:56:05] How do we feel about that? I love it. Three is good. All right. Well, I mean, you. Bob? Matt Moulton. I don't know how to say how long we've talked. Kenny? That's what he does. We don't want to do this. Yes, how do you feel? Three minutes?

[05:56:23] Yes, we talk fast. Come on. I do, but what I got coming up? What I got coming up? Okay, but we also have to remember the next sentence that says, merely asking a question or making a brief suggestion is not counted as speaking in debate, nor is making of a secondary motion counted, because that was also a problem in the passed but we also let's let's be let's be clear we don't want to replicate what we've done before

[05:56:58] that's my reasoning recommending this and i'm not so you want to reduce it i do yeah to three i do i do you get your point across this is quick i don't know maybe go to russia yeah and what did you say tom i don't know it depends on how long it takes but i'm trying to build consensus with this because we we're we're not novices anymore we're seasoned yeah and in my position is i would rather hear from the public than to hear from us beating the dead horse i'll

[05:57:35] I'll give up two of my minutes so long as y'all don't take public comment, how about that? That's a compromise. And we have supervisors time. Let's cut that to three. Oh wait, do you take supervisors time? No, no, no. No. Well, there's always supervisors time. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so, I, this is on page, wait, it's on the ball, I just turned on.

[05:57:56] Page 18, number 7 at the top floor discussion. So, Bob. The only thing I would say on this is I'm not going to be in favor of reducing it to three, but not for the reasons I think you're going to think.

[05:58:19] On many issues, many votes, there's not going to be any debate. On some, especially complicated ones, perhaps five minutes isn't even enough, and you may have to spend a little while to deal with that. But I think by limiting the scope of deliberation and debate and lowering the time allowed board members to do that sends the wrong message to the public.

[05:58:45] Sends the message, we're just trying to hurry this along and get out of here. And I don't know that that's the posture you really want to take or the message that you want to send. I also want to make this clear. I want to understand that this is still going to be the practice.

[05:59:02] The time limit applies for deliberation post the making of the motion, but then prior to the motion, we will still be afforded the opportunity to clear up questions, not make statements. Ask questions of staff, ask questions of the county attorney, and I would prefer there not be any limitation on that because oftentimes during the presentation or during public comment, a host of issues come up that require clarification.

[05:59:31] And, yeah, it's going to drag the process out, but I think we owe that to the public as well. I would be okay with that. We can suspend the rules, like, again, and add more time. No, I agree with you, Bob, but I agree with you that you do have to make that case.

[05:59:46] The reason why I said for three goes back to something that you said before. If you do your homework and you read your documents, then it shouldn't take that long. Some of my motions take three minutes to make. Don't go back on your word. All right. Okay, so I've got one more thing.

[06:00:02] Okay, go on. Okay, one more thing. On page, go back to page 7, please, I'm sorry. Item number 4. Okay, guys, wait, hold on. Item number 4. Item number 4A, under proclamations and accommodations, I would like to change the verbiage to say board members may issue proclamations on such issues for recognition.

[06:00:32] at such time and I say that because there was always confusion about is it only matter chair making proclamations is that or is it how does that play out that way hold on I'm sorry before we wait everyone page seven item for a so I was told that when things are and I know people have done other things and tried to slip stuff in but when we're talking about the board and the county writ large that is the chair okay that is the chair now if people want to do things for their own districts

[06:01:09] I'm sorry I know Michelle can clarify like you know you want to do something in Potomac you know do you recognize that is different but I the chair members of the board the board can only take an action as a whole okay in an open meeting okay so if the board wants to make a commendation or proclamation it needs to be a resolution at a public meeting gotcha the board have a quorum and the majority vote if supervisor bailey wants to issue a proclamation on behalf of the potomac district she can do that chair jefferson i'm sorry yours gets a little bit

[06:01:47] dicey because if you put it on the chair letterhead a lot of people now think that it is on behalf of the whole county and so that's when you would have to make it clear i as chair you know not endorsing having the whole board endorsing it.

[06:02:02] If the whole board endorses it, it needs to be an action in a public meeting with a quorum present and a majority voting in favor of it. And the reason why I'm bringing this forward, Madam Chair, is because there was confusion about this. And there was, for those that are not with us anymore, there was a lot of confusion.

[06:02:22] And so I'm just trying to smooth it out. It already says the board, but I said board members, just to make it clear. and then it's for recognition. That's all. That's the only change. Is that permissible? Then it is, if a board member is making a proclamation, it is not on behalf of the full board.

[06:02:40] Correct. Okay. Which I think is. Okay, it's covered under the next thing. Where? Supervisors' commendation. Yeah, that's in 4B to the line. Oh, right here. Okay, that's commendations. I said proclamations.

