Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting, Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 7h 8m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3443
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 2026-11-01. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] really create this Prince William Strong, this one Prince William that I know we are. Clean water is the world's most precious commodity. According to the World Health Organization, 785 million people lack even a basic drinking water service, including 144 million people who are dependent on surface water alone. Our code officials are vigilant protectors of our water supply. Because of their dedicated service, you can turn on the tap in your home and draw

[00:00:36] sufficient clean water. Although it can be easy to take for granted, the work that Prince William Health District does for water safety affects residents and businesses daily. The Health District helps in the review and permitting of the area's septic systems. They inspect the systems to ensure that they comply with both state and local regulations. It is important to understand where your water comes from and what's being done and how you can help to protect the water you use every day here are some more tips to keep our water supply safe don't dump hazardous waste on the ground it can contaminate the soil which could also contaminate the groundwater or nearby surface

[00:01:14] water don't overuse pesticides or fertilizers many fertilizers and pesticides contain hazardous chemicals which can travel through the soil and contaminate groundwater never flush pharmaceuticals and non-degradable products down the toilet this material can build up and prevent systems from working properly. Pump out your septic tank as needed, or once every five years. By working together, and with the help of the Prince William Health District, we can keep our water supply safe for generations to come.

[00:01:43] I'm William. I'm the manager here at the Molinari Juvenile Shelter. What people don't realize as well, too, is that this is not a lockdown facility. And they get here, it's like, oh, this is just like a home. And we treat it as such. They go to school, like they should do in the community as well, too. And also, they do chores, like they should

[00:02:19] be doing in the community as well too. Those type of kids that come through here are kids that's just crying out. When they come to our program we want to assure them that they are safe here. And then the relationship starts to build between the staff and the kid and that's how they build a relationship and the respect starts to build up from that point. And they're still a kid as well too.

[00:02:40] A lot of times the kids don't have an opportunity to be a kid, you know, because life is rough and hard. When they get here we're allowed to be that kid and they have talents. We find out, hey you need to be an architect. So let's go to the school and see what we can do, you know, what's your entrance and so forth, like that. So we bring that out of them as well too. So they see that and they figure, hey, I am somebody. And the self-esteem, that's what we try to lift up. I can take the worst of the kid and we've seen it come through our program and been kicked out of every school, can't go back to their home and so forth. And that's my kid that I just grasp onto and I tell the staff, we got to work with them. We can't just

[00:03:16] kick them out of the program. At the end of the day, these are still kids that we are dealing with they are searching for somebody and we may be that someone that they can relate to and i feel like we are changing lives every day but every second counts for us and i tell staff that soon they walk to this door that's your opportunity to make a difference don't wait till next week don't wait till tomorrow it's your opportunity right now to make that connection with that kid because you may be this last hope but a lot of times providing a safe sound environment for them and you'd be surprised when they get into that bed it's the first night they ever had a good

[00:03:55] sound sleep and for some a good full meal or to me water you would think we take that for granted you're supposed to drink water it keeps your health and keep you going i'm about to get choked up just a glass of water we could offer that to them they say thank you they haven't had a glass

[00:04:27] of water simple things in life that counts if i can make a difference in one then i know i've been successful i know i served the community and we could serve just one person to make their world

[00:04:44] of this and make it a better place i'm william and that's how i serve for nadia and charlie and

[00:05:11] this is our story charlie was he was a really happy baby but he just wasn't doing the things that he was supposed to be doing he wasn't able to sit up he wasn't able to roll front to back or back to front he just wasn't doing any of the stuff that he really should have been able to do

[00:05:48] trouble basically with his motor skills so we spent time learning how to sit and once he became stable then we were able to work on more of the reaching and the moving and the crawling you know it was things just as simple as okay he wants this toy you've got to put it somewhere where he

[00:06:25] can't reach it and make him work for it and then he's got to climb over the couch cushion then he's got to reach even further to get it pretty quickly I felt like it went from being pretty worried about it and then once I had the tools it was really easy to just say okay no now we're focusing on charlie charlie now always wants to be doing something whether it's drawing and cutting and coloring or it's outside riding his bike wrestling with his brother playing soccer he's non-stop he's

[00:07:04] on the go and all things that he's just using his little body for the program itself was just such a blessing you know you don't realize that these services are out there until you need them you know with trisha's help and the program's help it just you can't tell that there was ever an issue and I think that's the best part.

[00:07:23] Our hope is that all the families are empowered with the skills that they need to advocate for their children and to find those resources and use the resources that we provide with them so that they can grow. Natural disasters can happen anywhere.

[00:07:44] You can protect yourself by planning ahead. Consumerfinance.gov has the information you need to make a plan and help safeguard your financial future in the event of a disaster. Whether you're at risk of hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires, or earthquakes, here are three steps you can take right now to protect yourself financially and weather any storm.

[00:08:09] Step one, download FEMA's Emergency Financial First Aid Kit and fill it out. Gathering all the paperwork and filling out the forms may take some time, but it'll be worth it if disaster strikes. Once you complete the kit, you'll have everything you need in one place.

[00:08:27] You'll have gathered important documents like your ID and your Social Security card. You'll have written down the phone numbers and account numbers to your credit card companies, utility companies, insurance companies, and more. If you need to apply for disaster aid or contact your insurance company, you'll want this info on hand.

[00:08:46] Step 2. Find a safe space to store the kit and the documents you've gathered. Consumerfinance.gov recommends that you make a copy and store the original and the copy in separate places. If it's digital, password protect it. And if it's printed or on a thumb drive, make sure to store it in a waterproof and fireproof container.

[00:09:07] Step 3. Make sure you understand your insurance options and the extent of your coverage in case of a disaster. Renters, homeowners, and auto insurance policies generally don't cover all aspects of a disaster. You may need to look into specialized coverage like earthquake insurance and flood insurance.

[00:09:25] A weekend of prep now can save you months of frustration and lots of money if your property is damaged in a disaster. For more information on how you can protect your property and finances and to download an emergency financial first aid kit before disaster strikes, visit consumerfinance.gov slash prepare.

[00:09:46] Acts is here for our neighbors who are in crisis.

[00:10:14] Our job is to meet people where they are and then help them find their own way out of that crisis. In 1969, there was a family who lost their home in a fire and 13 churches got together to try and help them out.

[00:10:35] And they formed Acts. Twelve of those churches are still existing. They're still supporting us. And while it's true we're not a faith-based organization, I always tell people we're a faith-filled organization. because everybody who works here feels like this is where we should be.

[00:10:53] This community already had a lot of needs. They weren't always seen. You can't necessarily see somebody in a domestic violence relationship. You can't see somebody who's suffering. And you might not even know that they don't have food.

[00:11:08] When COVID hit, that showed a spotlight on all of the needs that were already existing. And then it also let people know those needs are exploding. So we already had 600 families coming to our Hunger Prevention Center every month.

[00:11:29] With COVID, that number went up to 950 families a month. So the grant from Prince William Economic Development, that allowed us to do a few things that we didn't think we would ever do. We were able to replace our old raggedy carpet with brand new vinyl flooring.

[00:11:49] We were able to replace an aging and somewhat failing HVAC system. So now, when our neighbors come in for help, they walk into a space that is clean and fresh and welcoming.

[00:12:05] It's going to help them with their physical health. We know that. But it's also emotional. They're going to walk into a place and think, okay, this is comfortable. I'm going to be okay here. To keep people safe, we had to make many changes with how we do things.

[00:12:24] Like other companies, we had to see how we could do things virtually. But in this business, there's only so much you can do virtually. You can't drive somebody to a safe house virtually. You can't put food on somebody's table virtually.

[00:12:42] They need to come in contact with us. We need to have a personal connection. So the grant enabled us to make sure our environment was as healthy as possible for when we had those personal interactions. In our mission statement, my favorite word is neighbors.

[00:13:02] NAACS is a community-based organization. We serve the greater Prince William area, And that's because this is who we know, this is who we are, this is who works with us. It's the staff, it's the volunteers, it's the community partners. ACTS is that community.

[00:13:19] That's what makes it work, and that's why we do what we do, and why we do it here.

[00:13:24] William County is an ideal locality for us, and that's why we've been here for 19 years,

[00:14:03] and hopefully, you know, for a long time to come. Today concludes the process that took over four years of searching for the right property, planning, and construction. I'd like to thank the great staff at Prince William County, including everyone at the Department of Economic Development.

[00:14:25] We want to grow, we want to prosper in this location, and staying in Prince William County is really going to allow us to do that.

[00:14:58] Our commitment to making Coles District roadways and pedestrian facilities safer and efficient.

[00:15:21] One project at a time through strategic is what I like to call it investment. The design and construction of this project replaced the missing section of sidewalk near Parkland Avenue. The school zone for Yorkshire Elementary School was extended to include a new crosswalk, ultimately improving pedestrian access to the school.

[00:15:39] You will soon see the installation of updated streetlights that will improve the low visibility in the area as well. Thank you again for joining us today, and I'm really excited to officially open this area up. It kind of shows you that actually different departments in the county can work together.

[00:16:03] We try to collaborate on a lot of different projects. As a walker and a cyclist, bicyclist myself, these kind of projects are needed to protect our residents as they walk and as they bike and to slow people down.

[00:16:18] So I appreciate all that who have been involved in this project. And I hope this will, again, improve the safety for all those in our community surrounding this area. And it was a great safety project with a sidewalk attached to it.

[00:16:45] So not only is it a multimodal improvement, but it's a safety improvement that's needed in this area. Big to say that sometimes these small projects have some big impact, and this is one of them. This is a small project that's going to have some big impact for commuting traffic as well as the community at large here in the Yorkshire area.

[00:17:19] Arsenies from vehicles can occur at any time. And in most cases, it's a crime of opportunity that can easily be avoided. Reduce your chances of becoming a victim by practicing TLC. Take your valuables out of your vehicles, including firearms.

[00:17:35] Lock your vehicle, even if it's in your own driveway. Close all doors and windows. Additional tips include parking in well-lit areas and having a car alarm. Report all suspicious activity to the police department.

[00:17:57] If you have information regarding a case of auto larceny, please contact the Prince William County police tip line at 703-792-7000 or submit a web tip at www.pwcva.gov/police-tip I'm Danielle and I'm a team lead in the GIS division.

[00:18:35] What GIS is is geographic information systems and GIS can be used in so many different ways and it deals with patterns and trends and you're able to take that data and it can tell a story we're a behind the scenes agency we do a lot of the web apps for other agencies to help them do their job more efficient and then the the public and the citizens of prince william county they

[00:19:08] benefit from this greatly if someone's coming into our office they need our help i feel like It's very important to educate them why they're here, to help them understand and walk them through the process.

[00:19:27] Prince William County is a county of people who care. We are here to help people and guide them. Building those strong relationships with our customers is so meaningful to us. I am very passionate about helping people.

[00:19:44] I love to help people. And Prince William County has just, I'm in my 24th year here, and it has been a wonderful place to work. I learn something new every day. Not only do I learn from my customers, but I learn from my colleagues.

[00:20:03] The team to me is so important. I have a wonderful team. They are very high performers. They go above and beyond on a daily basis. Just, I'm very proud of them. I'm very proud at how they help the public, how they help their colleagues.

[00:20:23] They always go the extra mile to help that customer get what they need. That is the most rewarding part of this job, is knowing that you're able to help someone, guide them, and give them what they need to solve their problem.

[00:20:41] I'm Danielle, and that's how I serve.

[00:20:46] Check, check, Ellen.

[00:22:02] There's your summer band here and here, but I think this is my audio. One second. good check one two check check check one two check one two check one two talk to me now

[00:22:33] hello good morning hello how are you doing hey good afternoon it is two o'clock on tuesday march

[00:54:58] 19th 2024 um we are going to take a moment to observe a moment of silence all right thank you

[00:55:19] if you are able please rise for the resuscitation of the pledge of allegiance thank you so very much We are now on to the proclamation and accommodations portion of our agenda.

[00:55:49] We have two proclamations. To proclaim March 2024 is Social Work Appreciation Month, and to proclaim March 30th, 2024, is Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. Do we have a motion to approve Agenda Items 3A and 3B? So moved, Madam Chair.

[00:56:05] Second. All right. Let's vote. No, we're going to.

[00:56:32] Unanimous. Supervisors Gordy and Bailey absent from meeting and all subsequent votes. all right thank you for that we are going to move down to the podium and i did yes want to note that supervisors andrea bailey and tom gordy are will be out today um they have notified us that they will not be able to attend today's meeting all right first and miss tierney can you join me at

[00:56:56] the podium and anyone else for social work appreciation proclamation thank you all right this is for proclaiming march 2024 social work appreciation month whereas the state of virginia has declared the month of march 2024 to be family service worker appreciation month whereas in prince

[00:57:34] william county the family service workers continue to see changes in service programs as the cases become more intensive and complex in nature whereas the family service workers have been at the forefront of public efforts to meet the needs of all county residents to maintain to maintain families whereas in prince william county the family service workers must assist diverse populations and provide supportive interventions to adults and families in various situations.

[00:58:03] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby commends all 135 family service workers in the Protective, Homeless, and Family Support Services Division of the Prince William County Department of Social Services and recognizes their contributions to the community and citizens of Prince William County.

[00:58:21] Ms. Tierney, would you like to say a few words? Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. I'm Courtney Tierney, Director of Social Services. The Advisory Board Chair, Lori Wilson, sends her regrets. She's at the CRC board meeting. Ms. Wilson and I are both social workers, and it is indeed an honor for you to recognize the work of those in our department who provide service that offer a safety net for the most vulnerable in the community.

[00:58:47] Representing the 135 DSS staff members are our Deputy Director, Phyllis Jennings Holt, Assistant Directors from our divisions providing intensive and complex social services. Bridget Alston with Family Support Services. Lena Purifoy with Advocacy Prevention and Protective Services.

[00:59:05] And Van Washington with Child Protective Services. DSS is dedicated to hearing the cry of the poor in health, the poor in family stability, and the poor in housing. Thank you for the recognition. All right. And Supervisor Vega, if you can make your way down for the next proclamation.

[00:59:23] Advisor Vega is going to present the Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.

[01:00:07] Thank you, Madam Chair. This proclamation is to honor and recognize Vietnam Veterans Day. Whereas our nation's Vietnam War commemoration provides us the opportunity for all Americans to recognize, honor, and thank our Vietnam veterans and their families for their service and sacrifices during the Vietnam War from November 1, 1955 to May 15, 1975.

[01:00:34] And whereas over 9,000 organizations across America have joined with the Department of Defense as a commemorative partner to honor our nation's Vietnam veterans, including the Prince William Resolves Chapter of the Virginia Daughters and the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution.

[01:00:51] And whereas more than 230,000 Virginians served the nation in Vietnam, more than 1,300 sacrificed their lives. 46 Virginians are still listed as missing in action and eight Virginians were awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

[01:01:09] And whereas the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017 officially designated March 29th as National Vietnam War Veterans Day annually as a day to honor the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who returned from Vietnam and to extend gratitude and appreciation to them and their families.

[01:01:28] And whereas House Joint Resolution No. 136 designated March 30, 2010, and each succeeding year as Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Virginia to celebrate the service and numerous contributions of the Commonwealth's Vietnam-era veterans, Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors hereby proclaims March 30th, 2024, as Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Prince William County and recognizes with deep appreciation the nearly 200,000 Vietnam veterans living in Virginia who fought with honor and distinction in the name of freedom and democracy for all.

[01:02:12] And we are going to accept it on their behalf and make sure that the people who are to receive it will receive it.

[01:02:17] Before we move on to the consent agenda, I would like to entertain a motion to waive the rules of procedure to amend the agenda for today's evening meeting.

[01:03:16] I move that agenda item 14, the public hearing on the proposed annual budget, be moved to begin at the start of the 730 meeting. We will then hear the public hearing on the standard agenda listed under item 13 after the proposed annual budget hearing.

[01:03:34] do i have a second second any discussion okay oh wait do we have a motion

[01:04:07] so moved we need a second second that was supervisor vega all right thank you and we

[01:04:54] are now going to move on to the consent agenda are there any items that anyone on the dais wishes to remove from the consent agenda madam chair yes for d e g and h all right anyone else

[01:05:16] so hold on all right so then we will remove 4d 4e 4g and 4h from the consent agenda i'd like to entertain a motion um for us to move forward with agenda items 4a to 4c so move madam chair second

[01:05:45] all right let's vote vote unanimous all right and i apologize because i forgot to add um 4f to that list so we're gonna have to or did you want to we have one more remaining i apologize

[01:06:19] 4F that's also going to be on the consent agenda second okay Victor Angers supervisor angry make the motion and Bodie made the second all right let's take a vote vote unanimous all right thank you so now we're going to go on to for D supervisor we're thank you madam chair mr. Canizales you know I'm

[01:06:56] gonna do this every year when we have this could you explain why the great separation project from a safety standpoint isn't on the smart scale applications again this year? Route 15. Yes, the Route 15 overpass over the railroad at 15. Thank you for the question, sir. Madam Chair, members of the board, Rick Cannazzales, your Director of Transportation. Supervisor Weir, to

[01:07:29] To answer your question, in order to put a project into SmartScale, the state has gotten very strict about what it accepts applications under. The application usually needs to have somewhere between 10 to 20 percent of the design already complete for any application you put through.

[01:07:49] So all the applications that you see here today that we're putting through all either have a STAR study, a VDOT study, some kind of study or design work that has been done for the project already that has been either paid for by the state or the county with that even said actually we just we we have just done the the the March 14th meeting on Van Buren and and we have and we did completed that successfully so we'll be coming back to you at your next meeting or at a May meeting to insert Van Buren into this because now we have the work done to be able to apply

[01:08:24] for that project as well. But as you know, that has a NEPA that took two years to complete behind it. So it's that type of information and detailed information that we need to complete these applications. If that project doesn't have that information, BDOT would just kick it back.

[01:08:42] So at this time, if you would like us to look at Route 15, we could talk to you and we can talk to you in your office and maybe dedicate some trip fundings to doing a study towards getting that more advanced so we could ask for an application in future years. Thank you, Rick. Thank you, Madam Chair. And with that, I would move 4-D. Second. All right.

[01:09:03] Any discussion? Yeah, Madam Chair. Yes. All right. Hold on. I didn't even have a chance. All right. Supervisor Franklin and then Supervisor Bode. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to highlight the Dell Boulevard, Rippon Boulevard corridor improvement, one project that spans both the Neabsco and the Woodbridge districts. This road improvement plan is key to easing congestion at this busy corridor that spans both the Neabsco and Whitbridge District and it is an important access point to Stonebridge Town Center and to the many residential

[01:09:40] communities along Rimpon and Richmond Highway. So I just want to thank Rick and his staff for looking at this. We're obviously doing a lot of work particularly at Neabsco Mills the widening project and so moving forward with this will kind of help to round out that particular area so thank you supervisor vote voting thank you madam chair uh just wanted to highlight also in this our applications for both the old bridge road and route 123 intersection improvement program as well as smoketown road to katon hill in the princeton parkway corridor i know those are two

[01:10:17] very important corridors in the occoquan district i know i share some of of those with the neapsco district as well um and we just keep needing to move the ball forward on these projects i know that the parkway um has a lot of work especially in that shopping center area that i know is part of the study that transportation is doing and i appreciate all the help they've been doing as part of this project thank you madam chair all right thank you all right thank you let's vote

[01:10:43] vote unanimous all right we're going to move on to 4e thank you madam chair mr canizales again could you kind of flesh this out a little bit because we've in terms of why this is needed whose property it's going to cross what it how its impacts are because we had a similar kind of thing the other week where we're granting and or we're taking a development project with a proposed road across private property that they have no agreement on and how this impacts the property

[01:11:22] rights of the person that we're condemning because i just don't like doing it as a general principle Madam Chair, members of the Board, Rick Hernandez again, Director of Transportation, Mr. Weir, thank you for the question. Some of those questions that you've asked are very opinion-based, so I will answer the ones that I can factually answer with the report.

[01:11:42] We are doing this for Potomac Shores in regards to their proffers that were done back, I believe, in 2005 and then amended in 2014. Those proffers in the board at that time asked that county staff at the request of Potomac Shores when they could not get property for the public improvements that they are doing for the project, requested the county do condemnation of those and be able to pay for those through the county's quick take process.

[01:12:11] This is just one of the examples. This is one of many that we've already done for Potomac Shores. We're just doing them one at a time, piece by piece, and this is the next one that we're coming to. We are just here to authorize the public hearing, so you will see this item again in a future board agenda where we will actually hold the public hearing, and you can listen to the impacts of the property owners at that time if they have any impacts that they want to tell the board about when the chance comes at the public hearing.

[01:12:38] Thank you, Madam Chair, and with that, I'll move 4E. All right. Any discussion? All right. Seeing none, let's vote. Vote unanimous.

[01:12:57] All right. Thank you. We will now move on to 4G. Again, thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a question for staff on this with respect to the dwell time. One, how are we calculating that? And two, how are we enforcing it?

[01:13:16] And is the cost of the enforcement going to exceed the cost of the fine? Okay. Members of the Board, Chair Jefferson, Matt Villarreal, Director of Facilities and Fleet Management. With the dwell time fee, it's a $2 per hour charge.

[01:13:31] Once a vehicle has become fully charged, we will begin charging that. And by state law, we can only go up to $25. So that will be the max that we could charge on that fee. Our goal is to keep people from essentially parking, taking up a spot, not allowing us to utilize that charging station.

[01:13:52] I'm just curious how we're going to enforce that and what the cost recovery on the enforcement measure is going to be. Are we going to be upside down recovery versus monitoring? Sure. The way to be charged is that the charge point system will automatically start charging them, and then they will collect the money.

[01:14:10] We won't have anything to do as far as enforcement. Thank you for that clarification. With that, I would move 4G. Second. Discussion? All right. Seeing none, let's vote. Vote unanimous.

[01:14:30] All right. Thank you so much. And now we're going to go on to 4H. Once again, thank you, Madam Chair. Just curious if staff could kind of respond to just how much residual COVID-19 supplies do we have that requires the rental of additional warehouse space and we couldn't fit it in someplace else and how long are we proposing to retain this material or what is the life expectancy and how long are we going to have to maintain this contract?

[01:15:00] Sure. Chair, Justin, member of the boards, Matt Villareal, Director of Facilities and Fleet Management. My understanding is that this material is in that space. It is routinely rotated out to be used by fire and police in their day-to-day operations.

[01:15:16] And then as needed, they replace that material. So it's stuff they need to have on hand in case of an emergency or in case of another infectious type of event like COVID. So this is not a product of COVID-19 supplies so much as it is emergency management?

[01:15:33] Correct, sir. Okay, I'm good. And with that, I'll move 4-H. Second. Any discussion? All right, let's vote.

[01:15:53] Animus. All right, thank you.

[01:16:10] We are now moving on to public comment time. Madam Chair, didn't you forget 4-F? I'm sorry. No, we didn't. We already moved it. You know, all right, this was a little sneak of it. Yeah, we did approve it. All right. But thank you for keeping me on my toes.

[01:16:26] We are going to in-person public comment time, and we will also hear remote public comments. We will begin with in-person public comments. This afternoon, we have two people sign up to speak. So Carl Gretton, Teresa Menz, if you can make your way.

[01:16:43] You will have three minutes to share your views and opinions on matters before the board. We just ask that you state your name, magisterial district, or where you generally reside at the beginning of your remarks. And we will close the sign-up sheet after the first 15 minutes of in-person public comments.

[01:16:59] So first is Mr. Carl Gretton. Hello, I'm Carl Gretton of the Gainesville District. I have six topics to speak about. One, water loose solar. Please evaluate the types of evergreens and the variation. Located north up the street on Route 15, there are about 30 trees that someone planted as a buffer, and they are all brown and dead.

[01:17:21] Will the applicant replant dead buffer vegetation? On this property, there does not appear to be a tree buffer along Route 15. This land should not be assessed as agricultural because solar panels should be classified as industrial. There will be no farming going on on this land.

[01:17:39] Please verify the landowner will continue to pay taxes. This proposal should be turned down because Route 15 is listed as the Journey Through Hollowed Ground. Did the county reach out for input from the JTHG group? The Board of Supervisors do not have to listen to the Sustainability or Planning Commission, which is another reason to turn down this proposal.

[01:17:59] Number two, the Sustainability Commission and Affordable Housing Groups are both looking for additional full-time employees, FTE. These positions can be taken from the diversity, inclusion, and equity, the die group, and then eliminate the die group altogether. Number three, the agenda item 9A, general revenue, estimate fiscal year 2025, fiscal year 2029.

[01:18:19] The 2025 projections for proposed general revenue details on chart 23 have the real estate tax rate at a consistent dollar amount of 96 cents. With all the advertised information about data centers, declining the real estate tax rate. We see this as not accurate as stated by Prince William Digital Gateway proponents. Vote to lower the real estate tax rate or vote to eliminate the amount of data centers, specifically the Prince William Digital Gateway. Lawsuits are still evolving. The proposed 2025 revenue estimate on chart 40 has real property residential appreciation increasing from 5% to 5.5%.

[01:18:58] Here we go again. The Prince William Digital Gateway proponents stated that residential taxes would be saved for residents here's one more statement from the digital gateway proponents that is one more lie number four election changes regarding presentation 10a early voting why is the board of supervisors voting on early voting ordinance on may 14th and why does the board of supervisors have oversight at all it is the electoral board's job the board of supervisors took over the responsibility of selecting the early voting locations but the electoral board should do that the board of supervisors took it over but you are serving your own interest as

[01:19:33] elected officials in the placement and length of time when early voting occurs. There appears to be a conflict of interest. There is a bill HB 1408 that people should write and make a firm request to veto this bill. Affordable housing has a statement to move 20 million dollars from the 2027 to 2029 budget. Do not move this from taxpayers taxes from the general fund. The previous five million dollars was from the American Rescue Plan. Prince William County should not be in the business of citizens salaries or housing you answer the question already about the dwell time

[01:20:05] please increase the state law thank you thank you and now we have miss theresa men's theresa men's potomac district i want to thank law enforcement and first responders for all that they do for us and they're always in harm's way unlike other people who can hide behind a desk when 9-11 happened i emailed blue dobs and at that time he was working on cnn the corrupt media and i wrote

[01:20:40] America was going to go down, but it would go down from within, and our politicians would be the ones that would take America out. And I mean both parties, Democrat and Republican. Now, it's like I got an epiphany. Something woke me up. Now I realize it is happening, but it's worse than I realized. We have to fear our local politicians right here and the people they hire. This is why citizens have to pay attention concerning all the activities going on

[01:21:15] in the county and data centers are a prime example of corruption. Yes, especially with the four. I don't include you, excuse me, Chair Jefferson, because you weren't here at the time. Okay, but trust me, I will stay alert. Now to our churches, please wake up and realize that the Marxist, democrat black lives matter groups do not belong in your church be a church be that of god not

[01:21:52] satan okay people better wake up because satan is alive and well throughout earth especially i see it every day right here and another thing staff should never be afraid to talk to me okay i assure you staff tells me nothing they're just nice they're cordial and all but i've noticed a couple of cold shoulders shoulders because I've called people out if you're from another state another district whatever you're not representing us you're representing these four that are right

[01:22:31] up there excuse me one of them's missing right now and another thing we cannot trust the mainstream media people wake up you want to throw America away you want to throw your freedoms away you need to be long I'm sorry people are so needy that they have to belong to a group I'm not needy I learned very early on, people are not to be trusted. The only person I trust is God, and that's with a capital G, not the little g which Satan stands for. Satan is alive and well with our politicians.

[01:23:07] And unfortunately, I have to say, our Republicans' hands are not clean either. They, too, are of the Marxist mentality. Or you want to call it the uniparty? They do not represent us. They represent china etc beijing biden sucks all right thank you do we have any additional signups all right well this concludes the in-person in-person public comment time we will now move on to remote public comment time we have three people to sign up remotely i will turn it over to vice chair bode

[01:23:41] thank you madam chair miss fan shall we begin good afternoon good afternoon we have one speaker at this time and that is patty young miss young please proceed you have three minutes Hello. My name is Patty Young, Gainesville area, and I've been in this county almost 40 years. I guess I've seen a thing or two and watched a lot of things change here. As a real estate agent, I basically convince people how great Prince William County is.

[01:24:14] I was at a meeting, I guess, a couple weeks ago. We had chairs from all over Northern Virginia. And the big problem, one of them, we have lots, right, is affordable housing. And it's housing. We are down to less, I think, right at three weeks now of supply. And I just got to ask the question, I mean, you know, when are we going to reach our limits?

[01:24:35] Like, what is the goal here? Because the data centers are taking acres and acres and acres away. And, you know, people need homes. So I think people on the food chain are a little higher. I mean, it was almost 30 years ago now, I guess, that Disney was coming in, and that all got protected and stopped.

[01:24:54] And that was worth, I don't know, $2.8 billion in today's day. So I don't know. I mean, do we have to give away another 5,000 acres before our land's all raped and we say, okay, now we're done? I mean, I don't understand when we can get to that point that enough is enough, and I hope it's very, very soon.

[01:25:14] You know, another, I mean, I just have to say, I mean, I used to be very proud of this county. I'm a bit ashamed at this point. Unfortunately, I've been in a rabbit hole, and I am a full believer in our first responders, and I know we have a lot that are phenomenal, but we've also got some that are not so.

[01:25:32] I've, you know, safety is a serious thing, and I know we have this left a bang that we're looking at and the shiny new objects and a lot more money. I'm not saying it's good or it's bad. I know that it's there, but we don't have the basics down with our police department to the point that they can't even make an arrest correctly.

[01:25:50] We're not doing the right charges. It was supposed to be a felony. They're putting it under misdemeanors. It is a little ridiculous. And, you know, then you get a blanket letter when you ask the police department, you know, what happened here? Why did this work this way? You get a blanket letter saying we get everything correctly. We followed our policies.

[01:26:07] Well, does that mean the police department doesn't have to follow the law? Because they skipped a bunch of steps and didn't follow the law. These are our statutes. I mean, I do real estate law, but I can understand what our regular laws are, too. And they just get to skip them. And we have the hen's garden.

[01:26:23] I mean, what is it? The foxes are garden hen houses? Like, why? How do we get an independent study done? I mean, we want to do big things. But if we can't do the basic things, how are we going to do big things? I just don't understand. And our commonwealth attorney. I mean, the victims are denied their basic right to have a support person.

[01:26:42] And they're like, well, we looked at it and everything's fine. What has happened to Prince William County? I honestly don't know. It's shameful. It's really shameful. And I don't know what the answers are. I just know what we have is wrong.

[01:27:00] And the police department needs to follow our laws. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Young. Ms. Vann, was that our only speaker for this afternoon? Yes, there are no more speakers at this time. Thank you, as always, for your assistance, Ms. Vann.

[01:27:16] Back to you, Madam Chair. All right, thank you so very much. We are now on to our public hearing consolidated agenda. We have four public hearings this afternoon. There are no presentations associated with these items. So I will open the public hearing on items 4A and 4D.

[01:27:33] I would also like to note that item 4D will be heard now and at 7.30 p.m. I'm sorry, 6. 6. I'm sorry. I need to go to that eye, doctor. So we are on to public hearings for items 6A through 6D.

[01:27:48] 6d will be heard now and at 7 30. All right. Do we have a list of anyone signed up to speak in person or remotely? All right. So we do not have anyone who has signed up to speak.

[01:28:10] So we will now, let's see, no, no one remote. All right. This is kind of going a little fast. I just want to, I want to entertain a motion. Madam chair. Yes. So just for clarity, are we closing 6a 6b and 6c but we're leaving 60 open 6d so we are closing i was going to ask the county attorney should we close 60 and then reopen it for the 730 madam i would madam chair members of the board i would recommend that you close public hearings 6a b and c and keep 6d open and we will

[01:28:47] hear that the continuation this evening all right then i will close the public hearings for 6a 6b and 6c um and we will have a continuation of item 6d for the 7 30 meeting all right i wanted to i'm sorry all right um so yes we are closing the public hearing on item 6a 6b and 6c and we are leaving 6d open until 7 30. um do we have a motion to approve items 6a 6b and 6c so moved madam chair

[01:29:26] Second. Any discussion? All right. Seeing none, let's vote. Vote unanimous. All right. We are now moving on to County Executive. Mr. Shorter, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, members of the board. Just two quick things for me, just a reminder. I sent a memo out last week.