[06:02:56] But I think we should include, I mean, both. Can't you do it? They're both, right? Yeah. Okay, so. for clarification purposes what you're saying michelle is is that a district supervisor can do it without it being fully endorsed by the board if it's only on behalf of the district supervisor okay but when it's presented can it be presented at the beginning or does it have to be presented during supervisor's time that's what i should say if you because that's what you right during a board meeting yeah if you the coals district supervisor would like to issue a proclamation or a commendation to someone you do not have to have it on a board agenda you can send

[06:03:35] a letter you can do your own little if you want it on a board agenda are you asking that it be on a board agenda but yes only the potomac district yes that's what i'm trying to okay bob i didn't ground so i'm saying that i'm saying that because there was confusion and correct absolutely and i'm just trying to bring it bring clarity to it because it was announced that only the chair could make

[06:04:10] and then we had to ask the chair can we make this proclamation it wasn't necessarily for our districts it was for an organization or for you know acknowledging history of some sort but that's That's why I'm trying to make clarity.

[06:04:25] If the Potomac District Supervisor wants to make a proclamation for history, you can do it on your own, and it's not on a board agenda. Okay. If it is on a board agenda, and if the board votes on it, then it's on behalf of the full board. Right.

[06:04:41] Correct. Okay. Correct. All right. I know you have a question. First, I want to say this, because I know we're going long. After this discussion, I want to take a short break, and then we'll talk about some of the things that we have. I mean, listen, we could take a 10-minute potty break and then...

[06:04:57] Four or five? Five. Oh, it's five? It's five. So, I'm sorry, did you have something? I just wanted to... Yeah, real quickly, Ms. Roble, I would suggest that perhaps the way to split the baby on this, and I'd be comfortable with it, is if you want to make a proclamation on behalf of your district and you do it during supervisor's time, so be it.

[06:05:21] Yeah. Because you're not encumbering the rest of the board. And I think, by the way this is structured and under the code, I think that's the only way to do it, is to simply limit it to supervisor's time and that we don't have to deal with it. And it doesn't require a vote.

[06:05:37] That's what Supervisor Vega does during supervisor's time. You're welcome, everyone. But it's only from her. So she's taking X minutes of her five minutes of supervisor's time to read a proclamation that is only on behalf of her and the board is not voting on it.

[06:05:55] Right. Yes. But if it's going to be on the agenda with a board vote, then it's on behalf of the board. Okay. But it does not have to be on the board agenda, is what you just said. If it's only on behalf of the district supervisor. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Which means though this is saving it.

[06:06:13] Which causes no change. Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything else? No, no, no. All right, we're going to take a 10 minute-- and I mean 10 minutes, y'all, like literally 10 minutes. We just declare five expectations. So we can-- it's a pleasure of the board.

[06:06:29] If you want to get through another presentation, it's fine. We can also take this, and we can rearrange. We actually sort of already have rearranged everything. We can start fresh tomorrow morning. Yep. It's up to the board. We're going to plan on closing down by around 4 o'clock today. It's day one, but we defer.

[06:06:45] Oh, so I thought today we were closing down at 5:00. It was notice until 5:00. It was notice until 5:00. Oh, OK. At least I ended up on her turn. So did mine. Although we can always end early.

[06:07:01] Those days, Sam, can we do anything? So the structure for tomorrow, will we have time? Because I think today was great to have these conversations because it's kind of the only place we can really have it. You know, if we adjourn now, will we have time to really go through everything tomorrow?

[06:07:20] So that's a great question. Let us explain how we just reworked it because we were under the impression that we were at the time. Okay. Not you all. So today we're going to have a presentation about the more digital process.

[06:07:36] A number of you talked about wanting to know more. So the iceberg, you know what happens once you get your packets. You also need to know what's happening to the world at the surface. So we're going to have a participation on that. And that's helpful, too, as you consider your agenda process.

[06:07:54] And then we wanted to have a conversation about . That was to be today. And then we were going to go into the planning process. But we kind of thought we might be able to get you tomorrow, depending on how much time you want to spend your priorities.

[06:08:10] We need to empty out your brains on the priorities to be able to write a really strong after action. So to answer your question, we can do all this. We just confer, we believe it. But the discussion of the use of the VCCs can't be on the phone.

[06:08:28] That's okay. So you're -- you decide. We're here. We're here. We're out of your place. I'm sorry, Andre, do you have something you want to -- I apologize, Madam Chair. I was just wondering whether this has been noticed one meeting that's two days it's one one so you would recess you wouldn't adjourn today you're recessing until two in the morning thank you for the clarification i you know what i know everyone will tell me some people know where i live if i say let's continue push on personally i'd like that i get the sense a lot of you guys are tired and exhausted and victor is smiling like a chest

[06:09:01] I will ask, you know, how do people feel? Does anyone want to continue to press on the 5 or people with a small break or people want to?

[06:09:17] I would like to adjourn or recess. Anyone else want to? I would not. It's 4.06. If you would have asked me like at 3.50, but now we're past that 4 o'clock, let's just power through to 5.