[01:30:00] This is really a product of the, one of the many products of the extended work session back in January. And so following the board's direction, we are starting next month, moving back the date in which we distribute agenda materials for board meetings. And with that said, there are a number of changes that also needed to take place. One I wanted to bring your attention to was a memo I sent last month regarding land use application due dates. And so that message will go out by way of planning later this week to applicants and to the public and just wanted to make sure the board was

[01:30:40] aware of the details. I also wanted to just bring your attention. I just sent a memo about the project updates, the second quarter update for active capital projects. This is for Parks and Recreation, FFM, and Public Works. I really want to thank them for all the work that they've done to continue those products and projects and wanted to make sure that I brought that to the board's attention.

[01:31:10] I also want to just thank the clerk's office for all that they are doing to make it possible to get these agenda materials out a week in advance of the board meetings. It is not a small feat and just want to acknowledge their great work. And that is all for me, Madam Chair.

[01:31:29] Thank you so very much. I'm sorry, Supervisor Bode, did you have a, because you were in my queue. Yeah, no, I just wanted to commend Chris and his team and county staff because, like he just said, we're going to be moving to a point where the agenda is going to be dispatched the Monday before versus the Thursday before normal board meetings.

[01:31:47] I know for members of the public that time can make a lot of difference from transparency's sake so people have more time to digest and see what's even going to be on our agendas. I know as a board member myself and for my staff, it gives us a lot more time to be able to delve through all the important matters that we have, especially as it pertains to land use applications coming before the board.

[01:32:06] So again, I wanted to uplift that and wanted again to thank Mr. Shorter and his team at county staff for accommodating our requests by the board to do that. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, thank you so very much. We are now going to move on to the county attorney. Ms. Roval, the floor is yours.

[01:32:23] Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. This afternoon for closed session, we will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding plans to protect the public safety as it relates to cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. with briefings by staff members and legal counsel concerning actions taken to respond to such matters, discussion of information subject to the exclusion of subdivision 2 of section 2.2-3705.2, Virginia Code Annotated, where discussion in an open meeting would jeopardize the security of the county's information technology system and software programs, the discussion of reports and plans related to the security of governmental IT facilities, systems, or software program,

[01:33:01] along with legal advice and personnel discussion regarding the following pending internal audits on information technology general controls and external and internal penetration testing, all where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the litigating posture, bargaining position, and negotiating strategy of the public body.

[01:33:19] And we will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to discussions concerning an economic development item regarding prospective businesses or industries to the county where an expansion of an existing business or industry where no previous announcement has been made of the business or industry's interest in expanding their facilities in the county, along with the related discussion or consideration of the investment in public funds for economic development matters, where competition or bargaining is involved, where if made public initially, the financial interest of the county would be adversely affected, and where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the litigating

[01:33:56] posture bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body these items are appropriate for closed session pursuant to 2.2 dash 3711 a 1 5 6 8 and 19 of the code of virginia so moved madam chair second all right any discussion all right let's vote vote unanimous all right thank you we're now moving on to our budget work sessions there are no presentations um oh no no we do i'm going to move to we have two presentations i'm going to let

[01:34:35] yes sorry don't we need to get too far ahead of you but um both myself and sir as i agree have declaration we need to talk about before getting to item 9a madam chair before the board receives staff presentations on the general revenue estimate for fy25 to fy29 i need to declare a personal interest in this matter my wife is a school employee as a school employee my wife and i are members of a group which is affected by this matter i'll be participating in it because i am able to so fairly objectively and in the public interest provisor angry ditto madam chair

[01:35:09] before the board receives staff's presentation on a general revenue estimate for fy 25 fy 29 i need to declare a personal interest in this matter my wife is a special education instructional aid with the schools as a school school's employee my wife and i are members of a group which is affected by this matter i will be participating in it because i am able to do so fairly objectively and and the public interest.

[01:35:34] Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. I'm spinning through this. I'm getting a little, because we had no presentations earlier, but we have two. And so I'm going to turn it over to you, Mr. Shorter. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Happy to turn this over to our CFO, Michelle Attrey.

[01:35:49] She's done a phenomenal job working to get these slides, her and the team, working to get these slides together, consistent with what we do annually during our budget season. These are updates in terms of general revenue and in terms of principles of sound financial management.

[01:36:09] So with that, Michelle, I'll turn it over to you. Good afternoon. I thought I was getting out of the presentation for a hot second, and I'm not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for two presentations. But here we go. I will try to move this along fairly quickly, but, of course, answer all of your questions. As you know, each year as part of the budget process, we go through a lengthy revenue estimation process.

[01:36:29] This slide deck today is prepared based on the proposed. However, woven into it through both some of the words that I'll say and on some of the slides will be updates to give you an idea of what's coming for recap. Because when we put this together, it is late December, early January, and there was a lot of information we still do not know, particularly on the commercial side.

[01:36:48] And so we are still working through those, you know, to get the assessment notices out early March, and then we fine-tune our final projections. But our forecasting process, we really try to, you know, hit the bull's eye and be as accurate as we can. And when you look at this chart here, you'll see over the years, we're pretty gosh darn accurate.

[01:37:07] 99% as we got into post-COVID years, it's been a little more challenging. The markets have behaved much differently than they did pre-COVID with supply chain issues, et cetera. We also have new revenue streams, such as our food and beverage tax, our cigarette taxes, things where we didn't have trend history.

[01:37:24] And then, of course, some of our industries that continue to grow, and as we try to wrap our arms around how to best project those revenues. But all in all, pretty accurate, and we were able to do that because we rely on a lot of sources. We look at our U.S. trends, state trends, regional and local trends.

[01:37:39] We bring in subject matter experts from lots of areas. We try to use data-driven in our projections, as much data as we can in our model. And we monitor these trends quarterly and try to give you quarterly updates on where things are trending. And, of course, then at the end of the day, you set the tax policy.

[01:37:56] So we are, you know, assessing properties, but the ultimate tax bill that goes out is based on the tax policy that is set that gets applied against those assessments. This slide here just lists some of those internal and external partners. So internally, we use a lot of departments, the budget office, development services, economic development, planning, public works, and the schools.

[01:38:17] They all participate in that revenue projection process. We also bring in these external partners, State Economists, for example, the Association of Realtors. This year you heard from Dr. Bailey. She came and gave the kind of local update, so I didn't include that in my presentation today since she had sort of set that stage for us a few weeks ago.

[01:38:37] Local builders industry, commercial real estate brokers. We bring in folks from NADA, J.D. Powers on vehicles, the retail industry, and then, of course, we read as much information as we can through literature on the data center industry. And all of these are drivers of our revenues.

[01:38:55] Our county tax base. So what proposed, our assessed value is now approaching $101 billion as of January 1st, 2024. And I will tell you for recap, that number will be a bit higher than $101 billion. You'll see here, I think of particular note, is that green section of each bar.

[01:39:12] That's our commercial properties. And you'll see the growth in that, particularly in recent years. At one point, there was a lofty goal of 30% commercial. You'll see on a pie chart coming up, we're kind of getting close to that when you take commercial, apartments, and public service. So maybe it wasn't such a lofty goal after all.

[01:39:30] This chart here shows the composition of the land book. So you'll see we still are predominantly residential, right? We have a lot of houses in Prince William County. But there, again, you'll see between 22 and 23, these are tax years, out of our real estate annual report. Commercial is down 19.57%.

[01:39:47] Apartments are assessed as commercial properties, right? It's a business. It's an income and expense-based approach. And so you could consider that commercial. And when you take the 19.57 plus the 5.33 plus public service, those are our utilities that are assessed by the State Corporation Commission, you're almost at 30%.

[01:40:06] This slide here just summarizes the assessed values between different categories of commercial as well as the count. And so you'll see between tax year 22 and tax year 23, We picked up about, what, 30-some additional parcels of commercial.

[01:40:26] You'll see some movement around, for example, in industrial. We didn't lose industrial buildings, but depending on the use within them, they might shift between categories. So you'll see, for example, the other category went up. So it's just a shift of the coding within our system. The assessed value, though, a 36% increase in the assessed value of commercial properties year over year.

[01:40:46] So this is a snapshot of the commercial piece of land book. by far and wide is the technology services that is the biggest component that has grown moving from 18.83 percent to 29.75 percent between tax year 2022 and 2023 the second I guess larger piece would be the retail has shrunk a little bit still maintains a fairly large piece of our pie as is industrial this piece is looking at where we landed with commercials so when we put together

[01:41:26] the proposed estimate we assumed a blended rate of about six percent we're landing at about four point seven percent but the mix within it might be different so within that blended rate of four point seven percent about a three point six percent appreciation in industrial four percent in retail eight percent in data center three point seven in hotels and one point four percent in office product this slide is from proposed where we were assuming a five percent residential appreciation It is coming in closer to 5.5%, which will bring that average residential assessed value up probably closer to about $530,000.

[01:42:06] We will be presenting those numbers at RECAP as part of the kind of executive's RECAP budget. We also assumed apartment appreciation of a negative 2.5% at the time, and I think it is actually a little bit larger than that. This chart I like to show just because it shows that historical real estate assessed value and the Great Recession.

[01:42:29] That was the piece that we just saw those double-digit increases in our property values and then that huge double-digit decline. If you look at the green line, that's sort of the average over time of appreciation. If you buy property over the long run, you expect it to increase about 4% to 5%.

[01:42:47] And you'll see we are projecting for the out years that 4% sort of average. And this year, graphed at 5%, coming in at about 5.5%. This chart shows the average residential assessed value mapped with the tax rate.

[01:43:06] So we've included both the base tax rate as well as the fire and pest management levies included. And so you'll see as the residential assessed value has grown, the board has been able to bring down that tax rate in more recent years. This chart shows our average tax bill with the fire levy compared to our peers based on everyone's proposed budgets.

[01:43:29] So we are still the best bargain at $54.78. Loudoun next at 6369, Alexandria 7700, Fairfax 84, and Arlington 84. And so you'll see there over time we have been the lower tax bill compared with our peers.

[01:43:50] This chart shows the median household income with the tax bill kind of mapped on it. So you can see where each of us fall. Those are the same average tax bills that were shown on the prior slide. And so we're there second from the top.

[01:44:06] We have the next lowest median household income, but we have surpassed Alexandria. But then Loudon, of course, is up there at $167,000, a much higher amount. This slide has changed slightly from what was dispatched.

[01:44:21] The label on the Alexandria slide, the percentage was correct. It showed $132,000. It's now corrected to, say, $111,955. So hopefully you have that updated copy. If you don't, I can certainly get that to you. But this just shows it a different way. the same information a different way showing the comparative tax burden so for us 4.55 percent of that median household income goes to taxes but if you look at Alexandria 6.95 percent is going Loudoun is less 3.8 percent and I will attribute that to the data center effect and we'll show a little bit about that on a slide coming up actually it's right here this this maps the real

[01:45:01] estate and personal property per capita and so if you look at the green line that's the personal property look at loudon 2060 per capita that is really data centers for them if you look at ours we're at 709 compared to fairfax and if you think of the size of fairfax and the number of people people they're about twice our size but we are catching up there on the personal property again it's the data center effect of those computer and peripherals impacting personal property tax this slide i show you every year is the tax exemption and relief we have a number of tax relief programs. This is sort of mapped by zip code throughout the county, spread out. Our largest

[01:45:39] programs being the disabled veteran program and the elderly and disabled programs. But we do have some other smaller programs for surviving spouses, religious and charitable organizations, and then for rehab and solar projects. And so those are mapped there. As part of our real estate report each year, we show that tax relief does continue to grow. It equates to about five pennies on our tax rate based on the tax year 2023 and we relieve about 44 million dollars in taxes. The fastest growing category is the disabled veteran category and we have had growth of about 89 percent in just

[01:46:13] five years on tax relief. So going into our revenue estimates I always like to remind the board of the diversification principle where we strive to maintain a stable revenue system to shelter from those fluctuations in the economy that may impact one revenue source or another and the board did take action over the past few years to diversify our tax base by adding the food and beverage tax and the cigarette tax those had very different drivers for example than residential where you could have a housing bubble that might impact residential your people may continue to eat out

[01:46:47] I mean we saw that during COVID right our retail our food and beverage continue to soar while you know perhaps housing and things like that may could could slow down when you're in a recession or a slowing economy, if you will. This slide shows the proposed revenue for 2025, $1.55 billion.

[01:47:06] The largest source is, again, real estate and personal property, followed by sales tax revenues. But you will see now we have that food and beverage slice, which is 2.7%, and then cigarette tax you'll find in the all-other category, a much smaller portion. This slide does present the forecast based on proposed, again, $1.5 billion.

[01:47:28] and expected recap we will be bringing some additional revenues it's shown this county the county share and the school share split in accordance with the revenue share agreement one of the things under food and beverage for example 42 million dollars when we originally projected this we took a very prudent sort of approach not knowing and I think projected at 24 million it has far surpassed what we thought it what we thought it might be on the personal property tax side, vehicles has been an item of interest over the years. If you look at the blue, I think that's a blue line, the change from 23 to 24, every category of model years between 2008

[01:48:07] and 2021 has depreciated, about 16.95%. So we are on a much more normal path. Last year we went from the 80% to the 100% assessed value. So even though it increased, it sort of got offset and I think there were some tax bills that ended up going up slightly. This year they should by and large be going down because we're comparing 100% to 100% and every category is going down. Same thing on trucks and SUVs. Every category has decreased 13.08% on average. And I have, I want to talk a little bit about the vehicle tax rate, effective tax rate. The rate for personal property tax on

[01:48:44] vehicles is $3.70. However, most of our residents do not pay $3.70. They get a relief on the first $20,000. And so if you have a $20,000 vehicle, for example, you're paying a rate of $2.37 after that relief. So anything assessed under $1,000, your effective tax rate is zero. Up to $20,000, you're paying about $237. And then over $20,000, you're getting about $259 exempt on your tax bill, relieved. So if you have a vehicle, for example, that's valued at $150,000, let's say you have a really nice luxury vehicle you're paying about three dollars and 52 cents and so um you

[01:49:22] know unless you're driving something very much more expensive than that that's when you really are paying that 370 but keep in mind each year as the number of vehicles grows in the county that burden will increase and so this just um visually graphs this in a chart format for those of you that might prefer a chart format uh it shows the effective tax rate based on assessed value. And it shows our PPTRA, our Personal Property Tax Relief Act. This year we're projecting at 36% relief, which is that $259 on the prior slide. This shows some common vehicles in the

[01:50:00] county. We've just pulled out some of the ones that are more commonly owned and shown what the effective tax rate is by vehicle. So if you have a Toyota RAV4, you're paying $2.93 in taxes this year compared to, I'm sorry, $2.86 compared to $2.93 in the prior year. Honda Accord, for example, $2.67 versus $2.52. So in all of those cases, you'll see that effective tax rate has decreased, and that's because of the depreciation. Moving on to business tangible, the computer and peripheral tax rate. Historically, we have, it was $3.70. It was lowered back in the 90s to try to attract

[01:50:39] some data centers. One could argue, well, they were going to Loudoun at the time. We didn't get a whole lot of data centers back then over the last few years we have gradually notched that up to two dollars and 15 cents the proposed budget is prepared based on a two dollars and 15 cent tax rate each nickel though would generate 1.6 million and as you know we advertised it at the three dollars and 70 cent max now right now there is a period where there's legislation that was passed during covid where you could have a different rate than vehicles but unless the General Assembly takes action to change that, they will have to match again come fiscal 26.

[01:51:18] This chart we have updated for 2023 to show our data center tax revenues. I think when we last showed this, it was $140-some million. We are now at $166 million, 2,475% growth since we started tracking the data center revenue separately in 2014.

[01:51:41] This slide breaks out computer and peripherals, furniture and fixtures, and then heavy equipment between data centers and non-data centers. So on the computer and peripheral side, 96% of the revenues we collect are from data centers. When you look at furniture and fixtures, over 50% is from data centers.

[01:52:00] And then when you look at heavy equipment and machinery, it is all non-data center. And then this just shows the growth in the revenue on the business tangible side. so the light green is the non-data center, and if you look at the blue, the data center, going back to 2014 compared to 2023, you can see the phenomenal growth in the personal property tax revenues that has occurred. And we boxed out there the year-over-year growth in the blue, and then those numbers are the revenue in millions. And this chart just shows you the incremental growth of

[01:52:37] 1.6 million per nickel and what the impact would be to the school and the county as you go through your markup of the budget and final adoption, you'll know what the impact is. And then on the revenue diversification side, we are not proposing this year a C&I tax. That's a commercial and industrial tax, but I do feel obligated to share with you ways you could further diversify your revenues, and one of them is the C&I tax. The one thing about the C&I tax is it's limited to 12.5 cents. It would be an additional tax, almost like a real estate tax on commercial properties, but it is dedicated solely for transportation.

[01:53:15] And it is one of the things that we spoke with a prior board about as a way to support the debt service on the road bond referendum. But again, we're not recommending that this year. It's not proposed in the five-year plan, but it is something to keep in mind as a source to fund debt service or transportation initiatives.

[01:53:32] We do estimate it would generate about $22 million per year. And I've listed some pros and cons here. Pros, obviously, is it diversifies your tax base, could help fund road projects. cons is it's an additional tax, you know, on a commercial business. And the tax is collected immediately. However, because it has to be invested in infrastructure, transportation, the impact of that revenue may not be seen for a few years down the road, which could be different taxpayers. And then lastly, just to kind of go and recap what we're looking at for our recap is residential appreciation is going from that five to five and a half percent. Our commercial

[01:54:10] appreciation has moved from six to four point seven percent blended and then the impact of the digital gateway rezoning we've we've worked through as well personal property we are right now have not proposed anything above two dollars and fifteen cents but to the extent the board is interested in doing that each nickel would be one point six million dollars and we're still looking at any additional growth in data centers whether the model needs to shift for for any additional growth that we did not pick up and then finally this is the budget calendar leading up to your budget adoption um work sessions public hearings and april 9th is when the county executive will

[01:54:45] bring the recap numbers back to you and with that i am happy to take questions before i move to my next presentation all right let me move out of my presentation so i can see who has their hands up because i apologize i short changed this side because people over here tend to be loud all right not not calling on anyone but supervisor not picking on anyone this side but y'all know who you are. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Pause one second, Michelle. So the secret here is when they start their presentations, then you click the speak button so you'll always be fine. Now everyone knows your secret. I just told my secret, but I only just had really a couple

[01:55:25] questions, and it was to the commercial tax and residential tax, because I was always, even when I got in office in 2019, it was really to try and increase the commercial tax base so it will lower the residential tax. Now, can you, I think that's slide like 4, is it 4 or 14, or I'm trying to get, oh no, it's 22, 22. Is that it? No, it's not 22. That's just, is that it? That could work, 22 could work, slide 22. 22? Yeah, and really because it says personal

[01:55:58] property tax is 22.5% right now. Do you know just off top, what was it last year? I imagine has grown since it is bigger i don't think i have last yeah i might hang on let me just let me just check if i put something back i'm sure it's bigger and my real question is i do oh you do okay i do it's 22 last year okay so not much there because my real question is and and i'll just preface it by saying in in 2019 we were at that year uh in 2020 we had different visions of what the future

[01:56:36] was going to be with development and everything we were looking at and then COVID hit and it changed everything so commercial and you know those kind of smaller buildings just wasn't wasn't happening and retail should I say and so this whole digital world grew of data and storage and then the buzzword became data centers it to me it appears that even prior to that that's where it kind of started so my question is do you can you give a projection and maybe you can't so I'm We're cautious with this just because we've done so much in this growth of data centers, even though a lot is still kind of under development right now.

[01:57:12] Do you have like for me, it's really about do you know a time frame in the next four years or five years where you will see like what would make an impact on that resident real estate taxes dropping? I know that's up to us to set, but I'm looking at the commercial growing more so we have an opportunity to really see that pie chart start shifting in the other direction.

[01:57:36] Sure. So real estate last time was 61%, so it has shifted. It really is driven by a couple things, right? So it's driven by market, right, assessed values, depending on what happens with the economy. We are so heavily residential, right, that a drop is going to bring that number down.

[01:57:56] So that would move it, right? if we just had a slowing economy, housing market, another housing market bubble, that's certainly going to bring the real estate side down. We have so many houses. Commercial growth, again, will impact it. But ultimately, you know, it also is a factor of what tax rate we put in place because this is a chart of revenues.

[01:58:13] And so you can impact it by also the tax rate itself. So it's hard to answer. I mean, I will say, you know, the trajectory of data centers, I mean, if that continues to build out the way it is in the overlay district is laid out, the digital gateway, perhaps it will grow. That's for sure. I do think you answered it for me. And I'll tell you how, because the fact of the matter is, I know you said we have a lot of homes already, but we know in this world of affordable that we're talking about, we're actually building more homes.

[01:58:41] So really, it's almost like it really is not going to change that much because the more homes we build, the more that's going to be even a higher number we start seeing. And I know we're building a lot more homes. That's, that's for sure. So I think honestly, why I want to see the growth of the commercial tax base go a little higher.

[01:58:58] I know we can do that even with that small pie, but there's got to be some, you know, when we get to that point of what I call planting the seed and it growing out, and we have the opportunity to see that revenue coming in. So I think you answered that because there's going to be definitely more homes. I know in the Asco District right now we've got a lot of homes being built.

[01:59:14] My last question, Madam Chair, just the last question. On the personal property tax, I forget what slide that was. There was the one that you showed about the vehicles. Oh, man, I should have wrote down the number of the slide.

[01:59:30] 27? Is it 27, 28, or 29? Basically, my question is this, Andi. You said, did you say, I don't know, you said, I wrote down 36% relief. You were talking kind of fast.

[01:59:46] Sure, so our personal property tax relief, that is a fixed dollar amount we get from the state each year. And so each year we have to project how many vehicles we're going to spread it amongst. So in the model, we have built in a 36% relief. That number has decreased each year.

[02:00:03] If I have a slide, I don't think I have a slide that shows the history of it. Last year, I think it was 38%. Each year, it's going to be less because there's more vehicles that come into the county or growing community. And so as more vehicles come in, that fixed dollar amount gets spread to fewer vehicles.

[02:00:18] But really, my point was is the rate is at $3.70. There's not anybody, unless you have a vehicle well over $150,000, you're paying something less than $3.70. Yeah, and because that's that one, because everybody's used vehicle tax comes up and it's always some price that's just, you know, and rightfully so, because I personally like this tax either, wanting to try and do something about that.

[02:00:42] And I think that 80%, help me understand what I'm trying to say, because I know this has been a discussion with the people about, you know, the vehicle tax, personal property tax there. So we did something like a 20 percent. What is that? How is that?

[02:01:03] Sure. So during post-COVID, there was a period of time when because of the supply chain shortages, the computer chip shortages, where used car prices were not depreciating. That was like the first time in forever. You know, cars typically depreciate.

[02:01:19] I mean, you hear, you buy a car, you drive it off the lot, and it's depreciated. Used cars were appreciating. And so the board took action to provide some relief by assessing at 80 percent, endorsed our recommendations. So we recommended that because what we believed is the market, it wasn't a normal market, and it really didn't reflect true market value of vehicles.

[02:01:41] It has now corrected itself. And so last year we were at 100 percent. Some of that was done. There was a lot of compensation initiatives, a budget to fill. And so it was done at 100%, which if we had done 80% last year, the budget would have been about $35 million less.

[02:01:58] That's the difference it makes, a big difference. But now that we're at 100%, there isn't a rationale to go back to 80% because it's depreciating. It's not appreciating. And so where your flexibility, again, is in the tax rate, again. We will continue to do the personal property tax relief, that piece.

[02:02:14] but that is a fixed amount by the state. At one point, the plan was that it would reach 100% and the car tax would go away. That didn't happen, and the state couldn't afford it. And so I think we get about $52 million, if memory serves me correctly, and that gets spread amongst more and more vehicles each year.

[02:02:31] All right. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Next is Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't know how much of this is going to be questioned and how much of it is going to be statement, but I'll just take it slide by slide. If you start with slide six, the 2024 growth in your land book values really doesn't look like it's rising that much for your commercial, despite the assertions by many, especially with respect to data center growth, that it's going to far outstrip the residential real estate market.

[02:03:09] This graph doesn't show it, and from the discussion, and we'll come back to this later, with respect to how some of the assessments are being arrived at right now, I think the public is going to be irritated when they find out just how little additional growth we're going to get from the commercial sector, from the real estate section.

[02:03:30] We then go to slide 11. if we change if the assessed average assessed value of the average residential property is going to change by $28,000 per unit that's going to have a significant impact on the bottom line and the rate that we just advertised are you going to have a suggested different rate based on that 28 percent or $28,000 delta so I am in discussion with the county executive he will be

[02:04:05] bring a recap budget back to you with his recommendations. Slide 12. Just curious why is everything from FY22 in a dotted line when you think it should be a when I would suggest it's an actual? The moving from 6.6 to 5 because this was proposed so when we retool this that will be 5.5 percent that's now known and it will become an actual line and then the out years remain

[02:04:42] dotted lines. Okay. Page 13, suggestion on my part, and I made this before, in order for us to be a little bit more transparent in what we're actually charging, I think it's time for the fire levy and the mosquito levy to go bye-bye, and we just need to come up with a combined rate that covers all of that, especially since the use of the fire levy has changed dramatically over the years, and we are now rating it for things that was never initially intended for, so I think if we're going to maintain this so that everybody has a good sense of what they're actually paying. I would just make the

[02:05:19] suggestion that at some point in the near future we do a combined rate. Sure and I will point out this slide does include the levies in it so the orange line we have we have included it to try to show total tax bill. But when you're publishing one rate and then what the actual is at the end it's it's you know with respect to slide 14 this particular chart has little value to me it's an apples and oranges comparison, it's all based on average assessment values, and let's face it, homes in Arlington, Fairfax, and Alexandria are going to have a significantly higher assessment

[02:05:56] rate across the board, so using that as the basis, which seems to be the basis of this chart, makes it relatively meaningless. slide 17 similar issue it means you know if this is done on a per capita basis that that means it's based strictly on population therefore with different populations you know extrapolating

[02:06:26] this out somewhat meaningless slide 23 personal property taxes line three I'm assuming that includes data center taxes yes that's both vehicles uh both vehicles and business tangibles so it'd be vehicles and cnp yes and i just don't you know we've heard lots and lots of people screaming 700 million 400 million this chart's not bearing that out it's not even coming close i mean we don't even have that much in actual revenue much less potential further revenue

[02:07:04] slide 25 your assertion aside anecdotally most of the residents I know have complained that their bills actually went up last year now whether that's because they bought new vehicles or the value of their used vehicle is still above what the market used to be and I would suggest having just bought another used vehicle that is the case we have not seen the top of the we have not seen

[02:07:37] of leveling off of the curve. Slide 27. Again, a slide I don't like. That tax relief is statewide. Every jurisdiction gives that, so everybody gets the same thing, more or less, across the Commonwealth. I guess the only thing that really matters is the delta between the tax relief and what we're charging them. And this really doesn't give you a good idea on that. Slide 31. Approximate

[02:08:16] value, we've already covered that. Approximate value is $1.6 million. That being said, again, when you go to the next page, on page 32, the C&P revenues through 23 just aren't growing at the exponential rate that people are screaming we're going to get. And we've had this discussion with respect to how do we actually collect it?

[02:08:40] Can we collect it? Is there any cooperation from the industry to actually pay us for the equipment that they've got? I'm not going to make a big issue at the dais right now, but I would suggest that we are not even close to making the mark simply because of the difficulty in collecting the C&P given the lack of information we seem to be getting from the industry, particularly with the colo facilities.

[02:09:10] page 40. And I guess this is really the heart of the matter. We're talking about revenue estimates not only for this year, but for the next couple of years based largely on revenue generated from any increase in the C&P tax above 215. But again, if we don't know what to charge, we don't know

[02:09:47] how to collect it, and I'm not blaming you because it's not a problem that is confined to Prince William. I've spoken with Loudoun County's finance office and they have the same dilemma that we have. But how do we forecast this growth that, you know, and I'll throw them under the bus, economic development comes in and to some degree your office comes in every time we have a rezoning for a data center. Wow, look at all the tax revenue we're going to get that's going to offset your residential tax bills, offset your car tax bill, and the proof's

[02:10:23] in the pudding, at the end of the day, that revenue is not being derived, at least not to the level that, you know, staff is forecasting or, more importantly, that the applicant is asserting quite loudly that they are going to generate and will somehow be the savior for the residential taxpayer.

[02:10:43] You know, same thing applies to the additional growth of data center. We've all seen your memo. I'm assuming everybody's read the memo from yesterday with respect to how the assessments are being arrived at, and with the, in some cases, gross reductions in assessed value on a percentage basis, you know, there's not going to be any real relief that the residents are going to see, at least not this year, probably next year, and I would suggest sometime into the future, and then, you know, on a real property, you're actually, you know, denoting quite explicitly

[02:11:22] the net impact of digital gateway rezoning. My looking at the numbers, both from the assessment office that were released the other day, don't show that net impact being anything particularly, well, just not nearly in line with what I think certain members of the board had an expectation, or at least members of the board of the last board, in addition to the board, had an expectation of.

[02:11:50] And I think everybody's been looking at this with rose-colored glasses, and we're going to need to take a serious look at how we're going to be doing next year's budget based on some real cold, hard realities with respect to not only the digital gateway, but with respect to a couple of other data center projects that are in there.

[02:12:12] And I'll take it up with the county attorney later, but I've got some issues with how some of the assessments are being arrived at. In my particular view, and I'm comfortable saying this, that there is not any real consistency from project to project with respect to how the tax rates or how the assessments are being levied.

[02:12:31] I've got real concerns going forward, and I think that we should probably start now putting together a revenue stabilization fund to account for drops in data center taxes, sort of what Loudon's done. I believe they're putting together, last I heard, a $100 million reserve fund to offset, and I'll just leave it at that for the moment.

[02:12:52] Sure, and I'm happy, you know, we're happy to meet with you offline. I'd bring folks to my real estate assessment office if you want to walk, you know, talk through some assessments. I'll take you up on that offer. I'd like to see them next week in my office. We're happy to do that. I will also, if I may, in response to your data center concerns and the revenues materializing, our estimates, for example, the Digital Gateway hasn't entered our estimates yet.

[02:13:13] Until we have permitting for a building to be constructed, that's when it will start to enter perhaps the real estate side. The computer and peripheral side, you know, it's either there on January 1st or it's not. So we don't, we really tend not to project.

[02:13:28] we grow it each year but we don't grow it by every data center we know that's going to open because they could choose to put it in on january 2nd and you will have a very big hole in your budget and so what you'll find is we have a surplus each year you'll see if you look at personal property we have had a sizable surplus each year and it's because of that computer and peripheral piece that we just simply don't know whether it's going to be there on the first or the second and so we've taken the approach that we are going to be prudent and we'll bring it to you in terms of a surplus versus saying it's going to be there and it not and then we have a budget whole. So some of that has not worked through. Our office only, I think, for the very first time tried to project revenues related to the Digital Gateway. I think that's where the $400 million

[02:14:06] number came up. That's with a lot of assumptions. There's so much unknown about what's going to be built there and when it will be built. That was our estimate. If you look at today, we generate about, I think it was 360 million in personal property. We have about 30, 40 data centers.

[02:14:26] I think Digital Gateway projects out somewhere in that neighborhood. So that might be in line, but again, it's a lot of assumptions that went into that. I would concede almost all of that with the exception of the assessment, particularly of the Digital Gateway, because I've seen the assessed values change at least three times since the end of December, including once more this week, and that causes me grave concern that, you know, they are constantly changing.

[02:14:52] Fortunately, my office actually goes to the trouble of printing out the assessments, so we've got a hard copy, because once you guys change them, there's no way to show that they were a different number the week prior. I think we will know that. But, yeah, we're happy to meet with you.

[02:15:09] You know that. I know that because I've got a hard copy, but anybody who's tracking it and doesn't bother to print it has no way of knowing what the difference is and there are some rather significant differences week to week. Yeah, I'm happy to meet with you on it. All right, Supervisor Bodie.

[02:15:27] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to go in reverse order since you're already at the latter end of the presentation here, Michelle. And again, thank you for the presentation. Thank you as always bring us these updates on how things are going, especially as we get closer to recap and how this is going to affect where we go.

[02:15:45] Can you go to slide 40 to start with? Sure. So I think that a lot of our conversations around recap are going to pivot around this, right? So we're talking about raising the increase of the residential appreciation from 5% to 5.5, which is millions more dollars than we thought at the outset of the proposed budget.

[02:16:08] Commercial dipped a little bit. We just had a long discussion about digital gateway, so I won't go into that, and computer peripherals tax. Do we know if in the coming years we will be getting better or staying the same in terms of how we're able to properly forecast the monies we're collecting and how we developed better ways in working with the industry on getting the kind of information that we were talking about.