[06:09:33] - All right, all right, all right. - Victor, we're here. - Yeah, I just got you to grab some-- - All right, I think, okay, anyone else? Any, Andrea, any? - We have 45 minutes. - Yeah. - Tom, any questions? - No. - All right, he's gonna battle them. - Andrea is anxiously waiting for a moment to talk to us about the agenda matter chair.

[06:09:50] - We're gonna take a 10 minute break and then we can pick up, okay? Sorry guys, 10 minutes, literally 10 minutes. - It could be five. - I will find y'all.

[06:10:34] I like it with you all, because that's good money, but 9 out of 10 elective bodies have been set. Ladies and gentlemen, see how normal I keep saying? I'm just like, I think it's a thousand, like that, if I think it's a thousand, like that, plus the thousand.

[06:10:52] Oh yeah, I can't imagine. It was worth it to have this conversation. Absolutely. This is going to help other guys, there's a lot of things, much easier to do.

[06:11:07] I do agree with that. Kudos to you. They made it to Nationals, right? I thought about it, and it's true that, again, it could be efficient in meetings, but sometimes you can do that without having to get the whole board to vote.

[06:11:24] Because it doesn't have to be done as a . That's where it started. That's where the public is. Yeah. That's where it started. We just wanted to ask you some questions, whatever. She wanted to know if she could recognize somebody right, because when the meetings are so unpredictable, that how does it give somebody a time to provide?

[06:11:53] Do you see what I'm saying? And so she, I was on the right, well, she committed, I knew that. That's fine.

[06:12:50] I got a little bit of cover so I'm good. I'm kind of dancing in your hair without a lot of hair. No, I can't even see it.

[06:13:09] Yeah. Alright. Yeah. This is good. Yeah, this feels very rude to everything else. Yeah. I'm going to do it.

[06:13:30] Yeah. What's up? Not much. No, it's been obviously since the board hasn't been meeting much in there.

[06:13:49] Yeah, pretty much. I'm excited. I like it. I like it a little bit.

[06:14:24] Where are they? Where are they? Yes. I wasn't good enough time to love, so I'm putting on a timer and then I'm going to go find people. So that time?

[06:14:39] Yeah. Long. Yeah. From here, these girls. Wow. We just got the temporary. It's going to be, uh. No, no, no. I'm sharing a word. I didn't know what it was.

[06:15:13] I'm just glad they took away those cookies, there's cookies in there. Yeah, did they put them away? No, I think they ate them all over.

[06:15:29] No, I didn't get it. They tried to be. I forgot.

[06:15:48] There's Mrs. Goodclubs.

[06:15:51] I just don't need to open it.

[06:16:29] Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Your name? Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

[06:16:45] I'll be doing some of that. I'll be doing some of that. I'll be talking to you. A few years ago, when I fell at my whole company surgery, my legs and my agent are about 200 meters.

[06:17:03] So, the weather is really cool, and the traffic, and the event is actually very cool. They ruptured both patellar tanks, so they had to instruct them and re-tach them, and they have more. It's actually that community came down, meant to be there, and probably not meant to be there.

[06:17:26] And I don't think I want it. It's a genocide.

[06:17:45] But. It's an interesting thing. It's like, where do we go with it? I don't know where it could be. I don't know where they are. They're playing the sale of it.

[06:18:04] I'm going to go right now. You know, where I'm going to sing. You're learning.

[06:18:22] I'm going to have a hammer down. All right, we're going to get back, finish it out.

[06:18:41] I know Andrea's going to do a presentation, or I guess you are. I think the presentation is a little tall. I will speak, too. I don't have a presentation to talk about. She will present. So let her sip her diet coke or tea or whatever. Are you ready?

[06:18:57] We're ready. So, we're going to hear a presentation about the board agenda, we heard a lot about that from you, people wanting to know how it's created, why the timeline is the way it is, and so we asked the county executive would allow us to have a presentation that's not expert on why the Air Force is...

[06:19:26] No, thank you for that, Jane and Charles. Really thank you for the whole day. This has been much appreciated. So, really quickly, this wasn't intended to be a presentation, so you won't see spots.

[06:19:43] I'm going to walk us through the agenda review process. That's it. This isn't meant to just be a one flow segment of the agenda. So we hoped under this sort of information flow discussion, and we're going to hear from you now.

[06:20:00] I have already heard of the field today and know that we have some work to do in terms of getting you as a board information. That said, after you hear this discussion from Andrea, it would be helpful to understand how we could best as an organization prepare you all for the board meetings.

[06:20:24] A lot goes into asking you questions and getting things on the agenda. We have ourselves a good number of agenda review meetings before an item comes, and certainly for an item to appear on consent.

[06:20:42] No one would have heard concerns from an elected official or others about that item. So what I heard today through our discussion was a bit concerning, because generally speaking, we try to bring agendas that don't do that, that don't put you all in a position where you need to say, wait, this is contrary to what I think it should.

[06:21:07] So it would be helpful as Andrea gets through this sort of part of the discussion to hear directly from you, what else can we be doing to make sure you're properly prepared. What I have personally started doing is calling each of you just to check in, to make sure you're okay with what you have seen on the agenda.

[06:21:32] And you will see from this discussion how tight the timeline is for us and the work that needs to happen from the agency to get through the agenda review process. So I hope we have enough time to get through it, but this is going to be as informative to me, hopefully, as it is to you all.

[06:21:54] All right, I'm glad. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything I could just plug my laptop into the projector? So it is a presentation. As I'm looking at the dates, we're working on one agenda, so we're actually working on about 12 different things.

[06:22:22] I just want you to be able to see the dates. Hi, DeFar. There it is, man. DeFar. I don't even think I can do that. Yeah. She might not have any. They don't have any. They don't have any. How much do we pay her before we get her device?

[06:22:40] Enough. Terri. Terri. Here, you want to grab? Here. You're right there. I don't know if we should get these views. What am I in the front? That works great. But I see you all at a level.

[06:23:00] So our regular review process, I will admit, is a little clunky. We've been trying to have this at a staff level. It's very manual, the way we need items for new items. We are working on a new product. This year, we will use to automate much of our review process.

[06:23:18] We are not there, and it's going to take us a few months to get it built and get there. So keep that in mind as we talk about this. We understand, on our end, we have some challenges and opportunities, too. So I'm just going to start with the February 6th agenda.

[06:23:36] This is the one I'm back there working on right now. Our deadline for the February 6th agenda-- and by deadline, I mean staff have to turn in all of their documents, staff report, resolution, any attachment, backup of the items.

[06:23:54] That was due on January 7th. So what happens is that item with all of its materials gets routed to what we call the Box Agenda Review Group. That includes the county attorney's office, finance, budget. Those are kind of three standard always-included reviewing agencies.

[06:24:14] It also goes to the CXO, the DCXOs, and if it's an HR component or something that's just proper, it goes to the appropriate individual. So once that item gets sent to this group on January 17th, that group has until January 24th to review that item and return any comments or corrections that they might have to the clerk's office.

[06:24:38] Now, keep in mind, some of these agendas, and I'm not complaining, but the last few have been, other than appointments, have been pretty light. We haven't had 30 consent agenda items in the past, and so these agendas are pretty easy to get through.

[06:24:56] and it doesn't require a lot of time from the reviewing agencies. When we have these big agendas, those reviewing agencies are also looking at every agenda. So that's why we try to kind of give some space in between our meetings, otherwise those reviewing agencies are kind of cranking out from one meeting to the next and they have to put eyes on a lot of questions.

[06:25:19] So the agencies have a week to get comments back to us. We returned those comments back to the author, the originating agency, pretty quickly and asked for their corrections by that Friday at 3:00, I think.

[06:25:35] So we're giving them a couple days to get their fixes in and then we're saying we're dispatching. We go by Wednesday at noon because we want everything else even though we've tried very hard to dispatch by 10:00 a.m. on Thursdays after our usual dispatch time.

[06:25:56] We need time on our end. Laura and I spend a great deal of time formatting everything, standardizing it so it goes out the door all kinds of things. People have different ideas on fonts and margins and so we go in and kind of fix all that, but we need time to do that because just like everybody else who has to look at it, Laura and I read, not the planning stuff as much, but we go through and read these, looking for spelling, grammar, and that sort of, so there's a lot of work on our end to get it out there.

[06:26:32] So we, as you can see, back that process up, you know, two or three weeks is what items are due, and that means everything has to be 90 minutes before, you know, the staff reports and the resolution's ready, through that process.

[06:26:50] So Chris and the DCXOs and Michelle's office, we have what we call agenda review meetings. So we get together on Mondays as a team and we look at the agenda, the media agenda, the upcoming agenda.

[06:27:09] And the DCXOs have now begun to kind of report out on all of those items. So if it's not consent and it's a public works item, Wade Q is talking about that. if it's a parks neighbor that's reviewing that i think at that point when you talk about being being on consent or being under agency time we have those conversations around that table and most of the time if it's on consent it is non-controversial we expect it to go through

[06:27:44] unanimously if it's a project it's a transportation parks project we also expect that that supervisor you've been is aware of it our staff often goes around and does individual meetings with you all about certain projects districts and gives you an update on where these are what items are coming forward so something's on consent it's on there because staff has told us it's okay we don't

[06:28:20] expect any issues we want to talk to whoever we need to talk to we're good to go so that may be a a discussion that we need to have a different level, but that's sort of how it gets put up. Now there are times we'll be an agenda review, it's a event, and we move it based off of discussion around the table. So those open every Monday after noon that we get together and talk about the agendas. My role in the creation of the agenda is I'll be consulting

[06:28:57] with Chris and the chair as far as what goes on in the agenda. I will tell you that in the past we've had a pretty thorough policy of putting a lot of things on and we've also had a very restrictive policy as far as what can get on.