[02:16:42] Because I agree a lot with what his critiques and his concerns are with that. And frankly, a lot of my constituents have asked me the same thing. Hey, you know, we're being promised all this new revenue. We're starting to see some of it materialize. But there's so much of the systems and the kind of hardware and things like that that these folks are either refreshing every few years or, frankly, once they're constructed from scratch that it doesn't always seem very transparent on what they have and if they're reporting is what we should be assessing on.

[02:17:10] Then you have the whole back and forth we have at equalization and what have you. So can you talk about the trends there a little bit? Sure. So we try to follow industry trends. You know, at one point, you know, it was norm that your equipment was refreshed every three years. Now we're hearing it's, you know, it could be five years as things, as technology improves, the life of things lasts longer, the equipment may get smaller.

[02:17:33] So we try to follow industry publications. We attend a lot of industry conferences. We talk with our peers. We do send out I&Es to the data center industry. I will say it's a very proprietary industry, right? It's a very competitive industry. So they certainly are not going to share everything, but, you know, there are certain things that they have to share with us and those information we do get.

[02:17:54] So, yes, I think we continue to learn more. I will say, again, looking at our total revenue estimate, though, we are in the 90% accurate, like 99, 94, you know, short of a crystal ball. You're probably not going to get much accurate than that. But we will certainly continue to use the resources that we have to improve each year.

[02:18:14] And as we get, you know, the same thing that I think that happened to Loudoun, they grew at such an exponential rate up front, you know, for them, if you look at, for example, their real estate assessments on data centers, they were having double digit increases for a few years because they really were trying to catch up.

[02:18:29] It just was, you know, so much happening. I think we've at least sort of started off learning, being able to learn from Loudoun, having them and having an assessor that had worked from Loudoun and came to us helped us tremendously as well. Of course, the data center industry then stole him from us, so he now works for a data center industry at a much significant higher pay, I'm sure.

[02:18:48] But, you know, I think we have a good team in place putting resources, working both with economic development, development services, to try to stay atop of what's coming to help feed into these models. And I appreciate that, because that leads me to my next question, which is the real estate and land value part of this.

[02:19:06] Because we know that the data center industry, for better or for worse, usually for the worse in some state situations, is driving the cost of land and driving real estate values up as a result of that. Do we see that trend plateauing out any time soon? And what are we looking at in terms of that?

[02:19:23] So it's fair market value, right? And fair market value is what a willing buyer will buy a property for. And so right now, the land is, you know, there is a significant piece of land that in this area, the data centers are gobbling up, and it is driving up the cost of land. I can't argue with that, but that is fair market value.

[02:19:41] Right. Because even as we talk about, you know, projects in and out of the overlay and what have you, you have projects in the overlay, the same thing. They're buying land, millions of dollars, acres, and stuff like that. So it just, it comes part and parcel of this overall conversation on the driving upward, the real estate values and what have you.

[02:20:00] So I appreciate that. Slide 37, to get into the CNI tax, just very quickly. I know that in the past, I don't want to call it the far past because it makes it seem like we've been at this for decades, but we haven't. You've been able to split out a little bit more the CNI tax, some of the intricacies of it.

[02:20:18] I know it's commercial industrial. Do we have any flexibility to parse out what types of industries or what types of commercial that we're able to do different tax rates at? Because you said at the outset that apartments, for example, they're considered commercial.

[02:20:35] Would they be subject to the CNI tax? I believe, yes, but I would need to research that with the county attorney's office. But I believe they would be considered a commercial property type. And so that leaves me to my actual question. Would we be able to parse out different levels for different types of commerce and industry?

[02:20:52] I believe it's a flat. I don't believe you can have a different rate for different types that I'm aware of. We can certainly look at that. I believe it's a one rate for the CNI tax period under state code. Something for us to think about, and we do need to have changes made to allow that. Because to me, there is valiantly such exploring talks of this, especially as it pertains to the Edison industry, which is a huge contributor, as we can see more and more of the industrial side of this.

[02:21:17] But would an unintended consequence be adversely impacting apartments, which we know an apartment landlord is just going to absorb that cost out of the kindness of his own heart, right? he's going to somehow spray that out to his tenants and we don't want to inadvertently exacerbate some of the housing challenges we have through wanting to get more revenue for transportation which I think we should get more revenue for transportation but I want us to talk a little bit more about the intricacies there and if we need to get more authority or more nuanced authority from Richmond on how to do that I think that's important as well.

[02:21:51] Sure if I may if I can take that one back and follow up with the board let us do a little research to see if they would be subject because I do not know that for a fact. Appreciate that. Slide 35. This goes back to CENP a little bit more. This is more of an observation.

[02:22:09] I see that change in rate. So this is if we wanted to go all the way up to 378, we currently advertised that $49,798,742 versus on the top.

[02:22:28] Okay. So break this down a little bit more for me because each nickel is only $1.6 million. How are we going from $1.6 here to $49 million at the top rate? Right. So at $2.20, it's $1.06. At $2.25, it's $3.2.

[02:22:44] So if you go all the nickels all the way down, it's $49 million. Okay. Gotcha. And then my last one, thank you, Madam Chair, for bearing with me. And, of course, that would be split with the schools. Right. It would be split with schools.

[02:23:00] This is 23, slide 23. And this is the proposed general revenue details. So at the end of the day, these dollar values are in the triple zero.

[02:23:16] So we're adding another few zeros on it. It's not just one million in real estate tax. We're talking about a billion. Correct. So as we continue to talk about this, knowing that if you look at what you said is the computer and peripherals tax for the data centers is a mixture of the personal property.

[02:23:36] And what was the other one? Vehicles. Vehicles. So over time, we're seeing those increase quite a bit in this. But this assumes the 2.15 rate, right? Yes. So we could expound that it would be a lot higher as we get closer to 3.70 that we did.

[02:23:53] Okay. So a lot to work through here. Looking forward to working through my colleagues on this. Thank you so much for the clarity, Michelle. Sure. All right. And before we go on to Supervisor Franklin, I did want to appreciate that you mentioned the CNI tax, Supervisor Brody, because that's something when we talk about the mobility chapter, again, our mobility, I'd like to dig into that issue a little bit more.

[02:24:16] But let's go on to Supervisor Franklin. Sure. I just want to just talk a little bit more about, I'll just call it the data center tax. Obviously, that particular tax includes much more than data centers. But, you know, I've heard, you know, from some of my colleagues that we haven't realized the amount of revenue that we thought.

[02:24:39] And I disagree with that. If you look at page 35, it clearly shows, if you continue to increase the tax, what the revenue will look like. And then I just want to remind us that all of the data centers that we approved, I don't know that any of them are actually in operation right now, receiving revenue.

[02:25:02] Now, I know that, and I guess I mean the past board, and I know that we've already done some assessments on what some of those properties may equal out to, but we haven't seen the full revenue of any of the projects that we approved.

[02:25:17] So the idea that we thought that we were going to bring in all this revenue and it hasn't realized, well, of course it hasn't. They don't exist yet. So I just kind of want us to think reasonably and rationally about how we're having this discussion. And, you know, if we want to get additional revenue, I think we're on track to doing that when we advertise these rates and figure out, you know, which numbers we want to be comfortable at as we eventually get to the $3.70.

[02:25:48] So I just want us to be clear in how we're having this discussion and understanding, you know, A, what, you know, passports have actually done, B, which data centers are already fully built out and operating, and see which ones do we have coming up and have we fully realized that revenue?

[02:26:05] Obviously, we haven't. Some of it is a little bit more common sense and I think we're giving off. All right. I am actually going to say a couple words and I'm going to let Supervisor Vega go, then it's Supervisor Rear, then Supervisor Bodie, then we're going to move on to the next presentation.

[02:26:22] I think that, you know, I don't want... Last year, there were a lot of projections given for the data centers that the previous board approved And I think that that's where we're getting a little bit of a mix-up, is some of the projections were quite high.

[02:26:39] And they may not be the revenue that we will eventually realize from those projects. But I just want to mention, I think that the thing we're getting caught up on is not actual revenue, but projected revenue. That said, I'm going to go over to Supervisor Vega, then Supervisor Weir, then Supervisor Bode, and then we are going to close out this discussion.

[02:26:59] Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question. Is there any way that we can calculate fair market values excluding data centers? Like the assessed value of real estate without data centers?

[02:27:14] Because the average homeowner is clearly not going to spend at the rate that data centers spend. Yes, I think we know what our assessed values of data centers, so I can tell you the difference. I don't have that with me, but we can pull that out. That would be helpful. Sure. Thank you. All right, Supervisor Weir.

[02:27:31] Thank you, Madam Chair. As you might expect, I'm pretty adept at data center taxes dating back more than a decade. And there's a lot of portions to this that I don't think the public terribly understands that adversely impact the revenues to the county.

[02:27:50] First and foremost, any data center out there that is operating under a DOD contract, any three-letter agency for the feds, any federal government contract, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe we can tax their data center equipment. It is all tax-free, so there are quite a number of data centers that are online that the board has approved in the last couple of years.

[02:28:11] I can think of one in 2014 with three data center buildings at 240,000 square feet each, which we collect no C&P tax from, that being the grandfather of all of this controversy, the Amazon data center and Haymarket. I think the other thing that we need to consider, and I've been saying this to your office for quite some time, is that you're right, the refresh schedule has changed.

[02:28:35] The industry will be the first to admit it. Their own white papers admit it. They have the three-year refresh schedule, which most of the depreciation rates are based on, is a thing of the past. You know, five years is maybe, maybe the industry standard.

[02:28:54] From what I'm hearing, it's more like eight or as long as they can keep it together with spit and bailing wire. So that means that the delta that you're losing from year three to year whenever they replace the equipment or refresh the equipment, you're staying at that 5% valuation and not going back up to that 50.

[02:29:14] So there is a significant drain on anticipated revenue simply based on that. And then you've got the new little aspect to it, which is the data centers engaging in, and believe me, I don't blame them for this, But they've got a new strategy, which is we'll just replace the chip in the rack, not replace the rack, call it maintenance, and then you're not paying the additional upgrade or you're not paying that 5% to 50% delta on the depreciation because it's not a new rack.

[02:29:51] But the one that really concerns me, in your memo from yesterday, you get a downward adjustment of 10% countywide for all land used for data center, And the rationale behind it was that this was applied to all undeveloped data center land in the county due to the high volume of land zone slash plan for data center development.

[02:30:15] What that screams to me is that we now have a surplus of zone data center land that we can't accommodate a demand for. Demand will not accommodate that volume of land, or at least that's what that sentence is telling me.

[02:30:34] And I'm concerned that in addition to having a surfeit of land now zoned for data centers in conjunction with what is becoming increasingly apparent lack of supporting infrastructure from a power standpoint, that our projections for the future in terms of not only the C&P tax but the real estate tax and any improvements on those properties owned by data centers will likely be negatively impact

[02:31:09] because they won't have the ability to start up the operation. And I would suggest that if they don't have the power to start it up or that power is going to be delayed anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 to 15 years as the utilities catch up with the power demand from both a transmission and a generation standpoint, that we could be sitting and spitting our wheels for quite some time and not getting any real additional growth in the commercial tax base

[02:31:44] that we have been planning to attribute to these rezonings and to those data centers. It's just a concern of mine, but I think the board should be aware of that, and I think you guys need to start forecasting what the actual growth is going to be in the out years given current constraints, especially since the state and the feds are now starting to take a real interest in it from both a grid security and to some degree a national security interest standpoint.

[02:32:13] And I would again strongly suggest that it might be time to start setting aside some money in a revenue stabilization fund simply to offset any losses in data center revenue as was experienced by Loudoun County a couple of years ago. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bode.

[02:32:30] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll wrap it up quickly and I'll completely run away and depart from the World Data Centers as we close out. Michelle, the cigarette tax, you brought it up. We put it into place a couple of years back to help diversify the tax base. And that's grown over time in ways, I think another one that sort of overshot what we originally estimated.

[02:32:50] Correct me, right now, vaping, vape-adjacent products, so the liquids, all the other stuff, is not subject to the cigarette tax, right? No, it's not. It's not. And do we have any kind of ballpark on if it was how much we'd be making?

[02:33:07] We do not. Yeah, I'm so happy to do some research and see if we have – we wouldn't even have the sales data to know what their sales – yeah, I don't think we can get to that. It would be good to know, I think. Thank you. I'll see what we can find out if there's any data out there from other states perhaps. Thank you.

[02:33:24] But we wouldn't have that data. All right. So thank you. I have a quick question, and I'm going to apologize to supervisors. I'm really going to start enforcing the five minutes because I know that people want to speak, and I just want to make sure that we are adhering to certain standard procedures. I had mentioned last week that, you know, and I've been giving more leeway, that after I call, you know, so-and-so is our last speaker, we're going to end it with that person.

[02:33:47] But I just want to reiterate that I will do a better job in enforcing the five minutes and that allowing that supervisors may only speak twice per discussion. So with that, I just had a quick question because a lot of stuff was already covered. I noticed when we are talking about average residential, like, you know, tax bill, for example, that we are comparing to other jurisdictions, I guess, in the NVTA region.

[02:34:09] I'm just questioning, you know, is there a way for next year maybe we can look at Stafford? And the reason why I want to look at Stafford, because they are growing jurisdiction. And, you know, I would say that we have quite a bit in common with our neighbor to the south, more so than some of our northernmost neighbors.

[02:34:25] So if I may, there's one very big difference. They assess every two years. And so it creates spikes in their tax bills. They're on it every other year. Gotcha. I appreciate that. Thank you so very much. I believe that's the case with Falkier, too. All right. Thank you so very much.

[02:34:42] Are you going to queue up the next one? If that's all the questions for that presentation, Madam Chair, we'll move on to the next. This one, again, just like the previous presentation, is one consistent with what we do each year, and that is a review of our principles of sound financial management.

[02:35:07] So with that, Michelle. Okay, great. Thank you. So your principles of sound financial management, they were first adopted by the Board of County Supervisors in December of 1988. They have gone through a number of amendments, with the most recent being in 2018.

[02:35:24] Your principals do require for me to walk through them with each newly elected board, so at a minimum every four years. Of course, we report annually on compliance with the principals. And if we needed to come back, if there was something that we felt like needed to be addressed in between this four-year cycle, we would certainly bring that to the board.

[02:35:43] But these principals have guided both the board and the county executive in making fiscal decisions. and county department heads in managing their budgets. It assures the sound stewardship of taxpayer dollars. It ensures budget flexibility. And it ensures that we have structural stability to weather economic storms, such as the Great Recession, the housing crisis, when we went through COVID.

[02:36:08] We were able to manage through that without having to dip into our reserves. And a lot of that is because of these policies that you have in place. So, again, the importance instills public trust. It instills that long-term discipline in that we won't start things that we can't sustain over the five-year plan because it does require us to have a balanced five-year plan, for example.

[02:36:27] It is a key measure of our fiscal strength and our credit worthiness with the credit rating agencies. As you know, we have that triple-triple-A bond rating, which is something very few jurisdictions across the country have, fewer than 3 percent, I believe.

[02:36:42] But there are some areas where we are not triple-A, and these policies help pull that up because they know that the board is going to adhere to these over the long term it is a leading indicator for our bond market who the people that buy our bonds if they're going to get repaid that's what they care about are we going to be able to pay our debt service and the answer is yes we're triple triple a we are going to pay our debt service and it also lays the foundation for economic development so when christina is trying to attract businesses here or any business just looking to come to the county they want to make sure that we're a well-run organization a well-run County, that it's a good investment for them to build infrastructure here, bring their workers

[02:37:17] here, et cetera. So I'm going to talk through the policy sections today, focusing on some that we are recommending some what I'll call substantive changes. You currently have 12 sections in policy with one being proposed, a new section on redevelopment. And so I'll talk through that. That's policy section, I think, 12. Yes, 12. And as I said, there's two types of changes. The first are what I would consider administrative changes. So we've gone through, read through the document um i think you got dispatched a copy of a mark change version which it's hard on the eye so if you go to the appendix i think i have laid out uh our recommended changes

[02:37:55] in a much more user-friendly um format where you can see what's changing from the existing to the new side by side um i'm not going to cover today administrative changes i'm happy to answer questions on them if you if you'd like me to but those are things where we've determined there's better terminology there may just be clarifying language but it doesn't it doesn't change the intent of your principal. There may be sentence structure changes, just a more concise way to say it, and renumbering. Like if we add a redevelopment section, it renumbers, that becomes 12 and 12 becomes 13. So those are administrative changes. I'm not going to focus on those unless you have specific questions. What I will focus on is those substantive changes. Those are where we identify

[02:38:32] new principals, recommending a new threshold, or there's another meaningful deletion that I think is important for you to know that changes really the intent of your principal. And so there's five areas where we have what i'll call substantive changes those are in fund balance fiscal planning revenues debt management and then a new section called redevelopment um so starting off on the fund balance section gfoa does recommend that an organization have an unrestricted fund balance that's equal to no less than two months of regular operating revenues or general fund expenditures

[02:39:09] so if you look at our fiscal 24 budget if you look at with the school transfer it's 1.6 billion but let's focus on the county side of the books it's 839.7 million two months of operating i'm going to assume it happens kind of 212 since our largest expenditure is salaries and benefits 139 million our unassigned fund balance now at june 30 2024 which we do sorry june 30 that should say june 30 2023 my apologies is 110.8 million we do have an audited financial statement now which is getting posted today i'll be sending out some information through the county executive on

[02:39:44] on that probably tomorrow but it is 110.8 million so that is about 79 percent of that recommended amount and that is in line with what our rating agencies say to us we are on the lower side for a triple triple a however we are still triple triple a because we have lots of things like our principles of sound financial management and other practices that kind of pull us up you've seen these charts before these are in our fiscal health report with the most recent data being available 2022 that shows our peer group AAA there at the at the top right you'll see we are in

[02:40:17] yellow well below the peer median and then the AAA countrywide median but we are now you'll see higher than Fairfax at least at the end of 2022 we'll be interested to see what 23 looks like this year the target is above 35 percent some of the difference between some areas for example Arlington It's a much more sort of mature area grown out.

[02:40:39] We're still a growing community, so there is reasons why we don't have quite as much in reserve. I'm not really sure what Chesterfield is doing. Those are really high, but these are prepared by PFM coming out of Moody's database. And they pull some of the data a little bit differently using their own metrics as well.

[02:40:57] What I can say is over the years, you'll see when we have had significant growth in our reserves, we have got another AAA. So we start out with Fitch being AAA in 2004. You'll see between 2007 and 2008, that was kind of pre-Great Recession when we were having those double-digit increases.

[02:41:14] That's when we established, I think, the Revenue Stabilization Reserve, which is now $29.5 million. And so Moody's gave us then a AAA, and then you'll see S&P follow the next year. And so in most years, you'll see we've been above sort of that 2010-11 mark when we got those increases with the exception of 2000 it looks like 19 we dipped below and it's in that capital reserve area and the capital reserve we sort of grow it and then we spend it for one time capital investment and then we grow it again so strategically grown and then used for cash investment so we don't have to debt finance everything and your principles speak to 10

[02:41:52] percent going into cash to capital this is what your current fund balance hierarchy looks like that general fund unassigned that's that rainy day fund that fund of last resort seven and a half percent of general revenues. When we have a surplus each year we would then split it with the schools after funding that general fund unassigned. So the schools do participate in funding of that unassigned fund balance. From there we fund our revenue stabilization reserve that's funded solely on the county side. It's two percent of general fund revenues. From there we make sure our capital reserve is at least equal to two percent of the current year capital project appropriation. Then we find replenish our economic development opportunity fund reserve to three

[02:42:31] million dollars some years we have to put the full three in sometimes it's less if we haven't used it all to incentivize projects and then from there anything left would go into the capital reserve for one-time capital use down the down the road so a couple things that for consideration and I'm not requesting any action today we will come back at a later date but I would like to get sort of some feedback after this presentation I'm happy to come around and meet with you individually to kind of just talk through any of this that you're interested in. But one thing you could do to strengthen is grow our revenue stabilization fund reserve from two to two and a half percent. That is an expensive proposition. I'll have

[02:43:08] a slide on that. It's about seven and a half million dollars to make that change. So a small change with our growth in our revenues that we have seen. A half percent growth is a large number. There are three other smaller, what I would say, things you could do that I think will demonstrate to the rating agencies that we are growing reserves and I think these are good investments to make the first would be an emergency response reserve of about two million we're recommending two million dollars that would be to respond to things like obviously emergencies happen COVID-19 but things that happen for example snowstorms right we have snowstorms sometimes it

[02:43:43] may impact a certain area of the county this would give our emergency operations center place a place to go if there is a locally declared emergency so this wouldn't be a reserve that necessarily you should have to replenish every year unless we had a you know some type of locally declared emergency every year oftentimes we get reimbursed from fema but what i will say is we're not even eligible for fema reimbursement until it reaches over two million so this would really also just help respond to some of those smaller things to have a place that we could immediately go to respond it would require ratification by the board the way we've written it just like all of our other reserves staff can't just dip into it we do say if there's a locally on this case a locally

[02:44:22] declared emergency ratified then by the board because we may need to dip in it to respond to an emergency. So that's the first one. The second one is a new redevelopment opportunity fund reserve. So this would be similar to your economic development opportunity fund where we can use that to incentivize targeted industry. This could incentivize perhaps redevelopment in areas like your small area plan, etc. And when I get to that section of the presentation, we've presented some policies as to how it might be used similar to our eat-off. And the last one would be a fairly small 500 000 self-insurance reserve and this is just a reserve for premiums and claims should they

[02:44:57] exceed what is budgeted in your budget each year we are self-insured we have had to as you know the county executive recommended some additional funding for self-insurance because of what we're seeing nationwide with insurance costs with our workers compensation claims medical costs etc all becoming more expensive so these are some things that we could do to demonstrate that we are strengthening our AAA status. It does provide that immediate source of funding for locally declared emergencies. It would provide money, seed money for some catalyst, what we're going to call catalyst projects for redevelopment. And catalyst projects we'll talk about really

[02:45:32] would spark other development. And then a way to pay claims or premiums in the case of extraordinary adverse experience. If you were to do all of these things, this is what your new pyramid would look like and how it would get funded. We just inserted emergency response reserve after eat-off, then redevelopment, and then self-insurance, and then with remaining going to capital reserve. Also recommended in this principles, you do have a contingency budget.

[02:46:03] This isn't so much important to the rating agencies in the sense that it's a budgeted item, so it's planned for expenditure every year. It is a principle, though, that it will be at a minimum of $500,000 for an organization of our size. You'll see, even if you raised it to 1.5, you're still at .2%. It doesn't provide you a whole lot of flexibility, but I do believe a million five is maybe a little more realistic than 500,000. But again, won't really make a big difference with the rating agencies, but I do think it would give you the board flexibility to fund those things that are unanticipated up to 1.5 million each year. The next section is in fiscal planning,

[02:46:41] and this is really just changed to mirror what is happening really today. In our revenue and expenditure report. Typically, we provide that within 45 days of the close of the month. It becomes much more challenging at year-end. It just takes time to get through year-end closing, the accruals, the deferrals, all of those things. And so we've been historically late on that last quarterly prelim report. And so we're moving it. I'm recommending that that one get moved to 90 days. I think we're then providing you a much more realistic number. And then it is finalized with the ACFER. When that's published, that's our final audited number. And then, like I said, in the fiscal planning section is where you'll find that contingency budget.

[02:47:20] So not a material change, but because it's a date change, I felt it substantive. In the revenue section, it's merely linking to that same section because we issue one report for both revenues and expenditures. We used to do two reports many years ago. It became more efficient to issue it as one report.

[02:47:36] It just links the two so that we're issuing in them at the same time. And then, of course, adding the piece, the audited numbers are really the final numbers. Looking at debt policies, there are policies within debt, And when we do that, we measure both debt capacity and debt affordability.

[02:47:52] So debt capacity is how much financing can we issue without overextending our credit and our ability to pay. And then the affordability is the burden to pay that debt obligation back each year. And we typically issue debt over 20 years. And so currently, we have two metrics, one on capacity, which is 3% of assessed value.

[02:48:11] And as our assessed value continues to grow, you know, $101, $104 billion, we're well under that amount. You can see fiscal 23, 1.1%. So plenty of capacity, but can we afford it? That's the important question. And so today we have a metric in place that has our annual debt service expenders can't exceed 10% of our annual revenues.

[02:48:31] The problem is all funds can't be used to pay the revenue, pay our debt service. It is typically paid out of our general fund and in some instances our fire and rescue levy fund if it's fire station construction, for example. And so we really need to measure the capacity within those two funds.

[02:48:47] And so I spoke to a prior board about this before, pre-COVID, that kind of hit and we decided it wasn't time to really change metrics. So we didn't make a change, but we are bringing this back. Some of our other jurisdictions, you'll see, they measure their debt service against their general fund expenditures, 10% of general fund expenditures, 7.8%, 12% in the city of Alexandria.

[02:49:08] When you look at the rating agencies, they say between 8% and 15%, with 8% being a very strong AAA, 15% being a strong AAA. And so we're recommending perhaps we establish a new metric that limits it to 13% of our general fund plus our fire and rescue levy expenditure to try to put some constraints around where we are actually paying our debt service from.

[02:49:32] And so we've graphed this out. This is our current existing debt service history. You'll see it's been well under that 13% mark within 2023 down to 8.93%. Some of that is a factor of revenue growth. Some is a factor of debt being paid off.

[02:49:49] And then we've projected out what it would look like based on our CIP as proposed on the county and school side. And so 9.43 growing up to 11.44 in FY29. So still some room to keep it under that 13%. Then moving on to what we would call our new policy in redevelopment.

[02:50:10] So redevelopment, we have areas where we have aged commercial parcels or we have parcels adjacent to property that hasn't developed, maybe underutilized, and there might be an opportunity to redevelop some of that. And this is a picture of, I think, a North Woodbridge Town Center rendering where there is some redevelopment work planned and in place.

[02:50:30] On this slide, we have Innovation Park Town Center, a rendering here. And these are a listing of all of our current small area plans that largely focus on redevelopment of existing kind of area with a vision for town centers and something that looks very different than what it is today.

[02:50:47] And so how might we be able to help incentivize some of that? In addition, there are areas, if you talk to Christina Wynn, she would say there's probably gateways and areas that if we made improvements to them, it would spark interest in businesses coming to locate in the county. And so that might be another area where we could invest in redevelopment.

[02:51:05] And so we've tried to put in place through the Policy 12, Principles 12.01 through 12.11, just some overarching guidance on when might we incentivize for redevelopment, much like we have for Edoff. We currently don't have a dedicated funding source for this.

[02:51:24] I will say this is not specific to affordable housing initiatives. However, it's not prohibited. For example, you could have a town center that may have an affordable housing piece to it. But this isn't really targeted just at affordable housing. I think that's another discussion that's underway through a housing trust fund, for example.

[02:51:42] And so the 11 policies that we've lined out kind of say, first, we're going to try to seek private investment. Whenever possible, let the private sector do this stuff, right? We're going to target catalyst projects, so projects that will bring about other development. Look at sites with strategic importance, so the small area plan, things that are important and in line with your strategic plan, your comprehensive plans.

[02:52:05] It has to have a defined public purpose and benefit, particularly if the county is going to be investing in it. It has to be for a public purpose. There has to be a public use to a piece of that project. We will always do our due diligence. So before, just like Edoff, when we decide to incentivize, we have looked at our return on investment.

[02:52:21] We have done, you know, market analysis. There's been studies, things to make sure that this makes sense for us as a government to contribute to this. If public funding is used, of course, it has to be approved by the board. Incentives would have to be approved by the board. We want no anticipated negative impact on our bond rating.

[02:52:39] So careful if we're going to enter into any kind of debt financing in partnership with a private entity. We would want to make sure that our bond rating is not negatively impacted. We have to have sufficient debt capacity. We don't want to enter into things that create direct or indirect liabilities for us, at least not unknowingly.

[02:52:57] We want to make sure that we know what that long-term ratification is. Fiscal feasibility analysis, and then access to records. If there is a partnership with another entity, we want to make sure that we can, you know, if there's public funds going into it, how is it being used? We need to have access to those things. And some of that happens just through FOIA laws, et cetera.

[02:53:16] So here's a menu of options with some of the costs for these things. As I said, if you were to increase the revenue stabilization, it's about $7.4 million annually. That's based on audited 23 number. 24, our revenues will be higher, so that number is probably going to be higher next year. Emergency response reserve, $2 million annually as needed.

[02:53:35] That would be a replenished type reserve, so not necessarily every year need, but certainly if there was an annual local emergency, perhaps. The redevelopment opportunity fund reserve, again, $3 million annually as needed. depending on what the board would choose to incentivize the self-insurance reserve annually as needed you know hopefully with the proposed budget if the board adopts it we will have an increase to the self-insurance and we wouldn't need to have this reserve but it is a place to go if we need if we needed to pay claims and then the board would have the increase in the contingency reserve initial million dollars annually if you adopted that so it would be

[02:54:14] about a 13.9 million dollar kind of endeavor for you to do all of those things each year and so I'm not asking for a recommend for a decision today I would like to meet with you individually discuss we're going to need to you know first get through recap we're gonna have to look at our surplus for this year for fiscal 24 because we have to have a way to fund this if we're going to do any of this and this fiscal year is not over yet so we don't know what that surplus is we will be presenting our third quarter surplus in May that will come out so we might be in a better position to figure out what mix of these things would make sense um so really the next steps is for some direction from

[02:54:51] the board to the county executive you know are you interested in me just making if if we do nothing else make the administrative updates um to fix that do you want me to do administrative updates with um all those substantive updates or just select ones perhaps you decide you only want to do one of those reserves or perhaps you decide we're just going to extend that report to 90 days and that's the only thing i want to do we just need some guidance on how to bring we need to bring bring these back for your adoption at a minimum I would like to make the administrative updates and hopefully that fiscal planning update with the due date deliverable I think that just aligns it with the way we present those are the two things that I in my mind I would consider a must-do if I had my

[02:55:30] wish list from there you know I'd love to have some additional reserves put in place that we can tell that story to the rating agencies so whether it be all four of them or some combination thereof I think that's you know for discussion i'd love to get your insights as as you know in the next couple months ahead um with that i'm happy to answer any questions um like i said the appendix you'll see i tried to go through and cross out what we were getting rid of and put in red on new and then my explanation out to the right whether it's a substantive or um administrative change and if it's administrative change why and

[02:56:07] so hopefully that will help you get through and review because i found this thing just like put me to sleep. Thank you so very much. We are going to start with Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. I stole Supervisor Angry's tip from the previous one where I did like halfway through the presentation, like I'll get it first.

[02:56:24] Thank you, Michelle, for bringing us to our attention. I know that we over the years have talked about making tweaks and improvements to it. So this is a good sort of roadmap to look at some foundational things. At least for my 1-8th, I think I can say, hey, yeah, go forth with the administrative part of it and the deliverables part of it, because those are foundational sort of structural things that I think will help you do your job better from that perspective.

[02:56:49] So that's my one-eighth. But I did have a couple sort of questions and comments. If you could go back to the, I think it's the second to last slide. Yeah, that one that sort of summarizes everything. It's a good place to ask questions here, I think. So I'm going to go in reverse order.

[02:57:06] The increase of the contingency reserve from half a million to 1.5 million, like you said, it's not going to move the needle too much in sort of how the agencies sort of view us. If we were to adopt this sometime later this year or what have you, do you see yourself coming back every couple of years to recommend us do a little bit more or index it to inflation or something like that so it makes a little more meaningful difference?

[02:57:31] frankly this looks a little bit like an arbitrary number just saying hey it's been 500,000 for so long let's increase it to 1.5 mil yeah so um yeah you know realistically you think you know do you want one percent reserve it becomes a big number with an organization of our size um but it is something we could look at we certainly also look at the history and it's been a little bit all over the place some years we've only spent 600,000 for example um during COVID we increased the contingency to 3.1 million there was a lot more that we needed to spend out of it it was just done through the budget for that particular year not the change was not made in the principal so it's been a higher amount as well um you know i think we monitor how it's spent what i will say

[02:58:07] is because it's budgeted right to the extent it's not used and it can only be used with board approval so a resolution has to come to the board to spend from contingency it ends up going into the year in surplus and savings which then follows your hierarchy of funds fund balance and it ends up in the capital reserve right for one-time capital so it's not you know if you increase it It's not like it gets lost.

[02:58:29] It still makes its way into reserves in a roundabout sort of way. Gotcha. Appreciate that. And the self-insurance, and you probably figured I was going to ask you a little bit about this. You said you're proposing $500,000. Has this been based on our claims history, the severity of the claims that we've had?

[02:58:47] Have we seen an increased frequency, severity, certain types of claims that have caused sort of an alarm that, hey, maybe we need to add a little more pot in the mix for this? Yeah, so workers' compensation is becoming expensive. And a lot of that is just driven purely by medical costs, with the rising costs of medical.

[02:59:03] Our workers' compensation claims are expensive. And so paying those claims, you know, we have a budget. We charge premiums to ourself, if you will, because we're a self-insured fund. We've been short. And so we've had to increase through the budget both this year and I think last year, asked for additional funding.

[02:59:22] On the insurance, you know, where we purchase insurance, again, insurance is becoming more expensive because of a lot of the, you know, catastrophic things that have happened across the country, just driving up the cost of insurance. And so some of our peers, I forget which one does have a self-insurance reserve, and I thought, oh, this isn't a bad thing.

[02:59:37] It does give us a place to go for a little bit extra if need be, again, only by board approval. And, you know, hopefully with the adjustments we make to the budget, we don't need to tap into it. It really is a reserve for, you know, those extraordinary years. Because since I'm assuming, since we're self-insured, we don't have an umbrella policy to then drop down on top of it.

[02:59:55] We do. We do. No, we do. We do have a stop loss where it does cut our loss off. We do have umbrella policies that sit on top, but we still pay the first X amount. In fact, we have one of the lower amounts in the country. It's kind of unheard of that we're able to get. But it's still well beyond sort of that delta between the $500,000, what we're starting to see.

[03:00:15] Okay. That makes sense. The redevelopment opportunity fund, I like that. I think it's a really good idea. sort of gives us more flexibility to do certain things um but a couple questions there you know mention small area plans would make sense to me um potomac mills would that be an example of a major employer that you think of when it comes to wanting to look at catalysts and redevelopment because to me that's a major you know sort of destination in the county um and is that sort of the thought process there so i you know i think we're initially thinking at least in terms of where you have approved small area plans, but those strategic areas, those are the boards.

[03:00:53] So, you know, I think some of that you define as a board of strategic importance. I don't know if Christina, I don't see Christina, if she would want to say more on that, but, you know, certainly that is a big employer, a big employment hub. And I'm not sure what you have in mind for a project in that area.

[03:01:11] Oh, there she is.

[03:01:23] Good afternoon, Chair. Members of the board, Christina Wynn with Economic Development and Tourism. In regards to the types of areas and projects, I think first and foremost, it's anything that is already almost in a designated targeted area.

[03:01:40] So a small area plan, opportunity zone, hub zones, and projects that are kind of in that area. Now, in terms of Potomac Mills, Potomac Mills, as a large project, depending on what you're talking about in terms of the scope of redevelopment and so forth, I'm not sure that a $3 million fund would actually fund that, but I think there might be aspects or something within Potomac Mills that would be applicable.

[03:02:12] Thank you for that. And last thing, Madam Chair, because I appreciate the thought of helping to spur more at redevelopment, And, Christina, thank you for that clarity. I like the thought that we're looking at different ways to help create more opportunities and more tools in the toolbox.

[03:02:29] But I would be remiss if I didn't say I also hope that this can be used for residential as well and affordable housing and things like that, knowing that the best way we can actually support our businesses, especially our retail and community-facing businesses, is having more rooftops for not only their patrons but also their workforce as well.

[03:02:44] So we continue to have conversation around development, redevelopment, and making more offerings for commerce. We should be talking part and parcel to residential as well. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, thank you for your time. You just hit for your five minutes. Next up is Supervisor Franklin. Sure, thank you. And I don't have any comments now with regards to the recommendations, but I do want to point out as we continue to support redevelopment and revitalization projects in Prince William County, particularly in the woodbridge district i know that we've had some challenges before and once we've voted on a rezoning obviously those developers or land owners then get

[03:03:25] the bill for what that rezoning basically what it would be assessed at even without having broken ground so i do want to caution us to figure out how we can i don't know if get around that is the discussion but figure out a way to more timely figure out how we can assess those properties I can tell you I know we've worked with your office in economic development on a couple of issues but you know these developers still have to get financing for these projects and if they get a huge tax bill

[03:04:02] right after we zone the land you know that can actually impact whether they go forward with the actual project or not which would be at least in a redevelopment corridor like route one that would be detrimental if some of these landowners can't actually go forward with their revitalization project so not really anything for you to comment on other than let's figure out ways if possible if the state code gives us some options for looking at how we can better figure out a timing for assessments for those newly rezoned properties so if I may I do have

[03:04:40] actually one thought I think we can look at there are redevelopment zones that can be established that have some taxation not permanent relief but there's some taxation perhaps relief available with an ordinance of a redevelopment zone we would have to work with the county attorney's office to see how we might impact put that in place here in Prince William so we're happy to research that and of course if you had a redevelopment opportunity fund it could be used to incentivize um them which you know could help relieve their costs yeah that's actually great and and would love to have that conversation for what that looks like and and yeah it's only coming

[03:05:17] from experience on the route one corridor and i know you know because we've had this discussion where we would you know vote on on a property and then you know i get a phone call a month later saying you know we're in jeopardy of not being able to move forward because of a b and c um so we do want to be mindful of that when these projects come before the board so thank you all right thank you so much next we have supervisor we are thank you madam chair um mr treed i would just note that pages 8 9 and 12 really sort of bear out my concerns that we spoke about with respect to the last topic i'm going to keep this real short but i think if

[03:05:55] we're going to prioritize prioritize anything particularly given in this economy with changing changing practices where people are working, commuting patterns, all that wonderful stuff. I think we need to prioritize the revenue stabilization fund, but that doesn't come without a significant expense. That being said, because I think that a lot of that stabilization will be required as a result of a particular industry, I think that needs to be tied to the data center taxes, and it needs to be kind of geared to that, because if there's a shortfall, I suspect that that's where it's going to come from. And as I said earlier, I think we just need

[03:06:34] to kind of get there more quickly than not. Debt service levels, I'm with you. I'd rather cap it at a lower percentage than you're proposing. I know we are not at the absolute cap that the rating agencies or the banking or financial people would tell you that we have the capacity to reach, but I've also been in a circumstance sitting behind a deus similar to this where the financial consultant came in and justified simply with the words, well, you can always pay for it, you just need to raise the taxes.

[03:07:06] You bring any consultant in that comes in here and says that to me, I'm going to come over the dais at him. With respect to tax bills as part of rezonings and that, I mean, all that, the assessment of the property is statutorily required.

[03:07:21] There's no way for us to get around that. Now, yes, there are some provisions within the statute for relief, but all of that needs to be factored in by anybody to bring a development proposal to us or a rezoning or anything else like that. And I'm going to assume that, for the most part, everybody I've dealt with for years is very well aware of what the ultimate cost is going to be, and there's very few times that they're actually surprised.

[03:07:47] If they're surprised or if something comes about that serves as that great a threat to them, that speaks more to a lack of due diligence on their part than anything else to me, And I think we should be probably looking a little closer at some of their development numbers and their projections if, indeed, it appears that they're on the margins.

[03:08:10] Because we kind of, you know, we have to protect ourselves, not just them, but we have to protect ourselves from having to assume costs. You know, you go back to the whole thing with one of the parkways or the toll roads in Richmond. You know, they went belly up, I suspect, at some point in time.

[03:08:27] One of the hot lanes here is just going to go belly up, and then we're going to end up bailing it out. And by we, I mean the Commonwealth. So those are my concerns, and I'll just leave it at that. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Bodie, and then Supervisor Franklin. Sure. Thank you. Just a couple last things.

[03:08:43] The Emergency Response Fund. I know that back during COVID, there was a lot of conversation and requests about hazard pay. would hazard pay be sub would that be one of the provisions of the emergency response reserve so i it could be to respond to an emergency so i would think you know if there was overtime associated with a um emergency that might be a use for it um as i said when we um make fema claims you know until it hits over two million dollars it's two million it's not two million even but it's a little

[03:09:20] over two million is when we can seek reimbursement from fema and there's certain a cost you know overtime is one of those eligible costs that during COVID I know we got reimbursed from FEMA for example um and so so yes I mean I think it's to respond to that to the emergency with within reason yeah I appreciate it I just know a lot of first responders and other county staff that came up came to us not only during COVID but when that bad snowstorm that we had that basically locked down 95 for a few days a lot of folks had a lot of sort of grievances about this so I appreciate it last thing is I'll just say it again I do like the redevelopment opportunity fund

[03:09:54] um i think that there's a lot that can be sort of drawn to that to help spur investment um and so you know as we look at uh our small area plans or activity centers all the things that christina when mentioned earlier i think there's a lot of potential there we should start not if we do passes at some point really going out to the industry and folks outside the usual suspects that we haven't seen in princelium county before in some time and look at how we can leverage that to bring more investment to the community thank you all right back to supervisor franklin yeah I just want to go back to the discussion about the assessments of the properties once we rezone.

[03:10:32] I just want to make clear that these are not all corporate developers. Some of these are family-owned landowners who have been operating in the county, and this is their first big project probably in decades. I'll also point out that I've been intricately involved in a lot of the projects in the Route 1 corridor particularly, And this hasn't been an easy market to develop in over the past several years.

[03:11:00] And obviously with inflation being a challenge over the past couple of years with the prices of goods and services increasing, and quite frankly the banks have also tightened their grip in terms of how much they're lending and who they're lending to and what the prospects and the risks associated with whatever that project is.

[03:11:21] So, yes, I think everyone does the best that they can to come with their best assessment of what their revenue and their prices will be for a project. But that has become harder and harder over the past couple of years with the type of economy that we've been operating in.

[03:11:38] And it all goes back to interest rates, something that they can't control. And so I just want us to be more mindful of how we have these discussions and understand that in certain parts of this county where we've waited decades for redevelopment, we can't get to the end goal only to bring ourselves back because we're putting hamstrings on some of these projects that are meant to make our community better.

[03:12:08] So we can't be our own enemy with regards to moving some of these projects forward. And I would just encourage some of my colleagues to understand a little bit more about some of the intricacies of some of these projects. Thank you. Supervisor Ingrid.

[03:12:24] Thank you, Madam Chair. I just figured out you just since I hadn't spoken yet. Michelle, Kelly's going to reach out to you and Christine. They do an office call just to kind of go over some of this. I got quite a few questions, but I'm not going to put them here. So thank you. Yeah, I'm happy to meet with any office.

[03:12:40] You know, we have some time. We don't need to make the change right away. So I'm happy to make the rounds and talk with you specifically about it. And if I may, just one thing I want to add, Supervisor Franklin, we have tried to, as we see resolutions or agenda items coming through for rezonings, our office is more proactively reaching out to Wade and his, the team, to pass on that you will have a, you know, once this is rezoned, there will be a reassessment.

[03:13:08] And so that folks that come through the process, if they're not aware, hopefully they're being made aware before they proceed. So we are taking that, you know, we have at least proactively tried to do that to help the situation. All right. Thank you so very much.

[03:13:24] Thank you. The Michelle show is over. I was going to say, you had two out of two, girl. Does she get hazard pay, Mr. Shorter? Just wondering. All right, let you kill Mr. Shorter, our next person. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[03:13:43] allowing for Eric Olson to come on down for this presentation. Madam Chair, Eric has been working with our team for a few weeks now, maybe even more, for this presentation. So, Eric, appreciate you in your office for all that you do and for putting the presentation and slide deck together.

[03:14:06] We're talking early voting ordinance this afternoon. And, Madam Chair, with that, I'll turn it over to Eric. I just want to say quickly, when you're telling them to come on down, I'm thinking like Family Feud or something, you know? All right, Price is Right. It's some game show that it was on when I was a child.

[03:14:24] It's still on today. Oh, is the microphone on? It's on now. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair and board members. Good afternoon. I'm going to talk to you today about our early voting ordinances here in the county.

[03:14:44] We need to think about some considerations with this. So when we're talking about early voting, there are basically three ways that voters go out and vote their franchise each election. They either vote on election day itself, they vote by mail prior to the election, or they vote during the early voting period, which begins about 45 days prior to each election, which means we basically have about six weeks of early voting.

[03:15:09] So per code requirements, our main office has to have early voting available for all voters. So that is always available. What we're talking about is that localities can establish any number of satellite locations by ordinance with few limitations on the number, the number of days, the hours, those types of things.

[03:15:31] So we have a couple ordinances that are currently in place on that. This used to be an item that the Electoral Board oversaw, but it was changed a few years back so that the local jurisdictions have to establish this by ordinance. So when we're talking about early voting sites, the site requirements that we have are that there have to be public buildings, so they need to be buildings that are owned or leased by the county.

[03:15:56] The facilities must be accessible, so they have to meet ADA requirements. They have to also have adequate parking and adequate room size so that they can have enough room for voters to come in, have privacy while they're voting. And we have to make sure that the equipment and the voting supplies can be secured.

[03:16:15] each evening so that we maintain the integrity of the election. So we think about a few overall goals when we're looking at this. So we look at do we have sufficient access to early voting for all voters around the county? Do we have a geographic balance of that across the county? Is the system we've set in place cost-effective and using public funds in an efficient way? And are we giving voters consistency. And when we talk about that, I'm thinking about locations and hours and the habits that they form that as we get information out to the public, as you all know, it takes time

[03:16:52] for the public to understand and learn about what their options are. And so consistency really helps with that. So the current ordinances we have are two. There's a primary ordinance and a general election ordinance right now. And we have six locations that we use for early voting. We use three for primaries, and then we use five for generals. And really only two of these locations are consistent. So our main office, which has to be used by statute, is used in both those types of elections. And the Haymarket Gainesville Library is used in all elections. The other four

[03:17:28] locations vary by the amount of time and the type of elections. And what happens with this oftentimes is a primary election comes up and we get a lot of calls from voters that go to the DMV to vote, not realizing that Ferlazo is actually the location for primary. So it creates a little bit of an issue. So looking at our map here, if we look at our 2022 general election, there's a dot for each early voter on here. And what you see is that it's pretty widespread across the county.

[03:18:00] This map really functions as much as a density map for the county as anything because early voting is something that is done all across the county here and these shows where our locations are at present so we'll talk about that a little bit more with some recommendations towards the end so I want to look at our current ordinances with respect to those four categories so the first goal access so right now kind of get a so-so on this the primary elections we have three sites overall only two of them are actually in our magisterial districts one of the sort of unique

[03:18:34] features of our county is that our office for uh our main office that's open for 45 days is within the boundaries of manassas so it's a mile or two away from the closest prince william county uh voters there um so that is a little bit of a disadvantage now this access gets a little bit better as we move towards a general election where we have more locations available and in that case, we have most voters that are within 15 or 20 minutes of an early voting site across the county. In terms of balance, we do have a pretty good geographic spread with three sites, one in

[03:19:13] the west end of the county, one in the east end, and one in the middle of the county for primaries. But if you look at the population distribution in the county, this line represents roughly the 50% split of the county. So when you look at it that way, there are really two locations that are mostly on the west side of the county, and in the bottom third of the county, which has half the population, there's only one location there during primaries. This gets a little better during general elections, where we have more sites, and this is balanced out a little bit further.

[03:19:49] In terms of being cost-effective, our current system is not very cost-effective. So this is a map that shows the day-by-day voting totals at early voting for the 2023 primary election. And as you can see, towards the end of the election, the last week of the election or so of early voting, that's when voters really start to pick up.

[03:20:11] And there's a lot of good reasons for this. Voters are waiting to see what decision they want to make with all the information they have. It probably favors a little bit of all of our natural procrastination to wait until the deadline gets a little closer. So we really see voting surge over that last week.

[03:20:29] We saw this during this past primary that just took place, this election, and you can see the costs here. So staffing is our primary cost when it comes to early voting. The equipment that we use already has a sunk cost to it.

[03:20:44] But over the first five weeks, we had about a little over 1,800 voters. And then in the last week, we had 2,400 voters. So we're spending a lot of money over those first five weeks to staff locations that not a lot of voters are going to. And that's with three different locations open.

[03:21:02] And then we're getting the most voters during that last week or so. You can see that during a general election, this is pretty similar. Just for comparison's sake, to show you sort of the magnitude of general elections, which are much larger than primaries, this was that last day of that 2023 primary in comparison to all the days during the general election, and this is an average day of a primary.

[03:21:27] So it's really two different beasts. Primary elections are pretty low turnout affairs. General elections are really large. So in terms of consistency, then, our last criteria here, again, as the sites change back and forth between Ferlazzo and the DMV, as we have some elections where Brentsville and Dumfries are open and other elections where they are not, that can create some confusion.

[03:21:53] Voters don't have an opportunity to kind of build habits and know where to go on election day. So first drafts always require review, additional input, and revisions to the process. So have some data that will help us with that.

[03:22:08] So in terms of a few overall observations, the largest localities in the state offer generally more satellite locations than Prince William County and for a shorter period of time. So if you look at these are the top five counties in terms of population in the state, and what you see is there's a couple things.

[03:22:26] One, Sunday voting is something that we have continued to uphold. Our electoral board has opted to have Sunday voting, and we have been praised for that as a county. We also have two locations that have been open for 45 days. No other county does that except for Fairfax, obviously the largest county in the state, and even Fairfax only opens it in the afternoons and the evenings for just part of the day for those 45 days.

[03:22:54] you'll see that the number of satellite locations overall for primaries is much higher in all the other counties, and the number of days they're open is much shorter. So primary elections not only have far fewer voters, but a smaller percentage of those voters use early voting.

[03:23:13] So you can see here the comparison. General elections generally have somewhere between 40% and 50% turnout for most of them, And then, obviously, in a presidential year, we ramp up to 70%, 80%, 85% turnout in really busy elections. Primary elections, by comparison, much smaller.

[03:23:32] 8% to 12% is most common. In some situations, we might have upwards of 24%. Our presidential primary, we just had, I think, was about 16%. So much different than what a general election is. So in terms of numbers, that translates to about 25,000 to 40,000 voters in most primaries.

[03:23:53] And in general elections, we're usually looking at somewhere around 120,000 to 160,000 voters, with more than 200,000 being common in presidential years. So not only do we have fewer voters in general during primaries, but a smaller percentage of the voters actually use early voting during those elections.

[03:24:11] So pretty consistently, we see about a quarter of our voters going out and voting early in general elections, but during primaries, that number really drops and can vary quite a bit. So final observation, mail voting is not only growing faster than early voting, it is now the choice of early, early voters. So if you're voting early and you're voting on the front side of early voting, you're more likely to be a mail voter casting your ballot by mail or dropping it off at a drop box than you are to be going out to an early voting site. So we've seen, this is sort

[03:24:48] of our average from 2021 to 2023, about 60% of voters wait till election day to vote, and about 25% of voters vote early, with about 15% voting by mail, but those mail numbers are continuing to go up. We saw it especially in this last primary election, we had 4,300 early voters come out in person, more than double that chose to vote by mail. Partly, we have now with Virginia has a permanent absentee list law. And so once voters get on that, they tend to like it and they stay on it because one, it's convenient. Their ballot comes to their house. Two, you never don't

[03:25:28] hear about an election that's coming up. Your ballot arrives well before the election. So you're very aware of what elections are happening, including special elections. And you can even sign up for primary elections through that system as well. So as we consider a new ordinance, we have some recommendations here that the staff has looked at using this data, using this information, looking at best practices. So there are four of them. One is to expand the number of locations for access and balance, making sure PwC voters have a lot of locations to go to

[03:26:06] that they're balanced across the county. Two, we want to use the same locations for all elections for consistency. So voters know if it's a primary, it's a general, this location's open, that location's open, and that they're available. Third is to adjust the start date of the satellite location opening. So I think the locations were kind of an attempt, I think, to sort of control for costs and demand. But I think what makes more sense is to keep the locations consistent and change the timing of when those satellite locations are opening based on the type of election that's happening.

[03:26:41] And then lastly, we need something in our ordinance to codify the satellite locations used for special elections. When Supervisor Weir was elected in the special election, we had a lot of voters that were going to the Haymarket Gainesville Library expecting that to be open for early voting, but there's no ordinance in the county that applies to special elections, And so we need something that codifies that, that either is, that explains what that should be.

[03:27:09] So these reviews are, these recommendations are put forward by staff. They have been reviewed and unanimously supported by our bipartisan electoral board, which is two Republican members and one Democratic member at present.

[03:27:25] So expanding the number of locations, we recommend basically just using all of the current early voting sites that are in play. This would be six locations in total. We would use those for all elections. This is locations that voters are already familiar with. We know that they work in terms of accessibility and parking and some of the logistical factors that we have to consider.

[03:27:54] This also provides three sites for each half of the county's population. So if you're looking at the breakdown of the split of the county in two halves. You've got three sites on the eastern half of the population and three sites for the western half of the population here. And this basically puts voters in all districts close to at least two sites. So while there isn't per se a site in Woodbridge or Coles in this map, there are two different locations for both of those districts that are very nearby for voters to travel to. Recommendation number two, using the same

[03:28:30] locations for all the elections. Voters will know these locations are open. That allows them to develop habits. And then we adjust the timeline and the cost of the voter interest by the election type. So we look at the demand, and then we make the appropriate adjustments. So to that end, adjusting the start date to the voter interest, we've suggested a one-two-three system, which is basically one week for primaries, two weeks for general, and three weeks for a presidential general.

[03:28:58] Now, for all of these, our office would be available and mail voting would be available. So if voters really do want to vote early, early, as we say, they can still come to our office and vote then. They can still mail in a ballot, and that would be fine. But this puts all these satellite sites open and closer to more voters, and it does so at the times that they've told us with their feet as to when they want to go out and vote.

[03:29:25] So looking at this, this is what a primary schedule would look like. It would basically start and run from Saturday to Saturday with all eight days being open. The calendar on the right there with the one on the left being our office, which would be open for starting at the 45-day mark, which includes 34 days being open.

[03:29:46] So this is a broader access for the public than what we have right now. This includes three weekend days for voting, and again, mail voting and main office voting for early, early voters. For general elections, we would suggest starting on the Sunday, that's two weeks and two days before the election, and continuing for the next two weeks, accepting that one Sunday, giving our staff a little bit of a break in between there, because the week after early voting, what you don't see is our staff is working all that week and well into the next week.

[03:30:19] So they do need a break every once in a while. What we have found is that first Sunday, though, we're one of only two localities that's had voting on that Sunday. So it really makes voting on that Sunday a Prince William affair, and it would help us with drawing attention to the election.

[03:30:35] So media outlets might be more willing to cover it. We'll get some extra coverage, which would alert voters and give us free publicity and information for the voters. This covers the highest voting period, and this allows for three different weekends of voting.

[03:30:51] So if someone's out of town for a couple weeks, we've got that first weekend on the Sunday, the second weekend on the Saturday, and the third weekend on the Saturday, three different weekends in which voters can go out and vote early. The last one is just the one that's coming up this November, once every four-year cycle, that we would open up for a full three weeks.

[03:31:11] This would include five different weekend days of voting over four different weekends. And this would create a lot more voter capacity when we really need it. The presidential elections, when we have a ton of voters, making sure that we're open at a lot of locations for an extended period of time that would really help make sure that we are serving all of our voters.

[03:31:34] And this also has the benefit not only the individuals that are voting by mail, the individuals that are voting early. They also help the voters that are going out on election day. Because if we have 10 or 20 or 30 or 40,000 voters that have already voted as we get towards election day for most elections, now we don't have lines on election day. We don't have people having to wait in lines. When they have problems, we're able to address them more easily and more quickly. So while elections has changed from sort of a grand opening approach to everything happens on election day, and then that's it. We have more to manage because there's more parts to this process, but

[03:32:12] it's giving voters more options, and it's making all elements of that process work a little bit better because we have more time and more resources to devote to each of those components. So what this does over four years, this actually saves us about $120,000 every four years because while the presidential general here, staffing costs go up slightly, all the other selections, these seven out of the other eight elections that happened, we're saving close to $20,000 for each of those elections. So I think this is one of those rare win-wins where we're actually hoping to expand

[03:32:51] services and access for our voters, but also reduce costs at the same time. In terms of hours, our hour suggestions that have worked pretty well are weekdays, we open from 8.30 to 4.30, with weekends being open from 8 30 to 5 and on sunday we suggest slightly shorter hours because we don't get that many voters on sunday voting in the early morning hours we don't get too many voters it's also a little tougher to get election officers that are ready to be there by 8 a.m to get things rolling so we shorten up that day just a little bit so the last component of this is

[03:33:30] codifying special elections we want to define satellite locations for those in this ordinance and I think there's a little wiggle room there as to how we'd specify that one we could use all of the locations and a certain time frame for county-wide special elections and then we'd want to specify something for if there is a let's say a magisterial district specific election or a state senate race that we would use the satellite location that's either in that district or that's closest to that district so as in the situation that we had with the special election last year

[03:34:09] voters would have an option to use early voting beyond just the main office so i think this plan puts us in a position where we're going to expand access where we're going to improve the geographic balance of our locations where we're going to improve how we're using our funds and make that more cost effective and give voters more consistency from election to election to know that these locations are available and open. So the next steps in this, outside of, you know, getting feedback and seeing what modifications we need to make, would be to authorize a public

[03:34:46] hearing item for this on April 9th, and then to have a public hearing to adopt the ordinance on May 14th. And the reason for that is that the implementation of this will be planned for the upcoming November election. This does not affect the June election. The reason for that is we're not allowed to make any changes to early voting locations within 60 days of the general election, and the Attorney General has to review it before that. So there's a very sort of a four-month time frame before the general election that we have to adhere to. So that's it, and happy to

[03:35:24] answer any questions or thoughts. Well, thank you so very much. Supervisor Vody is first. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Eric. I know that we've been talking about permutations of this for a good while now, and I know that we missed the boat on a couple different elections, one being the specials that you've talked about, but I appreciate that we're here now.

[03:35:46] A couple questions on just data, because I know that you cited this year's presidential primary as a data source for this, but I'll be frank, no matter where you sit on which side of the fence, this year's presidential primary was boring, right? You had two front-runner candidates that people already sort of figured out was going to be the president, at least by the time we got to hear it in Virginia.

[03:36:07] And so there wasn't a lot of general buzz. But if you go back just four years in the Democratic primary, for example, we had a bunch of folks that were there before the end. And so the numbers were different. So even if we discount the numbers, are the percentages still sort of the same in terms of the number of folks who come out, even looking back four years ago?

[03:36:26] Like the percentage of voters that use these? Yeah, I mean, those behaviors are kind of consistent. They change a little bit over time, and they're sort of modified by the pandemic wrinkle that we had in 2020, 2021, where we saw a real surge. Now we've seen those kind of settle into some patterns.

[03:36:43] And, you know, there's certain voters that want to vote on election day regardless or that enjoy voting by mail kind of regardless of the type of election. But, yeah, I think we see general consistency and we see little trends kind of over time.

[03:36:59] But you're right that overall people decide whether they want to vote in an election. That's really driven by candidates and issues. And I think there's an important point there, which is that, you know, sometimes I've been in a lot of different counties and I've seen both electoral boards and local bodies use early voting sites and voting locations almost like a competition tool.

[03:37:22] Like, I'm going to try to get it closer to where, if I'm a Democratic representative, I'm going to get it closer to my Democratic citizens, or vice versa, if I'm a Republican candidate. It doesn't really, people don't vote more because they have early voting.

[03:37:40] There's even some studies that show that after early voting laws have expanded, that participation rates actually are just level or even drop slightly. So people don't participate more or less. So I think when we're talking about this, it's important to kind of put, consider the geographic areas as sort of the reason behind where you're putting locations and the scheduling of those locations as well.

[03:38:07] Appreciate that. And the question, last question, then the comment. In your sort of recommendations for this and where you think we should go, where do the drop boxes come in? Like when would they be established? Would they be at all the locations? Would they be established when we start the early voting at those locations? Would they be a few, maybe a week or so before that? How do they, how do they fit in the vehicle? Drop boxes are located at any location where we have voting in person while that location is open. So all of the election day sites have a drop box at them where the ballot can be dropped. All of the early voting sites when they are open have a drop box

[03:38:47] where voters can drop off ballots. They of course always can put them in the mail as well. But we don't have any of these sort of locations that are just out in the public where someone can come up a mailbox and just drop off their ballot those were not present when i started here and we haven't made any moves and the board hasn't made any the electoral board hasn't made any moves to try to change that because there's been some controversy over that as to whether you know you can have potential increase in in potential fraud if those if those boxes are just out there so all of our

[03:39:23] drop boxes are at the live voting locations where they are being overseen by the election officers that are at that location sure well that's a question in the comment um the hours for the early voting um you have it going if during the week you have it ending at 4 30 have you had any data that suggests that there might be more folks that might partake if it's after like six o'clock seven o'clock knowing that yes uh commuter trends have changed over the last three years with with covid but there's still frankly a lot of people that can't make it home by the time that

[03:39:57] it's closed to early what if they wanted to yeah no i i think you know i know in other jurisdictions do that some when i was in arlington we had uh the satellite locations only open for some weekdays and it was i think it was like midday or somewhere between 12 and 2 to like 7 so i think you do capture um some people that that would maybe uh help during that time i think that with mail voting becoming more and more popular, that that is less critical now than it maybe was a few years ago when people didn't have that option or you had to have a reason to vote that way. And some of that

[03:40:36] is just management of the election officers as well. So I think you would capture some voters if you had sites that were open a little bit later in the evening. But logistically, it becomes very difficult. And I do think if you have a lot of locations that are open for you know a good a long part of the day that really people can find like a half hour here an hour there to to get off a little early from work one day um i think we also look at um the fact that there's just so many different work schedules that people have as well too um and more people

[03:41:13] working from home now and just you know just more patterns than just sort of the typical like nine to five commuting in the city there's certainly a lot of people that do that but there's a lot of other audiences out there as well sure i see that i'm out of time so i'll go back with a second bite of the apple when it's my second turn thank you i don't have any other speakers but if you can i i know you you're you're geeking out over there i feel it so all right so you know what let's get angry is going to jump in there all right hey eric just really while i got you there and really it's

[03:41:49] not even about this presentation can you can you just give a little brief synopsis of 4f and what we did today with the uh voting precinct splits those two between me and codes those few people oh so anytime we have a split you have to get a the state has to approve a waiver request which is that that precinct uh would have to have its own polling place so in those two instances we'd have to have a polling place for just these uh i don't know less than 30 people and just these less than 50 people. And that's just, those are just little spots where the lines don't match up. So the

[03:42:29] magisterial line, it goes really neatly along Hoadley. And there's, when they had the original congressional lines they drew also was following Hoadley. And then they kind of had their second draft and they took, there's just one road where it cuts off Hoadley and comes right underneath it for like 30 houses and then comes right back up. So there's two little pockets in the county. One is a congressional one and one is a state house and and state delegate line and there's a there's very few voters in those but what we have to do is you all have to approve that unfortunately each

[03:43:06] year and we have to send that then to the state board to sign off on that waiver request so that we can have those voters go and vote at the same precinct as the other voters in their district The only difference is that those voters would get one contest or two contests that are different based on that congressional boundary or that state legislative boundary.

[03:43:28] Thank you, thank you, Matt. No problem. All right, back to you, Supervisor Bode. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair, for indulging me. I'll be very brief with this last few bits. One, Eric, again, thank you for this. I know a lot of my constituents have come to me, a lot of that inconsistency we talked about having Furlazo at 1-0 against Furlazo, but a lot of my constituents are used to going to DMV.

[03:43:47] I mean, my brother-in-law, who up until last week lived with me, tried to go to the DMV to vote in the presidential primary, finally came yelling at me, I'm like, we're working on it, but we didn't get it done in enough time. So I think that part's important, like you said, established habits, and I'm always going to advocate for my constituents.

[03:44:03] The closest one for us is either DMV or their main office in most cases. So always want the DMV to be open for all these, so I'm all for that. The second thing is, I know we just talked about it a little bit, but I hope in the future, regardless of what we do with the considerations of the new ordinance, that we look at maybe during some of the early voting periods, looking at that more PM-centric focus that you talked about that you looked at in other jurisdictions.

[03:44:29] because I still think, frankly, we have a lot of folks that still commute out to the Beltway every day, and you have working-class folks that, frankly, they may not have time to come home even for five minutes, 15, because they're out all day. And on the reverse side of that, they may not always get access to their mail in a good rhythm, so that may fall through the cracks, too.

[03:44:52] So I think that just being responsive to a lot of a sub-segment of our voting population, of our community, I still think exploring during the weekdays that PM focus, at least in some parts, would be helpful. Thank you.