[06:29:17] So, you know, there's a balance there. You know, you certainly don't want 18 people creating agenda. That is just a lot of lines to try to keep straight. So I take my direction is from what staff is submitting, I'm not just creating these things and throwing stuff on the agenda, it's actually the result of what the planning director says needs to go on, transportation director, Michelle Atrey has something for finance that needs to go, so those are the kinds of inputs as far as what goes on.

[06:29:56] so i will tell you that this is very tight um chris and michelle can tell you that sometimes when those agenda review meetings like pull my hair out like you want to get this stuff out part of that though is because information is changing sometimes very quickly um there are times when we're waiting for less minutes to get dollar amount uh contract or whatever it is um and And so to get those final details in there can delay getting that item out of work.

[06:30:32] So if we back it up, schedule-wise, to get your item in instead of three weeks, end of the meeting, if we're going in for six weeks, you know, I don't know what the impact on the staff will be. You know, deadlines become increasingly at these milestones.

[06:30:57] But this is just kind of a little work. And if you look at it, February 6th, we're dispatching that this week. so I'm back there working on it right now. We're also working on the February 13th meeting, which deadlines are coming on, so we'll need to bring them back to us this week without them.

[06:31:17] And also, February 20th, that agenda closes the days, and we'll start working on that. So in my office, we're working on three meetings all at the same time, all kind of together. Just like once a meeting concludes and you guys have adjourned, we kind of push that one to the side and get back to it, but we really need to get on to the next one

[06:31:41] So, you'll notice on your calendar that you've all adopted this year, we've tried to put work sessions in between regular meetings, because those work sessions tend to be lighter, it gives staff, not just mine, but all of us, a chance to touch our breath and prepare for the next regular meeting, because the workflow can be different.

[06:32:03] Again, some agendas, we have all items on there and others we have. Here's the agendas right, Laura, and I've done 45, 50. So it's kind of how we work it out. I mean, I'm going to answer any questions.

[06:32:20] Again, we're looking at automating some of this, which will help fix it from off of at least my staff. But it is a lot of effort to fix these items. And I will tell you, sometimes up until the day before dispatch, items can be easy.

[06:32:37] We have reasons for pulling them, whether they're just not ready or we're waiting on it. It could be that something has changed and we can't move forward. So things happen, and so we do sometimes pull things.

[06:32:56] We also would ask. I don't know if it was saying that having an agenda item is getting long, maybe less minute. We know that there's emergencies, and so there does need to be some flexibility in how we manage that agenda process. but we try I am I don't know how many have done leadership Prince William so I am very green which means I'm very structural which makes sense right like an agenda I have a very clear understanding when things are laid out I like to follow the rules so for me this is a great job

[06:33:32] but it can also be kind of challenging when we deviate out of that you know and bring it back So I'd like to have some structure and, again, the importance of deadlines and being able to meet them and enforce them is just something that I take.

[06:33:53] We've got to, you know, up again on our site and recognize that there are those pretty consistent. Any other questions that we haven't answered? The process is, I'm not going to get into the nit and the grit, but it can be, you know, trying to get these items approved.

[06:34:16] I've been back there with Nora, who's the deputy, you all know Nora, and she and I at our computer are trying to be awesome. Kelly's calling me. Hey, who's he, Kelly? I'll tell you, please. I want to get something on the agenda.

[06:34:31] So we've been back there trying to, you know, hammer out some crazy, you know, a bunch of jerseys, I know, you know, so I get in the lead for more than you all want me to. So that's kind of, oh, somebody tell me.

[06:34:49] I just don't. Oh, okay. So I think recognizing the need to get information to you all, again, we've got a process of looking at only in the next five to six months that may help release all this. This is where we're at.

[06:35:10] Very good. So that's the process as it is. Certainly want to kind of hear, kind of cheer board members. I heard it.

[06:35:28] so if there are things that we could do information that we could put out ahead of what we're currently doing i guess now is the time to kind of hear that directly we have 27 minutes you know so um yeah um i think it would be great and i realize that it's a lot put on staff but if there is a way that we can get things a little bit earlier you know i know i work with obviously chris and, you know, others to review the agenda.

[06:36:01] For me, getting, you know, that packet on that Thursday, it's rough. I don't know how the rest of y'all handle it, but it's rough. And it would be great to give staff and the public additional time to review it. So I'd love to hear from other people about, you know, what their thoughts are.

[06:36:18] Okay, bye. It sort of gets back to the proposal I made earlier with the, in terms of the agenda. Because I've applied sort of a corporate prison to this, best practices, how everybody gets the most information.

[06:36:35] And I think what I have suggested does a couple of things. Yes, on the front end, it's going to be painful because you're going to have to change the logistics at least for a couple of weeks. It will force you to do things in a time frame that you're not entirely comfortable with.

[06:36:52] But I think that will come with time or even out within two or three weeks. And because of the exemptions that are included for sort of your run-of-the-mill, ordinary agenda items that can be added after the tentative agenda, I think that takes care of a lot of the mechanics of the sort of mundane stuff.

[06:37:16] Here's where I'm going to have to have faith in the chair. Because at the end of the day, I think it comes down to, I just had a discussion with Andrea about an issue that I wasn't even aware of.

[06:37:32] It's not something that I get involved in, but it bothers me that the previous chair handled those particular circumstances in the manner that she did. I would have blown a gasket if she had done that to me.

[06:37:49] We just talked about it. I would have blown a gasket. I have to have faith that the new chair will act with better discretion and be a little more hands-on in agenda prep. And apparently, just my personal observation or impression, than the past chair was.

[06:38:08] I think a lot of the problems go away if the chair is looking at the agenda and going, oh, Supervisor Bode is going to have an issue with this agenda being on the consent agenda. He's going to flick out. Or Bob's going to blow a gasket if he sees this here because they're spending on it.

[06:38:23] Or, you know, it's an intuitive process that's going to have to be developed over time. But I think it saves us in the end and puts together a better package. And at the end of the day, I think it will afford the staff more flexibility if we bake in an additional five days lead time, seven days lead time.

[06:38:46] It allows them, once the expectations of staff are changed in terms of delivery dates, to put a more complete package together at an earlier date and gives everybody the opportunity to review stuff more thoroughly. Yes, it will be painful for a month, but then the changes will become the new normal, and then you're just back to where you were.

[06:39:09] You're just having to front load things a little bit more than you were previously. You shouldn't still be delivering the same product. You're just delivering it on a different timeline. Madam Chair, how difficult would it be to get it on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday?

[06:39:33] I think that is doable, Andrea. love to hear your perspective we we certainly by monday are still making final changes and by that time i have at my meeting with the chair i will tell you in the past any any agenda that is not final that is released or talked about and i think supervisor weird would sort of agree with me on of this becomes a real challenge for us because it's not a final agenda, but we have not gotten

[06:40:08] all of our T's crossed and I's dotted, and we have gotten slapped on the wrist because of the word getting out an item is coming on the agenda on a specific day, and it does not make it to a final agenda.

[06:40:24] So I don't know that from a tentative agenda perspective that we could send anything to the entire board that we're not sharing with the public. So, in that regard, if we are suggesting that we put out five days or seven days in advance an agenda, tentative or not to the board, it is fine, because if we push it out, it's out.

[06:40:47] So, Wednesday is definitely doable, certainly more so than... Yeah. And I think it addresses some of the more pressing concerns, at least when I think about going through the agenda with my staff. It technically gives me three working days because now I have Thursday, Friday, and all of Monday.

[06:41:07] Instead of getting it Thursday, sometimes I know that you guys do your best to get it out to us in the morning, but sometimes it's probably when we've left the office, and so, you know, it's tough. And sometimes we do ask our staff to work on weekends, but most of the time we would like not to unless it's like a community event.

[06:41:22] And so I think that it does address some of the more pressing concerns. Just feel my concern with Wednesday is that our board meetings, and so some of the latest of some of the agendas that have come out have been because we've been there very late, trying to get in the next morning and get something out the door.

[06:41:45] So we actually get quite a bit of work done at those board meetings. Notice we're down there, people can type it away. But that would be my thing. We have some unusual meeting that goes Tuesday or a little bit on Wednesday.

[06:42:04] But if we can move all of our deadlines and get staff on the board, I think that is a very doable deadline. I know I saw Margaret in the project. Margaret and Victor. I think the best course board on this, I wouldn't be comfortable making those changes without the clerk's office working directly with the board on whatever those changes are.

[06:42:29] I mean, they're the ones doing the work, quite frankly. We can direct them to do all this stuff. And then, you know, if they're behind on getting it out because there's already a tight process, then we're going to be upset about that. So I would just say work closely with the CXO and the clerk's office to come up with a process for getting the agenda out to us sooner.

[06:42:49] Now, that doesn't address all the other things that you had in your provision. I still think that those are separate. But in terms of getting the agenda to us sooner, I would think that it would be incredibly pertinent to work with the clerk's office on that. Yeah.

[06:43:05] But how does the majority feel about the Wednesday? Well, I was going to say it, Victor and them. And I'm trying to end. I love the Wednesday. I also understand as a staff, they try to figure that out.