[03:45:10] All right. I don't have any other questions. I appreciate your time in this presentation. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. We are going to move into supervisor's time.

[03:45:28] Before we begin, we have some pending votes from appointees and amendments. We're going to conduct these two votes separately. So first, can I get a motion to approve the appointees listed as agenda? Agenda items 11A to 11Z.

[03:45:44] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. All right. Any discussion? If not, let's vote. Vote unanimous.

[03:46:02] All right. We are going to look at 11AA and 11AB. Let me get that up on my screen as well. I'm actually going to take these separately. 11AA, can I get a motion to approve?

[03:46:22] Second. 11AA. Is there a second? Second. all right discussion all right and let me get out of this one supervisor bode yeah madam chair so just looking at that serves are weird for a second this basically just says that if for a reason we have an item that we're going through that's going to go past midnight or looks like it's fast approaching midnight we would have to take a vote to amend the rules procedure to continue

[03:46:59] onward yes right okay okay all right so let me get out of this so i can go back to my screen view speakers. So I'm letting some people pull this up. I'm sure some more people might have comments. My comment, and I guess it would probably be to the county attorney, it's if we adjourn a meeting at midnight, do we have to re-advertise? Madam Chair, members of the board, the supervisor, we are asked for our legal opinion with regards to this, and we recommended consistent with applicable

[03:47:32] provisions of the Virginia code be added to his amendment with regards to the the state of the code of Virginia with the general assembly continuing to amend items it'll depend upon the item that's before the board if it's an item that requires a public hearing currently as written with the Virginia code my legal advice will be for the board to continue and complete it if the board defers it to another date it will have to be re-advertised as currently the code of Virginia All right. Thank you. All right. I'm looking at Supervisor Weir and then Supervisor Franklin.

[03:48:09] Madam County Attorney, that legal advice would change if bills such as HB 1488 were adopted, which would negate the requirement for the publication. We would give our advice based upon what type of item it is before the board and what the current state of the law is. All right. Anything else? If not, Supervisor Franklin.

[03:48:29] Sure. I just want to upset this before that I believe that once we start our work, we should continue it. I think that's in the best interest of being effective, and I don't think we will have board meetings moving forward, knock on wood, that have occurred because of some of the issues that we've had in the past that have led to longer than usual meetings.

[03:48:54] I think we've closed out a lot of those more controversial land use cases particularly, and so, unfortunately, I will not be supporting this measure. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I say the same thing, the fact that if we're going to start a meeting, we should finish the meeting.

[03:49:13] But in reverse of this, if right now we had a board meeting that was going to go past midnight, anybody could, you know, weigh the rules and make a motion to end by midnight. So I'd rather have the opportunity to do that then than actually say that if it's midnight, then we have to have a vote to see if we're going to go past midnight.

[03:49:34] And I will say this here, I think if we all manage our time and our comments and, you know, our agenda items and meetings that we have, if we manage those well, then we know what we need to do to make sure we don't have these issues.

[03:49:51] Now, if the public shows up, then the public shows up, and that's what these issues usually turn into, whatever a public hearing or public comment time is going to be like. So, you know, I don't think sitting here, I mean, I don't want to, I said the same thing to Supervisor Cannell when he introduced this idea to have meetings in before midnight that they're going to go longer.

[03:50:11] And, you know, I think there's a way that if we know these agenda items are coming up, we need to do better, have a conversation about how we're going to manage those expectations. So, thanks, Madam Chair. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's good practice to implement this. I will be supporting it. I think that it doesn't just benefit us being up here, having a clear mind and being rested while making some of the most important decisions that we have to make for this county.

[03:50:35] But I also think it takes into consideration staff and the general public that takes the time to come here and to address their elected representatives. So I will be supporting this for those reasons. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right.

[03:50:53] Just look and see, looking over at you, supervisor Bodie has nothing. so i don't know how the previous board did those overnight meetings as i ain't a young woman anymore i think that that is painful and i would like to if we know we have something contentious i'd really like to see if we can maybe have saturday public comment time or something to mitigate that but i am very concerned about those super late meetings i don't know if people are performing at their best so since we have no other speakers i'm just going to close out

[03:51:23] discussion and let's take a vote motion passes four to two supervisors angry and franklin voting nay all right thank you so very much we are going to now move over to 11 a b is there a motion madam chair yes if the board will humor me uh given the efforts on behalf on by yourself and

[03:51:56] county exec with respect to changing the dates i would i would offer a much shortened substitute motion which comes down to two lines it would simply say d an agenda for regular board meetings shall be set by the board chair at least eight days prior to a regularly scheduled board meeting second sentence a copy of the board meeting agenda shall be mailed to each board member's official email address by 5 30 p.m monday eight days prior to the meeting and this would memorialize support

[03:52:29] give a policy basis to what you have already instituted so i'm sorry and so under subsection date you're going to change that to eight days you're saying it will simply read an agenda for regular board meetings shall be set by the board chair at least eight days prior to a regularly scheduled board meeting the second sentence is a copy of the board meeting agenda shall be emailed to each board member's official email addressed by 5 30 p.m monday eight days prior to the meeting

[03:52:59] thus getting rid of all of the other stuff i think this is um this revel you weighed in this on already correct madam chair members of the board we provided our legal advice and with a lot of questions with regards to what does this mean who decides etc the amended motion that is before the board I believe I was trying to follow as supervisor we're was reading and I don't have it in front of me in writing but I believe it does codify what the board has already discussed during

[03:53:39] your extended work session in which the county executive talked about today so um i don't have any concerns with it i'll go ahead and second it all right discussion yeah madam chair supervisor voting thank you madam chair i'm sorry i am doing this because you're loud supervisor franklin who patiently waits until i look at my screen supervisor franklin shall go first sure and i've said this at the retreat that we have that obviously um you know i think this you know codifying it is fine

[03:54:14] I think as much flexibility as possible is important both for staff and then just want to reiterate that, you know, I think that the chair should have as much autonomy over this as possible. And so just I won't be supporting this either.

[03:54:33] Supervisor Bode. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So under the original AB, I was going to vote against it because I think that 14 days and to what Sir Heser Franklin just said was a lot of flexibility being taken away from both the chair but also county staff to really respond to items as they necessarily need to be put out.

[03:54:52] But if we're just basically codifying what we already had put through the process, which is eight days out, that Monday before the board meeting, we're going to have an agenda sent out. And, in fact, by 530, to me, might even give a little bit more flexibility because right now staff is pushing the agenda out by the noon period at the latest most days on Thursday-ish.

[03:55:16] It's usually long before 530, I should say. I don't have any discomfort with this based on the amended motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would simply note that the initial motion was designed to get the conversation going and I'm comfortable with where we ended or might end.

[03:55:40] I am comfortable with this simply because I do want, and it codifies what we've discussed. I do like the fact that we're going to be getting things out sooner because it gives us more time to review or the rest of the supervisors more time to review as well as the public. And that's one thing that I have to name is transparency.

[03:55:57] You know, when I was sitting on the other side of this dais, it's hard to look at the agenda and to review everything as a member of the general public. So I just want to name that and be mindful. It's not just us. It's not flexibility from me or whomever sits in this chair. We also have to think about the public at large.

[03:56:14] So with that, let's vote. Motion passes. Four to two. Supervisors, Ingrid and Franklin voting nay. Madam Chair? Yes. I will forward a copy of the revision to the clerk.

[03:56:31] I greatly, that is greatly appreciated. Thank you so very much. So we are going to now move into Supervisor's time. I usually like to start one end. Next, I'm starting the other end. So this time, Supervisor Weir. Pass.

[03:56:48] All right, that was easy. Supervisor Vody. I will not pass, but I will probably be brief here. First, some administrative things. I would like to put in my notice of intent to appoint Obadiah Baker to the Disabilities Board and Vicki Castro to the Community Services Board.

[03:57:03] I also wanted to thank everyone who came out to our strategic planning charrette this past Wednesday. The staff who participated, I know Chris, execs shorter, and quite a few members of his team were present and participated even. I called some of them out to actually talk a little bit about what they saw based on the conversation.

[03:57:23] And, of course, Madam Chair, thank you for your collaboration with your office on that as well. That said, one of the observations that came up from that charrette was the demographics of who was present. Suffice to say, you know, having an event like that does tend to the more seasoned, older segments of any of our districts, but it was a justified observation.

[03:57:52] And so sometime in the near future, I will be helping to organize, alongside some of our schools and some of our other partners, a youth-centric charrette to get some of the very same feedback from the other side of the generational spectrum of folks in our constituency.

[03:58:08] So I wanted to put that out, and anyone who wants to help out with that, please, by all means. Last week, I was part of our first Chesapeake Bay Policy Committee meeting for the second one this quarter. We are doing a lot of great work in that committee of COG looking around our global and our regional water quality issues.

[03:58:28] And I know there's a lot of folks here that water quality and the declining state of some of our waterways is near and dear to their hearts. So please, I want you to know that we're working on it on a regional level and as a COG committee. Was able to join both Madam Chair and Congresswoman Spanberger this morning for a press conference surrounding the fentanyl crisis in our community.

[03:58:51] And our need to really look at not only what's being done right now, right of bang, Narcan, dealing with sort of the outlays of it, but the prevention side of it as well. Really partnering with law enforcement, our school system, a lot of our community advocates and community leaders to really look at how can we make sure that children or most vulnerable family members and our community members really understand that even if they're looking to partake in something else, a prescription drug, or something that's been recently legalized, that there is a real risk going to be laced with fentanyl, and even the trace amounts of it can be deadly to some folks.

[03:59:31] So I really appreciate Congressman Spanberger putting that together, appreciate all the efforts our PD and our Community Services Board has been putting into this issue, but I know a lot more needs to be done. And frankly, as someone who lost his mother to some misuse, I've seen firsthand the kind of tragedy that can befall families when we don't do enough so I'm looking forward to having more discussions on how we can do more and finally last but not least looking ahead on April 13th at 10 a.m my office will be doing our Occoquan District Dumpster Day this year will be at Oakwood Pool on Oakwood Drive off of Old Bridge Road again April 13th to 10 a.m to 1 30 p.m we'll have

[04:00:10] the normal dumpster crew out there um we're looking to get a shred uh truck um and some other services there as well and look forward for more information from my office that's all i have madam chair thank you so much thank you so very much supervisor angry thank you madam chair um so i'll start with i don't know if this is notice of intent for the whole strategic plan folks so you should have uh my two names maurice pettiford and ross nair for those uh those two Neopsicle district um and then uh I don't I don't I don't know where I saw the announcement

[04:00:46] um and what it specifically said but there was a notice that went out this morning about um basically the grass being dry so it was a high advisory for fire advisory so and and then this morning uh we had an engine out on the road because here's the problem folks if you smoke do not flick a cigarette out your car window don't do it anyway but especially if it's lit and the fact of the matter is this is what's causing these island fires so if you smoke if you have a friend who smokes if you see someone smoking and they throw it out and you're out of light please take a picture of that tag and send it to me or send it to someone because here's the

[04:01:24] deal we're gonna have to start taking this serious this happens more more than you care to imagine that we send fire trucks to these intersections or these islands to put out fires and you're wondering how that fire started well it's a cigarette folks so please do not a smoke and drive or if you're going to use that ashtray that i know is in your car and if you don't have one get one but do not flick it out the window it's causing problems so uh thank you for that um i'll just give a quick kind of uh update of uh so this saturday again i want to just mention and bring up

[04:02:02] That Chief Ed Van Horn, who passed away recently, 52 years in the Dell City Volunteer Fire Department, they're doing the Celebration of Life, that's it, at Dell City Fire Station, Hill and Dell Road, right on the corner of Hill and Dell and Dell, at the community center there.

[04:02:22] So if you can stop by any time between 11, excuse me, 11.30 and 2 p.m., I'd love to see you there. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so very much. And then we're going to go to Supervisor Franklin, then Supervisor Vega. Sure.

[04:02:38] I just want to point out a couple things. On Wednesday, March 20th, I participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for Belmont Logistics in Woodbridge on the Route 1 corridor. This facility is located on Dabney Road in its planned Class A industrial complex with three buildings, and it represents over $110 million of capital investment in e-commerce infrastructure in the Woodbridge District.

[04:03:01] so continuing to clean up and revitalize the Route 1 corridor while also bringing economic development. So thank you to those who hosted and participated, and certainly welcome their involvement, their continued involvement in the economic development of the Route 1 corridor.

[04:03:20] Also on Wednesday evening, March 20th, I co-hosted our fourth annual Women's History Program honoring 24 outstanding women in Prince William County who give their time and talent to make our community a great place to live. So congratulations for those who were honored, and thank you to those for serving our community.

[04:03:39] And then lastly, on Saturday, March 16th, I participated and I attended the Top Ladies of Distinction crowned with a purpose scholarship event. It was an event highlighting the organization's commitment to youth in our community.

[04:03:56] So thank you to those women for hosting this ceremony every year. in raising scholarship money that they give out to several students in Prince William County Schools to go off to college. Some upcoming events, or at least one upcoming event, we're doing Bike to Work Day on May 17th at the Woodbridge VRE and Dumpster Day on May 19th at Fred Lynn Middle School.

[04:04:20] You can find more information on those events and others on the Woodbridge District website and Facebook page. And lastly, lastly, I do want to highlight there is a fun game called Woodbridge Monopoly and it is an interesting game that it's like Monopoly but it's with various places within Woodbridge and provides a lot of historical context for those who have been in this county a long time you are probably familiar with a few of these like the Castaways Theater so if you haven't seen this feel free to pick it up we have a couple of in my office so feel free

[04:04:58] to stop by and if anyone wants to play woodbridge monopoly just let me know thank you and supervisor vega thank you madam chair just want to remind folks that this coming thursday march 21st chair jefferson and i will be hosting a joint town hall in regards to the 28 bypass it will take place at yorkshire elementary school beginning at 7 p.m so we look forward to having folks show up we're going to be talking a little bit about the history of the project any updates and it's opportunity for the chair to listen to folks who are in the path i would say of the proposed

[04:05:38] design for the bypass in addition to the chair and i our director of transportation rick conazales will also be in attendance also on saturday march the 23rd i will be participating in the art council women's history month celebration i want to keep reminding folks about our annual coals district easter egg hunt that will take place on march 30th at 10 a.m over at benton middle school also want to acknowledge and thank cj davis who is a young woman here in prince william county she's a local artist and she actually has an exhibition an art show exhibition

[04:06:15] taking place in manassas it actually opened up on march 1st and it goes all the way through march 31st and it is titled the art of service she actually drew women in leadership in prince william county that in one way shape or form have inspired her and i feel very honored and blessed that she chose me as one of those individuals so it was pretty neat to go to the art show and see the portrait that she drew and so if you are interested in supporting her efforts you can go take a look for yourself again the show is from started march 1st but it goes on until the 31st of March over at the McCall Studio Gallery in Manassas. That is all I have.

[04:06:55] Madam Chair, thank you. Alright, thank you so very much. I just have a couple things. So, last night I hosted an Iftar dinner and, you know, this of course is my first year on the board and I want to continue the tradition of hosting an Iftar as it is a critical opportunity to deepen relationships and to honor our local Muslim leaders. You know, and I can't say this enough, but Prince William is the 10th most diverse county in our in our nation and i love saying that because our diversity really is our strength and it is an asset and the diversity was on full display last night at the eftar

[04:07:30] you know everyone in that room brought different perspectives which you know contributes to our community and i feel it is my job as well as the job of every elected official as leaders in our community to continue to make sure that the table we work from has a play set from those coming from all walks of life. And Ramadan, with its focus on compassion and community, serves as a beacon of hope and solidarity. And I know this is a tough time for a lot of people with what is going on in the Middle East, which is one of the reasons I want to say that I'm committed to working across and building bridges with everyone, because it's very important. It's critical in a community

[04:08:08] such as Prince William. Now with that, I have two notices of intent I'd like to make tonight. One is for Mr. Joseph Lehight to the OPEB Finance Board. And then Mr. B. Drew Brown to the PwC Investment Oversight Committee.

[04:08:28] So, we're making it through. We are now, with that, we are going to go into our closed meeting. Thank you. Five-minute recess.

[04:09:39] So, I would like to entertain a motion for 12A to certify the closed meeting.

[04:10:08] So moved. Second all right, I don't think there's discussion. Let's vote and we have one thing to report out Yes, sir. Yes, I move that we accept internal audit reports on information technology general controls and external and internal penetration testing second

[04:10:37] All right, and I don't think there's any discussion. Are we okay to go ahead and vote vote unanimous all right?

[04:11:00] Thank you. We will now Going to recess, we will reconvene at 7.30 for the evening portion of our agenda. Thank you. 7.01 p.m. We are going to begin the item with item 6C from the afternoon session as a public hearing.

[04:11:16] Oh, 6D. I have it wrong. 6D. Do we have anyone sign up to speak on item 6D? We do not in person or virtual. So, all right. So I am actually then going to close the public hearing for item 6D.

[04:11:35] Can I get a motion? Madam Chair. Yes. I move to approve SUP 2023-0002, Hope Hill Church, with conditions dated November 17, 2023, to include changes to conditions 2B and 3A. Second.

[04:11:51] All right. Any discussion? Madam Chair, members of the board, are those changes dated today? Because it was my understanding. So, yeah, March 19, 2020. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right.

[04:12:07] Let's vote. Vote unanimous. Okay. All right, thank you so very much. I also want to note that there's a change in the agenda because we voted earlier to move up the public hearing for the proposed annual budget.

[04:12:25] So I'm, that was, that came in our two o'clock meeting. So we are actually going to go on to item 14, the public hearing for the proposed annual budget. And then we'll come back to the land use cases. So there is not a new presentation associated with this item this evening.

[04:12:45] So I am going to open the public hearing on item 14a all right we have five people who have signed up to speak on item 14a um i will call the speakers up each speaker will have three minutes to share their views and opinions on items 14a we ask that all speakers state their name magisterial district and or where they generally reside at the beginning of their remarks so i have evelyn yurita ron rosales um carla flores

[04:13:22] Stephen Amato. Teresa Menz. And if you are representing an organization as our official spokesperson, you can take up the five minutes. All right. Are you ready? Yes. Good evening, shared women, vice chair, and supervisors. My name is Evelyn Urrutia. I am a resident of the Niasco District, but I am here today as both a resident and as executive director of Tencent

[04:13:58] Workers United. TWU is a 38-years-old grassroots community organization, and our mission and value are to directly organize working-class communities of color. We work with immigrants, women, youth, and low-wages workers to build power so people can become involved in their community, in the government process, so they can work together to create the changes they would like to see in their community. For more than eight years, our organization has done work in different parts of this county and I will speak on behalf of those communities concerned and what we'd like

[04:14:37] to see on the 2025 budget. First, I want to thank you for your support of using the five million dollars in surplus funds from last year to address the housing challenge in the county. This is an important first step. Our families are still struggling from the long impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the long-standing issue of the high cost of living, increasing rent prices, widespread eviction, limited health access, and low wages. One thing we know for facts is that we

[04:15:10] need more housing for all type of family. But meanwhile, we need to create policies to increase the housing supply for everyone. We need to also think about preservation. Preservation of our families earning less than 40 percent of the median income in our county. Those families that work in the retail industry, in the clinic industry, those child care providers, those families earning the minimum wage in Virginia, which is only $12 per hour, individuals with fixed social security income and others. Those families need an additional five million dollars in the housing trust fund

[04:15:50] in the 2025 budget and we need annual investment as well as community stakeholder engagement for the guidelines and policy of the housing trust fund. To summarize people are struggling to stay housing in Prince William and more resources are needed to keep families in their homes.

[04:16:10] Eviction has true costs, especially for children. Studies show that children do much better when they have a stable home, can remain in their same school, and do not face the stress or displacement. Let's continue working to progress for all families.

[04:16:26] We all have the right to live in a safe, dignified, and affordable home. Housing, it is a human right, and we hope you all take initiatives on this side. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Juan Rosales.

[04:16:45] Good evening, Chairwoman and Supervisors. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. If you can speak, I'm sorry, sir, this microphone, just so we can make sure we hear you. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Good evening, Chairwoman and Supervisors.

[04:17:03] Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Juan Rosales. I am a sixth grader at Benson Middle School. I live with my parents and my seven-year-old brother in the Coles District. I am one of many community members from the working class families that live in this county.

[04:17:22] My parents work long hours in order to provide for us and meet the basic needs of our household. As a kid, I would like my parents to spend more time with us. I'd like them not to work so much in order to pay the high rents and meet our basic needs.

[04:17:39] And I would like them to dedicate more quality time to us. I would also like us to sign up for soccer league and karate classes and go fishing more often. We can't do these activities because our parents are too busy working.

[04:17:56] And when they get home, they are too tired. I understand that they are doing their best, their best they can in order to provide for us. I share this about my family. I share this about my life and family because we would like to continue living in this county where I was born.

[04:18:12] I would like us to be a part of the county's growth and development. That is why we want to create policies and dedicate funding in order to create deeply committed affordable housing for families who earn less than $50,000 a year.

[04:18:28] Thank you for your attention. Thank you. And next we're going to have Carla Flores. Buenas noches, Chargaman y Supervisores. Mi nombre es Carla Flores. Vivo en el distrito de Woodbridge por más de 10 años.

[04:18:46] Actualmente miembro de Inquilinos y Trabajadores Unidos. Mis hijos asisten a la escuela Potomacville y como todo residente pago mis impuestos cada año. Nuestro condado de Prince William está creciendo rápidamente y estamos viendo desarrollos en nuevas carreteras, en viviendas, oficinas y muchas construcciones más.

[04:19:04] Nuestra preocupación como comunidad es que vemos estos desarrollos, pero no vemos programas que estén focalizados en las familias de bajos recursos o las familias que ganamos 50 mil dólares al año o menos. pero creemos que nosotros como comunidad más vulnerable no nos beneficiamos de este desarrollo porque no existen programas o viviendas de bajo costo donde todos podamos vivir dignamente.

[04:19:31] Estamos acá para dejarles saber que nuestra más grande necesidad son viviendas a bajo costo y accesibles. En el condado, ya que no contamos con este recurso, como ustedes saben, la renta ha subido rápidamente en los últimos años y nuestros salarios son los mismos y muy bajos. Nuestros deseos para este presupuesto son las siguientes. Punto número uno, pedimos que el condado asigne cinco millones de dólares para fondos de viviendas para las familias que ganamos 50 mil dólares al año o menos. Queremos fondos para programas que protejan a nuestras familias

[04:20:08] del desplazamiento por el alto costo de la renta y el desarrollo. La vivienda es un derecho que todos deberíamos de tener, ya que nuestras familias se merecen vivir dignamente y les pedimos que en este presupuesto del 2025 nuestras familias sean tomadas en cuenta. Gracias.

[04:20:32] Good evening, chairwoman and supervisors. My name is Carla Flores and I've lived in the Woodbridge District for over 10 years. I'm currently a member of Tenants and Workers United. My children attend Potomac View School, and like every resident, I pay my taxes every year.

[04:20:48] Our Prince William County is growing rapidly, and we're seeing development on new roads, in housing, offices, and lots of construction and more. Our concern as a community is that we see these developments, but we do not see programs that are focused on low-income families or families that earn $50,000 a year or less. But we believe that we, as a more vulnerable community, do not benefit from this development because there are no programs for housing or low-income communities where we can all live with dignity. We are here to let you know that our greatest need is affordable and accessible housing in the county since we do not have these resources. As you know, the rent

[04:21:25] has risen rapidly in recent years, and our salaries are the same and very low. Our hopes for this budget are the following. One, we ask that the county allocate $5 million for housing funds for families who earn less than $50,000 a year too. We want funds for programs that protect our families from displacement due to the high cost of rent and development. Housing is a right that we should all have. Our families deserve to live in dignified and accessible housing. We ask that you take into consideration our families for the budget in 2025. Thank you. And thank you so very much. Next we have

[04:22:01] Stephen Amato. Good morning board members and fellow citizens of Prince William County. Steve Amato from the Occoquan District. Two points I'd like to address this evening are taxes. First on taxes, over the past five years, the Prince William County real estate taxes have paid significantly by property owners. And personally, over four fiscal years, my taxes have increased

[04:22:33] over $3,300. We have generated significant surplus from these taxes over the past two fiscal years. For example, in fiscal year 22, $75 million in surplus was generated.

[04:22:49] Fiscal year 23, $64.7 million was generated for a total of $139.7 million in surplus revenue. None of this surplus was refunded to taxpayers.

[04:23:06] None of it. In FY25, the county executive's budget proposes the real estate tax rate at .966. Personally, this will increase my taxes over $400 more this year.

[04:23:21] By imposing high real estate taxes, the Board of County Supervisors have not demonstrated fidicial responsibility when large revenue surpluses are generated, especially when there are no refunds provided to the taxpayers from these surpluses.

[04:23:38] A key responsibility of the Board is judicial responsibility. During the FY24 budget process at a meeting here on April 11, 2023, which I sat in on, the board majority didn't support, that was five no votes, a recommendation to reduce the real estate tax to .945. The board has also imposed a tipping fee on county residents and a meals tax on county

[04:24:17] residents. The meals tax alone has generated over $40 million in calendar year 2023. So I recommend it's time to alleviate the tax burden, which can help the affordable housing initiative on all taxpayers in the county. For FY25, I encourage the board to reduce the real estate tax rate to 0.93, not 966. And also tax the data centers high. Find out who's generating the revenue and let's start

[04:24:54] collecting. We can't have high taxes and also try to balance and have affordable housing. And I hope with the affordable housing initiative, the board takes that to our state and federal representatives because they have a significant impact to solve this too with how they're spending and raising taxes. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Now we have Ms. Teresa Menz. My name is Teresa Menz. I live in the Potomac District and I agree with everything that gentleman said before me and I

[04:25:28] want to let you all know there's only that the Democrats on this board are not looking out for you all. They are not because I've been here. They've given themselves a 70 percent pay raise and they didn't even complete one term yet and I'm talking about the Democrats we have um county exec shorter he earns he was brought in from I believe it's Baltimore

[04:25:56] Maryland he earns 380,000 a year 380,000 a year okay and the only one that looked out for you I was here. There's, oh, Chair Jefferson, Supervisor Ware, our new. Supervisor Vega was here.

[04:26:25] She looked out for you. We had this incident on the bypass I-28. She fought for the people who lived in the trailer homes and low-income housing. She fought. She did a great job. She had all these people here. They spoke Spanish. They spoke English. They did everything. They were articulate.

[04:26:46] it okay well these democrats they came back and they reopened the case and they brought loudon people down here to fight against low this development these people needed that needed that home and i noticed that uh supervisor bode was speaking to you guys don't let him play you start learning english because these democrats are using you for their your votes and the count on

[04:27:21] the census. You are being used. Only one that supported you and fought for you was Supervisor Vega. She's the lady with a white jacket on. Yes, these others, they fought against, laugh all you want, Franklin, laugh all you want, because I saw what you did to those people. I saw it. You are, you guys disgust me. But the one person, there's two people I trust in this county, Supervisor aware, and our Sheriff, Glenn Hill. The rest of you, you're just, you know, whatever. But just

[04:28:00] remember, the Democrats, oh, now Chair Jefferson, she's innocent right now, okay? But these four Democrats, Franklin, Angry, Bodie, and unfortunately, Bailey's not here. They betrayed you. They don't care about your needs. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now move on to remote speakers for Item 14A, we have two people, I believe, who are signed to speak for remote public comments this evening.

[04:28:34] I will turn it over to Vice Chair Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Vann, how many folks do we have tonight who are confirmed signed in? There are no speakers signed in for 14A. Once again, thank you for every expeditious assistance with tonight's virtual public comment time, Ms. Vann.

[04:28:52] Back to you, Madam Chair. All right. We have concluded the list of people who have signed up to speak for in-person remote. um if there is anyone in the chamber who wishes to comment on this public hearing please approach the microphone all right with no speakers approaching the microphone i will now close the public hearing on item 14a all right we are going to go to um yeah i have closed the public

[04:29:26] hearing so we are i'm going to need um a motion oh it's just public hearing okay so yeah all right you're right because we closed that out all right so we are there is no vote on 14a so we're going to go back to public hearings. We're going to go back to 13, 13A. The first item is 13A, a rezoning ordinance for Purcell Road rezoning in the Brentsville Magisterial District. The applicant, if you, oh, I have it on. Brentsville, oops, sorry. Occoquan, I'm sorry, wrong script.

[04:30:03] All right. The applicant, the floor is now open for your presentation. Hi, good evening, board members. My name is David Fair. I've been an engineer for this project for the last four years. Also here tonight are the developers, Talal Hassan and Mike Abdo. This project is on the west side of Purcell Road, about three quarters of a mile, three quarters of a mile above Hoadley Road. The site right now is entirely wooded. We're proposing to put 22

[04:30:41] single-family lots on the property, which is a total of 56 acres. If you look carefully on the map, you can see we have some environmental constraints. Like I said, it's entirely wooded. We have a stream chance mill branch which runs from north to south through the site.

[04:30:59] We have some specimen trees staff identified which we're saving. We have wetlands. We even have a potential habitat for an endangered plant which we're looking out for. We propose to take access from Purcell Road.

[04:31:14] It's going to be a large cul-de-sac. It's going to be a road dedicated to VDOT, of course. been on this application since June of 2016, over seven and a half years. It's been back and forth a couple of times. Two of the main issues have been the access. We have access currently from Purcell Road only. At one point in time, we had an access from Silent Wolf Drive. You can see it's to the upper left of the site, upper left corner of the

[04:31:49] site. Residents of Silent Wolf Drive opposed that vehemently, so we came back and amended We needed the plans, took access from Percell Road again. We needed a waiver from VDOT for that.

[04:32:04] We needed a waiver from Prince William County DOT from that. We received both waivers, so we're good to go. We've met with MEDCO several times. We met with LOCA once and received a letter from them in support of this application.

[04:32:26] We also have a letter from Midco in support of this application. We've worked with them, and they've agreed we've worked carefully with them to try to bring this process to a conclusion. The other significant issue that we had with staff and others is the environmental issue.

[04:32:47] We went back and forth about the limit of tree clearing, and we've minimized it to the extent possible. We're trying to maintain a 50-foot tree buffer along Purcell Road. about a 100-foot tree buffer along the stream on both sides, and about a 50-foot tree buffer around the perimeter of the property against our neighbors.

[04:33:11] So our limited clearing, I think, stands now at about 46% of the site. So that's where we stand. We're welcome to hear any questions and comments about the plan. If you're done with your presentation, then yes, we can go to...

[04:33:32] Are you done with your presentation, sir? Yes, thank you. All right, so supervisors, do we have any questions for the applicant? You're getting off pretty easy. All right, so we don't have any questions right now. We will turn it over if we can hear from the staff presentation.

[04:33:54] Give the clicker. Oh, okay, there we go. Yeah, keep this as a souvenir.

[04:34:12] Thank you very much. Good evening, Chair Jefferson, members of the board, Scott Meyer in the planning office. This project has been around for actually about eight years, a very long time. It was in the Coles District earlier, and then with redistricting several years back, It now is part of the Occoquan District, as David has mentioned.

[04:34:38] It's come a long way. To recap, the proposal is 56.35 acres. It's a rezoning request from A1 Agricultural to SR1 Semi-Rural Residential for 22 lots. When the application first came in, I believe we had 57 lots.

[04:34:55] So we worked with the applicant and the surrounding community. Also, this is surrounded by semi-rural residential, which is, you know, the typical character of this quarter of Purcell Road. And it's located here, as you'll see.

[04:35:12] And next slide. This is now planned as ORPA, Occoquan Reservoir Protection Area. It's been around for so long, it actually used to be SRR, semi-rural residential. So, but it was submitted, actually, it's one of the legacy cases before the proffers change.

[04:35:34] It was submitted, I believe, in May of 2016. It went through numerous proffer policy changes. We also have a new comprehensive plan. I will point out that there was originally going to be access from Silent Wolf Drive, which is, of course, which is in the upper left here.

[04:35:55] There was a lot of environmental features on the site, so a lot of the residents didn't want that to happen. So we re-explored a new access point along the more straightened area of Purcell Road. And as you'll see here, there's also, we feel that it does meet the overall intent of the Occoquan Reservoir Protection Area.

[04:36:17] This is in the staff report, but it's 22 lots. Again, it comes out to about 2.56 acres per dwelling unit, which we did a comparison of the densities, and it is well within the range of the appropriate surrounding densities.

[04:36:35] As you'll see, the target density is five acres. This is 2.56. One thing to point out, there's a lot of environmental areas on the site. The applicant, in summary, is leaving about 46% of the site undisturbed. We feel that's very noteworthy.

[04:36:53] They've also gone before LOCA and MIDCO. We received letters of recommendation from both of them. So the site is in the middle of the screen here. This is in the staff report as well. It's showing the surrounding densities. We feel it's very compatible with what is around it.

[04:37:10] This is the environmental constraints analysis. Champs Branch, there's two very defined segments of that. Along Purcell Road, there's a lot of tree preservation. The applicant, we feel, has ultimately done a great job of avoiding the impacts or the most amount of impacts to the sensitive environmental resources.

[04:37:29] This is also the staff reported showing their steep slopes, 22 lots. This will be served by private well and individual septic. There has been an on-site septic certification for the drain fields as proposed.

[04:37:46] The orange and the red are showing the very steep slopes. Again, that's just one thing to point out. There are areas of open space that are being preserved also in conservation area as well. Also, when this went to the Planning Commission, there was a lot of discussion about the safety of Purcell Road in this quarter.

[04:38:05] The Planning Commission had asked that the roundabouts be explored or the potential for that. This didn't meet the criteria because you don't have a real defined intersection, But what the applicant was able to do is have a northbound left turn into the site as well as a southbound turn, which was already in the previous version of the plan.

[04:38:26] It actually resulted in a little more tree-safe area as well. So Planning Commission recommended approval with the caveat that the applicant look at the feasibility of roundabout or other traffic calming measures. We feel they've done the best they could given how wide or I guess how narrow, I should say, Purcell Road is in this area.

[04:38:45] They also mandated that they meet with Midco and Lokapel. They have both provided letters of support. And staff is recommending approval with revised proffers dated January 31st. Number one, it's consistent with the policy intent of the Occoquan Reservoir Protection Overlay.

[04:39:03] We feel it's cohesive and context-sensitive. And we feel that it's responsive and sensitive to the environmental resources. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer, for the presentation. Does anyone on the dais have any questions for Mr. Meyer for the applicant?

[04:39:22] So seeing none, I have a couple, but as I'm acting chair for the moment, I just wanted to give my colleagues at the dais an opportunity before I jumped in. Mr. Meyer, thank you for the presentation and thank the applicant. Just a couple of questions for me. Some of my constituents that live on Purcell Road, and I know Suarez or Vega has heard this too when she represented this area, people are concerned about the safety on Purcell Road.

[04:39:43] You talked a little bit about it at the end in terms of the transportation improvements. In your guys' view, and we can obviously lean on the transportation folks as well, are all the concerns about traffic and the issues, and so much that we can do with this application, are those being addressed, especially as it comes to traffic safety?

[04:40:02] I can let Transportation elaborate on that if they're here. But for the application, the bottom line is we feel they've done what they could do. But I'll let George from Transportation, George Phillips, elaborate a little more. Thank you, George. Thank you, Scott. George Phillips, Prince William County DOT. Yes. And short answer, they are providing right and left turn lanes into the site.

[04:40:22] There were some other options that were looked into, as you probably saw in the staff report, the roundabout, cameras. I do want to point out one other thing they're doing is that in addition to the right turn lane, they're providing a space for a vehicle, a police vehicle, to be able to park and actually monitor there.

[04:40:44] As you know, that road does not have shoulders for the most part. so that that's something that could be monitored appreciate that thank you my last general question is environmental um i know there's a lot of rpa and you you all mentioned uh the the as in so much as possible that's been um sort of uh uh conserved and and sensitive made sensitive to anything else you want to elaborate on how they've done as much as they can to preserve the rpa and be really sensitive to the fact that there's a lot of very environmentally sensitive areas on this property?

[04:41:20] Sure. Well, as I mentioned before, Supervisor Bodie, they were going to access through Silent Wolf Drive. That road is actually to be extended. We consulted with transportation, watershed, environmental staff. And if they were to punch through there, that would cause a lot more um i guess environmental degradation to the more defined confluent of the um you know branch of the environmental feature um there's also extensive open space um you know we felt that that it was appropriate to keep that and they've also gone the extra step to preserve that in the

[04:41:56] conservation easement there's tree save areas along purcell road one thing about purcell is we looked at trying to have right-of-way dedication, but it's not large enough to, you know, straighten dramatically. We felt that the access where they're proposing it, it's a straight line of sight. So things like that, it's evolved, we think, to be the best project that could be considering all the constraints that they have. Also, the yield has probably been reduced by, you know, over half in the time in the time frame there's also been a change in proffer legislation too where they now

[04:42:35] did a land use mitigation analysis before they didn't have to do that this is so old this came even before the Klein property for those so it's gone through the whole round of uh and it was on hold for you know several years as well with COVID so and here we are thank you Mr. Meyer sure to you Madam Chair all right I don't have is there anyone else on the dais who wants to speak If not, I will open the public hearing for item 13A.

[04:43:02] Thank you very much. I have two people who have signed up to speak for a public comment time.

[04:43:18] Each of you will have three minutes to share your views and opinions on item 13A. I ask that everyone state their name, magisterial district, or generally where you reside at the beginning of your remarks. First, I have Terry Fair. And then I do apologize. I'm going to say this name wrong. Dr. Jack Mugin.

[04:43:39] I'm Terry Fair. My property leans against that. Can you speak into the microphone, please, ma'am? Oh, I'm sorry. My property leans against that property.

[04:43:56] I'm very upset about it because several years ago I had to have that road tore up to see why all that water was on my land. I found out the pipe was maybe 10 inches.

[04:44:15] I had them close the road and put in a bigger way for the water to go through. And actually, it had helped. Maybe once or twice, I had to call the police to close the road because on the other side, people can go in that big hole.

[04:44:38] But I own 2.7 acres, and something tells me the builder is somehow, it better not have, I want to let the board and the builders know, One tree, one twig, or an ounce of water taken off my property you have me to answer to.

[04:45:02] I will not have your bulldozers come on my property by an inch or a watt so you can put up those big monster houses. I have a funny feeling that the board would expect anybody to come in, build houses or shopping centers or what.

[04:45:27] Forget about the people from there. I was, I'm from this area. I'm 77 years old. I was raised on Holy and Purcell. And believe me, I have never seen such mess that the builders and the board have without in this county.

[04:45:46] And I just feel like you all got to respect the people that lives on Purcell and forget about the money in your pocket. I feel like that you don't like our homes on Purcell.

[04:46:04] Too bad. We can't afford it. You all make more money than all of us on Purcell. So from now on, I'll be keeping an eye on my property. I bet you better tell your bulldozers, don't come near me.

[04:46:23] Because if one tree, one twig, or an ounce of water is taking off my property without permission, come in to me and ask me, then you better have a good reason.

[04:46:39] This is ridiculous the way this county is getting. And I bet everybody on that board is not from Prince William County. I bet they came from another county, another state. Same thing with you builders.

[04:46:56] Enough is enough. Thank you, ma'am. Next, we're going to have Dr. Jack Kamujian. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board. Jack Kamujian, president of LOCA. I'd like to have five minutes if I need it.

[04:47:13] Yes, sir, you may. Hopefully, I won't use all that time. I just wanted to commend the developer on this project. It's been on and off for eight years. It's been an interesting ride for the community as well as the developer.

[04:47:30] And I do want to, at the outset, commend MINTCO because they had multiple meetings with the developer and with the community and discussed many, many issues. LOCA had one meeting recently in February, but it was made a lot easier because of all the work that MINTCO put into it to make a really nice addition to the community.

[04:47:57] We have basically that property has now, once the development is in place, there will be 46% of that property undisturbed. Champs Mill Branch will be undisturbed because of the movement of the entrance to Purcell Road.

[04:48:17] Now, all the transportation improvements on Purcell Road basically are on the developer's side of the property. We have basically 943 feet of improvements along the overall length of Purcell Road.

[04:48:39] And the traffic volumes are fairly low with 22 homes, and the current program meets VDOT standards for safety. I will say there were numerous discussions with the community on traffic safety on Purcell Road, and the developer tried to accommodate as much as he could within those discussions.

[04:49:06] They've clearly reduced the density from the original proposal. The RPA being disturbed has been significantly reduced from the original proposal. A conservation easement is placed over the open space in the GDP, and it's proffered.

[04:49:28] And also the individual lots have restrictions on tree removal for the lot owners. And I can go on and on. but it's a very good fit for the surrounding community and the area in general.

[04:49:43] I want to commend the staff for their patience and working with the Civic Association and the developer and the community at large. They're very professional, and we support the project and are very, very comfortable with it, and we look forward to community dialogue in the Curtis Review along with MEDCO.

[04:50:05] Thank you very much. Thank you so very much. We are now going to move on to remote public comment time. I'm sorry. I have one more. Teresa. Martin Jeter.

[04:50:21] Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Martin Jeter. I live in the Aquan District.

[04:50:38] I'm the president of Mid-County Civic Association, and I'd like the extended time, please, if I could. Yes, sir. I think I'll need it. So we reviewed the Purcell Road rezoning on numerous occasions over the past number of years, and the applicant has worked collaboratively with the community and with MIDCO.

[04:50:55] And I just want to say these folks were great to work with. They made a lot of changes to this project according to community input. They were very open to community involvement in the project from the very beginning. This basically is a poster child for the way this process should work. So as a result, the project is a good fit for the surrounding community and a good fit for the area in general.

[04:51:16] They've reduced the density on this project, as you've already heard. It's down to 22 homes now. and that enabled them to increase the buffers and setbacks on this property, and that enabled them, in turn, to better protect the environmental resources on the property, which are significant, as we've seen in these presentations tonight.

[04:51:36] A large percentage of the land will be undisturbed, as you've heard, and that's especially important in this environmentally sensitive parcel so close to the Arquan Reservoir. There's lots of RPA on this, resource protection areas that are along the perennial streams, steep slopes, erodible soils, and a lot of environmental features on this property.

[04:51:57] And as has been mentioned, it's in the Aquan Reservoir Protection Area, which is designed to protect the reservoir. The proffers on this project are particularly important because they're very substantial. One thing they've proffered is a third-party conservation easement for the open space area in the project, which will permanently protect the land, and that's very important.

[04:52:20] A tree preservation plan is proffered, which is especially important on a wooded parcel like this to preserve the mature trees. They have a proffer that's provided to notify owners of clearing restrictions on the properties. And this is a very important feature because with RPAs and protected areas, there's certain things you can do, certain things you can't do.

[04:52:42] And unfortunately, we don't have a great process to notify folks of that. So they buy the property, they maybe go out and cut down some trees, and then their neighbor calls the county, and then they have some problems. So this applicant has proffered to notify the owners on the front end to prevent these things from happening.

[04:53:01] They've proffered for a 100-foot undisturbed buffer along Purcell Road, preserved the view shed along Purcell, which is important. The RPA disturbance has been greatly reduced by moving the entrance road from Silent Wolf to Purcell Road, as you've heard. Otherwise, that entrance road would have had to cross the RPA, which would result in environmental impacts to that stream bed.

[04:53:26] And that, as has been mentioned, that relocation of the entrance was done in response to community input. At MEDCO meetings, we got a lot of input, I'll say, in a nice way from the community that they did not like that Silent Wolf entrance. And the applicant said, okay, fine, we'll move it to Purcell Road.

[04:53:43] They had to jump through some hoops to do that. One thing that they've done is offered to proffer a left turn lane dedicated on Purcell Road to enter this project, which wasn't required, but they offered to voluntarily proffer that. So that's made an additional impact on the safety aspect.

[04:54:03] And so, you know, as far as Medco goes, we didn't really have a dog in that fight which way the entrance went, but it's what the community was looking for. but I will say that no matter what Purcell is a dangerous road and it does need safety improvements and we've been working with the community on that for a number of years and we're going to continue to do that we have we're part of the citizens advisory board for the Prince William Police Department Delton Nichols is our representative on that board and so we're going to be working with the CAB to try to get some more police enforcement out there a lot of the problems are caused by people just driving crazy kids racing on the road and so we need to we need

[04:54:41] to address that a little bit better. We also, the applications like Waves and Google Maps, if that road is two minutes or a minute quicker, it routes people onto Purcell Road rather than following 234 and Holi, which is better designed for traffic. So if that road was slowed down, I know this is up to the residents whether they want to do things like this, but if it was slowed down just a little bit, maybe that would stop all that people being forced, or not forced, but you know put onto that road so we're going to continue to work on safety that road but overall this is an easy one for us for midco with the community involvement the great proffers environmental

[04:55:21] protections in the orpa area etc etc etc we think it's a good project we hope you we recommend that you approve this project so thank you and have a great evening thank you i don't know miss men's if you want to approach the microphone as part of this public hearing three cements of potomac district. I hope everyone was listening to the first speaker, the homeowner. 77 years old. She should be able to relax and take it easy. She should not have to be guarding her property,

[04:55:56] and I don't blame her. I wouldn't trust him, and I definitely wouldn't trust anything in the Occoquan district because I've made it very clear what I think of this board, especially if you're a Democrat, okay? I share my feelings, and I'm not wrong. I'm not wrong. You've made this county a nightmare. But I really want you to listen to this homeowner. I don't care what the other two gentlemen said afterwards. I don't care because they don't matter to me. She matters to me.

[04:56:27] 77 years old, she's probably being taxed out of her home thanks to your 70% pay raise and the $380,000 annual salary for our county exec. I want to congratulate you for taxing us. All I'm saying is respect this homeowner she shouldn't be have to be dealing with this she's 77 years old you saw how hard it was for her to get up here to the podium you do not represent us you reason you represent destroying america destroying parents william county that's what you represent

[04:57:05] thank you for your time i don't see any else in line so we are going to switch over to remote public comment time i was told that we have three people signed up i will turn it over to Vice Chair Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Vann, how many folks do we have signed up for this particular public hearing tonight? We have no one signed up for this particular public hearing. Well, thank you so much, Ms. Vann. Back to you, Madam Chair.

[04:57:31] All right. If anyone else wants to speak during this public hearing, please approach the microphone. All right. I don't see a line of folks, so I am going to close the public hearing on item 13A. I want to ask the applicant before we move on to voting if you have anything that you want to clarify based on comments no all right well thank you very much so um i'd like to

[04:58:01] entertain a motion to approve item 13a all righty you may go sir thank you madam chair the question for staff based on the testimony to address ms ferris concerns are there any off-site easements temporary or otherwise or required condemnation for any sort of um development or road improvements that might potentially impact parcels other than those owned

[04:58:36] by the applicant supervisor uh we are i i don't think so but i'll let the engineer uh confirm off-site easements that's what you're asking off-site easements or condemnations required or contemplated no we don't have any easements proposed we're offering third of right away along purcell road for future improvements if the county were to come in with a project to widen It's Purcell Road, but we're not going to do anything on Purcell.

[04:59:08] But those are all on-site, correct? Pardon me? Those are all on-site? Yes. Okay. They're on our side of the site. I'm good, Madam Chair. All right, thank you. I know, Supervisor Boat, did you want to speak during this discussion, or did you have a question for the applicant or the staff?

[04:59:24] I had a question, and I was going to make a motion after the question. Okay, go ahead. So, if you all can just stay up there for a second. It dovetails well to the Supervisor Weir just asked. To Ms. Farris' concern, can I ask you that if we go ahead and we approve this tonight, you can be in close collaboration with her to make sure that, you know, we hear a lot of cases all the time that, you know, things will be put on this side of the property, then someone screws up, right? You have a bulldozer operator that doesn't know exactly where the property lines are.

[04:59:54] He ends up backing up even a few feet on someone's property, knocks over a tree that's on your property, onto their person, other person's property, whatever it is. Can I get a commitment from you that you'll work closely with her to make sure something like that doesn't happen the best of your ability. Yeah, sure. I mean, let me point out where she's located. If you look at the screen, the very top of the screen, the very center of the screen is her property. She's about as far away from a house to be built as anyone could possibly be and still be abutting the property. She's on the other side of the stream, the other side of the open space. Unless it's

[05:00:31] dead of winter, it's going to be very difficult for, I believe, for her to even see construction going on through the site because there's going to be such a huge tree buffer between her property and the activities construction activities i hear you i just think in this kind of situation over communicating yeah is better making sure she knows exactly what's going on even on the edge of her property as possible even if you think it's too far away especially in dead of winter it's a lot easier to see and hear things happening when the trees are dead so wanted to leave that with you and communicate to you that that's our expectation thank you with that madam chair

[05:01:10] i would like to move 13a forward for approval second all right thank you any um discussion yeah madam chair all right looks like we have supervisor weird and supervisor bode thank you um wanted to thank the applicant and thank staff for their hard work on this i know again this has been a long time coming and i know that a lot of work has gone into this over the years over a decade in fact almost a decade in fact worth of work um it's fair i hear you um i i know that any development on purcell road has to be sensitive in nature i know like was said before

[05:01:48] there are a lot of traffic concerns that are pre-existing um appreciate what mr jeter said especially about the work that's being done and how this is an iterative process with how constrained purcell road is with right away and other issues it's it's it's a a difficult process and I understand completely where you're coming from that this is a long-standing community on the edges of this property. Folks have lived there for a long time. I know you've been in your house for decades and decades. So anything that happens that disrupts that status quo even a little bit

[05:02:20] is a cause for concern. So I wanted to say I hear you on that. Understood. Knowing that there's going to be full open communication with the homeowner. That said, knowing that this is the ORPA, as was said by both Dr. Jack and Mr. Jeter, this is as close as you can come to being respectful as possible of the RPA and the spirit of the ORPA designation which is as much as you can looking at steep slopes riverbeds streams tree forest tree preservation overlays everything that you look at to being as environmentally sensitive as possible while still develop

[05:02:58] delivering a feasible community I believe you all have done this um so I'm comfortable with this project and which is why we'll be supporting it thank you so much madam chair all right supervisor weir thank you madam chair i actually have a comment for staff the applicant martin dr jack midco and locopel um i understand this is a legacy application that doesn't comply with orba from a density standpoint but since it's a legacy application and it is so old and it does comply in my view with the srr underlying original designation i want to make

[05:03:35] it clear i do not consider this a precedent for busting open the orba area but let it be known Do not come to me with a new application at this density with an ORPA designation on the long-range land use map.

[05:03:52] I just want that to be clear. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Listen, I'm not going to ring you on any of this because to get Loka Pelt and Mitko literally on that corridor of Purcell Road to both approve a tough project like this, I know it's gone on for eight years, I think that's pretty incredible, just to tell you the truth.

[05:04:16] So I know everything that's just been said. This will probably not happen again. Usually it's the one home that's built. And so, you know, you've got a pretty decent project, even to downsize in the amount of homes that you started with to where you're ending now. So to collaborate with both of these organizations and pull this off, I think it's pretty incredible in itself.

[05:04:37] I just want to say this about Purcell Road. You know, as a firefighter, I've driven a firetruck down that road many a time, and that's one scary road to kind of take a firetruck down. It's true that there's a lot of speeding and issues. That's a problem countywide.

[05:04:53] That road is such a problem because it's so tight. It's one lane, and it drops off on both sides of it, and it's really tough. So, you know, when we talk about improvements to that road, you know, even when I heard that we were doing a widening, and you all know on Purcell, if you get to the other end, to 234, that little widening piece that we did, you know, that road used to go around that 7-Eleven, and we moved it completely over the other side.

[05:05:17] It's very different when you see that, but I originally thought they were doing that for the entire Purcell Road, and I thought, oh, my God, because I know folks along that road don't want to see that. It is a very nice road when you can have nice drivers that really drive the speed.

[05:05:34] I mean, it's a beautiful road to drive, so I'm curious to see once your development is done what that portion will look like. I'm pretty sure you're going to keep the character of that road. You know, it's literally two miles from my house, but it's a slice of paradise that you just don't see on this end of the county.

[05:05:51] So I understand everybody's challenges and frustrations with seeing development on that road. I understand the property is, you know, like Monopoly. You buy it and you can develop. So I just want to aim by saying I'm very impressed that you got MITCO and Locopel both in full support.

[05:06:06] And the work that you put in for eight years to make this happen I think is very impressive. So thank you all for working with that. And, ma'am, I'm sure that, you know, your concerns are going to be addressed. Again, I think that character of that road is very important. I don't see that ever being widened. I wouldn't even agree to that if someone suggested it.

[05:06:24] I think what you have there is an oasis. So, you know, so thank you. Thank you all. All right. Thank you very much. We don't have any other board members who wish to speak. So, sorry.

[05:06:40] Okay. I thought you were saying something to me. All right. So, we have a motion. We have a second. We had discussion. Let's take a vote. vote unanimous thank you so very much next up is item 13b which is a proper amendment parsons business park in the coles magisterial district if the applicant can come up for their presentation

[05:07:10] thank you madam chair my name is mark looney i'm a land use and zoning attorney with the law firm of cooley representing the applicant in this case i'm joined tonight by representatives of the the Parsons family and the Garcia families, both of whom collectively own what is known as Parsons

[05:07:45] Business Park. I'm going to briefly go through the presentation tonight, but I'm going to principally focus on changes that were made to the application after the Planning Commission's consideration of it earlier this year. Just to set the stage, the property is 90 acres in size. It is immediately adjacent to the Prince William County landfill complex. For decades, it has been used as a landscape storage facility run by Mr. Parsons, the patriarch of the family, and until recently

[05:08:20] had conducted that business on the property. This is a snapshot along 234 showing how the landscape operations work. A portion of the property along Dumfries Road is actually cleared. Another portion of it is not cleared, and I'll focus on that a little bit as we go along.

[05:08:38] Back in 2019, this board approved a rezoning application to rezone the property to principally industrial uses, a combination of MT in the rear portion of the property closest to the landfill, which is in the back upper right portion of the property.

[05:08:55] Land bays 1 and 3 were designated M1 zoning district, and then land bay 2 was designated B-1. What that meant was that the property was split zoned really to allow industrial uses everywhere except in the B-1 designation of Land Bay 2. That was reserved for what was anticipated to be commercial uses, more likely a gas station convenience store combination.

[05:09:23] The property was then and remains today in both the Highway Corridor Overlay District and the data center overlay district. What that what that meant in 2019 was not much because in 2019 data centers, by and large, weren't a thing in Prince William County or they weren't something that this board of the Planning Commission or the staff really dealt with on a significant basis.

[05:09:48] And so consequently, there wasn't a lot of conversation around data centers in 2019. Fast forward to 2024. That conversation is different, and I'll focus on that a little bit as we go through. One other element that was proffered with this plan was a maximum building height of 45 feet. And so that plays into why we are before you tonight as well. Following the rezoning in 2019, several things happened. One, the property was considered by the county as a potential mid county government center complex. And there were a series of conversations around that topic for

[05:10:25] a number of months. Ultimately, the conversation died and the county went in a different direction. At the same time, Mr. Parsons passed away, and his interest in the property passed on to his adult children who are in the process of trying to settle his estate.

[05:10:44] One of the steps that they took was to sell a piece of property on the south side of Dumfries Road for a mixed-use development that Elm Street is developing. But they also began to look for buyers to come in and buy the property and to develop it consistent with the approved zoning.

[05:11:00] Two things came to light as constraints on that opportunity. One was the split zoning that allowed for Land Bay 2 to stand independent of the other land bays, meaning you couldn't unify the campus. And secondly, the 45-foot height limitation became problematic.

[05:11:19] There were conversations with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, with your own economic development staff, and others trying to find a buyer for the property and ultimately could not do that. So we filed a proffer amendment last year to principally do two things.

[05:11:35] One, add a designation for Land Bay 2 to allow it also to develop with industrial uses. And secondly, to increase the height of the development from 45 feet to what we proposed initially at 80 feet. When we got to the, your staff had recommended approval of the application leading up to the Planning Commission public hearing.

[05:11:57] During the Planning Commission public hearing, there were a number of concerns expressed by members of the Planning Commission, some members of the public, about the fact that the property could, in 2019 and could today, develop with data center uses, and whether there were sufficient protections in place in the event that the property did, in fact, develop with data center uses.

[05:12:17] Coming out of the Planning Commission public hearing, the applicant made a series of changes to the application to try to focus on and address the concerns about should the property develop with data center uses, what are the additional protections that you might look for for an application, were you reviewing this anew in 2024 as a potential data center site.

[05:12:42] And I'll show you what that looks like on the plan in a second. What that really meant was that we created two sheets within the master zoning plan. Sheet six is essentially the same layout and the same designation as it was in 2019, with the exception of adding industrial uses M1 into land bay two.

[05:13:05] The same setbacks along Dumfries Road were provided. The same setbacks to the upper left-hand portion of the property along six towers remain the same. There was an ability to cross the RPA in one location and a man-made stream outfall in another location. But essentially, the same approvals from 2019 were carried forward on sheet six, which deals with non-data center uses. In the event then that the property were to develop with data center uses, we added a series of additional protections to address some of the

[05:13:41] concerns from the Planning Commission and the public. One was we added a 150-foot building restriction line for data center buildings along 234 Dumfries Road. That's to be taken from the existing edge of pavement on Dumfries Road because, as you can see along the bottom side of the slide here, the actual right-of-way line meanders in and out based on widenings that VDOT had done to 234 over the years. Secondly, we lowered the building height for all buildings in land bays

[05:14:13] one, two, and three that are closest to Dumfries Road. Those are now capped at 85 feet inclusive of rooftop mechanical equipment. As you know, under your zoning ordinance, rooftop mechanical equipment is excluded from the definition of building height. By bringing the rooftop mechanical in and making it at 85 feet, we ensure that there's appropriate height limitations for the all-in number in terms of what the building could look like. We also expanded the buffers along Dumfries Road and along Six Towers to 50 feet and 100 feet. We increased the buffer along the portion

[05:14:53] of the property that contains the man-made stream, leading to the RPA from the original 25 feet to 50 feet we added in a very significant preservation area just to the south of the RPA it's not showing up on the screen let me see if I can get it on the area so I guess looking at this where the where the RPA starts and heads to the upper right hand corner there's an additional tree preservation area along Dumfries Road in that location and the red dashed line on the lower right hand

[05:15:29] side of the page that represents the building restriction line where no data centers could be located so essentially the area from the stream all the way over to the additional entrance along 234 on the lower right hand side of the screen no data center buildings can go in front of the rpa between the rpa and 234. we also added in a series of sustainability measures and some additional clarifications on how and and when we can cross the rpa with road crossings a couple of things to note one i mentioned earlier the elm street development across

[05:16:06] 234 that will contain a mixture of commercial and residential uses the developer elm street has offered a letter of support for this application we've taken measurements the closest residential unit anywhere within that development to the closest building on this side of the property would be somewhere around 390 to 400 feet away that's sort of the overall summary of the changes that we've made from the planning commission trying to address the issues of concern that both staff and the planning commission had raised as well as members of the

[05:16:42] public you may hear some of that tonight i don't know how much of that they've been able to incorporate into their thinking in terms of the additional setbacks and buffers But I'm happy to address any questions that you have. All right.

[05:16:58] Thank you so very much. Just waiting to see if we have any speakers from the dais. All right. Supervisor Bode, you were there. Okay. You decide to leave. There's no one else. We're going to hear from staff. Good evening again.

[05:17:27] Chair Jefferson, members of the board, Scott Meyer in the planning office. I'm going to recap and add a little more to what Mr. Looney had pointed out. So this is a proffer amendment. I did the original rezoning about four and a half years ago, just FYI. And the intent was to create more of a low-rise industrial business park.

[05:17:50] With data centers becoming more prolific in the county, this application is essentially amending those proffers to allow greater options. One thing to point out, and it was a challenge with this review, is we don't have a specific layout because before for the 2019 case, It was more of a conventional low-rise industrial tech flex office park.

[05:18:15] This is allowing for a combination of that and data centers. It may all be data centers. We don't really know. But, however, we look at this as what can we do within a data center overlay to create better mitigative controls. So that was the approach that we used with this.

[05:18:32] This is the site right here. Of course, you've been oriented in terms of where it is. And also in the upper right corner, you're going to hear from Svanegas in a little bit. This is the ABLE property, which is also currently under review. This was not considered as part of this application, obviously, totally separate.

[05:18:50] So just FYI. Staff is recommending approval. So this is in the Independent Hill Small Area Plan. When the original rezoning was done that I had worked on, we didn't have the Independent Hill Small Area Plan adopted yet. So all we knew was that it was going to be industrial of some type.

[05:19:10] Across the street, of course, we have the Independent Hill Village development, which has been approved. So this is also, there's a highway corridor overlay. It's in the small area plan of Independent Hill. We have the landfill, which is a major feature to the east, northeast.

[05:19:29] It's still planned business district, of course. So this is in the staff report. Again, not to recap, but the main crux of this is there was a Sheetz that was approved for Land Bay 2, a motor vehicle fuel station and a convenience store.

[05:19:49] The proposal is in part to make it be that or M1, used as a nation, allowing more flexibility. And the main thing is also the heights. You know, I don't want to get too bogged down in details that's all in the report, but with this we have an issue was providing adequate buffering along dumfries road dumfries road has an older h cod so there's not a defined standard but with subsequent to planning commission with this enhanced setback and with the height of the buildings along dumfries road we feel that that

[05:20:25] has done a lot to make the application uh more favorable in staff's mind last line here to point out we didn't have this going to planning commission but now we have no data center our buildings are to be within 150 feet of the existing pavement edge along Dumfries Road. So we feel that is a pretty large enhancement. This is the land bay format. A lot of the concerns of the Planning Commission was the unknown factor of the design and the height and the massing along Dumfries Road. We now have, as Mr. Looney had pointed out, all-inclusive 85 feet, including

[05:21:02] rooftop equipment. Land Bay B, we felt, is where we want to have the lesser restrictions if we were going to have that. And the focus was more along the quarter of Dumfries Road. Again, with this, we don't have a real layout. There's not a defined end user. So what could we do to mitigate the potential impacts? That's how we were looking at it. And there's an RPA feature here. We asked that the buffer be increased it was 25 feet for the significant non-rpa stream it's now 50 feet

[05:21:37] so that does meet the standard we also have sustainability measures which we didn't have before we also have a stronger commitment to looking more closely at limits of clearing grading so environment was a no when it went to planning commission it now just made it to a yes Nothing's perfect, but it crossed over that line, so just wanted to highlight that as well.

[05:22:02] This is showing here the different land bays. We have the setback line for buildings with the RPA converging in the middle portion of the plan right in here. There's not a lot of data center opportunities in here for building, So we felt that with these enhanced setbacks, it meets the intent of what the planning commission wanted to see, and we felt that it provided more controls as well.

[05:22:33] This is the environmental constraints analysis. There is wetlands and environmental resource features, which we feel the latest version of the application tries to proactively protect. There are design guidelines.

[05:22:48] They were also revised as well to have more robust standards if it is to be a data center. But we don't know if it will fully be a data center. But in our opinion, if they're doing this, then why would it not be potentially a data center? It is in the overlay, but we have to look at it's on the edge of the overlay.

[05:23:04] So that's something which, you know, when we get more into the overlay analysis, you know, staff is working on that. We'll have more specific guidance for when we have, you know, an application that's kind of on the edge. But with this, we feel that we have those enhanced protections.

[05:23:23] In summary, the staff report is now recommending yes. With its consistency analysis, we don't use on-balance anymore. We use consistency analysis. Just yes. But it's a way to now. But we look at the consistency analysis.

[05:23:39] I want to point out a couple of weaknesses. There are minimal buffer enhancements along Dumfries Road. But with the enhanced setbacks, we feel it's enough to get us to, you know, a more favorable position.

[05:23:55] We don't have specific layout and site details. That has been a constant challenge, but we look at, okay, well, what do we have and what can we look at potentially? And for environment, there's still extensive clearing grading. It's improved from what it was before. We know that.

[05:24:10] We also don't know exactly the impact of the substations. So that's just something else. It is called out in the proffers. It is contemplated, but we don't know exactly what those impacts will be. So just some things to point out.

[05:24:26] Planning Commission recommended denial. There was a motion to defer, which failed, but the motion that carried was denial. And we feel that the applicant, you know, has adequately addressed the overall concerns of the Planning Commission. There is, there are, there's access improvements.

[05:24:45] there's enhanced screening. We have the addition of enhanced building height standards. There's enhanced setbacks. We feel it still gives enough flexibility, but it also allows us to kind of gauge the delivery of a targeted industry, such as a data center, while also, you know, providing for enhanced protection. When this application initially came four and a half years ago, it was all about noise of trucks very different concerns now so data center you know it's it's evolved to what people are more concerned about this isn't the overlay the data center overlay and it does

[05:25:21] encourage data center uses and we feel it's context sensitive and with that i'll try to answer any questions we also have the applicant team here as well all right supervisor weir thank you madam sure i've got two quick questions for staff if the targeted far is 0.25 to 0.57 and this is going up to 0.75 why isn't that listed as a weakness well it's based on what the underlying zoning

[05:25:50] ordinance is um we in let me actually go back to what's in the land bay and you have mr mageddigan here david do you want to clarify a little bit on that excuse me yeah i just wanted to mention that The FAR in the comprehensive plan is a measure of intensity of use.