[06:43:21] No one had to just have a board meeting on Tuesdays. And so if it's a question of, and I'm just going to throw it out there because I want them, you all to be in the best position. Right now, I don't know how many people do that in that office, but if we need to somehow grow that team or grow what that should look like because we're trying to extend out getting more, which literally backs up.

[06:43:41] If a board ends on Tuesday, you know, we have a board meeting all day Tuesday, and they got to get all that stuff from Tuesday up on the website, you know, everything. and then we expect them to get an agenda out Wednesday. Maybe the team needs to be there. I don't know. I just want to make sure that however we do it, we are trying to work very efficiently with a staff so they can actually do these things to get them done, which may lead into what we're going to talk about tomorrow, these committees.

[06:44:07] I really want to see how we can help as the board with a lot of this stuff we're talking about because if we have a handle on it through different groups early enough, then it's not a matter of being on the board. We know that we have addressed it, and we can talk to each other throughout, maybe over certain board meetings before it even comes up, and we've got to handle on that.

[06:44:27] Because this seems like not just what the board is having to rush through and learn, but we're also talking about getting it out to the community so the public can see these agendas and know what we're doing. We don't have time to change it if we put something out. That becomes literally, you know, the gospel, if you will.

[06:44:43] So, again, back to that word efficiency. It's a great conversation, but how can we streamline it to make it really fit the needs and the challenges that we're talking about? Madam Chair, just to that point, I wanted to just say what I hear tomorrow in terms of a committee structure will absolutely come back to the board as a need for increased capacity.

[06:45:08] With any committee, we'll absolutely have an impact on staff and that committee will need to be staffed. So it may result in a client's permission. Okay. I was going to go, yes, because I know you had somebody, Victor had his hand up.

[06:45:27] Did you want to ask for it? The only thing I wanted to add, since we're talking about the agenda, I think we all get briefed by transportation. I know that I sit and have meetings with them once a month, sometimes regularly, depending on what's going on.

[06:45:45] sometimes we have these presentations that have up to 80 slides parks and recs transportation the mobility update if we're already having those meetings individually and we're talking about efficiency sometimes that takes a long time um the bulk of our meetings i appreciate that please do know that we have or maybe we consolidate instead of 80 slides and we have 40.

[06:46:15] So, I don't know if you noticed, but last year, last calendar year, we actually did not have our regular quarter. We just had two of them. In December, it was actually just an email that went out to the board with the quarterly report then.

[06:46:31] What we have talked about doing is making our work sessions quadric specific, so having mobility, economic growth, and resiliency. All the agencies come to give updates. That won't necessarily suffice for the quarterly update for RIC, so we are really figuring out sort of how we want to do that.

[06:46:59] If tomorrow's conversation results in a transportation infrastructure, maybe those reports go to that committee. If it doesn't, and we don't end up having committees, then we are thinking strategically about what we do with those presentations.

[06:47:15] Whether they are emails to the board, and that is sufficient, I will survey the board to find out if that works. If it's not, and you want an actual presentation, and if it comes as part of a work session, or on a board agenda as an agency update, we will have to figure out with you.

[06:47:35] All right. So to address some of what's been said, again, I like Wednesday, and it's sort of morally time is good. Again, acknowledging and thanking the staff for all the tight deadlines they have, and the county attorney's office, they have tight deadlines over review of everything goes out.

[06:47:57] It's just, again, in my experience, both with talking to constituents, but also, frankly, with not only myself, but other members of the board staff, It's just really hard to get an agenda to a point that goes out Thursday afternoon. Basically, you're giving them a day and a half to go through everything, review it, and have a substantial conversation with me.

[06:48:17] I get a chance to talk to my colleagues. We're either talking during the weekend or on a Monday or a Tuesday morning. And it's meeting day. And it's meeting day. So Wednesday is better. Even if we could push that out, even a couple more days would be good. But again, there's a big daylight between where we currently are on 11 days.

[06:48:34] And I know that's not a hard to fast thing. It's just the idea that we do get to push it out a little bit more, have more time for really more robust conversation, frankly, more transparency for the constituents. To a point that Bob made, and obviously this is under the purview of the staff, I think that it's one of those situations where if we do push it out even a couple more days, yes, there'll be a month or so of pain.

[06:48:56] Everyone acknowledges that and not uplifts that. But I think that there are opportunities where if it needs to be such that we tweak the board agenda to create a break for staff to adapt to that different timeline, we can talk about that.

[06:49:14] I mean, we've canceled the evening meeting, the beginning of this meeting, for example. So I think, at least from my way, if there need to be changes to the board or calendar to accommodate that shift in pushing out the date to give staff more time for that flexibility, I'm willing to do that.

[06:49:31] I'm sorry. We're getting close to time. I want to keep, and I think that we should pick up this discussion tomorrow because I do want to hear from, we have three other people. I just want to say this, and it could be something to think about. Will we need additional staffing if we push this out a few days?