[05:26:15] And in our mixed use areas, we look for the number of employees and the number of residences and in measuring that intensity, adding those together and finding the activity per acre. And a data center, even though it has large floor area, does not generate as much activity.

[05:26:37] So the measure of a data center for a ratio is not comparable to a similar size of some other commercial, like an office building or other type of use. So it's not really, it's sort of apples and oranges to compare and hold the data center to that same FAR intensity of use that we show in the transects.

[05:27:01] I would agree in terms of employment numbers, but I would disagree in terms of intensity of use, power consumption, noise, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it still does need to be factored. I'm not going to hang out to dry on it, but I do think it needed to be addressed.

[05:27:18] And the second question is, since the issue has been raised, when can we expect the now long overdue data center overlay analysis that is now more than a year overdue? Has it been taken off the shelf finally, and is it being considered?

[05:27:36] So the analysis from Stantec, is that what you're inquiring about? The planning office was directed to deliver an analysis of the overlay. When can we expect it? And I was told last year that it has been put on the shelf by the prior planning director, and you apparently had no intention of fulfilling the directive.

[05:28:00] That is something that we do need to have a discussion on, but we have to stick to the agenda item at hand, so. - I'll defer that discussion until a later date. - All right, I don't have any other speakers right now, so with that, yes, I am going to open up the public comment time on item 13B, thank you.

[05:28:28] All right, we have seven people who are currently signed up to speak in person. I will call speakers up five at a time. Each speaker will have three minutes to share their views and opinions on item 13B. We ask that all speakers state their name, the Magisterial District, or where they generally reside at the beginning of their remarks.

[05:28:47] First, I have Carla Silas. Then I have Elizabeth Martorana. I should know how to pronounce that. I apologize. Then Allie Stoger. Then Colonel Don Keesley. Then Mr. Matt Van Echo. So if you can make your way up the podium.

[05:29:05] Thank you. Hi. Yes, my name is Carla Silas. I live in the Potomac District. please part my voice. I have a very hard time with public speaking. I want to speak tonight.

[05:29:21] I would please beg you all to please vote against this. They're telling us they can't tell us where anything is going to go. They're telling us the impact, is it going to be a lot? But we already have, with all the data centers out in the western part of the county, we are already experiencing power problems with that so why bring that any more to the county please get off the data center train please we're begging you we begged you all we voted you in we're begging you

[05:29:58] get off of that train all right next speaker elizabeth martirana presently gainesville district for four years but cole's district for 44 years i am speaking to both parsons business park and

[05:30:33] able property rezonings this evening. Firstly, I would think that all of Prince William County government would by now understand that we do not need one more data center campus approved here anywhere in our county. The number of projects that have already been approved would provide us with all the revenue we would need if our board of supervisors would raise the peripheral tax rate on the data centers equal to that of Loudoun County. Secondly, both of these rezoning applications are for data centers that would be located less than three miles, as the crow flies, from five schools, playgrounds, and residential areas.

[05:31:11] Many documents have been submitted with regard to the Digital Gateway and Devlin Technology Park describing the dangers of air quality and noise that would affect those within a three-mile radius of the data center campuses. In addition, the problem of water usage and electrical infrastructure would also outweigh the benefits of these two rezonings.

[05:31:33] I quote from Business Insider dated November 27, 23. Quote, the noise-disturbing Brooks and her neighbors comes from a data center known as True North, made by Compass Data Centers that finished construction around the beginning of this year, according to residents Business Insider spoke with and complaints obtained through public records.

[05:31:57] It's in Leesburg and over three miles away from Brooks' home. So why did Prince William County buy the Woodwinds Farm and Keys Farm a couple of years ago to serve as buffers between neighborhoods and the Prince William County Landfill if they were then going to approve 85-foot data centers on nearby land?

[05:32:18] Adding the Woodwinds and Keys Farms to the other Prince William County Park land on the opposite side of the landfill would give us about 600 acres to establish a new park. The former owner of Woodwinds Farm had the grand vision of establishing the Woodwinds Farm Park for the Performing Arts.

[05:32:39] I believe we need to end the approval of hyperscale data centers specifically. They are ruining our quality of life and our environment in too many harmful ways. The small area plans in the 2040 comp plan need to be amended to disallow data centers to be built in the town centers.

[05:32:58] Be smart like the Loudoun County supervisors were last week when they denied the 2.9 million square foot Belmont Innovation Center campus rezoning. Their board's findings stated, quote, the proposed scale of the development would contribute to the need for additional high voltage transmission lines, which would have adverse impacts on existing and proposed development in the county and immediate impacts on surrounding properties, unquote.

[05:33:29] Please make changes today to protect your constituents first over developers' wants. Thank you. All right, next speaker, please. Good evening. Allie Stoger, Gainesville District.

[05:33:45] You know, I found it really interesting to be in here on the discussion about Purcell Road because I think that's, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's about maybe half a mile, a mile, you know, however long it is, obviously not a big portion of road. Eight years to study it.

[05:34:05] Eight years. In western Prince William County, we had about 60 or 70 data centers zoned between this July 2021 and December 2023, and 46 of them zoned within a span of 14 days. I think that that's really unbelievable to me. I know that you all are very busy, and so I'm just going to

[05:34:39] read off some of the articles that have appeared within the last couple of days. Washington Post, March 2024, amid explosive demand, America is running out of power. New Yorker Magazine, March 2024, The Obscene Energy Demands of AI. New York Times, March 2024, A New Surge in Power

[05:35:10] Use is Threatening U.S. Climate Goals. Loudon Times, March 2024, In Landmark Vote, Board of Supervisors Rejects Belmont Innovation Data Center Proposal. Fauquier County, also March 2024, Supervisors okay zoning changes aimed at curbing large data centers at Vint Hill.

[05:35:40] There was also an article that Georgia has significantly cut back or stopped data center proposals because of their power struggles now. I don't get it. Why is Prince William County such an outlier where we just keep going and going and going and going?

[05:36:02] I think that the diesel question is unanswered. We saw what happened at the Devlin Park approval where supervisors on this dais were not aware of how many diesel generators there would be.

[05:36:19] We're talking about thousands of them, and now we realize that those diesel generators are going to need tank farms because if there's an emergency, they're not going to be able to truck miles and miles and miles and miles of trucks bringing in diesel.

[05:36:39] So where are those tank farms going to go? So that's what I would like to say tonight, is I would like as much study on data centers as Purcell Road got. Thank you. All right, thank you. Before we go on to Colonel Don Keasley, who's our next speaker, I'd also like to call up Ashley Mee-Williams and Jamie Van Echo.

[05:36:58] So it will be Colonel Don Keasley, Matt Van Echo, Ashley Mee-Williams, and then Jamie Van Echo. May I use the Elmo, please? The Elmo?

[05:37:18] Oh, thank you. Good evening. I'm Colonel Don Keasley. I live in the Coles District in the historic Walton neighborhood directly across from 234 from the Parsons Land Bay 2 parcel, which is in their 80 to 90-foot data center range.

[05:37:36] In all of their photos and presentations, the entire Walton neighborhood is not depicted. It does exist. 500-plus homes. I sent you all a detailed email. I hope you've read it. There's an astute conflict between the Parsons family's will to capitalize financially on a large plot of partially undesirable land versus the health and well-being of the people of the Walton community. Those who will profit from the data center do not live here. We live here.

[05:38:03] I am not opposed to structures being built on the Parsons lot, but I vehemently oppose structures that will harm me and my neighbors. The constant negative energy and incessant shrill and deep pulsating noises of the data center will spew 24 hours a day and emit light pollution all night.

[05:38:19] This will hospitalize me. Continuous negative energy and sounds heard and unheard have the the capacity to make residents, including me, physically ill, anxious, agitated, and mentally affected. Such sounds are known to also adversely impact wildlife, including the bald eagles at the landfill and the endangered honeybees and bats my neighbors cultivate. Further, the site of a giant prison-looking complex next to our homes in high school will be horrific, and this monolith will block out the sunrise, which will destroy me. After over 31 years in the military, my sunrise, depicted here, is critical. Note, I feel specifically and personally targeted by

[05:38:58] Michael Garcia construction. On March 4th at 9:25, on a gloomy morning, Michael Garcia II came to the back of my house, which takes great effort, and photographed my property with no prior notification and without my permission. When I called the company, Junior said he was photographing the power line easement, claiming there are no maps. His father, however, Mike Garcia Sr., told me that he was taking pictures of my property to denounce my testimony about the sunrise. Even with 150 foot setback off of 234, the sunrise will still be blocked. Junior's actions felt like voyeurism

[05:39:36] and violated my sense of privacy and security. I couldn't eat, sleep, or think clearly for several days. He pointed his camera toward my home, my property, and my neighbor's tall trees. My property is a glade, so the sun hits my property beautifully. The sunrise occurs at the horizon, not way up in the trees. But an 80 to 90 or 100 foot building on Parsons L2 will completely block my sunrise and morning sun. Garcia Sr. told me three times with emphasis, I assure you there

[05:40:11] will be no buildings to obstruct the sunrise. Three times. I consider Michael Garcia's photographs of my property a violation of my privacy and I forbid their use in any capacity. I request in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, unredacted copies of every correspondence referring to my property in relation to the Parsons Project. Supervisors, I must trust that you have our health and well-being in mind when you render your decision, and thank you also in advance for respecting my rights as a citizen, resident, and homeowner in Prince William County.

[05:40:46] Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Board Supervisors. Speaking to the mic, sir, we can't hear you. Lift it up. You're tall. Sorry, yeah, we couldn't hear you. Is that better? Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Board Supervisors, I'm Matt Van Echo, resident of the Walton neighborhood in Coles District.

[05:41:19] First, I want to say I'm jealous of your big screens with countdowns. I wish I had these in every meeting I had to go to, but you've got something going here. First, I think it's appropriate, based off our proximity to Quantico, to bring up a quote that the Marines like to use.

[05:41:36] They like to say that planning is thinking before doing. Tonight, we're talking about planning. Before Mr. Parsons passed, the proffer to build this project went through several planning sessions with residents and other key stakeholders.

[05:41:53] These planning sessions addressed disagreements, but ultimately resulted in mutual solutions to problems that all parties worked through. Some examples included the number of residential units placed in the lots south of 234.

[05:42:10] Too many numbers would increase traffic and overcrowd the schools, but too few would make the project unprofitable. So we came upon mutual agreement there, kind of like the Purcell Road project. Next was the Sheetz gas station, which originally included lots or bays for large trucks, which was a concern of the residents, increasing truck traffic, et cetera, in the area.

[05:42:37] And third and finally, really germane to tonight's discussion, was the appearance of the businesses built right off of 234. And the goal was to maintain the appearance and current views as previously expressed by Colonel Don just before me.

[05:42:58] And one of the things that we fought over and I think got a hard-won victory was capping the height at 45 feet. And what we heard the speaker earlier tonight talk about is an 80-foot, 85-foot increase, which is nearly double that.

[05:43:15] And it was spoken about as if that was a concession that they made for the proper, when in fact it's nearly doubling what was originally discussed. I fully understand that new facts come to light, assumptions are invalidated, new information or priorities evolve, and plans need to change.

[05:43:34] but these things have not gone through any of the planning discussions any of the stakeholder engagements that we previously did and it seems like the spirit of the earlier cooperation does not exist this proffer does not nest with the original plans it's not gone through our planning and i hope that you seriously reconsider that when you make your decision tonight thank you for your

[05:43:59] time thank you we have ashley mcwilliams and then jamie van echo ashley mcwilliams coles district Walton neighborhood. I'm coming to you tonight because the people of the Coles district are fighting a war of attrition and we are losing. We have engaged in good faith negotiations for years and we had finally reached a compromise with Parsons in 2019 and now they are seeking to renegotiate for things that we had explicitly opposed. From the beginning of the 2016 charrettes

[05:44:39] my main concern has been that our area retains the same feeling of a small town village with thoughtfully planned commercial growth. We do not solely live our lives in the homes that we inhabit, but all along the main artery of our community as well. Our children go to the schools off of 234.

[05:44:57] Our groceries come from the food line on 234. We go out to eat at the restaurants on 234, and we conduct our business in the shops on 234. Passing through an area of large, imposing data centers where other large, depressing, flat-sided, tip-up, concrete, fast-build, boxy buildings would be jarring and diminish the quality of life in Independent Hill.

[05:45:21] I don't want to see Independent Hill turn into the dystopian nightmare that Loudoun County's stretch of Route 28 is. Development will happen, but it should be mutually agreeable to the surrounding public as well. Once upon a time, the county has slated the Independent Hill area as an ideal place for data centers and industry.

[05:45:44] circumstances change. We have million-dollar homes throughout this area now that did not exist when the arbitrary usage designations were assigned. We have a beautiful magnet school for the arts. We're surrounded by parks of local and national significance. The landfill, which is presumably the basis for the county identifying Independent Hill as an area for heavy industrial and data center use, is situated so that it takes up a very small frontage on 234 and managed in such a way that the sight lines from the road are mostly of a grass-covered hill.

[05:46:17] Other potential eyesores, such as the school bus depot or juvenile detention center, are also carefully screened from public view by dense buffers of mature trees. Regarding Parsons Business Park, if the height limit were raised only in the back portion of the property, known as Land Bay 4, so as to accommodate a larger data center and electrical substation, and provided that a substantially dense buffer of mature existing trees is preserved and surrounds any and all data centers on the property such that they provide a complete visual barrier between the data centers and the road, then I would not protest.

[05:46:51] However, that is decidedly not what is proffered here. These proffered changes are woefully inadequate in providing meaningful screening of the sights and sounds of data centers. The setback is not enough for such tall and imposing buildings, especially since land base 1 and 2 are already on a hill above the road.

[05:47:06] and the proposed buffer of 35 or 50 feet is pittance when the data centers or large industrial buildings are allowed to be so tall. Recently, the hotly contested Devlin Tech Center was approved for data center development with only a minimum of 200 foot work. I'm sorry, but we're under time. We're going to have to go on to, I apologize, we're going to go on to Jamie Van Echo. Hi, I was also sent up to speak online, but I never got an email saying that I could. So now

[05:47:37] I'm here and I was working earlier, so I apologize. Is this what I like? Good evening, my name is Jamie van echo i live in the walton neighborhood as prince william county residents we are not experts in zoning recommendations and must educate ourselves in a short period of time in order to provide thoughtful and relevant comments to the selected board i believe in a duty to my community and the students and families that live and travel near this development and you should be aware of the history of this project the developers know that the residents are very interested in keeping the visual appeal of the independent hill area but this proposal does not seem to be taking our earlier

[05:48:16] work into consideration this this is to create a community that capitalizes on the abundance of open space recreation and education assets while building a vibrant pedestrian friendly village and employment center the plan protects and celebrates the environmental assets of the area direct from the independent hill small area plan they go on to further define the use of technology and flex space to provide opportunities for production flex warehouse space and warehousing uses that do not require large outdoor storage or produce nuisances such as noise, dust, or vibration.

[05:48:46] The Independent Hill Small Area Plan recommends three transects, T1, 2, and 3, and this proposal is requesting special permission to increase the height to T5 and T6 right off of 234, not in the setback land. Why do they need to change to T6? They don't. There are other options for this land listed in the Independent Hill Small Area Plan.

[05:49:04] While the developer continues to say that this is not the only use of the land in proper amendments, it is clearly the only one they would like to build. Why aren't they working with a buyer then asking for the proper amendment? it's out of place and out of order. I understand that data centers are one way to bring money into the county. I asked for the zoning commission to defer the project so the developer could work with the community on addressing our concerns. The petitioner himself stood up and asked the zoning commission to recommend denial so that they would not be forced to work with us and instead do a work around a community partnership. The current proffer does not have any evidence that the community was involved. We have worked hard to help the developers build and present plans to the county for an independent hill to maintain the community feel, including with Elm Street

[05:49:42] development building the residential community and shopping center directly across from this proper amendment the elm street developer supports this because they need the water and sewage to begin building their development not because they approve of the 85 foot increase the community should have some meaningful opportunities to work with the developers they clearly no longer work to wish what wish to work with us they're proposing something to you that's not agreeable to the community even though we ask to be involved i understand that data centers were always an option but the county was supposed to review the boundary and i could not find evidence that this review occurred, and the staff just said that they're still working on it. So in the small area plan, it states, however, siting of the data center should take into consideration potential

[05:50:17] vibration impacts from military training activities at Marine Corps Base Quantico, again, not at this meeting nor at the last, in support of the proper amendment. I fear that approving this request will open up future requests for rezoning and special exemptions from these developers that will not be in line with the work of the independent small area plan and earlier collaborative work. This proper amendment and project does not support any of the seven areas of the strategic plan 2021 and has outlined and does not hold anything in line with the Independent Hills Small Area Plan work.

[05:50:44] It does not support health, well-being, and human services, a safe and secure community, resilient economy, quality education, workforce development, environmental conservation, sustainable growth, or transportation and mobility. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. All right. Thank you so very much. Ms. Mintz, would you also like to speak as part of this public hearing?

[05:51:03] three cements potomac district well unfortunately i once again see a supervisor aware being ignored he has brought up requests for many studies and he has been ignored by the staff this has been going on and on and on and he has no support from the county exec okay this shouldn't even be before you until those questions are answered about the data centers then you want to know why i only trust

[05:51:39] this man? There's a reason. He asked the right questions, and unfortunately, Chair Jefferson, she saved these guys in front. When he was asking, Supervisor Ware was asking the right questions, these guys were falling all over themselves, and Chair Jefferson saved them. Let him know, oh, later, later, later. Well, then this shouldn't even be before the board until his questions are answered. Take it off the shelf. Let us know what these data centers are all about. Once again,

[05:52:14] oh, and mental health and everything, may I say to the lady here with health issues, you don't care about her health issues. You don't care about mental health. You only care about using us for a money tree. We are your money tree, okay? We're here doing what we have to do to save the county, make life nice for us, not the developers, none of this stuff. The data centers are wrong. They were stuffed down our throats. During the holidays, you guys didn't care about

[05:52:51] messing up the holidays for people. Yeah, they had to come out. Now I want to know who's getting the kickbacks because somebody's getting something out of this. And it's not the citizens because we are the money tree we pay for everything you jack up our taxes and everything and don't ever talk to me about mental health or affordable housing because you care nothing about those things once again i'm sick and tired of supervisor where being ignored get him the reports get him the

[05:53:25] information and get him to him yesterday thank you all right thank you we are now going to move on to remote speakers for item 13b i believe that we have six um people signed up to speak today for remote public comments this hour this evening i'll turn it over to vice chair body thank you madam chair miss van how many folks do we have to speak to this public hearing tonight we have four speakers for this public hearing and your first speaker is vita carroll um hi i thought it was gonna be the

[05:54:01] the last speaker. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Bye to Carol, Brentsville. This is the first time I've spoken before our new board, and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge and congratulate our new members. Supervisor Gordy, who's not here tonight, and Chair Jefferson, congratulations. I've been somewhat following what's going on with the board, and I'm really excited and I'm really hopeful about what this board's going to accomplish in the next four years. And I don't want to focus on the past votes, like some of the earlier speakers. I want to talk about the future. And this is the first time I'm speaking on a data center project application where I do feel

[05:54:41] really hopeful and optimistic for a common sense decision. And I'm calling this the data center application, even though the applicant won't even commit to saying that because we all can call a spade a spade. We know this land is in the overlay. The applicant can build by right tomorrow if they want, but no surprise, they want more, more height, more far, more. They've even added more acreage.

[05:55:03] via the ABLE rezoning more, and that's what we've all come to expect from the data industry. The data industry has been one that is consistently asking for more, more land, more tax breaks, more transmission lines, more allowances in rural space, more energy, more water, more, more, more.

[05:55:20] So it's natural the applicant is asking for more, but as I mentioned earlier, this is a new board. I'm optimistic that this board will recognize data center projects go, the impact goes well beyond viewshed. We know more now as well. A data campus is not as simple as any industrial facility. It demands so much from the community. It attracts power lines within and outside the county, requires increased out-of-state energy production, and once the infrastructure is in place, it acts as a magnet for other data centers.

[05:55:53] And we know there's adjacent rezonings with ABLE and then also Mid-County and Potomac Tech Parks right down the street. And I mean, if we really want to go there, the applicant holds land in the Prince William Digital Gateway, the ultimate example of a data center application spiraling out of control.

[05:56:11] I fully understand that data can come into this parcel whether or not you approve this project. But from where I stand, and it sounds like the rest of the members of the community stands, the proffers the applicant's adding are simply not enough to even consider approving this project. I haven't heard of any benefit to the community.

[05:56:28] And additionally, given the critical point we've reached with the energy demand in the data center industry, it would be prudent to halt any excess expansion of data campuses, including the increases as proposed through this proffer amendment. The Independent Hill Village, as proposed in the small area plan, is just across the street, which is a planned mixed-use residential community.

[05:56:49] Simply not compatible with 80, 85-foot data center buildings with only 150, 200-feet setbacks from the road. We know what 150, 200-foot setbacks look like with Village Tech Park. It doesn't mitigate it. There's been a lot of talk from other commenters about past decisions by the PASS Board, but again, I'm looking to the future.

[05:57:09] And I'm hoping that this board, tonight and moving forward, listens to the community and rejects this proffer amendment. I'm sorry, Ms. Carol, you're out of time. Thank you so much for your comments. Next speaker, please.

[05:57:26] Your next speaker is Rachel Ellis. There we go. Good evening, Chair Jefferson, supervisors, and Executive Shorter.

[05:57:45] My name is Rachel Ellis, and I live in the Gainesville District. I am respectfully requesting that you deny the application for the Parsons proffer amendment. For far too long, Prince William County has been giving preference to data centers over its residents. It is time to send a message to the data center industry that they no longer hold the keys to Prince William County.

[05:58:05] As supervisors, you have an obligation to look at the impacts of this application on its surrounding neighborhood. The Parsons Parcel is located near Colgan High School and is across the street from existing homes. Additionally, it is near a small area plan for Independent Hill, which is a residential mixed-use project that is not compatible with 80-foot-tall data centers. Parsons is already a buy-write data center parcel, yet here the applicant is asking to increase its height in order to build more. This proffer amendment is only about one thing, more money. The applicant wants to be able

[05:58:42] to make more money when trying to find a buyer at the expense of the residents, yet this proffer amendment will mean more power, more power lines, more power on a grid that is already strained. Residents and local government officials in Northern Virginia know that we are headed towards a power grid issue with all the data center approvals.

[05:59:03] Let's be clear. The power demand is due to one industry and one industry only. Residents are already feeling the impacts of additional transmission lines and substations to power what has previously been approved. It is reckless governing to continue to approve data centers or proffer amendments without knowing the full impacts of where this electricity will come from.

[05:59:24] Last week I spoke at a Loudoun County board meeting where history was made. In a data center application, very similar to this, requesting additional square footage on a buy-write parcel, the Loudoun County board denied the application. Loudoun County actually said no to a data center.

[05:59:42] I shared this statement from the Loudoun County chair, Phyllis Randall, a Democrat. At some point, I don't know how we keep doing this. I don't know how we keep ignoring 80% of our public who are making very good points. While I know we are not Loudoun, let's learn from them.

[05:59:57] It's time for Prince William County to say no to data centers. When the data center opportunity zone overlay district was created, it was not designed with the intent to build the tallest possible data centers, maximizing all the available acreage into a concrete landscape.

[06:00:13] But that is exactly what it has become. The overlay district is also driving out small businesses as they are flipping their land to sell. This county really is putting all of our economic eggs in one basket, the data center basket. We need economic diversity.

[06:00:29] The Prince William County Planning Commission voted to deny this application. I am asking this board to please deny the application to the Parsons Proffer Amendment. Thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Ellis. Next speaker, please. - Our next speaker is Elena Schlossberg.

[06:00:48] - Good evening, everyone. Madam Chair and fellow supervisors, my name is Elena Schlossberg. And I had something planned to speak, but now I'm just gonna speak a little bit more from the heart with my helper. I was struck by what Mr. Looney said. In 2019, data centers weren't a thing. He is correct, nor were they a thing when the overlay was adopted in 2016. The reality is that you all don't have to wait for hindsight. You know now that what is happening is totally unsustainable.

[06:01:27] In one of the articles by the Washington Post, amid explosive demand, America's running out of power, Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the data centers being planned. The reality is that the decisions that you all are making have broader impacts beyond Prince William, but they also have impacts to the community that is right next to them.

[06:01:54] And I would feel like I was doing an injustice to the folks who have spoken tonight in opposition to the proffers because I was really compelled by the ability for Midco and the residents to work with a developer.

[06:02:20] And the reason why you didn't have a whole lot of people show up was because they all came to an agreement. And apparently that is what happened with the Parsons Project. In fact, there was an agreement that 45 was an appropriate restriction. And now you're talking about doubling that. And all I have is three words, Village Tech Park. Think about what those people are now dealing with. And that is what you would be foisting upon the residents and the community that lives next to the Parsons Park. I am now participating in what's called a PUIG, Prince William Energy Engagement Group.

[06:03:01] And we are working with Dominant Energy. And the reason why I'm sharing this is because in that group, we are meeting monthly. There are five projects, five transmission line projects just within the data center overlay. So it is critical that you understand that the impacts that are occurring now are going to have catastrophic impacts. And that doesn't even take into account what has been approved. You all can make a difference. Don't approve any expansion within the overlay. Take into consideration the concerns of the community. I know that you can't stop the

[06:03:37] buy right, but you can certainly protect the residents by not approving the increase in height. And I want to also mention to Supervisor Bodie, one of those projects that came up was Possum Point Phase 1 and 2. And guess what that means? Thank you. Please vote now.

[06:03:55] Thank you, Ms. Schlossberg. Ms. Vann, I believe we have one final speaker for remote public comment time for this public hearing. That's correct. Your next and last speaker is Jessica Grove. Good evening. My name is Jessica Grove, and I am a Gainesville resident, and I'm also a director for Coalition to Protect Prince William County, and I'd like to request five minutes, please.

[06:04:28] Sure, please proceed. Okay. I recognize that this board cannot prevent by-right data center development within the overlay. But you can exercise your leadership by denying this height increase. The expansion will require more power and more resources, but will also have more consequences. I'm here to request the denial of item 13B for the increase in height. In 1987, Congress declared March as National Women's History Month in Perpetuity. A special presidential proclamation issued every year which honors their extraordinary achievements to include those who

[06:05:06] have or are serving in the armed forces. Yesley did a proclamation at the last board meeting I believe. I think it's pertinent to the Parsons Planning Commission meeting. I witnessed Colonel Dawn Kiesley spoke at the meeting after midnight to explain her point of view. Ms. Kiesley spoke of her 31 years of military service and how her home would be in direct view of Land Bay 2 in which an 80-foot building would block her morning sunrise. She described how the noise, hum and the light pollution would surely hostileize her. The Parsons Project is located inside the data center overlay and can build by right. They can build within a specified parameters today if

[06:05:45] they want to. The Parsons Project is hoping to be given an exception to those parameters so they can make more profit. At the public comment time that Colonel Kiesley spoke in, Michael Garcia spoke because he felt that five people had tarnished his name. He then devalued the comments of the the speakers by saying that five, only five people came to speak out, out of 495,000 people in the county. And then he said that they are only 0.00108% of the population, and they are hardly

[06:06:22] a majority. I have some other percentages for you. The colonel spent 25% of her day on February 7th waiting for her three minutes to speak. She spent more than one-third of her life serving our country and more than three-fourths of his life serving our country, all for him to marginalize her and her statements to stand up for herself. I believe that in March, especially we should be listening to all the members of the public, but especially Colonel Don Keasley. The increase in

[06:07:01] height allows, height allowance for the Parsons Business Park would create the developer's ability to potentially construct a data center of up to 85 feet. The community across the street has voiced their opinion and would also disrupt the already approved plan independent hill small area plan a larger data center will require more power which will lead to more transmission lines running across the community and put too much demand on an already overloaded grid shouldn't the data center have a responsibility to be a good neighbor and work with this and existing restrictions

[06:07:34] rather than destroy the quality of life of an entire community for more profit thank you thank Thank you, Ms. Crow. Thank you, Ms. Fan. Back to you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you so much. I just wanted to see if we had anyone else who wanted to speak for the in-person hearing.

[06:07:57] If not, I'm going to close the public hearing on item 13B. I just want to first see if the staff or the applicant had any clarifying remarks that they wanted to make before we move on. Sorry.

[06:08:21] Very briefly, it was noted I said at the beginning the data centers weren't a thing and that they've become a thing. And I think that's evident from the conversation tonight. But I also think it's important to provide a little bit of context with this.

[06:08:40] Number one, as several people have noted, the use of a data center is not something that's being introduced tonight. That's already permissible on the property. The maximum permissible building height under the current approvals is 45 feet exclusive of any rooftop mechanical equipment that might go on top of it, regardless of what that use is.

[06:09:06] So the suggestion that the effective building height, if that's how you want to look at it, is somehow limited to 45 feet is not really accurate because of the presence of rooftop mechanical equipment. But what we're doing in this context is, in fact, providing an all-in building height by limiting the height of any rooftop mechanical equipment should the property develop with data centers.

[06:09:30] Similarly, we have a non-data center proffer that says if it's not data centers, it's 60 feet exclusive of mechanical equipment. We're sensitive to the concerns about the building height and trying to identify, in those circumstances, were the property to develop at data centers that were appropriately limiting the height.

[06:09:49] Further, we have design guidelines that were being carried forward from the prior approvals that apply to data center buildings as well as non-data center uses should those ultimately go there. I'll also note there were a couple of references to other projects.

[06:10:07] In the circumstance of Village Tech Park, that is immediately abutting the next door neighbor of a townhouse community. In this circumstance, we have a four-lane divided highway that separates the proposed uses on this property, whatever they may be, from any existing residential on the south side of Dumfries Road, as well as the approved but not yet built residential on that side of the road.

[06:10:38] When this application came forward five years ago, the conversation was around truck traffic and traffic noise and the impacts of traffic associated with the development. We have 600-foot turn lanes that are proffered as part of this plan in anticipation that it would be a distribution center or a warehouse or some other type of use that had different impacts, but impacts nonetheless.

[06:11:05] What we're doing with this application package in response to the concerns that we had from the Planning Commission, in response to concerns that we heard from the community, in response to concerns that, frankly, Supervisor Vega expressed to us, we have added significant tree preservation along a significant portion of Dumfries Road across from the to-be-built residential.

[06:11:30] We pushed the building farther back from a four-lane divided highway. We're 150 feet from a four-lane divided highway. As I talked earlier, we're 400 feet from the closest to-be-built residential across the street. So it's important to think about this not in the context of what another application offers and provides, but what this application offers and provides in connection with that.

[06:11:55] Just as an approximation, the number of vehicle trips along this stretch of Dumfries Road on a daily basis is about 30,000 vehicles. It's not Purcell, which you heard earlier tonight. This is a major north-south connection through the middle of Prince William County.

[06:12:15] And so we have to think about that in the context of that, a landfill on the other side of it. So this property is sandwiched between a four-lane divided highway with 30,000 cars a day and a landfill. That's why you zoned an industrial five years ago. And all we're asking to do is to add a little bit of incremental height to be able to expand, frankly, the users who might want to take this property.

[06:12:41] So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. All right. Supervisor Vega had questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. First off, I would like to thank county staff, the applicant, and all of the residents that came out to speak and to share their concerns. I know that it's not just tonight that you've been raising concerns, but also the emails that you've sent to my office.

[06:13:02] As a result, I've met with the applicant, and we've had several conversations about these concerns and how we can come together to address the concerns, and most of them have been highlighted here tonight. I would like for you, Mr. Looney, to come back to the podium and to talk a little bit about where the Parsons Farm actually sits right now because I think that it's important for the sake of this conversation as to where the front of the property sits and maybe it dips or where the layout goes once we get further into the property.

[06:13:34] Let's go back one more. Okay, here we go. So as you can see from the slide that's on the screen, and this is the staff's presentation. Right now, the bulk of the activity occurs at the intersection of Independent Hill Drive and Dumfries Road, where the property has been cleared really all the way up to the frontage on 234 as part of the landscape supply business.

[06:14:02] To the rear of the property closest to the landfill, there have been decades of fill dirt and dirt dumped onto the property because it was a receiving and a giving site, for lack of a better term, for fill and topsoil and other earth activities.

[06:14:28] And so there's been a significant amount of grading that's been done along the frontage on 234 that would be replanted in the context of this. And in the rear of the site, closest to the landfill, there's likely going to be need to be 15 to 20 feet of both cut and fill of the grading to be able to create a flat building pad site closest to the landfill.

[06:14:52] And that area, from an elevation standpoint, should sit at a finished building pad site, meaning sort of the flat building pad, should sit at or below the elevation above sea level of the intersection of Independent Hill Drive and Dumfries Road, if that answers your question, Ms. Vega.

[06:15:12] Yeah, so I guess it's safe to say that the development is focused more so on the inside of the overly inside of the property versus the outside, what's along 234? Certainly with the proffers that we have offered since the Planning Commission in terms of the building restriction line at 150 feet and the additional preservation area, if I can point that out on the screen.

[06:15:39] So right where the cursor is sitting is where the RPA begins. Oops, it disappeared. Pull it back up. Here we go. Right here is where the, this is the storm pond that VDOT constructed to capture storm runoff from Dumfries Road.

[06:15:57] It then enters a stream, man-made stream channel in this location, goes to the RPA down over here. This area in between the stream and this notch in the roadway, this is the additional tree preservation area that would be provided here, and then the building restriction line for data centers goes here. So there would be no data center development anywhere essentially between this entrance all the way over to where the storm pond is and really on the other side. And then we have the 150-foot building setback along here, which effectively runs about

[06:16:37] right here. If you could keep going, there's another slide that I think better illustrates what it is that I want you to discuss next. You've been mentioning that one right there.

[06:16:53] So there were some concerns, I believe, during the PC hearing, which I watched from beginning to end. There was a no for the environmental component of this application, which is now a yes. Can you talk a little bit more in depth as to the changes that have been made since the Planning Commission hearing in today? Yes, ma'am. So among the changes were the additional building restriction line that I talked about. We expanded the buffer along that man-made stream that I talked about in this location here from 25 feet to 50 feet, regardless of the use. So

[06:17:28] whether it's a data center use or a non-data center use, it would be expanded to 50 feet. We then incorporate this area as a preservation area with no land disturbance permitted in here. We increase the actual planted buffer along Dumfries Road from 35 feet to 50 feet.

[06:17:49] And then similarly along Six Towers Road to the north here, we expanded in the data center plan this buffer from 50 feet to 100 feet along this edge. We also clarified that in the data center plan, there would be no crossing, vehicular crossing of this area, whereas in the non-data center plan, this could still be crossed with a vehicular connection.

[06:18:14] and we clarified and tightened the circumstances under which the RPA crossing could be done in this location to ensure that it's limited to a two-lane section. And there are limits in terms of how it is to be crossed.

[06:18:33] It's to be crossed at a 90-degree angle to the extent possible. We're required to co-locate in utility crossings that would be done through there, The point being to minimize the amount of disturbance in that area. Collectively, those changes resulted in, as Mr. Meyer said, the staff changing its finding that we are now consistent with the plan's recommendations on the environment as well as on all of the other elements to it.

[06:19:02] And I'll just anecdotally note that certainly it's a rarity that you get the environmental support, much less that it flips based on the changes that you make midstream. Does that answer your question?

[06:19:21] What you were saying. Let's talk about noise for a little bit. The proffers, where are the noise proffers in regards to what our current zoning ordinance calls for? So your current noise ordinance covers only, well, first of all, all uses have a maximum amount of noise that can be generated on-site in a way that is heard off-site.

[06:19:51] So there's a daytime limit of 60 decibels, there's a nighttime limit of 55 decibels, and that applies to any use that is covered by the noise ordinance. At present, your noise ordinance limits that in a data center context to the backup generators.

[06:20:09] And so what we have done as part of the proffer package is to sweep in not just the backup generators in a data center plan, but to also cover the HVAC equipment. So, for example, we have a proffer that the HVAC equipment is supposed to be screened if it's on the rooftop of the building.

[06:20:31] That deals not just with the visual impacts of it, but potential noise mitigation as well. But nonetheless, the proffer goes above and beyond your noise ordinance requirement to now not just require that we meet the noise standard for the HVAC equipment, but there's an affirmative obligation to address and mitigate any noise should it arise.

[06:20:54] So in the circumstances that other people have cited where in a post-development condition there's a noise issue that has to be addressed, not only are we violating your noise ordinance and the proffer, but we have an affirmative obligation to fix it, or whoever the end user is has an obligation to fix it.

[06:21:12] Thank you. Those are all the questions I have for now. I'm going to defer to my colleagues. All right. Does anyone else have any questions from the dais? All right. If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair. Yes.

[06:21:29] Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and put forth a motion to approve this zoning. I want to be very clear with the folks that are here tonight, in particular Jamie, Mark, Ashley, and Ms. Kiesley. I would like to say that I've been very clear as to my positions with data centers from the very beginning.

[06:21:51] My position has been built data centers within the Overlay District, not abutting residential neighborhoods. And I would like to say that out of everyone on this, J.S., I've been very firm and very forthcoming with that position, and I haven't wavered from it.

[06:22:12] I also have to say that I am not in the business of speculating. There's been a lot of speculation. I stated that I watched the PC hearing from beginning to end. And what I need for folks to understand is that what we have here is an application that has several uses that are allowable on this piece of land.

[06:22:32] There's a lot of speculation as to whether or not it's going to be data center or not. That's not my job as county supervisor. My job as county supervisor is to look at the application for what it is. It's also my job as county supervisor to look at every single application that comes before my office and judge it and work on it based on its own merits and not compare it to other applications.

[06:22:56] Why do I say this? Because a lot of the comments that I've heard and a lot of the emails that I've received in most cases have been unfair in the sense that they're being compared to other applications. I would like to think that based on the work that I've done and on my voting record, I've proven to my constituents in the Coles District that I have your best interest at heart and that I am very thorough in everything that I do and that I am not going to do anything that I believe is going to compromise your safety or your well-being.

[06:23:25] I've walked this property, I've walked across the street from this property, I've looked at the layout of the property, I've looked at the communities surrounding this property, and I am comfortable to say that this application checks all of the boxes. It almost surprises me in many ways because some of my allies that are here in chambers today and some that spoke have been saying for a very long time, building the overlay district, building the overlay district.

[06:23:50] Well, here we are. We're in the overlay district. And if there are changes that need to be made to that district, well, then I'm happy to look at that opportunity. But as it stands right now, this is the overlay district that we've been given. And this is the overlay district that we're working with.

[06:24:06] I know that a lot of people say or have said, well, it's just right in the Overlay District. It's either in the Overlay District or it's not in the Overlay District. And it is in the Overlay District. And so I want to thank, again, everybody for their work.

[06:24:21] I know that it's been a long time coming. I worked on this project when I first got on board. I worked very closely to ensure that Independent Hill became a project that could make everybody happy. and I'm very proud of my voting record I'm very proud of what I've been able to accomplish with your help and I hope that this decision doesn't you know make you not want to keep partaking or keep reaching out because we need to continue to work together but what I do ask of my constituents and from my allies because I still consider you strong allies I was very clear in my position as to the digital gateway my position still remains the same and we're going to continue to do

[06:25:00] everything that we can to ensure that you know we look at these applications um when they come before us for what they are nothing changes but i will say that we have to uh come to the table and provide what i believe is a rational point of opposition when we're looking at an application that is in front of us and basing it on its own merits and not comparing it to others that have already been approved and so with that with that with that madam chair i would like to again um move forward this application for approval i would like to thank the applicant for coming into my office for working with me for listening to my concerns for sitting through me reading some

[06:25:39] of the emails that i received some of the concerns that were raised during the planning commission hearing and for addressing those concerns and i would also like to thank staff for all of their hard work and ensuring that this application was ready for prime time which was tonight so with With that, Madam Chair, I would like to move it forward.

[06:25:56] Second. All right, Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to tell you, this has been a troublesome one for me.

[06:26:13] I mean, I get the by-right nature of the use that's approved. And I actually empathize with the applicant with the way the county pulled the rug out from under him. But that being said, the applicant's aware of this. My issue's always been the height. And it's not simply a viewshed thing.

[06:26:30] It's multifaceted. But I have a larger issue. I mean, I was here for the prior rezoning. I was here for the rezoning across the street, and there were deals made with both projects, and expectations were set.

[06:26:53] And I would argue this is almost a case study for things in Prince William County. I could liken this very much to Greater South Market in the Gainesville District. Started off with no big box. We ended up with a Walmart. We told we were getting more medical office. We got more housing.

[06:27:09] High-end retail and fine dining. We've got a Walmart and a Starbucks. You know, what's promised, what ultimately ends up getting built is oftentimes different, and it seems like that's the same things going on here.

[06:27:26] It's a circumstance of ever-changing proffers, ever-changing entitlements, all in the name of flexibility or economic development. It's epidemic in Gainesville. It's kind of the first time I've seen it in the Coles District. But, you know, if we continue down this road, there's no certainty as to what is allowed or what will be constructed in any application that comes before us because they're always, as was noted earlier, coming back for more, more, more, more, and more.

[06:27:53] I've seen some applications have their proffers changed four or five times, Greater South Market being one of them. But the real issue, above and beyond just the visual aspect of the height. I was in that Puig meeting. They advertised that they were going to give us two power lines.

[06:28:08] They gave us five. This will require another one. You know, they simply just came to the meeting and rolled three more transmission line grenades out in the middle of the floor and let us deal with it. This will exacerbate the situation. I think one of my roles is physician do no harm.

[06:28:25] You know, a lot of things have changed in the last couple of weeks, days, and even the last couple of hours. You know, Loudoun County's actions, Fall Care County's actions, I think people are really starting to understand the grid, the demand, and the kind of power issues we're dealing with. I mean, how the General Assembly just foisted upon all of us rate payers, $1.5 million in rate allowances to Dominion so they can study SMRs to deal with this power issue.

[06:28:56] I mean, I could go on about generator use, noise. The long and short of it is by doubling the height of the building, you're doubling what is essentially going to be the power demand of the building. And I just can't accommodate that.

[06:29:17] The viewshed I think we could probably do something with by lowering the elevation, perhaps put a cap at mean feet above sea level. But at the end of the day, we just can't afford to keep stacking this much additional use into the queue.

[06:29:33] We just heard it tonight. We had a discussion about assessment values. According to the assessor's office, we've already got a surplus of data center land, which is devaluing other data center land, especially data center land that's vacant. I keep hearing this is all about targeted industry and economic development.

[06:29:53] Oh, you're going to generate all these taxes, but I'm seeing precious little evidence of it. I would like to support the applicant, but given all of these circumstances, I just can't do it, particularly in view of there being no really defined layout and no defined use, which, as I spoke of earlier, will really make generating an assessment of the property even more difficult for the assessment office and the return to the county and tax dollars even more

[06:30:28] questionable. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you so much. I don't think we have any other speakers, so I'm going to speak before we vote. So, you know, I've met with different players in the data center industry, and one of the things I've kept saying to them is fear. We have bad examples and that's what everyone's going to point to they're going to point to the bad examples because i mean great oak i've had a chance to go out there you know what that community has gone

[06:31:00] through i wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy and this is a difficult vote for me um but i am going to go ahead and vote in the affirmative and i'm going to speak to why that is i mean i do agree that we need to re-examine the david um you know the overlay zone you know we do need to diversify a commercial tax base, and we do need to raise taxes. And rest assured, we will. And I'm happy to discuss this with any of the speakers after the vote. I'm happy to have a conversation. But

[06:31:36] I'm going to have to trust that Supervisor Vega has worked with the applicant. And I do respect her votes on previous data center on some of the more contentious projects. This is a very different project than the Prince William Digital Gateway. And I have to name that. That's a project that I did not support, that's a project I still did not support. And that really was the seal on why I decided to seek the seat. This is a different application. I don't think that this is the same

[06:32:08] application that we've seen previously. And again, you know, there is a possibility that some of this may not be data centers. But again, I just want to say it's the applicant. The reason why people have that fear is because they're the main game in town. You know, data centers are paying eye-popping sums to buy up land, and they want to be here. But I will say that we will hold whomever is the end users accountable. We will. And so with that, I will support this application.

[06:32:43] I do so with hesitation, and I do respect my colleague, Supervisor Ware, because we have fought many projects before we were on the board. We fought many projects together. But again, I do feel that this is a very different application. And I do also, I just have to name this one last thing. I was at a town hall with supervisor Andre Bailey, and we had some cold, some, you know, Potomac residents, I'm sorry, who expressed fear about, you know, data centers coming east, data centers. We are going to have other projects that I know I already do not support, but this is one that I will vote for. And I will continue to work with applicants. I will continue to work with the

[06:33:22] community to hear their concerns and address their concerns, but I'm not taking this vote lightly. um you know i would like to see us do things other than data centers we cannot be a single industry county and we should be looking to um loud and some others about what problems they've experienced and you know how do we avoid it or how do we mitigate that um but with that let's go

[06:33:48] ahead and vote that means bob's having problems motion passes five to one supervisor we're voting All right. We're now going to move on to item 13C. So this is for the ABLE property, the adjoining property in the Coles Magisterial District. I would like to have the applicant come up for their presentation.

[06:34:22] Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Michael Garcia, and I'm representing the applicant, my father, Mike Garcia, tonight. For full transparency, I am a member of the Prince William County ARB. However, tonight I'm speaking only on behalf of the applicant.

[06:34:53] So the project that I am bringing before you tonight is one that has been referenced a couple times earlier in the night. It is a six-acre parcel of property located in the northeast corner of the Parsons Business Park, located here in blue, adjacent to the Prince William County landfill, bordered by Six Towers Road, and then Parsons Business Park to the west and south.

[06:35:19] It is currently a house and a shop. Highlighting the comprehensive plan, as mentioned earlier, it is in the I-3 comprehensive plan, which is designated as industrial and tech flex, which allows for office warehouse, data centers, and production.

[06:35:43] As I mentioned, it's currently A-1 zoning, and I am proposing tonight to rezone to PBD to be harmonious with the Parsons Business Park development. One item you'll see, I know I've been questioned on it a multitude of times, there's one modification request.

[06:36:05] PBD requires 15 acres of contiguous land or more to be considered for PBD. However, this site being only six acres obviously is less than that, but staff recognizes that essentially this is an infill piece, and because of the adoption of all proffers of Parsons Business Park, the design guidelines as amended of Parsons Business Park, that this was a good fit and ultimately recommended approval in their staff report.

[06:36:43] All agencies found this to be consistent with the exception of Environment, no surprise. The reason Environment did not support this application, two main reasons, buffers and limits of disturbance.

[06:37:00] To highlight the issues with the buffers, to the east, up against the landfill, we propose no buffer. The reason for that is the Parsons Business Park was approved in 2019 with no buffers against the landfill. The landfill currently has a 1,000-foot buffer, 500-foot disturbed, 500-foot non-disturbed.

[06:37:23] Additionally, to the south and west, no buffer to either of those property lines because the uses, if approved tonight, will be identical to the Parsons Business Park.

[06:37:40] So no need to buffer like uses. The buffer you see here along Six Towers Road is a 50-foot buffer as proposed. However, there is language in the proffer statement that should this be developed as a data center campus, that 50-foot buffer would increase to 100 feet to be synonymous with the Parsons Business Parks proffer to increase to 100 foot along Six Towers Road.

[06:38:10] The limits of disturbance was noted as the other weakness in environmental's report, taking the limits of disturbance all the way to the property line. You'll see here the reason that I took it all the way to the property line is as that property exists today, it is already cleared to Six Towers Road.

[06:38:35] I did proffer no access to or from Six Towers Road. However, during development, we would have to go in and tear up the driveway, two driveways, excuse me. And so for that reason, I did move the limits of disturbance all the way to Six Towers Road.

[06:38:53] However, that area would be planted back at the required planting requirement. So for those two reasons, you know, Environmental did not approve of the project. However, all the other agencies did find merit in this project.

[06:39:12] This just highlights the no buffer along the Parsons Business Parks against the landfill, as well as the limits of disturbance up against the landfill, which, again, we just mimicked for the ABLE rezoning.

[06:39:31] So with that, I kept it short and sweet. I'll open the floor to you guys to ask any questions that you may have. Do we have any questions, I guess? It doesn't look like we have any questions, so if we can have the staff presentation come up.

[06:39:46] Thank you. Thank you. good evening chair jefferson supervisors my name is alex venegas from the planning office and i'm going to be presenting the able property rezoning 2023-00005 this is a request to rezone

[06:40:23] approximately six acres from a1 to pvd which was just explained by mr garcia it is less than the Required 15 contiguous acres, but when staff looked at it, it would be a natural extension of the Parsons project, which is already zoned PBD.

[06:40:47] And with the landfill to the east, staff felt comfortable with approving that waiver. They are requesting a maximum height of up to 80 feet and a few other associated development waivers and modifications based on the size of the parcel.

[06:41:09] The staff is recommending approval. The planning commission recommended approval for this. Primarily, they saw this as being close enough to the landfill and not as close to the residential that occurs along Walton subdivision or the Independent Hill Village.

[06:41:35] It does have proximity, though. We heard today that it's near Colgan High School, but staff feels like working with the applicant. Their case was approved by the Planning Commission, but they also came back to us adding additional proffer language, which we felt enhanced it and furthers our support of this application.

[06:42:03] As you can see, it's I-3 in the long-range land use and the comp plan. The surrounding area is the landfill. We have Colgan High School up here.

[06:42:19] We do have the service authority does have a maintenance facility over here. This is from the staff report. These are all the existing parameters that are associated with the zoning district and what the applicant is proposing with proffers.

[06:42:43] So we went through all the modifications, and in the staff report, We recommend approval for these modifications. A lot of them Mr. Garcia explained in the previous presentation.

[06:43:05] We do have all of the comprehensive plan sections. We recommended that it was consistent with the application, with the exception of environment. I'm not going to go over that. Mr. Garcia went over that, but it's primarily dealing with the limits of clearing and grading and some conflict with minimum development standards.

[06:43:28] Staff has recommended approval for the reasons mentioned in the staff report. The applicant did provide a proffer to include that they will comply with the design guidelines that were recently updated for the Parsons Business Park for that consistency between this application and the Parsons business part.

[06:43:52] It is a targeted industry. It aligns with the goals of the economic development and adopted strategic plan. It is within the data center opportunity zone overlay district, and that was one of the big reasons staff looked at it and supported this application, and we'll gladly take any questions.

[06:44:15] Doesn't look like I have any questions. Going once, going twice. All righty, we don't have anything for you. So I'm waiting for the list because I will now open the public hearing on item 13C.

[06:44:38] We have one person who has signed up to speak, and that is Jamie VanEcho. Hi, good evening. My name is Jamie VanEcho. I live in the Walton neighborhood. At the zoning commission meeting, I was there, and I did recommend approval for this to remain in line to demonstrate support for continuing that overlay so it matched.

[06:45:04] i still have concerns and i'm extremely saddened that it was clearly evident that you were excited about the community development and community input and it was not reflected in the last vote and for this one i think it should be reflected as well the fact that we do try to work and we hope that the continued work that's going to happen on this property is going to be with us in mind And I, well, now, I'll be honest, I've emailed everybody and I got nothing back.

[06:45:36] I tried to get to sign up on public and I couldn't. It was a barrier to be able to speak tonight. Several people had a hard time posting on the website about this particular comment and any others.

[06:45:54] So I do want to add that as well. I'm speechless, and I just hope that the next steps that I take will be in line with my community, will be supportive and supported by my community, and I hope that I can work with each of you and the constituents of your community to make sure that the things that you said that you're hoping will happen, because it wasn't a really good plan, and it's not going to be a very good plan with just moving this one over to MT or M1, wherever it is now.

[06:46:30] I'm just very disappointed, and I'm going to use the time because it's the same continued plan. We're going to be putting something there that the community did not get input on, and I'm hoping that what you'll do is require that the community have input in the future.

[06:46:48] Thank you. Anyone else who wishes to speak? Yes, I see you.

[06:47:09] Elizabeth Martirana, Gainesville. I put this picture up for all of you last October, I believe. it's Gainesville Crossing, very close to where I live. The red numbers on the building are the numbers of backup diesel generators at each building. I counted those myself. I enlarged those pictures and did the best I could. The building on the far left is the building that you can see. It looks pretty much finished. We're waiting to hear if it's starting up sometime soon.

[06:47:47] It was supposed to have already started up, I think, in December. That particular building is two stories. It's a half a million square feet, two stories. It requires 60, approximately 60, backup diesel generators.

[06:48:04] The building to the right of it, with the number 64 on it, that's the next building that's being started, and it's a lot bigger. I'm not sure how many stories. Probably another two stories. But in data center parlance, a story is 20, 25 feet.

[06:48:22] And then up in the top right with the orange circle, that's a substation, and it's probably equal to a block long. So at the Prince William Digital Gateway rezoning in December, I found it absolutely unbelievable that the supervisors sitting up there didn't have a clue.

[06:48:49] sorry, as to how many diesel generators are going to be required at these buildings. And at the Department of Environmental Quality hearings, two times that I was at last year, there was a nurse, a pediatric nurse from Manassas, who spoke about the fact that diesel is harmful to children, especially those with asthma, even adults and senior citizens, old people who have problems breathing.

[06:49:21] So with regard to the electric infrastructure not being here in Prince William County for everything that's being approved, please remember how many of these diesel generators are going to be turned on every time there's serious cold weather or serious hot weather and our electric grid cannot keep up.

[06:49:46] This is really, really harmful to our quality of life, our air. How are we going to fix it? I just hope you really think about these votes as you go forward, because this is, it's an atrocity.

[06:50:04] It's the most preventable environmental atrocity in the world. Thank you. Thank you. If there's anyone else who wishes to speak during this public hearing time, who's in person, please make your way to the microphone.

[06:50:26] All right. I don't see anyone, so we are going to move on to remote speakers for item 13C. i am not sure how many people we have because there's always less than what i say so i'm just going to turn over to you supervisor or vice chair voting thank you madam chair uh miss van miss madden do we have any folks online for this last public hearing for the evening we do how many we have three speakers currently signed up for this public hearing and your first speaker is

[06:50:53] by the carol uh hey by the carol brinsville um i think it's insulting that only two of you even asked questions of the applicant, how insulting to the residents who came out to speak, particularly the ones who live directly across the street in the Walton community.

[06:51:24] It's ridiculous. I appreciate those of you who did ask questions, Supervisor Lear, Supervisor Vega, but Supervisor Vega, let me just say this. I have a feeling you're going to look back on your votes tonight the same way that Janine looked back on her votes with the Hunter property, okay? It's going to be the first vote in a domino effect of data center sprawl that you cannot control, that falls out of your hands, and that the public rightfully blames you for, because we will hold you accountable for it. I explicitly and others explicitly acknowledge

[06:52:02] that the applicant can build data by right. We know this. You implied we didn't know this. The public is well educated on this and if you don't think the public is well educated on this then why didn't you reach out to your community why didn't you hold a community meeting between planning commission and now the planning commission denied it why didn't you hold a community meeting to resolve that issue the existing height what was the existing height restrictions and buffers are ones that the community agreed to and the community supported Why is it that when the applicant wants to do more with their parcel, the community just must suffer?

[06:52:41] And when I say the community, I mean the local community and the community at large, including myself. It's very naive and very 2019 to think that the impacts of data centers are just view sheds. We know they're not. It's electric grid, energy load, water. This parcel, ABLE, we're talking about ABLE, this is exactly what I'm saying in my comments.

[06:53:02] They always come back for more. They couldn't even wait till this frickin' proffer amendment was done before they were adding in ABLE. And isn't that what they all do? They frickin' bought land in the digital gateway between the CPA and the rezoning.

[06:53:18] They know how it's done. It's showbiz, baby. It doesn't bother me. That's their business. But it should not be the business of this board. How soon are they going to come back with more proffer amendments, more rezonings, more requests for adjacent properties?

[06:53:35] ABLE is way too close to Colgan, we know this, and we cannot and should not support any more data center expansion from what is already permitted within the overlay due to the crippling energy demands of the current data center infrastructure in this county already.

[06:53:50] And while I appreciate your support on cases like the Digital Gateway Supervisor Vega, it does not get you some sort of free pass from me, okay? Is this one different because the applicants donated to you for the past five years? I mean, only two of you sitting up there have not taken donations from this applicant.

[06:54:09] Chair Jefferson and Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Ms. Carroll. Next speaker, please. The next speaker is Rachel Ellis. Rachel Ellis, Gainesville District.

[06:54:27] I'm asking you to vote now on this rezoning. I know what the vote's going to be. That's obvious from the last vote and the lack of questions with the last vote. My challenge actually to this board is for you guys to find something besides a data center for this property, for Parsons, because that's what's king in the county. And that's what we are bending over backwards for.

[06:54:55] And like enough is enough. Like I want this board to answer, you know, how many square footage of data centers does Prince William County currently have operating? How much is under construction? How much is approved? And if you as a board do not know these answers, then it's time to take a pause on data center approvals and find out the real answers and I get that this technically wasn't a data center application you know it by right could be a data center and by right it had a certain height already and they want it more and you guys granted them more as much as I'd like

[06:55:33] to say things change are they changed um if we're not listening to the residents then we're listening to the developers. Yeah, again, I challenge you guys to find something other than data centers for this property.

[06:55:50] That is my challenge, and I agree with, you know, VITA. It opens up Pandora's box for that end of the county, and I hate to see what's going to happen. Thank you for your time. I still say vote no.

[06:56:07] Thank you. Thank you, Mitch Ellis. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Elena Schlossberg. Unfortunately, my helper is gone. So it's just me, Elena Schlossberg. And I would like five minutes to speak on behalf of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, please. Thank you.

[06:56:31] Please proceed. Obviously, I am very disappointed in your vote. I was going to give the example of like when you gain weight, because I have gained weight, you know, you stop eating. But I thought maybe just digging yourself out of a hole. Prince William County is in a hole. We are in a hole like Loudoun County, and we are in a hole like the state of Virginia and many other places throughout the country. At some point, we need to take stock of how much infrastructure is going to be required.

[06:57:07] I wanted to follow up on actually something Liz said about diesel generators, because this was another article that came out, I think it was this morning, in BizNow. Data center developers are caught in a backup power pinch. As developers try to keep up with the record amount of data center demand, they are navigating a difficult path on a critical issue for operating these facilities, providing backup power. Power grids in the U.S. are becoming less reliable, and in order to avoid costly outages, data center operators are being forced to rely

[06:57:45] more on their on-site backup power system. The vast majority of this means running diesel generators. I, I'm not angry at anyone for their vote. I am disappointed. I'm disappointed in supervisor Vega. Um, I, I, I just want to share with you that it felt like on the receiving end of, um, the points you were making that you were almost angry at citizens. And, um, I'm sure that's not what you intended, but that's what it felt like on the receiving end. Um, I am not, I think

[06:58:23] the words were emotional or overreactive, I can't remember, but you have citizens that are coming to you and describing the impacts that they are going to personally feel. I don't know what it's going to feel like to live next to a data center. So far, I don't feel it personally, but I know that I will feel it in my electricity bill. I will feel it in the reality that we are not going to be able to limit carbon emissions. We are increasing carbon emissions. I feel it in that we are paying

[06:59:01] for the transmission line infrastructure and also the new generation that will be required. I want to impress upon this board, not yet, Dolly, that the possum point I was making, the point I was making is that that phase one of possum point is to bring power to Stafford.

[06:59:26] because they are experiencing data center development. That phase two that I was mentioning in particular to Supervisor Bodie is what will bring power back into that Possum Point substation that will most likely feed the data center development that is either by right or will be proffered to expansion, which is mid-county, which is Potomac Technology Park, which obviously should never have been approved.

[06:59:57] And now you've got what you've approved at Parsons. But the line that connects to that is through PJM. And that line is going to cut through Delaware, go underneath the Chesapeake Bay. And that's going to come into Possum Point. My concern is that if you are not paying attention to the articles that are coming out about this crisis, not just in transmission, but in the generation end.

[07:00:24] So a transmission line is an extension cord. You plug it into a wall, but something has to bring it juice. And that's what we don't have enough of. It is not just the extension cord themselves. It is the generation that is required.

[07:00:41] I am concerned that Possum Point will either be slated for a gas plant. I mean, it's not natural gas. It's just gas, and it still has carbon emissions. Might not be as bad as, you know, diesel generators or coal, but it's still carbon emissions or a nuclear power plant.

[07:01:04] I don't know, but I do know that Possum Point is a nexus for something and that you all have to. I'm asking you to imagine. I'm asking you to imagine. And in order to really understand what you are approving, everybody needs to go take a tour to Data Center Alley because that's only 20 million square feet.

[07:01:24] And we are expecting much more than that. I want to help turn this around, so whatever I can do to assist that I'm here, please vote no, although at this point it doesn't really make a difference, but I'm going to say it to have it on the record.

[07:01:43] Thank you, Ms. Slossberg. Next speaker, please. There are no more speakers for this public hearing. All right. Thank you so much, as always, for your assistance, Ms. Van. Back to you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you. If anyone else wants to speak before I close the public hearing, please make their way to the microphone.

[07:01:59] All right. I don't see anyone. We don't have any additional remote speakers, so I am closing the public hearing for item 13C. We are. Yes, Supervisor Vega?

[07:02:15] I would like to go ahead and move this case for approval. Second. I'm ready to get to public comment time. All right. Any discussion? Any? All right.

[07:02:32] Seeing none, let's vote. Vote unanimous. All right. Thank you so much. I forget. Sometimes we have to vote because sometimes we feel like we're up here for so long.

[07:02:49] All right. We're going to item 15, which is public comment time. Please note the public comment time is for items not listed on today's agenda as a public hearing item. So we will now hear in-person and remote public comments.

[07:03:09] We have one person who has signed up to speak. Speakers will have three minutes to share their views and opinions on matters before the board. We ask that speakers share their name in the magisterial district or where they generally reside. We will close in-person sign-up after the first 15 minutes of in-person public comments.

[07:03:27] So right now we have Ms. Teresa Menz. Three Semen's Potomac District. Once again, I'll make it very clear. There's only two people in this county that I have faith in. That is Supervisor Ware and Sheriff Glenn Hill, okay?

[07:04:03] Supervisor Ware has been asking for studies for many things, and obviously he has not been given that information. So I guess the staff here don't work for him. They only work for our county exec shorter because I've seen and I've heard Supervisor Ware constantly ignored. Yes, he's asked for these

[07:04:37] studies. Now, when are you going to get them to him? They're very important. They matter. And no, you guys do not work for us. You work for the developers and yourself. And there are reasons that I do not have faith in many in this county. You put people in positions they're not qualified to serve on because I've never seen these people around. And when they're around, they're sashaying

[07:05:12] around. They're not in here learning what's going on here. I just don't know what to say. you are all, you do not work for Prince William County. You work for government. You work for yourselves. I'm just at a loss for words. And that affordable housing, that's a joke. All those people here, they need to learn how to speak English. They're being led by a couple. And if that's where you get your census numbers by bringing all these people who do not know what's

[07:05:52] going on. Do not understand that you guys have stolen affordable housing from the bypass 128 or I-28, whatever it is. I've been here. I've watched it. I just can't believe it. And you've got a 70% pay raise. Oh, and we are your money tree. We are your money tree, the taxpayers. And that one woman that gave us 31 years in the military, don't ever come here talking about, we celebrate the women in

[07:06:28] the military. That's a joke. You do not celebrate. You do not respect anybody that doesn't think like that's not for sale. You only work for people that are for sale. And that's it. And you don't, you know what, instead of giving yourselves a pay raise, why didn't you give the police department a pay raise? And that's another thing. You have interfered with their ability to bring the right charges against the criminals. Yes, I was here. I saw it happening. And that was from Queen Anne

[07:07:00] and the game all right thank you we are now going to move on to remote public comment time miss madden do we have anyone miss van anyone online for the public comment time there are no online speakers for the public comment time all right miss van thank you as always for your

[07:07:36] assistance this evening miss madden likewise back to you madam chair all right thank you so very much um vice chair bode and miss man we are now on to the favorite part of the agenda for some folks most folks um all right let's go for it guys motion to adjourn madam chair second i don't think there's any discussion please vote vote unanimous all right this concludes the march 19th 2024 um border county supervisors meeting the next meeting is scheduled for april 2nd

[07:08:14] thank you all and have a very good evening thank you

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