[06:49:48] You know, that's something for us to think about tomorrow. But I'm going to go over, I'm sorry, I'm going to go over here, and if we have time, I'll come back to you. All right. I'll make it real quick. You may have called, but I didn't think about this, but I'm very concerned about public notice and locking us into a tentative agenda.

[06:50:08] As I said, I'm taking no private authorship in this. I stole it from mostly Loudoun County. Would it be possible for you miserable to reach out to Loudoun's legal counsel and find out what their practice is or their justification? Because I'm sitting here thinking about it to myself and I'm going, yeah, how are they doing that?

[06:50:29] And they may have a mechanism, way, something, I don't know, but it's a valid question. and I think perhaps it's worth a little bit more exploration from a legal standpoint because then we may actually find a path around it.

[06:50:47] Madam Chairman, members of the board, I can reach out to the Loudoun County Attorney. I'm not going to be able to have an answer for you tomorrow, though, because... We've deferred this to the... Right, exactly. I mean, maybe I'll have Alan Smith try and call in, and I'm sure Mr. Shorter could call the county manager.

[06:51:06] Ms. Madden could call their clerk to see how it works. it's probably more practicality than a legal but absolutely we'll reach out to you i appreciate that thank you thank you all right and i appreciate what what kenny said and i kind of knowing that you know try to get on wednesday given everything we do on tuesday maybe monday is a better day you know to try to give uh to take off that pressure all tuesday um but um you You know, in the military world, we have what, and it's clear, and this all reminds me, there is a very set battle rhythm that takes place every single week

[06:51:44] in order to get stuff to us, in order to help us make decisions. And I just think, you know, I appreciate the staff taking a look at how they can reform or revise that battle rhythm to give us more time to help us be better at making decisions.

[06:52:00] I mean, and at the end of the day, that's what this is all about, right? making sure that we are well informed of the issues that we're voting on. So I look forward to hearing what you guys are coming back with. You know, I'm glad we're not being prescriptive and just figuring out what the art of the hospital is here. But it's clear something needs to be done. So thank you for taking the time to do that.

[06:52:26] Three things. One, Andrea and your staff, thank you for sitting down for 27 hours with us. We really appreciate it for all you do for us and the time that you have to do it. The second thing is for the county exec, for the adjustments that you've made with the presentations, it really has made a difference. When we do see it on the agenda, it breeds continuity. So those adjustments are working.

[06:52:55] I think just for us, making sure that we're informing the community as well, be it the website or the social media, however that. The only thing that I would request is that, you know, when it is about to come on the agenda, just a quick email from the department, from the agency, just to say it's going to be placed on the agenda.

[06:53:20] And because it's another touch point for us when we're on the day is to say this project is about ABCDEFG. You know, just a quick review, if you will, for someone that may not know social media, like our senior citizen population, you know, they may be looking for something.

[06:53:39] This is specifically the mobility presentation, or you mean general? Generally. I mean, generally, I have to say generally. And that might be an extra step, you know, but just a little email to say that it's going to be on the agenda.

[06:53:59] And if that's a problem, I mean, that might be a problem. So what I'm saying is, she showed us the calendar, like after we've met with the agencies, you know, we've discussed the project and everything, when it's going to be on the calendar, just an email to say we've talked about it we've done what we need to do now it's coming up on february the 20th that's all right that's all right and margaret i'm sorry michelle did you have something i just wanted to make one quick comment mr bode you'll remember you asked me

[06:54:33] early on in the prior term if you could get our legal advice memos on land use sooner rather than later and i explained to you we can't finalize our legal advice until planning finalizes their agenda i'm their their memo their report planning often is finalizing it late because the developer is making changes to etc so to supervisor weir's point there may be some pain for a while the board depending upon how soon you bump it out or earlier you may then get a revised planning

[06:55:12] memo because there may be changes to proffers in between the time that it was originally dispatched etc and that then you may get a second memo from us depending upon if the agenda the memo has changed so I just want to put that out and I know we're going to close up Margaret be quick because I know they have to close us out too yeah I just want to be careful of suggesting that we amend the agenda to get the information ahead of time the agenda and the schedule that I'm sorry the schedule for the year that we've said is already tight and it's built in in based on how they can get the agenda out so i just want us to be careful about suggesting that

[06:55:50] we add a meeting or take a meeting away because of the agenda quite frankly the schedule is already built as a result of the agenda that they think that we can get put together so i just want us to be a little bit more mindful of how staff is operating in reality that's it all right do you guys have anything else before we go to recess for tomorrow?

[06:56:13] I think you all have done it. We founded this job today, and there will be a lot of opportunity, I think, for your priorities tomorrow, but we will kick off that last item we didn't cover today, which is the use of committees, but I think that's a healthy discussion you all want to have.

[06:56:33] Yep, definitely. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you for the people who also come. We're in recess. Thank you.

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